‘Stupid’: Trump exposes left-wing reporter in brutal Oval Office takedown

[0:00] Any questions, please? [0:01] The Press. [0:02] The Press. [0:03] The Treasury lifted sanctions on Iranian oil today, sir? [0:06] The Treasury lifted sanctions on Iranian oil today, sir? [0:07] The Treasury lifted sanctions on Iranian oil today, sir? [0:08] Well, I'm going to have to find out exactly the status. [0:11] But if the sanctions go out, money is going to be put into this country. [0:16] All that money is coming back in the form of purchases of food, which they desperately [0:21] need. [0:22] They have 91 million people. [0:23] They can't feed them. [0:25] So the money that we lift is going to go to our farmers, largely to our farmers. [0:30] Can you ensure that the Iranians won't use profits from oil sales to rebuild their military? [0:35] Well, they're not supposed to be doing that, sir. [0:37] We'll see. [0:38] But they're supposed to use money to buy food for their people, because right now their [0:41] people are very hungry and they're buying it exclusively from us. [0:46] Corn, soybeans. [0:47] It should be a lot of money. [0:49] I hope it's a lot of money. [0:50] If there are more with Iran that could cause a worldwide depression, as you noted, Mr. [0:55] President, are you willing to risk economic catastrophe and strike Iran again? [0:59] Well, not the way I'm doing it. [1:00] It's not going to cause depression. [1:01] Yes, but if they don't abide by the memorandum of understanding. [1:04] Well, nuclear weapon supersedes depression. [1:07] Depression is real bad. [1:10] Nuclear weapon will cause depression much more quickly. [1:14] The way we're doing it, we have the opposite of a depression. [1:17] We're doing really well. [1:21] The numbers are incredible. [1:23] The oil is at a level that nobody's ever seen before. [1:26] Oil prices are way down. [1:28] I think they're very comparable to what they were. [1:30] Chris, I don't know, pretty comparable to what they were before we started. [1:34] They've returned most of the way back down. [1:36] Yeah. [1:37] So if Iran does not abide by the MOU, are you still willing for drugs? [1:43] I didn't say it would cause a depression. [1:46] I said it could cause a depression, right? [1:48] And they said that I don't want to be Herbert Hoover. [1:51] That's a president I don't want to be because he, you know, he was in charge during the Great Depression. [1:58] And certainly a lot of bad things could happen. [2:02] That would be one of the things. [2:03] I don't think it would, but if it did. [2:05] But no, if, if Iran doesn't live up to their agreement or if they're not behaving, I will, I will do what I have to do. [2:15] Does that give them leverage over you, Mr. President? [2:17] Say it. [2:18] Does that give them leverage, the Iranians leverage over you? [2:20] Oh, you're so, leverage. [2:22] You know, their Navy is gone. [2:25] Their Air Force is gone. [2:28] Their leaders are all dead. [2:29] Their whole country is a mess. [2:32] Their economy is shot. [2:34] The, you know, the Times, the fake New York Times said, oh, it's about the same as it was four months ago. [2:39] No, four months ago they had a Navy, 159 ships to be exact. [2:43] It's gone. [2:44] The whole Navy's gone. [2:45] Their 250 airplanes, all gone. [2:48] Their, every, their anti-aircraft is gone. [2:52] Their radar is gone. [2:53] These guys love radar. [2:55] Their radar is gone. [2:56] Everything's gone. [2:57] Their leaders are gone. [2:59] Their whole country is gone. [3:02] And the Times said, oh, they're about the same as they were four months ago. [3:05] And the reason the news is doing so badly, or let's put it another way, the reason that I won in a landslide, even though I got 92% negative press, all fake press, is because nobody believes the press anymore. [3:20] And they have to start believing. [3:22] You know, when, when the Times and a couple of others, they just, they're grasping for source. [3:28] When they say that Iran is about the same as it was four months, four months ago, they had a powerful Navy, they had a powerful Air Force. [3:34] You know, most of their missiles are gone. [3:38] Most of their launching pads are gone. [3:40] Most of their manufacturing capacity for drones and missiles is gone. [3:44] About 87% gone. [3:46] And then I hear, oh, they're in such great shape. [3:52] No, they're gone. [3:53] And their