TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Holds News Conference As He Departs NATO Summit, 6.25.25
[VIDEO]
President Trump: Well, thank you very much. This has been an honor. It was a fairly long trip, but worth it. Tremendous things have been accomplished, as you probably noticed. Listened to a lot of wonderful speeches from the heads of a lot of wonderful countries. But I want to thank you for joining us at the conclusion of a highly productive NATO summit in the Netherlands. I want to thank them for the royal treatment they've given us. Couldn't—couldn't have been nicer. And it's a beautiful country, really a beautiful country. Coming in, I saw the most beautiful trees. In fact, I want to bring some back with me. I want to also thank—I had breakfast this morning with the king and queen, and they're incredible people. I called, I said, you're central casting, beautiful people, great people, big, beautiful heart, and I enjoyed that. And also NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who's been terrific. He's been a friend of mine. He used to be right here running this wonderful country. Now as the NATO Secretary General, he's doing a fantastic job. And the Prime Minister—we appreciate everything you've done. As you know, last weekend, the United States successfully carried out a massive precision strike on Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities and it was very, very successful. It was called obliteration. No other military on earth could have done it, and now this incredible exercise of American strength has paved the way for peace with the historic ceasefire agreement late Monday, and we call it the 12 Day War. Spoke to a few people, I guess that just sounded like the right, the right name. It was a 12 Day War. And we think it's over. I don't think they're going to be going back at each other. I don't think so. Not only have we dealt decisively with the critical threat of Iran's nuclear program, which was what I wanted—I said Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I've said that for 15 years, long before I decided to do the political thing. But we've also reasserted the credibility of American deterrence, which is like no other. The people at NATO said this. Never been anything. You know, I rebuilt the entire military during my first term, and we have a great military. We have great generals. I got to know the good ones and the bad ones. We kept the good ones.
Over the past few days, I was honored to participate in the NATO leaders meeting and also had extremely good individual discussions with the king and the queen, Secretary General Rutte, and the prime minister. Great discussions. Very knowledgeable people. Major focus of our conversations at the summit was the need for other NATO members to take up the burden of the defense of Europe. And that included the financial burden. As you know, it was 2 percent and we got it up to 5 percent. And they said—a couple of them came up to me. One in particular said, so we've been trying to get it up to 3 percent for 20 years. We have many of them. You got it up to 5 percent. So they're going to be—most of them, I guess almost all of them—are going to be contributing now. Five percent. The number that people are surprised that you need it today. The United States accounts for two thirds of all NATO defense spending. Since I began pushing for additional commitments in 2017, believe it or not, our allies have increased spending by seven hundred billion dollars. I said to people, you don't have any money. And a lot of them weren't paying. And so I started the process and I picked it up as soon as I got back, which is six months ago. And following my election last November, almost all have accelerated plans to reach the 2 percent, 3 percent, 4 percent, and then ultimately very quickly, 5 percent. And all of this is going to be done very quickly, almost immediately. You probably know this as well as I do. I'm sure they've been talking about it. It's really been a big focus and a very historic milestone. This week, the NATO allies committed to dramatically increase their defense spending to that 5 percent of GDP—something that no one really thought possible. And they said, you did it, sir. You did it. Well, I don't know if I did it, but I think I did. This will be known as the Hague Defense Commitment, which is pretty good, pretty appropriate. When the allies reach this number, it will add more than one trillion dollars a year. Think of that—one trillion per year to our common defense. And this is a monument really to victory. But it's a monumental win for the United States because we were carrying much more than our fair share—it was quite unfair, actually. But this is a big win for Europe and for, actually, Western civilization.
