President Trump hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office and takes questions from reporters.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Prime Minister of Israel and we had lunch together we had meetings together
00:06along with this very capable staff and I think we've come up to some pretty good
00:13solutions and conclusions and we'll be working a little bit after this and then
00:17I assume you're going back home this is a quick stop in and out but we
00:23appreciate you being here and we are a friend of Israel as you know I would say
00:27that I'm by far the best president that Israel has ever even thought of seeing
00:32and it's an honor to be so and to be so thought of many friends in Israel they
00:40are not in an easy area it doesn't go easy but we are helping them and
00:46likewise they've been helping us very much and so we'll see how it all works
00:51out but we had great discussions today I think on the obvious subject of Iran and
00:56also the less obvious subject with respect to Israel and that's trade and I
01:03think the Prime Minister is going to tell you a little bit about trade and
01:06what they're doing for the United States so I want to thank you all for being
01:09here thank you very much thank you Benjamin thank you very much thank you
01:13mr. president thank you don't thank you mr. president I want to first thank you
01:19for inviting me again to the White House you've been a remarkable friend of the
01:25state of Israel you stand by us you're standing with us you are a great great
01:32champion of our lives and you actually do the things that you say you do and I
01:39think that people respect that enormously I certainly do and the people
01:44of Israel do and I think the Jewish people do as well we just saw your
01:48representative in the Department of Justice fighting anti-semitism standing
01:54up for Israel in international forums I just want you to know from the heart
01:58it's deeply deeply appreciated as you said we had the opportunity to talk
02:02today about many subjects first if I can mention tariffs it's a subject of some
02:08interest today I can tell you that I said to the president a very simple
02:14thing we will eliminate the trade deficit with the United States we intend
02:20to do it very quickly we think it's the right thing to do and we're going to
02:24also eliminate trade barriers a variety of trade barriers that have been put up
02:29unnecessarily and I think Israel can serve as a model for many countries who
02:35ought to do the same I recognize the the position of the United States it says
02:41you know we're allowing other countries to put tariffs on us but we don't put
02:47tariffs on them and you know I'm a free trade champion and free trade has to be
02:51fair trade and I think that's basically the position that you have put forward
02:56mr. president we are going to eliminate the tariffs and rapidly I had the
03:01opportunity to speak to Secretary Lefknecht yesterday we talked about how
03:06we could affect this quickly and I hope to bring the solution very quickly we're
03:11not talking about intentions we're not talking about you know just words we're
03:16talking about results those results are going to come back thank you
03:23mr. president we spoke about not only the hostages but about Gaza the
03:36hostages obviously is a human story of them just unbearable agony I speak to
03:43the families I spoke to them yesterday spoke to another one when I was in
03:48Hungary before I came here I speak to them every day and they're in agony the
03:53hostages are in agony and we want to get them all out Steve Whitkoff president
03:59Trump's very able representative helped us get a deal that got 25 out we're
04:03working now on another deal that we hope will succeed and we're committed to
04:08getting all the hostages out but also eliminating the evil charity of Hamas
04:15in in Gaza and enabling the people of Gaza to freely make a choice to go
04:21wherever they want I mean they should have that choice and the president put
04:25forward a vision a bold vision which we discussed as well including the
04:31countries that might be amenable and are amenable to accepting Palestinians of
04:37their free choice if they choose to go there and I think that's the second
04:41thing that we discussed but the hostages came right on top we also discussed the
04:47situation in Syria we have we've had neighborly relations with Turkey that
04:56have deteriorated and we don't want to see Syria being used by anyone including
05:00Turkey as a base for attack in Israel Turkey is a country that has a great
05:08relationship with the United States the president has a relationship with the
05:12leader of Turkey we discussed how we can avoid this conflict in a variety of ways
05:17and I think we can't have a better interlocutor than the president of the
05:23United States for this purpose and of course we also discussed Iran look we're
05:27both united in the goal that Iran does not ever get nuclear weapons if it can
05:34be done diplomatically in a full way the way it was done in Libya I think that
05:38would be a good thing but whatever happens we have to make sure that Iran
05:42does not have nuclear weapons. That's the end of my speech.
05:48Mr. President, your reaction to the market?