first level of leaders, gone. [3:57] Their second level of leaders, gone. [4:00] Their third level of leaders, you have to hear the conversations. [4:03] Who wants to be president? [4:06] I don't want it. [4:07] Nobody wants to be president. [4:09] And then we have to read that they're doing well. [4:12] They're doing so badly. [4:13] In the meantime, we're setting records. [4:15] We have the strongest economy we've ever had. [4:18] We have 18 to 19 trillion dollars being poured into our country. [4:22] We're building factories all over the place. [4:24] We have more people working today than at any time in the history of our country at higher salaries. [4:30] So, when you ask a question like that, it's so stupid. [4:35] Mr. President, why? [4:37] Here's another beauty. [4:38] What's this one? [4:39] Here's a real beauty. [4:40] Go ahead. [4:41] The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his forces are not leaving Lebanon. [4:45] That is a sticking point. [4:46] Who did he tell that to you? [4:48] He said it publicly in Israel. [4:50] Well, we're going to take a look at it. [4:51] Well, what would you do to make sure that he doesn't sabotage me? [4:53] Well, I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do, but it gets solved. [4:55] I'm a problem solver. [4:56] I get problem solved real fast, including with Bibi. [4:59] Go ahead. [5:00] Thank you, Mr. President. [5:01] Thank you. [5:02] What's the latest you've heard from the Vice President? [5:04] Are you happy with his negotiations? [5:05] Yeah. [5:06] And can you share a little bit about what Secretary Rubio will be doing in the Middle East this week? [5:09] I think that they're doing a fantastic job. [5:12] Our secretary is fantastic. [5:13] I think he's maybe going to go down as the best ever. [5:16] And I thought J.D. Vance this morning was fantastic. [5:18] I watched his news conference and from Switzerland. [5:22] He's a very smart guy. [5:25] He did a great job. [5:26] You know, when I look at the Democrats, I call them the Democrats. [5:30] They're dumb. [5:31] The Democrats. [5:32] When I watched that, where one of them thought it was World War XI. [5:36] She said World War XI. [5:37] She meant World War II. [5:39] You know about that, right? [5:40] This is one of their potential leaders. [5:42] Ilhan Omar, who married her brother to get into the country, by the way, illegally. [5:47] But when I watch AOC, have no idea what a simple question. [5:54] What happened when she was over in Switzerland, which probably never went there before, but [5:59] she was — and then I watched somebody like J.D. or Marco. [6:02] What a — I said, what a difference. [6:04] What a difference. [6:06] What a difference a brain makes. [6:08] Mr. President, I need a — [6:10] Sir, you've been quite critical of Prime Minister Starmer, and he's now resigned. [6:14] Your thoughts? [6:15] And who would you like to see as the next Prime Minister? [6:17] I was critical only from the — because I think he's a lovely man. [6:20] But I said, you do — you're really messing up energy. [6:22] You have windmills all over the place. [6:24] In the meantime, you have the North Sea oil, and they won't let anybody drill. [6:29] It's one of the great fields in the world. [6:31] And they haven't even found most. [6:33] You know that the U.K. buys much of its energy. [6:37] You know where? [6:38] Norway. [6:39] You know where they get their oil? [6:40] The North Sea. [6:42] The U.K. has a much better portion of the North Sea. [6:44] They don't want to do it for environmental purposes, okay? [6:47] And I told him. [6:48] He's a very nice man. [6:49] I mean, he's sort of a friend of mine. [6:50] I mean, he was not good to us with NATO people, right? [6:53] He said, we can't use the island to land. [6:55] That was the first. [6:56] For a couple of weeks. [6:57] He said, well, but ultimately, I gave it to you now. [7:00] That was a bad move. [7:01] That hurt him badly. [7:02] But — but — I mean, I wish him well. [7:05] But he's got two problems. [7:07] Energy and immigration. [7:09] And crime. [7:11] But energy and immigration. [7:13] You know, he's really hurt himself very, very badly. [7:17] Please go. [7:18] Mr. President, can you tell us about your meeting with the defense contractors on Wednesday [7:22] and what you plan to tell them? [7:23] The meeting coming up? [7:24] Because I've met with them before. [7:26] We're