For years, past administrations failed to get most allies to contribute even the 2 percent. I remember when I came here, we had four countries that were up to 2 percent. And I remember Poland was there. A couple of them were there. But most of them were—we had twenty-eight at the time. As you know, it's increased a little bit. And they've agreed now to more than double their budgets in all cases. And Europe stepping up to take more responsibility for its security will help prevent future disasters like the horrible situation with Russia and Ukraine. And hopefully we're going to get that solved. Last week, they lost 7,000 soldiers—mostly soldiers—but they're also getting hit in Kiev. They're getting hit in some of the towns also. And that means life. Life is disappearing also in the cities and towns. Should have never happened, would have never happened if I was president—said it a thousand times. And it never did happen. It’s never even thought about. But it's vital that this additional money be spent on very serious military hardware, not bureaucracy. And hopefully that hardware is going to be made in America because we have the best hardware in the world. There were 14 missiles we shot at us the other day and they were very nice. They gave us warning. They said, we're going to shoot them. Is one o'clock OK? They said it's fine. And everybody was emptied off the base so they couldn't get hurt except for the gunners. They call them the gunners. And out of 14 high-end missiles that were shot at the base in Qatar, all 14, as you know, were shot down by our equipment. Amazing stuff. Amazing that they could do. It's like shooting a bullet with a bullet. It's the same thing if you think about it. Fourteen out of 14 and they weren't even that surprised. I said, do you do that well often? They say we pretty much do, sir. The Ukraine crisis has also highlighted the urgency of rebuilding our defense industrial base, both in the United States and among the allied nations. We cannot afford to be dependent on foreign adversaries for critical minerals. And as you know, we made a deal with Ukraine to take a vast amount of the land they have for minerals. We need it. And once again, I want to thank all of the people in the Netherlands. Incredible people. It's a great place. And all of the NATO allies for the tremendous summit that we just had. A letter just came in and a statement came in from the Atomic Energy Commission of Israel.
And I just wanted—this is an official letter and they're very serious people, as you know—the devastating U.S. strike on Fordo destroyed the site's critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility totally inoperable. It was devastated. We assess that the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities has set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons for many years to come. This achievement can continue indefinitely if Iran does not get access to nuclear material, which it won't. It's so sad that that whole thing had to go. But I just want to thank our pilots. You know, they were maligned and treated very bad, demeaned by fake news CNN, which has back there, believe it or not, wasting time, wasting—and nobody's watching them. So they just wasted a lot of time wasting my time. And The New York Times, they put out a story that, well, maybe they were hit, but it wasn't bad. Well, it was so bad that they ended the war. It ended the war. Somebody said in a certain way that it was so devastating, actually. If you look at Hiroshima, if you look at Nagasaki, you know, that ended a war, too. This ended a war in a different way. But it was so devastating. Also, they have out of Dubai just came that Iran's foreign ministry spokesman—this is Iran's foreign ministry—says its near its nuclear installations were very badly damaged by the American strike. So what bothered me about these reports were fake reports put out by The New York Times—failing, I call it the failing New York Times because it's doing terribly. Without me, it would be doing no business at all. But—and by fake news CNN and MSDNC, all of these terrible people—you know, they have no credibility. You know, when I started, they were at 94 percent credibility. The media now it's at 16 percent. And I'm very proud of it because I've exposed it for what it is. But when I saw them starting to question the caliber of the attack—was it bad? Well, it was really bad. It was devastating. They were obliterated. But you can't get into the tunnels. They just put that over. That just came out. They can't. There's nothing. There's no way you can even get down. The whole thing is collapsed in a disaster. And I think all of the nuclear stuff is down there because it's very hard to remove. And we—we did it very quickly when they heard we were coming. It was—you know, you can't move it. Very hard, very dangerous actually, to move too. And they also knew we were coming. So I don't think too many people want to be down there knowing we're coming with the bunker busters, as we call them.
We're the only ones that have them with the best equipment, best nuclear equipment. We have the best equipment in the world. And by the way, we can't forget our submarine, which was out there. Submarines, actually. But submarine was out there. We shot 30 rockets into an area. Every single one of them, I think it was almost 400 miles away. I think, Pete, 400 and long. It was in the ocean long ways away. And we shot—we shot a total of 30. Every single one of them hit within nine inches from where it was supposed to be. It took it a lot because we didn’t do just Fordo. We did two others in addition, which hadn’t been completely destroyed. So we hit them with a submarine from hundreds of miles away. Amazing. Just amazing equipment. Greatest submarines in the world. Nobody’s even close. They’re 20 years behind us when it comes to submarine technology. So that’s one. And the other was—from the Atomic Energy Commission. And they have about three or four of them now coming in from Atomic Energy Commissions from various places. But the one that we have that just came out, we released it a little while ago, was from the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. But numerous of them are getting to see the site. And the site has been demolished.
