TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Hosts an Easter Egg Roll at the White House, 4.6.26
[Video]
President Trump: That's beautiful. Thank you. [Inaudible] appreciate it. Does he have a good voice or what? I think we're going to send him to The Met. We'll get a little commission, make a lot of money because that man can sing. Thank you very much. Not the first time we've heard him. So today is a very special day. It's a day where we celebrate Jesus.
It's a day where we celebrate religion. And it's an honor to be the President of the United States. Our country is doing so well, like it has never done before. You'll see that very shortly. And things that we've done have not been done before. We've broken every record on the stock market. We've broken every record in our military.
And what about the rescue that took place yesterday? What about that? That's something that you rarely see. You know, they were giving me a briefing about that and they said, normally when you're in very hostile territory, and I don't think it gets much more hostile than Iran, they're capable fighters, they're very tough people and there are others like that.
You don't mind when the enemy is weak, but that enemy is strong, not so strong like they were about a month ago, I can tell you. In fact, right now they're not too strong at all in my opinion, but we're soon going to find out, aren't we? But when a thing like that happens, where a pilot shot down, in most instances, you're really not able to go in. Because you'll go in with 200 people and lots of jet fighters and helicopters, and, uh, you really don't have a chance.
They get shot down. You lose 200 in order to pick up one. It's a horrible thing, but it's very rare that you can do it. And what we did yesterday is we picked up not one, we picked up two. We kept the first one quiet and we were able to keep it quiet for about a day, which made it a lot better but those two pilots were incredible, brave and we thank them.
And we're going to be having a news conference today at 1:00 at the Oval Office, and we look forward to it. But I just want to say, we have a great military. We have the greatest military, the most powerful military any place in the world. You saw what happened with Venezuela. And it's an honor. I built it in my first term, and I didn't know I was going to be using it this much in my second term, but it's my honor, and they're the greatest people on earth.
Our warriors are the greatest fighters on earth and, uh, they very much appreciate you and love you and that's why they do it. So this is all about today. I must tell you, I came out and I expected we were going to be talking about farmers and we love our farmers. We were going to talk about so many different products.
But you know what they want to talk about, sir, this is about eggs, eggs, because we have the egg farmers of the entire country here, and they are unbelievable. And if you remember, when I first got elected, my first news conference with the fake news, a lot of fake news here today. But I had a news conference and the first question, what are you going to do about eggs, sir?
I said, what are you -- what's wrong with eggs? I just got there. It's my second day in office. I had a news conference. And they were screaming at me, what am I going to do about eggs? And I said, well, it's like -- what's -- tell me what's wrong with eggs. The price was so high. It was four times higher than it was a year before.
I said, well, that sounds like a problem let me think about it. And Brooke Rollins, our great secretary of Agriculture, she got involved, we all got involved. They didn't want me -- as you know, just last year, it's hard to believe, they didn't want me to order eggs for the Easter egg roll, the Easter egg hunt that we have here every year.
They wanted me to use plastic. I said, I'm not using plastic; we'll get it solved. And within a short period of time, eggs came down. They came down 40 percent, 50 percent. And by the time we got there, we had so many eggs we didn't know what to do with them. And today, we have more than 40,000 eggs supplied by all of the great egg farmers that are with us. So it's -- eggs is a big thing and it was a big thing to our great first lady, who's here someplace.
Let's see. I think this is our first lady. What do you think of our first lady? She's a movie star. I don't know. Do we call her first lady or a movie star? She has the biggest movie. Can you believe this? And she deserves it. Would you like to say a couple of words to your friends? Come on.
Melania Trump: Happy Easter Monday. I hope you enjoyed this beautiful day. We are celebrating a very special Easter egg roll this year because it's 250 birthday of this beautiful nation. Enjoy it and I hope you have a wonderful day.
Trump: Thanks. Thank you, honey. And she worked very hard with her staff and the staff of the White House on really just making it nice. This is the nicest I've ever seen it. So this is my fifth, and I will say that this is -- this gets better every time, right? It gets better every time. You notice the fencing, it's all brand-new.
I said, you know, we could have bought used fencing and saved a lot of money. They said, this is for the -- this is for Easter and this is for our egg farmers and we're going to get new fencing. Everything's new and everything's beautiful and the White House never looked better and our country never looked better.
