TRANSCRIPT: Donald Trump Speaks to Reporters After Air Force One Arrival, 4.12.26
[Video]
Question: The Pope, Mr. President. Pope Leo, give us your thoughts. Pope Leo.
Donald Trump. Okay, thank you very much. You've probably heard that a, a lot of very good things are happening with regard to the Strait, Hormuz. And a lot of good things are happening for our country. It's been very strong. We have some tremendous numbers released economically on jobs and everything else, and things are going very well.
Question: How is the ceasefire holding, Mr. President?
President Trump: Say it? Is the ceasefire holding? Uh, I would say it's holding well. Uh, their military is destroyed. Their whole, uh, navy is underwater. You know that. 158 ships are gone. Their navy's gone. Uh, most of their mine droppers are gone. We have a lot of people. As you know, at 10 o'clock tomorrow, we have a blockade going into effect. That'll be 10 o'clock tomorrow. Other nations are working so that, uh, Iran will not be able to sell oil. And, uh, that will be very effective.
Question: Mr. President --
Trump: But what we want to do is we want to, uh, and, again, we don't need it. What we noticed and what we see and what I think is maybe my idea, maybe not, I don't know, but there are many boats heading toward our country to fill up with oil, and then go and take it. So they're not gonna go through the Hormuz Strait.Uh, and, ultimately, that'll be corrected, but in the meantime, they're using us. We have more oil because of, "Drill, baby, drill." We have more oil than Russia and Saudi Arabia put together.
Question: But you --
Trump: So if you look at Russia and Saudi Arabia, two big ones, we have much more oil than they have put together. And what's happening is boats are coming over here, filling up. They don't have to go through the Hormuz Strait.
Question: You said, you said, sir --
Question: Can you give us an update, Mr. President, on the two pilots? Are they in good condition? Have you spoken with them or their family?
Trump: They are in very good shape and we're very proud of them, the two pilots, yeah.
Question: Mr. President?
Question: Sir, you said, you said that Iran [Inaudible] Iran wants to come back to the table.
Trump: I think Iran is in very bad shape. I think they're very desperate. We had a meeting that lasted 21 hours. We understand the situation better than anybody, and Iran's in very bad shape.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: And, and just so you understand, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, will not have. There is no way that they're gonna get it. They still want it, and they made that clear the other night. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.
Question: How long are you waiting for them to come back to the bargaining table --
Trump: Oh, I don't know. I don't care if they come back or not. If they don't come back, I'm fine.
Question: All right. Okay.
Trump: Their military is gone. Uh, their missiles are largely depleted. The, uh, manufacturing capability for missiles and drones is largely defeated. We've been very nice. We haven't ripped down too many bridges. We did one, only because they broke their word, they broke their promise. And remember, their promise was that they were going to open the Hormuz Strait.
They didn't do it. They lied.
Question: Uh, do you have other countries right now who are willing to help?
Trump: Yeah, they're coming up, and they're helping. Yeah, we have many other countries.
Question: Would you be willing, sir --
Question: Why did you attack Pope Leo?
Question: Are there any specific countries that will be buying the oil from the United States?
Trump: Yeah.
Question:Have you had any talks with speci- -- specific countries?
Trump: Well, you just have to see. But the ships are heading up to our country right now, empty, and they're gonna go back filled up with oil. Okay.
Question: Sir, why did you attack Pope Leo on Truth Social?
Trump: Uh, I don't think he's doing a very good job. He likes crime, I guess. He, uh, he hit us, think of it. He's worried about fear. What about the fear when the ministers and the priests and the, all of those great people that were arrested during COVID, and in many cases, they're outside 10 feet apart, and they were arrested.
So we don't like it. We don't like a pope that's gonna say that it's okay to have a nuclear weapon. We don't want a pope that says crime is okay in our cities. I don't like it. I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo. He's a very liberal person, and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime. He's a man that doesn't think that we should, uh, be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world. I'm not, I'm not a fan of Pope Leo.
Question: Sir, was he okay with [Inaudible] --
Trump: About what?
Question: Would you be okay with [Inaudible]
Trump: Well, that's a very theoretical question.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Silly. I don't wanna to answer that.
Question:Have you talked to him about the blockade?
Question: [Inaudible] this week. You've been very frustrated with NATO countries. Are you planning on --
Trump: Well, they're coming up. They're gonna be coming up. But I'm very disappointed in NATO. They didn't do the, they weren't there for us. We pay trillions of dollars for NATO, and they weren't there for us. Remember what I said. NATO was not there. Now they wanna come up, but there's no real threat anymore.
Trump: But NATO was not there for us.
Question: Are you gonna punish the countries who didn't help you?
Trump:We'll see what happens.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: But you know, we spent trillions of dollars on NATO to help them guard really against Russia. When you think of it, we're guarding against Russia. And I've long thought it was a little ridiculous. But we spent trillions of dollars doing it, and I think, uh, that's gonna be under very serious examination.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Thank you very much, everybody.
Note: [Crosstalk]