And again, we had these brave patriots, these incredible fliers, these people that can fly a plane better than anybody can fly a plane going into very hostile territory, flying into the territory that has got more missiles and things pointed at it. But it was very stealth. They didn't get to see it. It was dark. That's the amazing thing about the shots. They hit the shots perfectly. And yet it was dead dark. There was no moon. There was no light. It was virtually moonless. It was very dark and they hit the shots were hit perfectly. But when they get demeaned and they were very upset about it because they knew how strong it would be back in Missouri, the pilots flew about 36 hours, two ways far distance and in those incredible B-2s. And we then had the F-22s and we had the F-35s and we had other planes and we had, I think, a total of 52 tankers. That means the big, the big tankers, because the refueling was a lot for all of the different planes that we sent. Incredible operation. And I have to say, General Raising Cane was incredible. That's why he beat ISIS and we beat ISIS in a matter of weeks. I was told it would take four to five years. We did it in a few weeks and he was great. That's why he's ahead of the Joint Chiefs of Staff right now, because I had a very good experience with him. He knocked out ISIS in a period of literally a few weeks. Amazing. I was supposed to take a few years, five years, to be exact. So we had a great victory there and we then came here and I think we had a great victory here. But this is an ongoing project. This is the safety of Europe, the safety of the world. And they've raised it from two percent to five percent, something which nobody and you're talking about over a trillion dollars a year. So we're talking about a lot of money from coming in from countries that were not paying nearly enough to be effective. So I have, as you know, Marco Rubio with me and Pete Hegseth, secretary of state and secretary of war. Should we say secretary? You know, it used to be called secretary of war. Maybe for a couple of weeks. We'll call it that because we feel like warriors used to be called secretary of war. In fact, if you look at the old building next to the White House, you can see where it used to be secretary of war. Then we became politically correct and they called it secretary of defense. I don't know. Maybe we'll have to start thinking about changing it. But we feel that way. Do we have any questions, please? Wow. That's a lot of questions. Who's a nice person? Oh, you're not a nice person, but I'll let you ask one. Go ahead. What's he going to ask? He is not nice at all. I know him well.
Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for taking the time before flying home. You just said you believe the conflict between Israel and Iran is over. What makes you so confident it is and what do you do if it isn't?
Trump: Because I dealt with both and they're both tired, exhausted. They fought very, very hard and very viciously, very violently. And they were both satisfied to go home and get out. And can it start again? I guess someday it can. It could maybe start soon. I think a big telltale sign was when, as you know, Iran somewhat by not much violated the cease fire. And Israel had the planes going out that morning and there were a lot of them, 52 of them. And I said, you got to get them back. And they brought them back. They didn't do anything. They brought them back. It was very good. I thought it was amazing, actually. They have fought a hell of a war. They fought very hard. I think the war ended actually when we hit the various nuclear sites with the planes. And I just hope you people can give these pilots to the best pilots in the world. They're the best shots in the world. They call them shots. That's what they are. And and wait a minute. And I just hope you can give them the respect they deserve because they came home to fake news and like, "oh, gee, there was hardly any damage" to things that estimated so. But I think no, I think they're very much finished. I think Israel is going to get back to doing what they do. And I think that Iran is going to get back. You know, Iran has a huge advantage of great oil and they can do things. I don't see them getting back involved in the nuclear business anymore. I think they've had it. They've been at it for 20 years. And I don't see that happening either. Now, if it does, we're always there. It won't be me. It'll be somebody else. But we're there. We'll have to do something about it. Yes. Please. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, fake news. CNN. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Here we go. Wait until you hear this question, I think you should really say how great our soldiers and our warriors are.
Reporter: I think everyone appreciates our soldiers and our warriors. I do have two questions for you, Mr. President. You just cited Israeli intelligence on these attacks earlier. You said U.S. intelligence was inconclusive. Are you relying on Israeli intelligence for your assessment of the impact of the strikes?
Trump: No, this is also Iran made the statement. And it's also if you read the document that was given that you can talk about if you'd like. The document said it could be very severe damage, but they didn't take that. They said it could be limited or it could be very severe. They really didn't know other than to say it could be limited or it could be very, very severe. And you didn't choose to put that because it was very early after. Since then, we've collected additional intelligence. We've also spoken to people who have seen the site and the site. The site is obliterated. And we think everything nuclear is down there. They didn't take it out. OK, question, please go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. Blue dress.
Reporter: Thank you so much, Mr. President. Yesterday, you said China can now continue to purchase oil from Iran. Are you giving up on your maximum pressure campaign sanctions right now with Iran?
Trump: No. Look, they just had a war. The war was fought. They fought it bravely. I'm not giving up. They they're in the oil business. I mean, I could stop it if I wanted to sell China the oil myself. I don't want to do that. They're going to need money to put that country back into shape. We want to see that happen. Would it? No. If they're going to sell oil, they're going to sell oil. We're not taking over the oil. We could have. You know, I used to say with Iraq, keep the oil. I could say it here, too. We could have kept the oil. No, China is going to buy oil. They can buy it from us. They can buy it from other people. But you're going to have to put that country back into shape. It needs desperately needs money. Yeah. Yeah, please. Here we go. I'm picking the beauties today. Go ahead.