building plants all over the country. [7:29] They are not allowed to take any more stock buybacks. [7:33] Do you do stock buybacks by any chance? [7:35] Yes, not too much, right? [7:36] No, because he wants to invest in product. [7:38] Yes. [7:39] It's just an artificial way of raising a price if you're running a bad company. [7:44] So they spend $51 billion on stock buybacks instead of spending them on plants. [7:51] Now they're spending — they can't do that anymore. [7:53] Now they're spending a lot of money. [7:55] We're building many plants throughout the country. [7:58] They're dealing with General Motors. [8:00] They're dealing with Ford. [8:01] But I know General Motors is all excited about building weapons now. [8:06] They have some plants which are going to switch over, and we're going to build weapons, [8:10] including the Patriot, including the Tomahawk, and lots of other things. [8:14] And we're in a big — really in a big, strong economic push to do the weapons. [8:21] And some of the car companies, if they have any excess capacity, they're making a deal [8:26] to build missiles, and the Patriot in particular. [8:31] We have quite a few of them, but we want to make sure we have always a lot of them. [8:35] Mr. President of Colombia, the candidate that you endorse is — [8:38] Mr. President, thank you, Mr. President. [8:39] Congratulations on the quantum physics EO to all of you. [8:42] Thank you. [8:43] Vice President Vance said that there are mechanisms in place to make sure that there's not escalations [8:48] with the Strait of Hormuz and with Israel and Lebanon. [8:51] Can you talk about what those mechanisms are, and are you in direct talks with the Secretary here? [8:55] Well, yeah, look, look, here's the thing. [8:57] As long as they respect us — I don't want to use the word fear, because that's an inappropriate word — [9:02] but as long as they respect us, we're not going to have any trouble. [9:07] We have total control of the Strait. [9:09] So the mechanism — [9:10] You know, we have a Navy that had a blockade. [9:13] I think the blockade was more impactful than dropping bombs, if you want to know the truth. [9:17] It was, like I said, they call it the steel wall. [9:19] Nobody got through. [9:20] Not one ship got through, able to go to Iran. [9:23] They got through if we wanted them to go through. [9:25] And we could set that up again in about 15 minutes. [9:29] I would say, Pete, one phone call — how long would it take? [9:32] It's going to take maybe a half hour. [9:34] They're ready to go right now if you need to. [9:35] Before we finish the meeting. [9:38] No, we have — as long as they respect us, we're going to be fine. [9:44] If they don't respect us, things wouldn't be good. [9:46] But they have a lot of respect. [9:48] Don't forget, we had presidents that should have done this for 47 years. [9:51] Nobody did it. [9:52] Obama — Obama gave them a road to a nuclear weapon. [9:55] I gave them a wall against a nuclear weapon. [9:58] They can never — under disagreement, they'll never even think about building a nuclear weapon. [10:02] Mr. President, on Colombia, the candidate — [10:04] Oh, El Tigre. [10:05] Yeah. [10:06] El Tigre, yeah. [10:07] We know that you had a phone call. [10:08] I endorsed him. [10:09] He was in 10th place. [10:10] I endorsed him, and he won the election. [10:11] Yeah. [10:12] Surprised. [10:13] No different than this country. [10:15] You had a phone conversation with — [10:17] I did. [10:18] I had a great call. [10:19] What can you tell us about that phone conversation? [10:20] And what did you see? [10:21] What did you anticipate — [10:22] You're from Colombia, I see? [10:23] Yes, sir. [10:24] I'm from Colombia. [10:25] So he called — [10:26] He called me last night, and he thanked me for the endorsement. [10:28] He won. [10:29] He won the election. [10:30] He wasn't anticipated to win. [10:32] But he won, and he won handily. [10:35] It's just an honor. [10:36] He was just a good man. [10:38] I'd watch him a little bit speak, and he always speak — [10:42] You know, when people like me, I like them. [10:44] It's very simple. [10:45] It's a very simple formula, and I like them. [10:48] He said really nice things about me and the job we've done in the United States, [10:52] and very, very powerful. [10:55] And he won an election in Colombia that — [10:58] I don't know. [10:59] Some people were surprised, because