So I just want to thank everybody. It's been a special period of time. One year ago, a little bit more, our country was dead. We had a dead country. We had an administration that didn't know what the hell they were doing. Today, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're respected by everybody, and that's the way we're going to keep it. That's the way we're going to keep it. So again, I want to thank all of the associations and the egg farmers and all of the people that are here.
We think we could have 50,000 people coming all day long. It's open. And they expect between 30,000 and 50,000 people, so that's great. And most importantly, I want to just say Happy Easter and God bless America. We have the greatest country on earth. God bless you all. You are very, very special people. Thank you, everybody. Have a good time.
Note: [Break in video while Donald Trump walked down from the balcony.]
Question: Mr. President, are you prepared
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: [Inaudible] fire proposal from this morning?
Trump: I've seen every proposal you can imagine [Inaudible]
Note:[Crosstalk]
Question: Is Tuesday your final deadline? Is Tuesday at 8:00 pm your final deadline?
Trump: Yeah.
Question: Does that meet your demands, Mr. President? Are you willing to continue the war?
Trump: Well, you'll have to watch.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: What do you think [Inaudible] proposal?
Trump: They've made a proposal, and it's a significant proposal. It's a significant step. It's not good enough, but it's a very significant step.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: They have made -- they're negotiating now, and they've made a very significant step. We'll see what happens.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Have you spoken to Keir Starmer, sir? And also, do you believe the UK could resurrect like Jesus this Easter week?
Trump: Well, that's what they need. They have a long way to go. The UK has a long way to go.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President?
Trump: We don't want another Neville Chamberlain. Do we agree? We don't want -- we don't want Neville Chamberlain.
Question : Mr. President, how is -- Mr. President, how is the airman doing now?
Trump :Who?
Question: How is the airman of this rescue doing?
Trump: He's doing really well. They're both doing well. You know, it was two. And we held off the one because we -- if you -- if they would have known we had him -- so we held off the one. They are both recovering very well. They were both injured, and they're doing well.
Question: Mr. President –
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Are you committed to committing a war crime in this war with Iran?
Trump: What else?
Question: Mr. President, you said that Iran had no anti-aircraft equipment. How were they able to drop those --
Trump: Well, you know what, when you do thousands and thousands of flights and you have one plane shot down and not -- mortally, the two pilots got out. They got a little bit lucky. And you know what, in war, you need a little bit of luck also. They got a little bit lucky. That's all they got.
Question: What's stopping you from ending the war? What's stopping you from ending the war in Iran?
Trump: Well, it could end very quickly, the war, if they do what they have to do. They have to do certain things. They know that they've been negotiating, I think in good faith. We've had total regime change. You know, the people there now are much more reasonable than the lunatics that you had in phase one and phase two.
They were lunatics. The people that we're negotiating with now in -- on behalf of Iran are much more reasonable. You can call it what you want, but I call it regime change. And I think most people are giving us credit for that. The first regime was taken out. The second regime was taken out. Now the third group of people that we're dealing with is not as radicalized, and we think they're actually much smarter.
Question: Who are those –
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question :Why did you use such vulgar language in that Truth Social post –
Trump: Only to make my point. I think you've heard it before.
Question: Mr. President have you spoken to the families [Inaudible] have you spoken to the families of the airmen that were saved?
Trump: I'm going to be doing it right now.
Question: Mr. President, what do you say to Americans that are not a fan of the war?
Trump: They're foolish, because the war is about one thing, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Had we not broken the Barack Hussein Obama agreement, you know that -- you know what I'm talking about, the Iran nuclear deal. This is years ago, my first term. You would have had a total -- Israel would have been gone, extinguished.
Israel would be -- would have been wiped off the face of the earth and the entire Middle East would have been, at a minimum, in big trouble. But I did it. That was phase one. We killed Soleimani. Without Soleimani -- if they had Soleimani, it would be a whole different thing, maybe. We'd still be winning, but it would have been harder.
Because we are obliterating that country. And I hate to do it, but we're obliterating and they just don't want to say uncle. They don't want to cry, as the expression goes, uncle, but they will. And if they don't, they'll have no bridges, they'll have no power plants, they'll have no anything. I won't -- I won't go further, because there are other things that are worse than those two, and we might have -- well, the thing -- if I had my choice, what would I like to do, take the oil.