Reporter: Mr. President, Secretary General Ruta has described President Putin as an adversary, a threat, an enemy. Do you view him the same way? And in addition to that, you mentioned General Cain, your chief of staff, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Cain. He has said that Mr. Putin has territorial ambitions beyond Ukraine. Do you view that in the same way?
Trump: It's possible. I mean, it's possible. I know one thing he'd like to settle. He'd like to get out of this thing. It's a mess for him. He called the other day. He said, can I help you with Iran? And I said, no, you can help me with Russia, because, you know, in the last few weeks, we took care of India and Pakistan, Kosovo, Serbia, I think on Friday, where you have coming in the Congo is coming in and Rwanda is coming in. That was a vicious war that went on, a machete war, heads chopped off all over Africa. They're coming in. We did two others. In addition to that, nobody's ever done anything like this. No, I consider him a person that's, I think, been misguided. I'm very surprised, actually. I thought we would have had that settled. I've settled four of them in the meantime. But he did call up. But he said, you know, he's close to Iran. He'd like to help us get a settlement. I said, no, no, you helped me get a settlement with you, with Russia. And I think we're going to be doing that, too. Yeah, please. Go ahead, please.
Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President. You've made clear your position on what impact the strikes had. I wanted to ask you what is next with Iran. For instance, is there any indication from U.S. intelligence that Iran was able to move any material?
Trump: No, just the opposite. We think we hit him so hard and so fast, they didn't get to move. And if you knew about that material, it's very hard and very dangerous to move. It's called it's called in many people, they call it dust. But it's very, very heavy. It's very, very hard to move. And they were way down. You know, they're 30 stories down. They're literally 30, 35 stories down underground. Oh, yeah, we think we got what we think. It's covered with granite, concrete and steel.
Reporter: Interested in restarting negotiations with Iran. And if so, have they—
Trump: Well, our people, Marco could answer, but our people are not. I'm not the way I look at it. They fought the wars done. And, you know, I could get a statement that they're not going to go nuclear. We're probably going to ask for that, but they're not going to be doing it, but they're not going to be doing it anyway. They've had it. They've had it. Now, maybe someday in the future, we'll want that. But I've asked Marco, do you want to draw? I just asked him the question as we were walking on the stage. You want to draw up a little agreement for them to sign, because I think we can get them to sign it. I don't think it's necessary. Marco, do you want to talk about that, please,
Secretary of State Marco Rubio: Mr. President? I think you President Trump has shown a willingness to meet and talk to anybody in the world who is interested in peace. I don't know of any president that's been as willing as he has to meet with anyone and talk about peace. We'd love to have peaceful relations with any country in the world. And so, obviously, that will depend on Iran's willingness not just to engage in peace, but to negotiate directly with the United States, not through some third-country or fourth-country process. But I know of no president, probably in our modern history, that's sought peace more than President Trump has.
Reporter: Sounds like the door is open, but you're in no rush. Is that right?
Trump: I'll tell you what, look, we're going to talk to them next week with Iran. We may sign an agreement, I don't know. To me, I don't think it's necessary. I mean, they had a war, they fought, now they're going back to their world. I don't care if I have an agreement or not. The only thing we'd be asking for is what we were asking for before about we want no nuclear, but we destroyed the nuclear. In other words, that's destroyed. I said Iran will not have nuclear. Well, we blew it up. It's blown up to kingdom come. And so I don't feel very strongly about it. If we got a document, it wouldn't be bad. We're going to meet with them, actually. We're going to meet with them. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead, please.
Reporter: Mr. President, Netherlands TV. Thank you for visiting our country as they understood, of course, I'd like to know how you slept last night at the house.
Trump: Oh, I slept beautifully, but probably more serious question.
Reporter: I think you just had a meeting with President Zelensky. Did you discuss any ceasefire in this Russia or Ukrainian?
Trump: No, no, I just I wanted to know how he's doing. It was very nice, actually. You know, we had little rough times, but sometimes he was couldn't have been nicer. I think he'd like to see an end to this. I do. I think what I took from the meeting couldn't have been nicer, actually. But I took from the meeting that he'd like to see it end. I think it's a great time to end it. I'm going to speak to Vladimir Putin, see if we can get it ended. But look, these brave people, they're fighting these wars all over the place. You know, last week they had, I guess, close, I told you, seven close to seven thousand young soldiers, Russian and Ukrainian soldiers were killed. Seven thousand in one week. It's crazy. It's crazy. So I'll be speaking to Putin. No, I had a good meeting with with Zelensky and I had a lot of good meetings with a lot of good meetings with a lot of people, a lot of great leaders. But he's fighting a brave battle. It's a tough battle. Yeah. Go ahead, white dress.
