TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Greets Benjamin Netanyahu on Arrival at Mar-a-Lago, 12.29.25
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President Trump: [Inaudible] does anybody recognize this man? Not too many people. They've been very fair, actually, for the last three days.
Question: President Trump, are you going to give a greenlight for another attack in Iraq?
Trump: OK. Go ahead.
Question: Mr. President, how quickly are you going to move to phase two of the peace plan for Gaza?
Trump: Literally as quickly -- as quickly as we can, but there has to be a disarmament. You know, that we have to disarm with Hamas. So one of the things we'll talk about, certainly, but there has to be a disarming of Hamas. Otherwise, very quickly. Yeah.
Question: Can you say anything more about the explosion in Venezuela that you mentioned in a radio interview? Did the military do that? [Inaudible]
Trump: Well, it doesn't matter, but there was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs. They load the boats up with drugs. So we hit all the boats and now we hit the area. It's the implementation area. That's where they implement. And that is no longer around.
Question: [Inaudible] strike that the US --
Trump: I don't want to comment.
Question: President Trump? Yesterday, there was an explosion overnight and -- and the Russians say that Ukraine tried to hit the residence of President Putin. Do you have any information [Inaudible]
Trump: No, I don't know about it, actually, and I don't -- I just heard about it, actually, but I don't know about it. That would be too bad. That would not be good.
Question: What was the outcome of your telephone call with President Putin this morning?
Trump: I had a very good talk this morning. I waited until this morning because it was pretty late by the time we finished, like 2:30 in Russia, 2:30 in the morning. And we had a very good talk. We spoke at 8:00 in the morning our time and it was a very productive talk. I mean, we have a few very thorny issues, as you can imagine. He knows about thorny issues probably better than anybody in the world, but it's working out. We have a couple of issues that we're going to get resolved, hopefully. And if we get them resolved, you're going to have peace. You're going to have Ukraine -- they're losing 26,000 soldiers a month. Can you believe it? A month, 26,000 young, beautiful soldiers and plus some people in Kyiv and relatively small, but a lot, you know, still people and it's a lot of people. But 26,000 soldiers were killed last month. Yeah, please.
Question: President Trump, are you going to allow Turkish forces? And do you expect Turkish forces to be stationed in Gaza?
Trump: So I have a great relationship with President Erdogan and we'll be talking about it. And if it's good, I think that's good and a lot will be having to do with Bibi. We're going to be talking about that. But Turkey's been great and he's been, you know, excellent as far as I'm concerned. I don't know about you, but [Inaudible] to me, he's been -- to me, he's been very good.
Question: Can you guarantee that?
Trump: Sure. Yes.
Question: Mr. President, can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and how important it is for you to see him be pardoned by the Israeli president?
Trump: Look, he's a wartime prime minister. He's done a phenomenal job. He's taken Israel through a very dangerous period of trauma. Israel, with other people, might not exist right now, if you want to know the truth. That's a pretty big statement, but it's true. I feel that. If you had the wrong prime Minister, Israel right now would not exist because they were -- they were met with a force the likes of which very few countries could have handled.
And we worked together and we were extremely victorious, to put it mildly. Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again. And if they are, we're going to have to knock them down. We'll knock them down. We'll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully that's not happening. I heard Iran wants to make a deal. If they want to make a deal, that's much smarter. You know, they could have made a deal the last time before we went through, you know, a big attack on them and they decided not to make the deal. They wish they made that deal. So I think, again, they should make a deal. They want to make a deal, but sometimes that doesn't happen. Yeah, please.
Question: [Inaudible] 24 News, Israel. Would you support the overthrow of the Iranian regime?
Trump: Of who?
Question: Iranian regime.
Trump: I'm not going to talk about overthrow of a regime. It's -- they've got a lot of problems that are in. They have tremendous inflation. Their economy is bust -- economy is no good. And I know that people aren't so happy. But don't forget, every time they have a riot or somebody forms a group, little or big, they start shooting people.
Trump: You know, they kill people. And the people tend to -- I've watched this for years, there's tremendous discontent. They form 100,000, 200,000 people, all of a sudden people start getting shot and that group disbands pretty quickly. So I've watched it for years. They're vicious, vicious people. Yeah.