Because it's there for the taking. There's not a thing they can do about it. Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home. If it were up to me, I'd take the oil. I'd keep the oil and would make plenty of money. And I'd also take care of the people of Iran much better than they've been taken care of. It's been a horrible -- they've killed 45,000 people as of a month and a half ago, 45,000 protesters.
We don't do that. So if I had my choice, I'd keep the oil but I also want to make the people of our country happy. I think most people wouldn't understand that. I'll give you an example, Venezuela has worked out so incredibly. We have 100 million barrels of oil right now in Houston being refined. It's been great.
The relationship with Venezuela, the leaders has been fantastic, and I think we're going to have a long-term, very good relationship. And it might be -- and it might be beyond long-term. You understand what that means.
Question: How do you know that?
Trump: Well, I tell you what, I'm pretty good at this stuff and I go around and I check. They'd like to see us win and come home. And, uh, I appreciate CNN, for the first time maybe in my life, they did a poll -- and everyone saying, oh, is Trump losing MAGA. No, I'm not losing MAGA. MAGA loves what I'm doing. And CNN did a poll of MAGA voters, a big poll, very important poll, Harry.
And he went on, he said, this is amazing, 100 percent support. He said, I've never had a 100 percent poll at anything before, and is, do you support Trump, MAGA people, which is, by the way, mostly Republican. If you look, I would say MAGA makes up a majority, like about 95 percent of the Republican Party.
All right? So they went out, they did a poll at CNN, came back 100 percent support. So they support what we're doing, but they would like to see it end and come back. But remember, wars last years, we're in there for 34 days. And we've obliterated a very powerful country in 34 days. Yeah, if it were up to me, I'd like to keep the oil. I just don't think the people of the United States would really understand.
Question: How is it taking care of the Iranian people if you're bombing --
Trump: Yeah, who are you with? Who are you with?
Question: Donald Trump Yeah well, that's a radical left group of lunatics that you're with. Let me just tell you. Let me just tell you, very fair question. The Iranian people, when they don't hear bombs go off, they're upset. They want to hear bombs because they want to be free. And the only reason they're not out protesting, you know that, is because they were informed that if they protest, like the wrestler and his friends, if they protest, they will be shot immediately.
Trump: And that's an edict. That's in writing. If they protest, if they go out in the streets, they will be immediately shot. They don't have guns. You know, we sent some guns, but the group that was supposed to give -- which I said would happen, to my people. I said it. I called it exactly. We sent guns, a lot of guns.
They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against these thugs. You know what happened, the people that they sent them to kept them because they said, what a beautiful gun, I think I'll keep it. So I'm very upset with a certain group of people, and they're going to pay a big price for that.
But the Iranian people will fight back as soon as they know they're not going to be shot, and as soon as they can get weapons. If they had weapons, not many of them, if they had weapons that were going the other way, and you know what would happen, Iran would give up in two seconds because they wouldn't be able to take it. But in Iran, they have absolutely no weaponry and they've been told point blank, if you come out -- if you come out to the streets, you will be killed. As of this morning, and we have -- this is on pretty good information, 45,000 protesters have been killed, pretty bad.
Question: Mr. President, you said Iran has been obliterated. Why are we still at war then?
Trump: It's a big country. They can't fight back. They have no capability. Uh, I mean, they'll have -- they have some missiles left. They have some drones left, but essentially, they have no capability. They had a lucky shot with an airplane, but we got them back out. The rescue was incredible. And it wasn't of one person, it was of two persons.
There are those that say that's never happened before. Because usually, when you're shot down in strong enemy and deep enemy territory, you can't go after them because you'll end up losing 250 people to get one, so it's a terrible thing. But we had to make a decision, do we do it or do we not? And we did.
And, you know, we have some helicopters with a lot of bullet holes in them right now, probably. You know that. No, I'm very honored by -- I'm very honored to have rebuilt our military -- in my first term -- second term and we are the most respected country anywhere in the world, with the greatest military anywhere in the world. Thank you. So we have a news conference. You'll all be there so you can ask the question in a little while. We have a news conference in a little while. What would you like to ask her?