05:51We're having direct talks with Iran and they've started it'll go on Saturday we
06:02have a very big meeting and we'll see what can happen and I think everybody
06:06agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious and the
06:13obvious is not something that I want to be involved with or frankly that Israel
06:19wants to be involved with if they can avoid it so we're going to see what we
06:22can avoid it but it's getting to be very dangerous territory and hopefully those
06:28talks will be successful and I think it would be in Iran's best interests if
06:33they are successful we hope we hope that's going to happen and we had just a
06:38lot of good talks on a lot of things I appreciate very much what you said about
06:41the tariffs we've been ripped off and taken advantage of by many countries
06:46over the years and can't do it anymore just can't do it anymore you can't be
06:50the stupid people anymore and it's all because of the people that sat in this
06:56seat right here not your seat but this seat they allowed things to happen to
07:01our country that they shouldn't have allowed to happen on trade and other
07:04things many other things I mean look at what's happened with our last president
07:08we're allowed millions of people to come into our country with an open border who
07:13would want an open border how stupid is that but he allowed millions and
07:18millions of people and of the millions and I think it was 21 million people but
07:23let's say three of them were serious criminals serious murderers and drug
07:28dealers and gang members and people from jails all the jails emptied out right
07:33into our country right along the open border on the on Mexico generally the
07:37Mexico but they came in from Canada too by the way a lot but generally speaking
07:42on the southern border and what a shame it is that we are now working very hard
07:48to get them out get the criminals get the murderers out the drug dealers the
07:53mentally insane get them out they dropped the mentally insane in our
07:56country too and this was all done by the Biden administration it's a disgrace
08:01that we have to work so hard and then we have judges that try and protect these
08:05people but they didn't protect us when the people were being let in but to get
08:09them out is never easy with these people so I think we're doing a great
08:14job the border is the best it's ever been even as strong as it was I had a
08:20great solid border I think it might even be tougher right now and stronger so
08:25people are coming into our country but they're coming in legally we have a
08:28legal process and we have that moving along properly because we need people to
08:32come into our country but we want people that can love our country and cherish
08:37our country so that's where we are and with that any questions
08:42your reaction to the markets today and would you be open to a pause in tariffs
08:47to allow for negotiations well we're not looking at that we have many many
08:52countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us and they're going to be
08:56fair deals and in certain cases they're going to be be paying substantial
09:01tariffs they'll be fair deals as you know I spoke this morning with the Prime
09:06Minister of Japan and we had a very good conversation they're coming and I
09:12said one thing you're gonna have to open up your country because we sold no cars
09:16like zero cars in Japan and they sold millions of cars into our country they
09:22don't really take our agriculture a little bit of it just to keep us
09:25slightly happy but they don't take what they're supposed to be taking so we have
09:29a great relationship with Japan we're going to keep it that way but they're
09:32coming in to meet and other countries are coming in with China as you know
09:38against my statement they put a 34% tariff on above what their ridiculous
09:45tariffs were already and I said if that tariff isn't removed by tomorrow at 12
09:51o'clock we're putting a 50% tariff on above the tariffs that we put on so
09:57they've gone for years they become a rich country because of people again
10:00that were in the White House that allowed this to happen hundreds of
10:05billions of dollars a year they'd make on us on trade and it shouldn't be that
10:09way and I have a great relationship with President Xi I hope it's going to stay
10:13that way I have great respect for China but they can't do this we're just we're
10:19gonna have one shot at this and no other president is going to do this what I'm
10:23doing and I'll tell you what it's an honor to do it because we have been just
10:28just destroyed what they've done to our system you know we have 36 trillion
10:33dollars of debt for a reason and the reason is that people allowed it to get
10:39that way so we'll be talking to China we'll be talking to a lot of different
10:45countries and I think you know if if we can make a really fair deal and a good
10:51deal for the United States not a good deal for other this is America first
10:55that's now America first and we didn't put America first we put America last
11:00the people that were in the Oval Office put America last and we're not going to
11:04stand for two questions do you expect any of these deals to be made before
11:17April 9th and secondly there have been some mixed messages from your
11:20administration you're talking about negotiations and yet others in your
11:24administration are saying that these tariffs are actually permanent what is
11:27that they can both be true there can be permanent tariffs and there can also be
11:34negotiations because there are things that we need beyond tariffs we need open
11:38borders you know we almost had a deal with China where we're going to open up
11:42China it was almost done some of you remember it during my first term and it
11:46was very disappointing we ended up making a great deal 50 billion dollars
11:50worth of product was sold 50 billion you'd like that in Israel and I made
11:55that deal but it wasn't the deal that I wanted it was the deal that I wanted was
11:59that plus they're going to open up China so that our companies could go into
12:03China and compete with other countries and China for the you know large number
12:09of people and at the very end that deal was terminated and we went to a piece of
12:15the deal and there's so there are a lot of things outside of terrorists but
12:20tariffs are very important but there are a lot of things like opening up
12:23countries that were totally closed China is essentially a closed country in fact