Reporter: Thank you. Ida Hallikannan from Finland. You have played golf with President Alexander Stube. How do you see Finland as a NATO ally and partner? And how would you describe your relationship with our president?
Trump: Well, he's a very good golfer. OK. In fact, he was in his college golf team. He went to a good college in the south, as you know, a very good college, and he was a good golfer. We had a good time. I think my relationship's great. I want to buy icebreakers. You know, you're very good at icebreakers. And I actually made him an offer. I didn't go to Congress so they’ll try to impeach me for this. But there's an old. It's not old. It's fairly new, but it's used icebreaker. And I offered him about one third of what he asked for. But we're negotiating. We need icebreakers in the U.S. And if we can get some inexpensively, I'd like to do that. Actually, they'll fix it up. Make it good. Also, we may buy some icebreakers. You know that you make here, you're the king of icebreakers, that particular country. They make them good. They make them really good. And they know what they're doing. And so we're negotiating with them for about 15 different icebreakers. But one of them is available now. It's old and it's, you know, not old. It's like five, six years old. Now we're trying to buy it. I'm trying to make a good deal. That's all I do. My whole life. My whole life. That's all I do is make deals. Yeah. Please. Go ahead, sir. Go ahead. Yeah.
Reporter: A question for a news hour at Dutch TV. First of all, on Article Five on your way here, you spoke about the commitment of the U.S. to Article Five saying, I'll give you my definition once we're here. What is your definition and made the U.S. commitment to Article five change in case some of the NATO members do not reach the threshold that was discussed today? My second question is following up on a colleague on Iran. What intel reports do say that everything over there was obliterated?
Trump: Yeah. Well, there are numerous of those reports and they're coming out fast and furious. But the most respected ones we've already seen. And I will say that on a very confidential basis, they're looking at the reports, like numerous reports, and including people going to the site and checking the site. And they're going to be having I guess you're going to be having over the next couple of days a full encapsulated. But no, the site was obliterated, just like I said it was. And just like the pilots should be given credit for. As far as Article Five, look, when I came here, I came here because it was something I'm supposed to be doing. But I left here a little bit different, differently. I said I watched the heads of these countries get up and the love and the passion that they showed for their country was unbelievable. I've never seen quite anything like it. They want to protect their country and they need the United States. And without the United States, it's not going to be the same. And you can ask Mark or you can ask any of the people that were there. It was really moving to see it. They love their country. They were so respectful of me because I'm the head of the United States and I made you know, the king of Saudi Arabia when I was in, I was in the Middle East, so I was in Qatar for a different reason, not a reason to get shot at. We were in there for economic development reasons. Qatar, UAE and Saudi Arabia, all three leaders of those countries. And we took back five point one trillion dollars into the United States. All three leaders said, you know, you're presiding over the hottest country of the world. The United States right now is the hottest. Everybody wants to be there. Everybody, everybody wants a piece of it. He said a year ago, your country was dead. You had a deadhead running it. had a country that was dead and it was dead. You had people pouring through the borders, inflation, you had everything. He said you've made it in five months at that time. You've made it the hottest country. This is the hottest country in the world. The United States right now is the hottest country in the world. And when I was around that table, it was a nice group of people, many of whom I knew from previous - when I saw the passion they had for the country, almost everyone and you probably have the tapes. It was very public, but almost every one of them said, thank God for the United States. Without the United States, we couldn't. They couldn't really have NATO. It wouldn't work. It wouldn't work. It will in the future because now they're paying much more money. But it wouldn't work. It was great. And I left here differently. I left here saying that these people really love their countries. It's not a rip off. And we're here to help them protect their country. OK, we'll do one or two more.
Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President. As far as Spain. Are you satisfied with today?