Question: What she wants to say. Madam First Lady, can you tell us your message to children who find themselves in war zones during this Holy Week?
Melania Trump: Well, all of this is happening for their future, so they will be saved in years to come.
Trump: [Inaudible] children that are now in a war zone, we're keeping them as safe as we can possibly keep them. But we're fighting for their parents, their grandparents. We're fighting for them, we're fighting for their future. And I will tell you, it was given to me loud and clear, the time the Iranian people are the most unhappy when you hear bombs all over, is when those bombs stop
.
That's the problem. It's when they stop, because that means that are they coming back, we want to have them back. And, you know, everybody knows it. Everybody sees it. So, uh, hopefully it can be over with quickly. Again, there are lots of different alternatives. We have many alternatives. We could leave right now and it would take them 15 years to rebuild what they have.
We could leave right now, but I want to finish it up. Iran ready to not have a nuclear weapon they are lunatics and you can't put nuclear weapons in the hands of a lunatic. Thank you very much. We'll see you at 1:00.
Note: [Break in video]
Trump: Anybody in the egg industry vote for Kamala, a low IQ -- she's a low IQ person? Who's a lower IQ person, Biden or Kamala?
Unidentified: It's close.
Trump: That's probably the toughest question. That's a tough question.
Unidentified: President Trump, can we -- can we take a picture like [Inaudible]
Trump: [Inaudible]
Unidentified: She is. That's why I voted for you.
Trump: Real fast.
Unidentified: No, no, no. Come, come. [Inaudible] like you're [Inaudible] my daughter.
Trump: [Inaudible] come on, Mom. Mom's very aggressive.
Unidentified: Very.
Trump: She's an aggressive mom.
Unidentified: Yes, she is. Thank you.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Got it?
Unidentified: Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. [Inaudible] so the little guy
Trump: What happened to your country?
Unidentified: President Trump, [Inaudible] -- He's right here. Say hi, buddy.
Trump: How beautiful. How beautiful is that? How beautiful. Ladies and gentlemen, we have the most powerful man in government with us today, Mr. Jamieson Greer. Have you heard of him? He's right here. Come on over here, Jamieson. How are we doing on trade?
Jamieson Greer: We're doing well, sir. We, uh, we've exported more in the past two months the United States have exported, over $300 billion in January and February. It's the highest in American history of export thanks to his deals.
Trump: [Inaudible] this guy's fantastic. Look at him, my friend. You doing OK? Huh? Do you want to say something? So your son will be -- come on up. Come on up. This way your son's going to be impressed by you. He's high tech.
Unidentified:Yes, sir.
Trump: He's all -- go ahead, say a couple of words.
Unidentified: Well, the economy is doing great. The high tech sector is amazing. AI is booming. We got so many data centers going up, it's really incredible.
Trump: Are you impressed now with your father?
Unidentified: Yeah.
Trump: He made a beautiful speech. Doing a great -- you guys are great.
Greer: Thank you, sir.
Trump: I think we're doing good. [Inaudible] OK? [Inaudible] regardless [Inaudible] and we're doing well with the electric, everything fine?
Unidentified: Yeah. Yes, sir. I'll see you [Inaudible] do you know that? I think I'm on your schedule.
Trump: Do you know that, or what?
Unidentified: [Inaudible]
Trump: Come on over here. You have a great day. [Inaudible] oh, look at him --
Greer: -- only have one name.
Trump: [Inaudible]
Greer: I know. Can you believe that?
Trump: A happy, beautiful [Inaudible] look.
Melania Trump: Sure.
Unidentified: Thank you.
Melania Trump: Thank you.
Unidentified: Thank you.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: What a nice hat. Where did you get this hat? I want this hat. This is a beautiful hat. Look at the tall [Inaudible] guy there, huh?
Unidentified: That's Jacob. [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Unidentified: Could we go this way for one second?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Unidentified: Say, hi, Mr. Trump. Say, hi, Mr. Trump.
Trump: Hello, sweetheart.
Unidentified: Hi, sir.
Trump: [Inaudible]
Unidentified: Thank you.
Stephen Miller: [Inaudible] amazing. [Inaudible]
Trump: [Inaudible] I hope we don't have to do it. [Inaudible] I love that hat. Where did you get it? I'm serious.