12:28it is a closed country and what they do is they charge tariffs so that if you
12:33if you sell cars or if you sell anything nobody's going to buy it because the
12:38price is out of control but that's true with a lot of other countries also so
12:42we're going to get fair deals and good deals with every country and if we don't
12:47we're going to have nothing to do with them they're not going to be allowed to
12:49participate in the United States
13:05mr. president many of thank you for the chance many of Palestinian Americans
13:11who voted for you voted for you and not for Biden because you've promised them
13:15to end the war in Gaza the war is still going on and there's no hostage deal do
13:22you have any update on that well I'd like to see the war stop and I think the
13:26war will stop at some point that won't be in the too distant future right now
13:30we have a problem with hostages we're trying to get the hostages out we got
13:33quite a few of them out but it's a long process it shouldn't be that long we
13:38have a big problem that we've done I think I'll ask Pete to maybe talk about
13:42it for a second because a lot of people are asking the hooties we've we've been
13:46very tough and very successful militarily we've really damaged them
13:53badly these were people shooting down ships and other things by the way flying
13:58objects like airplanes and we we've put a major hurt on the hooties which
14:05nobody's been able to do we've really hit them hard and they know it and they
14:11don't know what to do and it's every night night after night and we've gotten
14:16many of their leaders and their experts they're experts on missiles I mean they
14:21actually make missiles nobody thought that but they make missiles it's highly
14:26sophisticated and they're very tough but they've been very badly damaged nobody
14:31else was able to do that but as Pete you want to discuss that yes sir
14:35it's been a bad three weeks for the hooties and it's about to get worse it's
14:40been a devastating campaign whether it's underground facilities weapons
14:44manufacturing bunkers troops in the open air defense assets we are not going to
14:49relent and it's only to get more unrelenting until the hooties declare
14:54they will stop shooting at our ships and we've been very clear the Iranians as
14:57well there they should not continue to provide support to the hooties and that
15:03message has been made very clear so we have a lot more options and a lot more
15:07pressure to apply and we know because we see the reports how devastating this
15:11campaign has been in them and we will not let we have a great military there's
15:15no military like our military and despite Biden having given a lot but
15:21nevertheless a pretty small piece but it was a lot of our military way in
15:27Afghanistan and one of the dumbest situations I think and maybe the most
15:31embarrassing situation we've ever been involved in that that short period of
15:36time in Afghanistan what a disgrace that was but left a lot of our military
15:41behind left left you see him in their annual parades where they're parading
15:47trucks that are armor-plated and different things that they can't but
15:50it's many billions of dollars we left behind but despite that we have a
15:55tremendous military that was a very small portion because we rebuilt the
15:59military during my first term and we we have great great things happening with
16:06our military we also essentially approved a budget which is at the
16:12facility you'll like to hear this of a trillion dollars one trillion dollars
16:16and nobody's seen anything like it we have to build our military and we're
16:21very cost-conscious but the military is something that we have to build and we
16:25have to be strong because you had a lot of bad forces out there now so we're
16:29going to be approving a budget the and I'm proud to say actually the biggest
16:33one we've ever done for the military we're cutting other things that were
16:37under doge but under a lot of other when you look at a woman getting two billion
16:44dollars for environmental and it had nothing to do with environmental and
16:48they had a hundred dollars in the bank and they give her two billion many many
16:52of those cases all that stuff is going to be cut out but we are getting a very
16:57very powerful military we have things under order now the likes of which
17:01we've never had before we've never had the kind of aircraft the kind of
17:06missiles anything that we have ordered and it's in many ways too bad that we
17:12have to do it because hopefully we're not going to have to use it but the
17:16military is very very powerful and it's going to remain that way
17:27Thank you Mr. President. I want to ask you about Iran because this is the first time we hear that the U.S. is having a direct contact with the Iranians. Is it possible to give us some more information at what level the U.S. is presented?
17:40Very high level. We're dealing with the Iranians we have a very big meeting on
17:44Saturday and we're dealing with them directly you know a lot of people say oh
17:49maybe you're going through surrogates or you're not dealing directly you're
17:52dealing through other countries no we're dealing with them directly and maybe
17:56a deal is going to be made that'd be great that'd be it'd be really great
18:01for Iran I can tell you that but hopefully we're not going to have to get
18:05into that we we are meeting very importantly on Saturday at almost the
18:11highest level and we'll see how it works out please. How do you ensure Mr.
18:15President that these tariffs don't drive U.S. trading partners into the hands of
18:20the Chinese? I'm not worried about it. They want to be in the hands of the U.S.
18:25they don't want to be in the hands of the Chinese and the Chinese have turned
18:29out to be really not very good at that. People that are with us they're with us
18:34but we cannot be taken advantage of any longer. I used to watch these deals for
18:40years I've been talking about it for years and I've been talking about it for
18:4235 years how our country is being ripped off I mean which did 30 years ago was
18:50Japan then it was something else and it was another group then it was China
18:55China's doing the best job of it frankly and it's just not going to happen not
19:00going to happen. And on that, Mr. President, you've said it may take-
19:07The EU has said that they have offered zero for zero tariffs on cars and industrial goods is that not enough?