Trump: Oh, I think Spain's terrible what they've done. No, I do. They're the only country that won't pay the full up. They want to stay at 2 percent. I think it's terrible. And, you know, they're doing very well. The economy is very well. And that economy could be blown right out of the water with something bad happening. And Spain is the only country that - are you from Spain? Good. Congratulations. You're the only country that is not paying. I don't know what the problem is. I think it's too bad. So we'll make it up. You know, we're going to do we're negotiating with Spain on a trade deal. We're going to make them pay twice as much. And I'm actually serious about that. We're going to make Spain. I like Spain. There are so many people from Spain that it's a great place and they're great people. But Spain is the only country out of all of the countries that refuses to pay. And you know, so they want a little bit of a free ride, but they'll have to pay it back to us on trade because I'm not going to let that happen. It's unfair. It's unfair. All right, sir, please. Go ahead. Right in the back. Yeah. The tall man.
Reporter: Mr. President, Johannes Petra from Austrian National Television, how you once said that you would end the Ukraine war in 24 hours, you later said you said that certain sarcastically.
Trump: Of course, it was sarcastic.
Reporter: But you've now been in office for five months and five days. Why have you not been able to end the Ukraine war?
Trump: Because it's more difficult than people would have any idea. Vladimir Putin has been more difficult, frankly, I had some problems with Zelensky. You may have read about them and it's been more difficult than other wars. I mean, look, we just ended a war in 12 days that was simmering for 30 years, frankly. We ended Rwanda and the Congo. They’re coming to sign the documents. We've already signed basic documents, but they're coming, I think, to the White House on Friday. We ended Serbia and they were going to go at it. But maybe the most important of all, India and Pakistan. And that wasn't whether or not they may someday have nukes like we're talking about in the Middle East, like we're talking about with Israel and Iran. This is they have nuclear weapons. I ended that with a series of phone calls on trade. I said, look, if you're going to go fighting each other - it was getting very bad. You know how bad that last attack was. It was really bad. If you're going to go fighting each other, we're not doing any trade deal. No, no, no. You have to do a trade deal. I said, we're not doing any trade deal. And in fact, I had the general who really was very impressive. The general from Pakistan was in my office last week. You know, Prime Minister Modi is a great friend of mine. He's a great gentleman. He's a great man. And I got them to reason. I said, we're not doing a trade deal if you're going to fight. And if you're going to fight each other, we're not doing a trade deal. And you know what? He said, no, I want to do the trade deal. We stopped the nuclear war. Go ahead. Go ahead, Jeff. Here's another beauty, Jeff. He's a beauty. All right. Go ahead.
Reporter: Mr. President, a follow up on Ukraine. Will the United States contribute any more money to Ukraine's defense this year to the five billion that allies are giving? And one question. You had another meeting with the Dutch opposition leader, Mr. Wilders. Can you tell us about that meeting? And are you upset about his anti-Muslim stance?
Trump: I'm not upset about it. It's just his view. He's unhappy with the way things are going in this country, in various countries. He was an opposition leader. And I was asked to meet with the opposition leader by the people that are running. I think they have some deal where if you have a meeting is supposed to be with an opposition leader. I said, that's strange. That's that. But I met the I don't I didn't know him. He seemed like a very nice guy. But he's in opposition to the current people. And that was set up by the current people. So I assume when I met with the prime minister, you're supposed to meet with the opposition. We'll have to try that sometime in our country. Let's not do it. But he was he was I thought he was very good as far as money going. We'll see what happens. There's a lot of spirit. Look, Vladimir Putin really has to end that war. People are dying at levels that people haven't seen before for a long time. Go ahead. Go ahead. White shirt. Oh, she's all excited.
Reporter: So BBC News, Ukrainian.
Trump: Where are you from?
Reporter: I'm from Ukraine. Oh, so my question to you is whether or not the U.S. is ready to sell anti air missile systems patriot to Ukraine. We know that Russia has been pounding Ukraine really heavily right now.
Trump: Are you living yourself now in Ukraine?
Reporter: My husband is there and –
Trump: I can see you're very, you know, it's amazing.
Reporter: And me with the kids, I mean, also, actually, because he wanted me to meet –
Trump: Is your husband, a soldier?
Reporter: Yes. He's, he's there now. Yeah.
Trump: Wow. That's rough stuff, right? That's tough. And you're living here?
Reporter: In Warsaw.
Trump: And you're a reporter.
Reporter: I am.
Trump: Good.
Trump: So let me just tell you, they do want to have the anti-missile missiles, OK, as they call them, the patriots. And we're going to see if we can make some available. You know, they're very hard to get. We need them to. We were supplying them to Israel. And they're very effective, 100 percent effective, hard to believe how effective. And they do want that more than any other thing, as you probably know. That's a very good question. And I wish you a lot of luck. I mean, I can see it's very upsetting to you. So say hello to your husband, OK? Thank you. Go ahead.