Unidentified: Where did you get it? Tell him.
Trump: I can't get a hat like that. Look, it's even got -- who's your dad?
Unidentified: [Inaudible]
Trump: Well, that's big stuff.
Unidentified: Could you also sign this?
Trump: OK.
Unidentified: Could you also sign this?
Trump: Where? Where? Where?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: I don't even mind if it was used before. Are you ready?
Unidentified: Hi, President Trump.
Trump: Ready?
Unidentified: Yeah.
Trump: Get set. [Donald Trump blows a whistle]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Unidentified: Is everybody watching? You kids are up next.
Trump: Are you all ready? Ready?
Unidentified: Yeah. [Inaudible] very athletic. [Inaudible] -- [Donald Trump blows a whistle]
Trump: Ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? Get set. Ready. Get set.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Come on. Get back. [Inaudible]
Unidentified: Hi, Mr. Trump.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: I recognize that one right there, where the shapes are. Oh, yeah? [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: I can sign autographs for you guys. And then tonight, you can sell them for $25,000 on eBay?
Unidentified: Can you sign mine? Can you sign mine?
Unidentified: Carolina, do you want to give grandpa your picture?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Carolina is the only one that doesn't want my autograph.
Unidentified: [Inaudible]
Trump: She has no -- she has zero -- I would say Carolina has zero interest in my autograph. Oh, that's nice. I think I'm going to sign this, that way I can say I drew it. Look what I did everybody.
Unidentified: Can you sign the back?
Trump: You know, Biden would use the autopen.
Unidentified: What?
Trump: He'd have an autopen follow him. You know Joe Biden? He didn't sign. He was incapable of signing his name, so they'd follow him around with this big machine. You know what it's called, an autopen. And he'd have the autopen sign for him. He'd take the paper, hand it to his guys, they'd sign it with an autopen, give it back. Not too good, right? Better to sign it.
Unidentified: President Trump, I --
Trump: OK. That's for the fake news.
Unidentified: I made an air force plane --
Trump: Who likes the fake news? Does anybody like the fake news?
Unidentified: No.
Trump: Look how beautiful they are.
Unidentified: One of my neighbors --
Trump: Are you going to go to work for NASA someday?
Unidentified: No. I mean, maybe.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Unidentified: I made it for you to keep it.
Trump: OK. Here's for you. [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Unidentified: Thank you, Donald Trump. But President Trump, this one was for you to keep. Honey.
Trump: Honey, where's yours? Everybody [Inaudible]
Unidentified: President Trump? President Trump -- President Trump, I made this one for you.
Trump: I'm signing. They won't let me draw. They keep giving me things -- you're still being a great artist.
Unidentified: [Inaudible] I wanted you to -- I wanted you to keep this.
Trump: Very talented. You want to be an artist one day?
Unidentified: No, I want to be a football player.
Trump: You have to grow a little bit. That's right. And you're a good artist. What position do you want to play?
Unidentified: I want to play linebacker.
Trump: I look at him and say he's a great -- he's the best looking photographer. I don't know if he's our best -- but he's our best looking.
Unidentified: You've got another one behind you. He wants your [Inaudible]
Trump: Wow. Did you do this? [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: OK. [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Unidentified: Thank you, President Trump.
Trump: Thank you very much. Good luck with the linebacker. You're going to have to do a lot of working out, day, night, day, night. You're going to become [Inaudible] you're going to have to love hitting [Inaudible]
Unidentified: Yeah.
Trump: You like that?
Unidentified: I like [Inaudible]
Trump: [Inaudible] looking at the White House -- too long. I got a lot [Inaudible]
Note: [Audio Gap]
Trump: See what we're doing? We're fixing up [Inaudible] 1799 [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: See the middle column? See the column right [Inaudible] two columns. Now go up [Inaudible] see the broken piece? See it? [Inaudible] do you think anyone else can see it? [Inaudible] look at that and [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Turnberry. This is [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Get him another egg.
Unidentified: Go get another egg.
Trump: [Inaudible] who's is this?
Unidentified: Right here. [Inaudible] right here.