19:15Well the EU, no it's not. The EU has been very tough over the years it was I always say it
19:22was formed to really do damage to the United States in trade that's the reason
19:27it was formed it was formed with all of the countries from Europe I guess most
19:32of them not all of them but most of them and they formed together to create a
19:37little bit of a monopoly situation to create a unified force against the
19:41United States for trade. So they have NATO which is largely the same countries
19:47and they took advantage of us dollar-wise and militarily until I got
19:53there you know I I was able to get 600 billion dollars from NATO where they
19:58paid NATO because most of these nations weren't even paying we were paying for
20:02NATO so we're paying them to guard them militarily and they're screwing us on
20:07trade so that's not a good combination. So now it's really turned around it's
20:13the opposite and the European Union's been very very bad to us they don't take
20:19our cars like Japan in that sense they don't take our agricultural product they
20:24don't take anything practically and yet they sent millions of cars in a year
20:29Mercedes-Benz Volkswagen BMWs they're sending millions and millions of cars
20:34into the US but we don't have a car that's been sold to the European Union
20:39or other places but let's go for the European Union and it's not going to be
20:44that way it's got to be fair reciprocal it's got to be fair it's not fair we
20:50have a deficit with the European Union of 350 billion dollars and it's going to
20:56disappear fast and one of the reasons and one of the ways that that can
21:01disappear easily and quickly is they're gonna have to buy our energy from us
21:04because they need it they're gonna have to buy it from us they can buy it we can
21:08knock off 350 billion dollars in one week they have to buy and commit to buy
21:13a like amount of energy and we have that you know we have more energy than any
21:18country in the world I don't know if you know that this he knows everything but
21:21the one thing you may not know we have more energy than any country in the
21:25world we have more of every kind of energy every form of energy from oil and
21:31gas to call and people talk about I call it beautiful clean call as you know
21:37Germany is opening up a coal plant a week they tried the windmills and it
21:41didn't work they tried all the other solutions and they were ready to go out
21:45of business now they're doing a coal plant the week China is now up to two
21:49coal plants then they're opening two major coal plants every single week in
21:54China all over China and then we're not allowed to use coal well we have clean
22:00beautiful coal more than anybody else we have oily gas more than anybody else we
22:04have the most energy of any country in the world including Saudi Arabia
22:08including everybody by a lot and I took it to number one we were number three
22:13and I took it to number one during my administration and the reason that we
22:18were hurt so badly and the reason that we went into such incredible inflation
22:23during Biden is energy it was also their bad spending but energy because they
22:29played around with this incredible thing that we had built this administration
22:34and the energy costs went through the roof and when that went up everything
22:38else followed now if you look at what's happening you're gonna see this today I
22:42said we're gonna try and get groceries down right an old-fashioned term but a
22:46beautiful term eggs so when I got in the press went absolutely crazy the first
22:53week they said eggs have quadrupled in price I said I just got here tell me
22:57about it and Brooke Rollins and our team did a great job and eggs are down now
23:0279% and they're all over the place and this was a problem that somebody else
23:08would have taken a long time to cure we have energy is down we have interest
23:13rates are down we have groceries meaning food is down we have everything is down
23:19at levels that nobody ever thought possible energy looks like it's going to
23:23be in the $2.50 a gallon range and maybe below that for a car so for gasoline so
23:31we are we're really doing amazing I mean we're cutting prices because prices got
23:38so high people couldn't live I mean the prices for groceries the prices for
23:42standard standard groceries standard things were going through the roof they
23:47couldn't live and now those prices are coming down so call them groceries but
23:51that's down energy is down and interest rates are down everything's down and the
23:56interest rates of beauty there is when we refinance debt you know debts become
24:00such a big factor in this country we're going to get we're going to start paying
24:04dead off with tariffs and other things but it's such a big factor because the
24:09interest rates so high well now that's coming way down so our budget's going to
24:13look a lot better because interest costs are way down and I guess I've done that
24:31we are trying very hard to get the hostages out we're looking at another
24:37ceasefire we'll see what happens but we have we want to get the hostages out the
24:42Israeli people want the hostages out more than anything they want the
24:46hostages out this man is working very hard with us to do that I mean I don't
24:50know I hope he's being appreciated because he's been a great leader he's
24:54working very very hard on the hostages and many other things and there are
24:58plenty of things you have to work on it's a it's a tough place in the world
25:02as a good partner you do have a good partner so do we we're working very hard
25:07on the hostages. Mr. President, if you're going to negotiate a new deal with Iran, can you elaborate how it's going to be more effective than the JCPOA?