Reporter: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. You were criticizing -
Trump: Where are you from?
Reporter: Bloomberg News.
Trump: Oh, Bloomberg. You were wonderful.
Reporter: You were criticizing the Federal Reserve chair before coming to this summit.
Trump: I think he's terrible.
Reporter: I was wondering if you've begun interviewing different candidates for the Fed pick?
Trump: Yeah, I know within three or four people who are going to pick. I mean, he goes up pretty soon, fortunately, because I think he's terrible. We have no inflation. We have a tremendous economy. Hundreds of billions of dollars of tariff money is pouring in. Factories are being built because they don't want to pay the tariffs, so they're building them all over the country. I think we're close to 15 trillion dollars. I told you five point one trillion from the Middle East alone, but of investment money coming in. There's never been anything like that in the history of our country. But we have no inflation. And we have borrowing because Biden, stupidly, they did short-term debt. So we have borrowing coming up and, you know, we'll go 10 years, maybe longer, maybe shorter, but we'll go a long period of time when we do the debt. And because of him, because of this guy, we will have to pay for years. We'll be paying for him. And I said to him, listen, there's no inflation. He says, but maybe there'll be some. That's true. I said, if there is some, what you do is raise the rate. I'm OK with that. You raise the rate in two years from now or a year from now. But because the rate's high, we have to pay more for debt. It's pretty equal. In other words, if it's four percent, it's four percent. If you drop at a point, you'll pay three percent. So it's fairly equal—not necessarily, but fairly equal. So we're going to end up paying maybe two points or three points more. Three points would be about nine hundred billion dollars a year because of this very average mentally person. He's an average mentally person. I'd say low in terms of what he does—low, low IQ for what he does. OK, great. So instead of paying nine hundred billion dollars, we don't want to pay nine hundred just because he doesn't want to lower the rate. I said, if there's inflation in two years or three years or one year from now, you raise the rate. You're the inflation, among other things. But he's probably a very political guy, I guess. I don't know. I think he's a very stupid person, actually. All right. One more. Let's go. How about you? Go ahead. She looks so happy and everything.
Reporter: Thank you.
Trump: That's why I picked her.
Reporter: I'm from Spain, too. I'm on a book from La Banguardia.
Trump: I wanted to know if you were from Spain. I wanted to know if you want to. That's the Spain corner right there. I shouldn't have said that. That's OK. I do like Spain, by the way. I think it's unfair that they're not paying. But go ahead.
Reporter: Are you going to negotiate directly with Spain about -
Trump: I'm going to negotiate directly with Spain. I'm going to do it myself. They're going to pay. They'll pay more money this way. You should tell them to go back and pay. You're a reporter. Tell them to go back. They ought to join all of those countries that are paying five percent. Spain's going to be just about the only one that's not. They were the most hostile toward doing it. This doesn't make sense to me. OK. Kelly, go ahead. Here we go. Here's another one.
Reporter: Thank you.
Trump: We got them all today. OK.
Reporter: So, Mr. President, you talked about expecting some on the ground assessments at Fordo and other sites. Now, here's that. Here again. And U.S.
Trump: It's been obliterated Kelly. It's been -
Reporter: So what is your message then, sir, to the intelligence community when they present reports? You're not disputing the report. You're just
Trump: They presented a report that wasn't finished. We're talking about something that took place three days ago.
Reporter: I understand that the report was done two days ago.
Trump: Wait a minute.
Reporter: Yes.
Trump: They didn't see it. All they can do is take a guess. Now, if you take a look at the pictures, if you take a look how it's all black, you know, the fire and brimstone is all underground because it's granite and it's all underground. You don't show it. But even there, with all of that being said, the whole area for seventy-five yards around the hole where it hit is black with fire. The group that's run by this gentleman—you may want to talk about it for a second because we're going to issue a report. And I think it's not even a very exciting report at this point. It's been obliterated, totally obliterated. And they did a report. But it was like, if you look at the dates, it's just a few days after it happened. So they didn't see it. They said it may be very severe.
Reporter: Understood. Do you have a message for the intelligence community, though, in terms of unvarnished information getting to you that it's not.
Trump: I don't really have a message. I would say issue the report when you know what happened. I wouldn't say that it could be severe or maybe not. They use the word severe. It could be severe or maybe it's not. So people like you picked up and said, oh, it's not severe. No, the report was not a complete report. Yeah. The message was probably wait till you know the answer before you.
Reporter: Did you not have a public to your Zelensky meeting for a tactical reason with President Putin? Hello, Mr. Secretary.