Question: Mr. President, [Inaudible] will you support an attack, Israeli attack on Iran if Iran will not have a deal, if Iran will continue with ballistic missiles and also nuclear weapons?
Trump: If they will continue --
Question: Yeah, yeah.
Trump: -- with the missiles, yes, the nuclear, fast. OK? One will be, yes, absolutely. The other was, we'll do it immediately.
Question: Mr. President, [Inaudible] from Channel 12 News. What are your plans regarding Gaza for the next few weeks?
Trump: Well, we're going to be dealing with Gaza. That's why this very great prime minister is here right now. We're talking about Gaza. We're talking about a lot of things. We have about five major subjects that we're discussing and Gaza will be one of those subjects.
Question: Mr. President, can you guarantee that the last hostages [Inaudible] will be released before we continue to the second phase of the Gaza plan?
Trump: Well, let's put it this way, every hostage just about that's been released was released because of me, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, my whole team, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth. They were all released because of us. None were released in the Biden administration, none. They were all released because of us. Then we had a lack of releases with respect to the dead.
And all of a sudden, they started coming back because I said, nope, you said you were going to -- we have one wonderful young man whose parents are right now inside and he's -- what beautiful parents, beautiful brother, sister and like a beautiful family and they're waiting for their son. It's the only one left and we're doing everything we can to get his body back and the parents just said, hopefully he's alive. And I said, I love you to think that way. OK? But we're doing everything we can.
Question: President Trump -- President Trump, does the --
Trump: [Inaudible] out of all of these people, and I'm not just talking about the final 20, look at all of the people, what do you think the total number is?
Benjamin Netanyahu: 255
Trump: 255
Netanyahu: 254 came out, one more.
Trump: Think of that, and we got them all. Nobody else got them.
Question: President Trump, does the reconstruction of Gaza -- President Trump, does the reconstruction of Gaza --
Trump: Hold on one second. I'll do you, just let her go.
Question: Does the reconstruction of Gaza will begin even before Hamas is disarmed?
Trump: I think it's going to begin pretty soon. Yeah.
Question: Before --
Trump: He's -- he's looking forward to it, so am I. Look, what a mess, what a mess it is. And it's been a mess for centuries, really. It's been a mess for a long time. It's -- it seems to be born for that, but we're going to -- we're going to straighten it out. No, we're already starting certain things. We're doing things for sanitary conditions and others, but Gaza is a tough place. You know, the expression it's a tough neighborhood? It's truly a tough -- that's truly a tough neighborhood. Yeah, you had a question, in the back. Go ahead. Yeah, please, go ahead.
Question: I'm asking about the relationship between you and the prime minister.
Trump: What about it?
Question: They said there is no relationship, good relationship between you --
Trump: I don't think it can be better. We just won a big war together. You know, if we didn't beat Iran, you wouldn't have had peace in the Middle East because nobody would have been able -- the Arab countries, who have been fantastic, would not have been able to make a deal. If we didn't wipe out their nuclear -- we wiped it out. If we didn't wipe out with our beautiful B-2 bombers, if we didn't -- and we sent a lot of Tomahawks in there also, by the way, from a submarine.
Question: And what about the part of that the president of Israel needs to give the prime minister --
Trump: A Pardon?
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: Oh, I think he will. How do you not? He's a wartime prime minister who's a hero, how do you not give a pardon? You know, I think it's a very hard thing not to do it. I spoke to the president and [Inaudible] he tells me it's on its way. You can't do better than that, right? Please.
Question: Can I follow up on Venezuela? Was the facility taken out by the US military or was it another entity like the CIA?
Trump: It was along -- well, I don't want to say that. I know exactly who it was, but I don't want to say who it was. But you know, it was along the shore.
Question: Mr. President, have you or anyone in your administration talked to Maduro in recent days?
Trump: Well, I spoke to him.
Question: Recently?
Trump: Pretty recently, reasonably -- but nothing much comes of it. Yeah.
Question: Mr. President, can you explain the importance --
Trump: You have to understand what he's done. They've sent billions of dollars of drugs in, but maybe just as bad, they've sent hundreds of thousands of people in from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions and insane asylums, the drug lords, the drug dealers were all sent into our country. But think of it, what he's done.