25:18Well I can't really say that but I think it'll be different and maybe a lot
25:23stronger but they were so happy when we made that first deal because we did get
25:28a lot out you know I had people right in this office this beautiful local
25:32office they came in ten people hostages you know that and I said to them so how
25:37was it and the stories they told me as an example I said to them was there any
25:44sign of love you were there ten people it's only ten but it's pretty
25:49representative I did the Hamas show any signs of like help or liking you did they
25:57wink at you did they give you a piece of bread extra did they give you a meal
26:02on the side like you know you think of doing like what happened in Germany
26:06what happened elsewhere people would try and help people that were in
26:10unbelievable distress they said no I said all of them I said did they ever
26:16wink at you like you'll be okay you're gonna be okay no they didn't do that
26:20that slap us the hatred is unbelievable and the lives you know they lived in a
26:26pipe not really a tunnel it was a pipe and they always thought they were
26:30suffocating they were gonna suffocate and then they'd open up the pipe and it
26:34was like three and a half feet high this isn't you know we hear tunnels bad but
26:38pipes are worse and the stories I heard were incredible but I just said was
26:43there any sign of potential love or affection and there were none whatsoever
26:48it was amazing to me there was nothing like here take this it's a little extra
26:52meal or something they lived like hell I I don't know they seem to be they were
26:58amazing to me because they seem to be pretty normal they weren't scarred but I
27:04guarantee underneath they have to be scarred and one was there for 356 days
27:10another was there for about a hundred and eighty days you know a long time
27:14these are people that have been really really horribly treated I've never seen
27:19anything like it actually I was very surprised to hear the answer
27:24Thank you Mr. President. Are there two or three countries that are on your list that you feel are farther along in getting their tariffs lowered?
27:34Well I think there are many that want to get rid of tariffs right now
27:38European Union I mean as badly as they've treated us they've you know they
27:43brought their car tariffs essentially off I guess they brought it down to two
27:47and a half and I hear maybe to nothing but it's not only tariffs it's not
27:52monetary tariffs it's tariffs where they put things on that make it impossible
27:56for you to sell a car it's not a money thing it's they make it so difficult the
28:01standards and the tests they drop a bowling ball on the top of your car from
28:0520 feet up in the air if there's a little dent they say no I'm sorry your
28:09car doesn't qualify when the same car from Germany or in with dent likewise or
28:15unless you can have an army tank it's gonna dent so they come up with rules
28:19and regulations that are just designed for one reason that you can't sell your
28:25product in those countries and and we're not gonna let that happen those are
28:30called non-monetary barriers they make barriers that are so tough that it's
28:35impossible to qualify so so tariffs are a big part of it but but there's another
28:41big part of it and that's barriers they also do something else they manipulate
28:45their currency and they drive it down they want to drive they want to have low
28:49currencies you know it sounds better to have a high currency a strong dollar or
28:54whatever but they bring their currency down and when it competes with our
28:59currency is very hard to sell a tractor
29:03you
29:09and so it makes it very hard I speak to a lot of companies that do business
29:13tractor companies and they say it's so hard to sell because what they've done
29:19is they've lowered the yen or they've lowered the one or they've lowered their
29:22currency so that it's very hard to compete we don't want that either so we
29:28have a lot of things that we're talking about but we're going to fix it properly
29:31and it's going to be fair to everybody and in the end I think we're gonna have
29:35a world that does a lot better you know but they have to respect the United
29:39States nobody but me would do this you know it would be nice to serve a nice
29:46easy term but we have an opportunity to change the fabric of our country we have
29:50an opportunity to reset the table on trade we lose billions of dollars we
29:57lose close to two trillion dollars a year we lose a trillion dollars here to
30:02China a trillion we lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year on trade to
30:10China we lose hundreds of millions of dollars overall probably to close to two
30:17trillion dollars why would we do that number one why would we do that and then
30:22you have to say is it sustainable then you hear about all of the people that
30:25say well deficits if we have a deficit with the country of the country has a
30:29big surplus with us like China is a massive surplus that they take and they
30:34spend on their military well we don't want that I don't want them to take 500
30:38600 billion dollars a year and spend it on their military I don't want them
30:43spending money on their military and I shouldn't have to spend money we
30:47shouldn't have to spend it either because you know hopefully and I said
30:50this to President Xi hopefully it's money that we're never going to use in
30:54other words because we're not going to use those incredible weapons that we
30:57have and that they have we don't want that so it's going to be very
31:02interesting it's it's the only chance our our country will have to reset the
31:09table because no other president would be willing to do what I'm doing or to
31:14even go through it now I don't mind going through it because I see a
31:18beautiful picture at the end but we are making tremendous progress with a lot of