Pete Hegseth: Yeah. There's a reason the president calls out fake news for what it is. These pilots, these refuelers, these fighters, these air defenders—the skill and the courage it took to go into enemy territory flying thirty-six hours on behalf of the American people and the world to take out a nuclear program—is beyond what anyone in this audience can fathom. And then the instinct, the instinct of CNN, the instinct of The New York Times, is to try to find a way to spin it for their own political reasons, to try to hurt President Trump or our country. They don't care what the troops think. They don't care what the world thinks. They want to spin it to try to make him look bad based on a leak. Of course, we've all seen plenty of leakers. And what leakers do—they have agendas. And what do they do? Do they share the whole information or just the part that they want to introduce? And when they introduce that preliminary report that's deemed to be a low assessment, you know what a low assessment means? Low confidence in the data in that report. And why is there low confidence? Because all of the evidence of what was just bombed by twelve 30,000-pound bombs is buried under a mountain—devastated and obliterated. So if you want to make an assessment of what happened at Fordow, you better get a big shovel and go really deep, because Iran's nuclear program is obliterated. And somebody somewhere is trying to leak something to say, oh, with low confidence, we think maybe it's moderate. Those that dropped the bombs precisely in the right place know exactly what happened when that exploded. And you know who else knows? Iran. That's why they came to the table right away, because their nuclear capabilities have been set back beyond what they thought was possible—because of the courage of a commander in chief who led our troops, despite what the fake news wants to say. But you're not disputing the report said what it said, even though it was initial. The report said what it said, and it was fine. It was severe, they think, but they had no idea. They shouldn't have issued a report until they did. But we've gotten the information.
Trump: I think Pete said it better than you can say it. And you know, you should be proud. You especially—you should be proud of those pilots, and you shouldn't be trying to demean them. Those pilots flew at great risk. Big chance that they'd never come back home and see their husbands or their wives. Let me just tell you, you and NBC fake news, which is one of the worst—CNN, CNN, New York Times—are all bad. They're sick. There's something wrong with them. But you know what? You should be praising those people instead of trying to get me—by trying to go and get me, you're hurting those people. They were devastated. You know, I got a call from Missouri, great state that I won three times by a lot. And I got a call that the pilots and the people on the plane were devastated because they were trying to minimize the attack. And they all said it was hit. Oh, but we don’t think it was really maybe hit that badly. And they were devastated. They put their lives on the line and then they have—and I’m not referring to you—but real scum, real scum come out and write reports that are as negative as they could possibly be. It should be the opposite. You should make them heroes and heroines. You should make them really people that—they were so devastated when they heard this news. And you know what they said? I spoke to one of them—said, "Sir, we hit the site. It was perfect. It was dead on." Because they don’t understand fake news, because they have a normal life—except they have to fly very big, very fast planes. But it’s a shame. You should be making them heroes. All right. In the back. Go ahead. Back. White. Yeah. White jacket. Yeah. Go ahead.
Reporter: Deborah Haynes from Sky News.
Trump: Good.
Reporter: Mark Ritter, the NATO chief, who is your friend. He called you daddy earlier. Do you regard your NATO allies as kind of children?
Trump: No, he likes me. I think he likes me. If he doesn't, I'll let you know. I'll come back and I'll hit him hard. OK. He did. He did it very affectionate. Daddy. You're my daddy.
Reporter: Do you regard your NATO allies, though, as kind of like children? And they're obviously listening to you and they're spending more. And you're obviously appreciative of that. But do you hope that actually they're going to be able to defend themselves, defend Europe on their own?
Trump: I think they need help a little bit at the beginning. And I think they'll be able to. And I think they're going to remember this day. And this is a big day for NATO. You know, this was a very big day. They took it. One of the gentlemen said, you know what? We've been trying to raise money for raise the rate for 30 years, he said 20 years from almost the beginning. And he's been there for a long time. He said, until you came along, it never happened. What you did is amazing. It's been sort of an amazing day for a lot of reasons, but also for that. Yeah. Go ahead.
Reporter: You think they can do it without you, though? In the future? Can they do it?
Trump: Well, ask Mark. I mean, you have to ask Mark. OK, so we're heading back. We're heading back. I want to thank these two gentlemen behind me. They're incredible people, both of them. They're really they've done a fantastic job. And Susie's in the front and she's done great. And Monica, thank you very much. That was quite an exciting time. And we're going to be heading back. We'll be back soon. And we'll see you in Washington, D.C. Remember this. We have the hottest country anywhere in the world. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.