he was a little bit further down the pack. [11:02] But he won easily last night. [11:04] He won by — he called me at 8.30 in the evening just to thank me very much. [11:09] And I said, you ran a great campaign. [11:12] He's El Tigre, right? [11:13] Yeah, yeah. [11:14] And what do you anticipate for the relation with Colombia, Colombia? [11:17] Good. [11:18] Much better. [11:19] It'll be better. [11:20] He's going to be a great president. [11:21] Mr. President. [11:22] Mr. President. [11:23] Mr. President. [11:24] Mr. President. [11:25] Are the contractors who did the initial work with the reflecting pool, [11:26] are they to blame for the current condition? [11:28] Or is it the vandals? [11:29] Mr. No, no. [11:30] We had vandalism. [11:31] No. [11:32] Vandals. [11:33] You know, we have a hundred and — we have a, I think, [11:35] two hundred and ninety, three hundred foot slit right through it. [11:38] Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind. [11:41] Or we had people lifting up the basic — some of the — it's not a lot of damage, [11:47] but it's — we'll probably have to let the water out and refix it. [11:50] They went in there with a knife. [11:53] I was just told by the — by the people over at Parks, they have — five people are arrested, [12:00] and five people are under investigation right now. [12:03] And it's a sad thing. [12:05] In addition to that, they — you know, we put brand new, beautiful grass all around. [12:10] They put these massive letters on the grass. [12:13] You probably know about that, right? [12:15] And they said 86, 47. [12:18] They probably got that from the dirty cop. [12:21] Call me. [12:22] You know he's a dirty cop, don't you? [12:23] Dirty cop. [12:24] He's a crooked guy. [12:25] They destroyed the grass. [12:27] So that's a big thing. [12:29] But we're going to get it back very soon. [12:32] National Guard and police have been all over the mall. [12:35] How would these vandals have gotten so close to do something like that? [12:38] Do you have any proof of a slit? [12:39] I mean, we didn't have — we didn't have a lot of them then. [12:41] Who would think that somebody would go into a pool and take a knife and start cutting it? [12:45] Did you have proof of that? [12:46] Yeah, yeah, we have proof. [12:47] You have photos or videos? [12:48] Well, let's put it this way. [12:50] When you have a 350 — I think it's 350, not 250 — a 350-foot slit from one end to the other, you think that's proof? [13:00] You think that's proof? [13:01] The reporters have been down there today looking for that slit that you mentioned, and there's no evidence of it. [13:04] Well, just — all you'd have to do is see the Parks Department. [13:06] They'll show it to you. [13:07] Or see — see the secretary. [13:11] But I saw it. [13:12] They cut it. [13:13] They cut it very violently. [13:15] The same thing with the floor. [13:16] They cut it. [13:17] And then they lifted it. [13:18] They pulled it. [13:19] And that's what it is. [13:20] And, you know, we've done over 50 monuments. [13:24] Number one, we start with — this is now a safe city. [13:28] It's as safe as a city as you're going to get in the country. [13:31] And when I came here, it was a very dangerous city. [13:35] And number two, what we did is the beautification with the parks and the grass and everything, removal of all the tents. [13:43] And this is like a different place. [13:45] One of the things we did is over 50 fountains and statues, most of which were in horrible shape. [13:51] All of them were bad, but some were just absolutely horrible. [13:54] Graffiti — you couldn't even see the stone. [13:56] They've all been fixed. [13:58] We also fixed the reflecting pool. [14:01] In fact, if you go over there right now, it looks very good. [14:04] It's up. [14:05] They put — somebody said fertilizer in the water. [14:08] If you put fertilizer in the water, you get algae. [14:10] But somebody said they might have put fertilizer. [14:12] They did something to create the algae. [14:14] But that doesn't matter because that's been purified. [14:20] It's dead. [14:21] Laying at the bottom, they're taking it out. [14:24] They vacuum it out. [14:25] They vacuum it very carefully out. [14:27] And it'll be back to health pretty soon. [14:29] We're going to have to let the water out to fix the one little — there's two little areas, very little areas, where they were cut. [14:35] And