31:24countries and the countries that really took advantage of us are now saying
31:28please negotiate you know why because they're getting beaten badly because of
31:34what's happening they're getting beaten badly they're being devalued as
31:37countries but it's the only chance we're going to have to reset the table on
31:42trade and when we do we're going to come out unbelievably well we're going to
31:46have a strong country economically again and we're going to have those factories
31:50that are empty all over the United States we've lost 90,000 plants and
31:56factories think of this 90 that you wouldn't think it's possible 90,000
32:01plants and factories since NAFTA which was by the way the worst trade deal ever
32:06ever developed ever had by any country anywhere NAFTA and I terminated NAFTA
32:11everybody said it would be impossible and I terminated through Congress we
32:15terminated it you had to get it through Congress it was a trap it was a horrible
32:19thing and we got it done and we went to the USMCA which was much better the
32:24problem is they cheat they cheat like crazy Canada cheats Mexico cheats just
32:30one of those things but we are we setting a table and we're going to have
32:35great trade and we're going to have a very strong country our country is going
32:39to be at a level that it has maybe never been or maybe you know our country was
32:44the strongest believe it or not from 1870 to 1913 you know why it was all
32:51tariff-based we had no income tax then in 1913 some genius came up with the
32:56idea of let's charge the people of our country not foreign countries that are
33:01ripping off our country and the country was never relatively was never that kind
33:08of wealth we had so much wealth we didn't know what to do with our money we
33:12had meetings we had we had committees and these committees works tirelessly to
33:18study one subject we have so much money what are we going to do with it who are
33:23we going to give it to and I hope we're going to be in that position
33:29mr. president do you plan to reduce the tariffs that your government put on
33:34Israeli goods 17% where on Israeli goods the 17% do you plan what we're
33:39talking about a whole new trade maybe not maybe not don't forget we help
33:45Israel a lot you know we give Israel four billion dollars a year that's a lot
33:49my congratulations by the way but we give Israel billions of dollars a year
33:56billions it's one of the highest of and we give a lot of we have a lot of
34:02countries money you wouldn't believe if I said we give Afghanistan a lot of
34:07money because that was a biting deal another biting deal not only did he
34:11embarrass us with that but they give them billions of dollars Afghanistan
34:15right so but now we we take good care of our friends and we don't take care of
34:21our enemies we're not taking care of our enemies anymore but we do take care of
34:25our friends
34:28the IDF is fighting to get into Gaza Strip I myself might be called up in a
34:32month do you think that's the way to pressure Hamas to get to a deal do you
34:36think blocking humanitarian aid is also defective pressure well you know I feel
34:39about the Gaza Strip I think it's an incredible piece of important real
34:44estate and I think it's something that we would be involved in but you know
34:50having a peace force like the United States they're controlling and owning
34:55the Gaza Strip would be a good thing because right now all it is is for years
34:59and years all I hear about is killing and Hamas and problems and if you take
35:04the people the Palestinians and move them around to different countries and
35:08you have plenty of countries that will do that and you really have a freedom a
35:13freedom zone you call it the freedom zone a free zone as the zone where
35:18people are going to be killed every day that's a hell of a place it's a you know
35:23what I call it a great location that nobody wants to live in because they
35:27really don't and when they had good live when they have good living real living
35:31where Hamas and all of the the problems they have the level of death on the Gaza
35:37Strip is just incredible and I've said it I understand I don't understand why
35:42Israel ever gave it up is your loan it it wasn't this man so I can say he
35:47wouldn't have given it up I know him very well there's no way they took
35:51oceanfront property and they gave it to people for peace how did that work out
35:55not good all it is is a concept that I had that I think is good and now people
36:10are copying it you know maybe you want to tell people are talking about the
36:14Trump plan gee why don't we do that would you like to answer that question I
36:18think what the president talked about is first want to give people a choice Gaza
36:23Gazans were closed in and every other place including in arenas of battle I
36:29mean whether it's Ukraine or Syria or any other place people could leave Gaza
36:35was the only place where they locked him in we didn't lock him in they're locked
36:39in and what is wrong with giving people a choice now we've been talking including
36:45over lunch about some countries I won't go into them right now they're saying
36:50you know if Gazans want to leave we want to take a minute and I think this
36:55is this is the right thing to do if you give you know it's going to take years
37:00to rebuild Gaza in the meantime people can have an option president has a
37:04vision countries are responding to that vision we're working on it I hope we'll
37:08have good news for you people really do love that vision it's a long-term vision
37:17but so importantly is to have that be a safe field because you're right smack in
37:23the middle of the Middle East you're right along Israel it should have never
37:27ever been given away shouldn't have been given away by Israel I don't know why
37:31they did it I mean I do know why because they were promised peace but that didn't
37:35work out too well because it's one of the most dangerous pieces of land