Trump: Where's your father? Is that guy here, the handsome guy?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: I owe you [Inaudible] greatest phrase in history, Make America Great Again. See, now it's great [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: They're going to all lose their job. No, they're going to lose their job. [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: You know what you do, you put [Inaudible] hey, Michael, [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: How long does an egg last? Does an egg last for 10 years? [Inaudible] an egg lasts for 10 years [Inaudible] a lot. [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Woah, that's good. [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: That's good. Is there an autopen around, please? Does anybody have an autopen? You know Biden used to -- they used to follow him with an autopen. And he'd give -- he gave everything to the autopen because he was incapable of signing, let alone running a country.
Unidentified: Yeah.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Is everybody having a good day? We need a little music? Come on. Get Michael moving. Come on, Michael.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: It's a wooden spoon. You know how I know that? My mother used to use it on me when I was bad. My mother would use this on me when I was bad. I recognize it very [Inaudible] I'll take the wooden spoon. I said [Inaudible]
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Who's your daughter? This one? You have beautiful hair? You have beautiful hair? [Inaudible] 51. He said, how old are you, I said 51. 51.
Unidentified: I thought you were 46. I thought you were 46.
Trump: [Inaudible]
Unidentified: Donald Trump.
Trump: What a great dancer.
Unidentified: Good dance.
Trump: Wow.
Unidentified: Donald Trump?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Unidentified: Is that your wife?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: [Inaudible]
Unidentified: Who is that? Who is that?
Trump: She's a movie star, came in from Hollywood. You know who she is? She came in from Hollywood.
Unidentified: Thank you so much. Oh my God. What is your favorite color in your house? What is your favorite color? What is your favorite color?
Trump: [Inaudible]
Unidentified: What is your favorite --
Note: Donald Trump? Donald Trump? Donald Trump? What is your favorite color?
Trump: [Inaudible] but I'm afraid that -- [Inaudible] it's not going to work. OK. Who's is this. Bye, guys. I'll see you later. Is she friend or foe? Are you friend or foe? They're only foe.
Unidentified: He's White House.
Trump: Who's is that?
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Who wants? OK. He's the thing, it's worth $10,000. Who wants the pen?
Unidentified: Me, me, me. Wow. Wow.
Trump: That's a lot of money.
Unidentified: No. No. Please.
Trump: [Inaudible] Who's going to be at the press conference? Who's not going to be? Nobody. Hey, Tiffany, there you go, coordinate.
Question: Mr. President, how would it not be a war crime to strike Iran's bridges and power plants?
Trump: Because they killed 45,000 people in the last month, more than that. It could be as much as 60,000. They killed protesters. They're animals. And we have to stop them and we can't let them have a nuclear weapon, very simple. They want a nuclear weapon. They've been trying for a long time. I stopped them with the Obama, horrible Iran nuclear deal.
I stopped them in a lot of different ways, with Soleimani, evil genius. He was an evil genius. We got rid of him. And then we stopped them with the B-2 bombers not so long ago. And if we didn't do it, Israel and the Middle East would have been extinguished by now.
Question: Why did you move -- why did you move [Inaudible]
Trump: [Inaudible] I hope they take the chance. If they don't [Inaudible]
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: So bad. It's such a bad -- it's such a bad network with such a pathetic -- is this your camera?
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: You what? Go ahead, go ahead.
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: [Inaudible] but will -- they'd like to have a ceasefire because they're getting obliterated. So we'll see how they behave. OK?
Question: Mr. President --
Trump: Number one, you have to have a lot of courage to do it because the chances of doing it are very small, successfully. And it's amazing that we had nobody even injured. It's amazing. It never happens. When pilots go down in war, you're in tough territory. Vietnam and places like Iran, it's tough to fight. They're nasty.
Very rarely do you go in, because you're going to send 200 people in on a mission, and that mission will likely be unsuccessful you're going to get one person and you're going to lose 200 people. It's something [Inaudible] we have a great military.
Question: -- diplomatic --
Trump: [Inaudible]
Question: It seems like diplomatic talks are picking up. Are you willing to hold off on attacking --
Trump: Well, I want to see. I don't even want to talk to you about it because I've given them chances and they haven't taken them, so I don't want to really talk about it. OK?
Question: -- the deadline back again?