we'll fix that. [14:36] But it's not leaking or anything. [14:38] It's got a base underneath. [14:39] Part of what's curious about this situation is we stood here with you in April when you first revealed the plans. [14:45] I said what? [14:46] In April, you showed us pictures of what you were going to do at the pool, and you said you had a guy who was going to do it in a week for about a million dollars. [14:53] Well — [14:54] It's been two months — [14:55] It's been $16.5 million. [14:56] Okay, ready? [14:57] Barack Hussein Obama. [14:58] Have you ever heard of him? [14:59] Yes. [15:00] He spent two years and over $100 million on trying to fix it. [15:04] You know what happened to it? [15:05] Never even opened. [15:06] Right. [15:07] He took the water for the river. [15:08] You know about that, right? [15:10] It turned out to be putrid, and it destroyed the whole thing. [15:13] Spent over $100 million. [15:15] Him and Biden together spent $147 million. [15:18] You know what happened? [15:20] Never opened. [15:21] You don't mention that, right? [15:22] I spent — we spent about $10 million. [15:24] Many of the — much of the money we spent are park workers. [15:27] They're there whether they do this or not, as you know. [15:30] They work in the park, and they're very good workers. [15:32] They did a great job. [15:33] So they were going to spend $300 to $400 million — you know that — and it was going to take four years. [15:41] I spent about six, seven weeks, and I spent probably, in terms of outside, probably $10 million, around $10 million. [15:53] They say $16 million. [15:54] But a lot of those workers that work for the same thing. [15:57] So they were going to spend $400 million. [15:59] I spent $10 million. [16:02] They were going to spend four years. [16:04] I spent two months, maybe, less. [16:07] And I have a better product. [16:10] Now, I can't help it if somebody goes in with a knife and starts hacking it up. [16:15] And we also have pictures of it, you know. [16:17] We have pictures. [16:18] Can you release the photos? [16:19] We've been asking for that. [16:20] Every time you'll see it. [16:21] You'll see it in court. [16:23] You'll see it in court. [16:24] But all you have to do is call the Parks Department. [16:26] Call the Department of Interior. [16:28] And I don't know if their lawyers will allow you to speak to them, because, you know, you [16:32] write fake news. [16:33] But call the Interior Department. [16:36] And I understand they've arrested five people. [16:39] And they have another five people that are under investigation. [16:43] Here's the bottom line. [16:45] We made so much progress in this city. [16:48] People don't even recognize it. [16:50] By the way, Memphis, Tennessee. [16:51] Crime is down 78 percent in a matter of months. [16:55] It was a hellhole. [16:58] New Orleans. [16:59] Crime is down 79 percent. [17:01] And they had Mardi Gras. [17:03] It was the safest Mardi Gras they've had in 50 years. [17:05] The governor called me. [17:06] Governor Landry called me. [17:09] Safest Mardi Gras they've had in. [17:11] And by the way, Chicago, which is a shooting field right now. [17:14] If the governor would call me, Governor Pritzker would call me, I would solve the Chicago problem. [17:19] In three, four months, you'd have virtually a crime-free city. [17:24] We'll remove all of the bad ones. [17:27] You have criminals. [17:28] You have career criminals that came in through the border because of sleepy Joe Biden. [17:32] You ever hear of sleepy Joe Biden? [17:33] Do you ever hear of him? [17:34] He let people come into this country. [17:37] And we can never forget that that happened. [17:40] Guys like you should never forget that that happened. [17:42] They were murderers, drug dealers, mental patients. [17:46] They took them out of prisons. [17:49] They took them out of mental institutions. [17:51] You should never forget that that happened. [17:54] Mr. President, you're meeting. [17:57] Let's leave on a nicer note. [17:59] You were meeting with NATO's Mark Rutte on Wednesday. [18:03] Mr. Good. [18:04] You had Secretary Hegseth review U.S. presence in NATO countries. [18:07] Mr. I did. [18:08] Yeah. [18:09] Talk to us about that conversation. [18:10] Are you planning on drawing down the U.S. troops? [18:11] Mr. Well, look, look. [18:12] NATO. [18:13] It's NATO, basically, the question. [18:14] So, we have been a great