37:38anywhere in the world Gaza is one of the most dangerous places in the world so
37:44they gave it away for a good intention and it it didn't work out that way a lot
37:49of people like my concept but you know there are other concepts that I like too
37:53and there's some concepts I don't like you know what I don't like the way it is
37:57now because right now it's a dangerous death trap Gaza yeah
38:14so the reason we're not talking about tariffs with Russia's because we're not
38:21doing business essentially with Russia because they're in a war and I'm not
38:26happy about what's going on with with the bombing because they're bombing like
38:31crazy right now bomb and I don't know what's happening there that's not a good
38:35situation so we're meeting with Russia we're meeting with Ukraine and we're
38:41getting sort of close but I'm not happy with all the bombing that's going on the
38:44last week or so horrible it's a horrible thing a horrible thing
39:00look we've been ripped off and taken advantage of for 40 50 60 years and the
39:09reason we got ripped off and the way they did it was tariffs they would
39:13charge tariffs massive numbers of dollars and when you look at China when
39:20I took over it was at 507 billion dollars they were making I call it
39:25making a lot of people say oh it doesn't mean anything having a surplus means a
39:29lot in my opinion it's almost like a profit or loss statement and when I took
39:34over it was 507 billion dollars that China with this is originally first term
39:40and we were very very tough on them because they were taking that money and
39:46they were building a military with it then when Biden came in he let him get
39:50away with murder he had no idea I'll tell you what that man had no idea what
39:53was happening whether it was the border or China or anything else he had no idea
39:57what was going on and they got they went wild China went wild and the money
40:04they make is ridiculous okay it's just not going to happen and hopefully we'll
40:09get along with China if we do that's great and if we don't that's okay too
40:12but we can't let that continue because that's a that's an abuse they abused the
40:19poor people that sat in this seat that poor Biden he was abused by them they
40:23took advantage of him and I'm surprised you know they have smart people they
40:27were radical left lunatics but they're smart I'm surprised they'd allow that to
40:31take you know to happen but we are going to bring great trade and we're going to
40:39be fair to other countries and I will say this virtually every country wants
40:46to negotiate if I didn't do what I did over the last couple of weeks you
40:51wouldn't have anybody wants to negotiate we would have gone to these countries
40:54you want to talk and they were well we don't want to talk now they're coming to
40:58us they're offering things like even BBN this is unrelated because it's a
41:03different kind of a relationship but he started off our conversation today that
41:07he's cutting all of the tariffs he's cutting everything he's going to get
41:11down to a free base he's going to do things that in all fairness other
41:15countries if they said that would have never even thought about doing it now
41:19they're offering things to us that we would have never even thought of asking
41:25them for because they're experiencing a lot of hurt and the hurt is that they've
41:31taken advantage of us and we finally fought back tariffs will make this
41:36country very rich we're rich anyway but we're rich in a certain way we have 36
41:41trillion dollars in debt I want to get rid of it and we can do it quickly with
41:47proper deals so when countries don't allow us to sell our product but we
41:53allow them to sell their product when they charge us massive amounts of money
41:58for the privilege of going into their country those days are over
42:11on Iran two questions please first we can give us more details about where the
42:17meeting on Saturday is going I can just tell you there's a major meeting going
42:21on between us and Iran and that'll take place on Saturday and it's a top level
42:28and the second question about this a lot of people think that those talks are not
42:33going to lead anywhere because the Iranians will never give up their nuclear
42:36program if diplomacy fails if diplomacy fails is the United States under your
42:43leadership ready to take military action to destroy the Iranian nuclear
42:47program program and remove this threat I think if the talks aren't successful
42:54with Iran I think Iran is going to be in great danger and I hate to say it great
43:00danger because they can't have a nuclear weapon so is that a yes you know it's
43:04not a complicated formula Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon that's all there
43:10right now we have to have nuclear power that shouldn't have it but I'm sure
43:17we'll be able to negotiate out of that too as part of this later on down the
43:21line but Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and if the talks aren't
43:27successful I actually think it'll be a very bad day for Iran if that's the case
43:33yeah mr. president mr. president on manufacturing mr. president so October
43:497th was a horrible day that some people they deny it now I can't believe they
43:55deny it from the standpoint of if they do it because they think it's good
43:57politically but October I've seen the tapes I've seen things that you don't
44:01want to see October 7th was a horrible day and we'll go down as one of the
44:06really bad days in the history of the world there was a horrible horrible
44:13thing that happened and they grabbed some of these people I'll give you an
44:17example when I was with the 10 hostages a few weeks ago I said so how many are
44:23there 59 I said oh so 59 so we can get 15 and they sort of knew the territory
44:30pretty good and I said how are they doing you see they said well only 24 are