Trump: Highly unlikely. They've had plenty of time. [Inaudible] I said, I'm going to give you 10, but at the end of 10, all hell's going to break out if you don't get there [Inaudible]
Question: Mr. President, do you expect Vice President Vance to continue to be talking to the intermediaries from Pakistan?
Trump: Well, he is, and we have Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. They're all unified, and we're all talking together. Yeah.
Question: Do you expect the vice president to be involved in an in-person meeting with officials?
Trump: Could be. Could be.
Question: In the coming days?
Trump: Could be, could happen.
Question: What else --
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: I love Hispanics.
Question: We love you too. Mr. President? What advice do you have --
Trump: [Inaudible] love your wife. Are you still happily married? Is this you? Is this for you?
Question: Well, we got about to be father right there, too.
Trump: [Inaudible] these are my all-time favorites. You got to be careful. You're about to be a father. You've come a long way. He's always been fair and he's always been fair. He went a little astray. No, not him. His girlfriend went a little astray, but these are minor details.
Question: This is really --
Trump: I still like him.
Question: I will say, on the other side of that coin we got a fatherless problem in the United States. So many kids are growing up without a father, without a father figure. You combine that without the Heavenly Father being in a lot of their homes, that one, two, punch is crushing a lot of these American families.
Trump: Well, the second thing has a lot to do with the first thing, and we want to bring religion back into our [Inaudible] bring in religion. And we have. You know, if you see what's going on, Brian, there's a real resurgence in religion and we like that. [Inaudible] you OK?
Question: I'm great. Good to see you. [Inaudible] real quickly. And thanks for your friendship, by the way, I appreciate that. You're going to talk about --
Trump: [Inaudible]
Question: Thank you. I never stopped supporting you, ever. You're going to talk about it today at 1:00, but how great was that rescue mission? Some people say they've never seen it before.
Trump: There's a theory that it's never happened because it's two pilots. It was two. And remember, the first day we went into an open desert and that helicopter had so many bullets. You would have respected helicopters. You would have said, no way it could stay.
Question: Right.
Trump: And it's loaded up with bullets. That's why we had to go a different way with the other one. The other one was tougher because it was no longer, the timing and the mountain, the mountainous terrain. He was amazing because he was able to get to a place to climb. When you're injured, to be able to climb that high, it was really incredible.
But it worked really good. They say it has never really been done before for two. It's been done on occasion for one, but two. When a plane goes down into truly hostile territory, you would rate that on top of the line hostile. I would say, can't be much tougher, tough people, tough fighters. And that's -- that was central right there.
That was central. That was Iran plus. And when planes go down in territories, whether it's Vietnam or Iran [Inaudible] the level of -- of fighting ability, I would say, you rarely go in because you have to -- we had 200 people go in there. And because of the location, because of where you are, you're surrounded by guns all over the place, guns, missiles, everything.
You can lose 200 people for the sake of getting one. So as much as we want to get our wounded and get our people out of there, and we want to do it badly, it just doesn't happen that much. And I said, let's go, let's do it. Very risky because we could have lost 100 to 200 people in order to get one.
Question: It went the other way.
Trump: And it went the other way.
Question: Mr. President? Mr. President?
Trump: They want to. I heard they want to.
Question: Is Melania going to direct it?
Trump: She should star in it.
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: She better star in it.
Question: Who do you want to play yourself?
Trump: I think the best looking guy around.
Question: What about yourself?
Trump: If he can't act, that's OK. I want the best looking guy. I don't care if he can act.
Question: Mr. President? Mr. President? Come say hi to the volunteers. The fact that you're able to authorize the US operation, the fact that it was so dangerous, the fact that it was successful, what message does that send to Iran as this deadline to come to a deal, about the lethality of our military capabilities?
Trump: I think they've seen it for the last 40 days. There is no military. Look at what we did with Venezuela and how well that's worked out. We're taking in hundreds of millions of barrels of oil and it's been an amazing relationship. We get along. It's the best thing that ever happened to Venezuela. They're back on track.
They're doing more business, even though we're essentially a partnership, on the oil. They're doing more business now in Venezuela than they've ever done before. Money's coming in like it's never come in before. It's amazing. And frankly, we could do the same here. Because if I had my wish, I would like to be able -- I would just like to take the oil, but I don't know that the American public wants that.