Tren de Aragua, probably the worst gang. They cut off people's fingers. One man made a phone call to complain about them. He cut off their hand -- they cut off his hand. Don't ever make a phone call again, we'll cut off your other hand. After that, we'll kill you, they said. That was in Colorado. I know they sent in all of the bad ones.
They sent in some bad people and that to me was just terrible and they send in drugs. Now I will say this, 97 percent of the drugs coming in by sea stopped. We're trying to figure out who the other three percent are. They have a hard time getting people to pilot those boats, but 97 percent of the drugs coming in by the ocean, by the sea, by water, are gone.
Every boat that we take out, we save 25,000 lives of Americans. Thank you very much, everybody. We'll see you. We're going to have a big meeting and we'll see you in a couple of hours, if you'd like. And if you'd like, you can come up and have lunch like you did yesterday. Would you like that or not? Do you want that?
Because some of them think it's terrible, it's a bribe, but you know, a bribe for $25, I don't know. If you'd like, you can go. And if you don't, you can stand in a driveway and melt, all right? But if you want, will you work on that, Margo?
Unknown: Yes, sir.
Trump: Is Margo doing a good job?
Unknown: Yes, sir.
Trump: She's a star. She's too nice. Her only problem is she's too nice to you and you're not nice to us, but that's OK. Margo, take them up and have a beautiful lunch and we'll see you later.
Question: Mr. President, are you worried about the strike, the alleged strike on Putin's residence could scuttle the peace --
Trump: Yeah, I don't -- I don't like it. It's not good. I heard about it this morning. You know who told me about it, President Putin told me about it. Early in the morning, he said he was attacked. It's no good. It's no good. Don't forget, you know, the Tomahawks, I stopped the Tomahawks. I didn't want that, because we're talking about -- you know, it's a delicate period of time.
This is not the right time. It's one thing to be offensive because they're offensive. It's another thing to attack his house. It's not the right time to do any of that and can't do it. And I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it.
Question: Do you believe --
Trump: Please.
Question: Intelligence service --
Trump: What?
Question: Don't you have US intelligence services that monitor that region very closely? Is there any evidence --
Trump: Well, it came out -- it came out. Well, we'll find out. I mean, you're saying maybe the attack didn't take place. It's possible too. I guess, but President Putin told me this morning it did.
Question: One question, Mr. President, can you expound on the important -- importance of a strong relationship with the State of Israel? And Mr. Prime Minister, you met -- called President Trump the strongest friend from the state of Israel. You've worked with numerous administrations, numerous presidents. Can you expound on that? What makes President Trump such a strong friend to the state of Israel?
Trump: You want to go first?
Netanyahu: I'll say it again and again and again, we've never had a friend like President Trump in the White House. It's not even close. And I think you can judge that by the -- not merely by the frequency of our meetings, but by the content and the intensity. I think Israel is very blessed to have President Trump leading the United States, and I'll say leading the free world at this time. I think it's not merely Israel's great fortune, I think it's the world's great fortune.
Trump: Well, I just want to say that it's very important who the prime minister and president of Israel is. We have a great relationship. It was an honor to speak before your leaders. That was a great honor for me. I think it has not happened before or something, they told me, but the relationship has been extraordinary and Bibi is a strong man.
He can be very difficult on occasion, but you need a strong man. If you had a weak man, you wouldn't have Israel right now. Israel would have been -- you know, Israel with most other leaders would not exist today. They would not exist and now they're stronger than ever. Yeah, please.
Question: Are you going to ask Netanyahu to sign an agreement with Syria?
Trump: Well, I hope he's going to get along with Syria because the new president of Syria is working very hard to do a good job. He really is. I know he's a tough cookie and he's -- you know, you're not going to get a choir boy to lead Syria. That's the one thing I will say. So I hope they're going to get along because, you know, I took -- I dropped the sanctions on Syria because otherwise they wouldn't have had a chance.
We want to see Syria survive. So we're going to be talking about Syria too. OK? Thank you very much, everybody. Have a good time. Go have a good lunch.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Prime Minister Netanyahu --
Trump: Thank you.
Question: [Inaudible]
Netanyahu: You know, after you hear these things, I think better to quit now. Thank you.
Trump: Thank you.