44:36living the rest are dead and these are young people largely young people don't
44:40die you know young people have an amazing ability to live they can live
44:45through horrible things but these are young people and when they said that 24
44:51are living and the rest are dead and you know I've had parents come up Israeli
44:56parents largely we have some Americans and we had I guess we have one left
45:01Alex we have the one left but but I've had Israeli parents come up to me at
45:08events and say my son is there I said well how's he doing well he's dead but
45:14would you do me the biggest favor ever could you bring his body back home they
45:19talked about a young dead boy and a young dead girl like they were living
45:26and that could have something to do with religion that could have something to do
45:30with I guess maybe any parent would be but I was surprised they said sir my son
45:36is dead it is just as important to bring that body back home I asked that
45:42question as if he were alive so you have a lot of them dead and we'll be able to
45:48bring them back but it's a horrible thing that's happened these are young
45:52largely young people some old ones too frankly and those people have lived in
45:57hell when they came off the second group that came out they look like they just
46:01got out of a concentration camp they look exactly like the pictures and I'd
46:06see from the 1940s the concentration camps and then they got a little bit
46:12better you know it's but that second group those people came out and I said
46:17this is unbelievable we're going back into a chapter in history that is one of
46:22the worst ever it's really very bad okay mr. president mr. president thank you
46:29you've said it could take two years to get American manufacturing fully up to
46:33speed in response to these tariffs what happens in the meantime should
46:37Americans be prepared potentially for years of uncertainty and disruption we
46:40have now seven trillion dollars think of this seven trillion of commitments
46:47from companies wanting to go in from Apple to many many companies that takes
46:52time many from Taiwan what that takes time to fully manufactured products here
46:57in the US you know you got to build a thing called a factory you have to build
47:03your energy you have to do a lot of things I'm giving them energy you know
47:08we're going to let them build their own power plants they'll be their own
47:11essentially they're going to be in charge of the power plant because our
47:16power is not reliable enough you have a grid that's old and susceptible to a lot
47:22of things including bombing and weather and a lot of other things and we're
47:26going to give them record timing in terms of approvals of electric plants
47:31most of them want to build electric we need massive amounts of electricity if
47:34we're going to compete with China and others and interestingly we're way
47:39ahead right now in the AI race with China but the way we lose that race is
47:44if we can't give them electric but we have more plans being built we have
47:48everything we're doing so great and we want to keep it that way and tariffs
47:53will be an important part of it but one of the other things Lee's Eldon's doing
47:57a fantastic job head of environmental protection and he's doing very rapid
48:02approvals for people to get for big companies to that are going to build a
48:06plant that's going to cost billions of dollars and we're going to get them
48:11their approvals they have to be environmentally perfect everything good
48:14but they're going to be in record time a matter of months versus a matter of
48:18many many years but in the meantime Americans will face uncertainty sir in
48:22the meantime Americans face uncertainty yeah Lisa Rizovsky from Haaretz Turkey
48:28claims it will stabilize the situation in Syria yeah Israel doesn't want Turkey
48:36to influence Syria what do you think do you think Turkey's influence in Syria
48:41can actually make it a better more peaceful country or vice versa well I
48:45have great relations with a man named Erdogan have you heard of him and I
48:50happen to like him and he likes me and I know the press will get very angry he
48:54likes Erdogan but I do and he likes me and we've never had a problem and we've
48:59gone through a lot and we've never had a problem we'd always got we as you
49:03remember we got our minister back from Turkey you remember that and this was a
49:08big deal at the time and we got him back and I told the Prime Minister I said
49:15just maybe if you have a problem with Turkey I really think I'm going to be
49:19able to work it out you know I have a very very good relationship with Turkey
49:24and with their leader and I think we'll be able to work it out so I hope that's
49:28not going to be a problem I don't think it will be a problem now with that being
49:32said I believe it was Turkey and I said that to him I said it I said
49:38congratulations you've done what nobody's been able to do in 2,000 years
49:42you've taken over Syria with different names but same thing I said you've taken
49:48it over he's taking it over through surrogates he goes no no no no no no it
49:52was not me well I said it was you but that's okay you don't have to say well
49:56sort of maybe was me okay what he did he's look he's a tough guy he's very
50:01smart and he did something that nobody was able to do you know you gotta hand it
50:07to him any problem that you have with Turkey I think I can solve I mean as
50:12long as you're reasonable you have to be reasonable we have to be reasonable
50:15thank you very much
50:26thank you
50:38thank you
50:45I'm trying to even question it. Have a good day.
50:50Thanks guys. Keep going. Keep going.
50:54Thank you all.
50:55Good question. Thank you very much.
51:00Thanks guys. Keep going.
51:02Keep going. Keep going. Thank you.
51:04Thank you. Keep it up.
51:06Keep going. Keep going.
51:12Thanks guys.
51:14Thank you. Keep going.
51:16Keep going. Head out. Thank you.
51:18Thanks guys.