They want us to go in, do what we have to do and get out. You know what we -- we went in for a very simple reason and not regime change, but we got regime change. It's a whole different regime. This is a different group of people. They're more moderate. They're smarter, much smarter. And, you know, we blew up one regime, and we blew up another regime and now we're dealing with a third, and it is more moderate.
It's better. But we didn't do it for that. It seems to be a byproduct. We did it for a simple reason. You know what that is, no nuclear weapon. And they will never have a nuclear weapon. Now, on top of that, we've decimated their military. We've knocked their -- their navy is gone. Their air force is gone.
Most of their missiles are gone. Most of their drones are gone. And we've done a hell of a job. And their leadership is gone. Their radar is gone. Their anti-aircraft is gone. And they'll get a lucky shot off and, you know, if you shoot enough shots into the air, you're going to hit something, and that's what happened. But our military is great. We built a military that's great. I rebuilt the military in my first term, and I'm using it in my second term.
Question: Sir, do you have a message for the crew of Artemis II as they get ready to --
Trump: I do. I think they're fantastic. You know, Jared -- not Jared [Inaudible] this is my other Jared. I have two Jared's in my life, right? Jared's done a fantastic job at NASA. And he's been amazing and -- and everybody told me he was going to be good. I didn't know he'd be that good. And he's got that thing hopping. He's got NASA hopping. And, you know, he was an astronaut. He was -- he's -- he's done this. Very successful guy and he's doing a great job.
Question: Does it add to the meaning that this is happening in the 250th year of American independence?
Trump: Well, it was happening then and it's also happening at a time where we're in a very, very powerful, you could call it a military operation. People like me to call it that because they don't me -- like me using the word war. Because they say, he said war, oh -- but, uh, let's call it a military operation.
But, uh, no, Jared's doing a great job. NASA is amazing, actually amazing. And that's some ship and so risky. Personally, I wouldn't want to do it. OK. We all have courage. I would prefer not to.
And President Trump, did you ever think you'd see Trump derangement syndrome so bad that you got people on Twitter, looks like they're even rooting for Iran?
Uh, yeah, they're sick people. They're sick people, and they're weak people. You know, people that are rooting for -- they're weak, ineffective people. Uh, they lost. But you put them up in front -- put them right in front of me right here, and they wouldn't open their mouth. They wouldn't open their mouth. They're very weak, ineffective people.
Question: [Inaudible] behind us, the volunteers -- -- start building --
Trump: Who's doing their legal challenge?
Question: It's a group of veterans, sir.
Trump: A group of veterans.
Question: Because it obstructs the [Inaudible] between Arlington National Cemetery --
Trump: You got to be kidding. This was approved 100 years ago. Do you know that? It never got built. It was stopped by a thing called the Civil War. They've been -- that circle has sat there vacant for hundreds -- like 150 years or something. And they tried to do it again in around 1901, but it never happened. No, I think we're doing very well. I think it's going very good, and our veterans are the ones that should like it. It's called the Triumphal Arch. It's in honor of the veterans. I'll see you -- are you going to be at the news conference?
Question: I will. Mr. President, Mr. President, what would you say to the people who might be concerned that bombing civilian power plants could be avoided?
Trump: I'm not worried about it. You know what's -- I'm not worried about it. You know what's a war crime, having a nuclear weapon, allowing a sick country with demented leadership, have a nuclear weapon. That's a war crime. And if I allowed that to happen like seven other presidents did -- every president said -- you know, many of them are saying off the record and they're saying behind the scenes, they should have done this a long time ago.
Other -- for 47 years, this has been going on and every one of those presidents should have done it. And actually, as you know, off the record, they're doing it off the record because they haven't got the courage to say it, those presidents have given me a lot of credit. This should have been done by Obama. It should have been done by Clinton. It should have been done by the Bush's. It should have been done and it would have been a lot easier if it was done a long time ago, right? Do you agree with me?
Question: Yes, sir.
Trump: You know, the war crime, war crime is allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon. And take a look at the countries -- take a look. If they would have had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it. You'd have no Israel. You'd have no Middle East right now, and they would have been coming here. I'm not going to let that -- that would have been a war crime. Thank you.
Question: Mr. President [Inaudible] handshake. Excuse me? Mr. President –