member of NATO. [18:18] The only, in many ways, certainly the predominant member. [18:23] We paid trillions of dollars over the years. [18:26] Not billions, trillions over the years to protect Europe. [18:29] When we wanted to know, I didn't need, we didn't need any help at all. [18:34] I was more curious than anything else. [18:36] So, I said to Pete, let's see if they'd actually come. [18:39] So, we asked them to come and they weren't there for us. [18:41] So, we spent, it's stupid that they weren't. [18:44] By the way, Starmer wasn't there. [18:46] And you know what? [18:47] The people of the U.K. did not like it that he wasn't there. [18:50] Starmer said no. [18:51] Starmer said worse than no. [18:53] He said, we'll be there as soon as you win. [18:55] I said, we don't need you as soon as we win. [18:58] Before I went in, we called him. [19:01] He said, oh, wow. [19:03] We'll be there. [19:04] This was not Winston Churchill we're dealing with. [19:06] That I can tell you. [19:07] But Starmer said, we'll be there. [19:09] Right, Pete? [19:10] As soon as we win. [19:11] As soon as we win, they're going to come and help us. [19:13] Okay. [19:14] But you know what? [19:15] Italy was very bad. [19:17] Italy was very bad. [19:19] And other countries, Germany was very bad. [19:22] So, we spent all of this money, probably 600. [19:25] I think we spent 600 billion a year, right? [19:29] I would say that. [19:30] I think the real number, think of that. [19:32] The numbers that we spend are so crazy on NATO. [19:36] And they weren't there for us. [19:38] So, I say to Pete, and I say to everybody else, if we're spending all of this money, hundreds, just hundreds of millions of dollars to protect them from Russia, mostly. [19:50] Okay. [19:52] So, we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year. [19:56] You know, the case could be made that we spent all of the money over the years before me. [20:02] I cut it back. [20:03] But listen, we spent all of this money. [20:06] And then, when we want to maybe have help on small stuff, this is a small time. [20:11] This is not the big one. [20:12] This is small potatoes. [20:14] If they say no, we'd rather not help. [20:17] Stupid thing to say. [20:19] Because we can say that to them, if we want. [20:21] And we might. [20:22] Mr. President, regarding the other? [20:24] It's the one-year anniversary of Operation Midnight Hammer. [20:28] If you could go back in time, is there anything you would do different? [20:30] No. [20:31] Nothing at all? [20:32] It was the most successful attack that anyone's ever seen with a bomber that totally wiped out their nuclear potential. [20:39] If we didn't do that, you'd have no Israel right now. [20:43] Israel would not exist, and most of the Middle East would not exist. [20:46] They were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. [20:49] If we wouldn't have done that, Pete, they would have had a nuclear weapon. [20:52] You want to say something about that? [20:53] Yes, sir. [20:54] I wasn't aware it was one year, but you don't have the situation we have now, a position of strength, [21:00] where Iran's going to give up their nuclear program without Midnight Hammer, [21:03] which no other country on planet Earth could remotely conceivably pull off that from start to finish. [21:10] 37 hours back and forth. [21:12] Iran never saw it, and every munition, precision munition that only we make, hit exactly where we wanted it to. [21:19] And they knew we were coming. [21:20] And they could do nothing about it. [21:21] And they could do nothing about it with their air defenses, which are even further now degraded. [21:25] And that's what everyone misses in the press, and the President's right to call it fake news. [21:28] Because the overwhelming military victory that has been had over Iran is what has set the conditions for them to be at the table with our negotiators. [21:37] And we will ensure, whether it's through a deal or through the War Department, that they never get a nuclear weapon because of this President right here. [21:43] President Obama's hand. [21:44] Okay? [21:45] Thank you very much, everybody. [21:46] Thank you, guys. [21:47] Thank you, press. [21:48] Thank you very much. [21:49] Thank you, guys. [21:50] Thank you, guys. [21:51] Thank you, guys. [21:52] Thank you, guys. [21:53] Thank you, guys. [21:54] Okay, thank you very much, everybody. [22:39] Thank you.