Trump Takes Questions From Reporters In Oval Office As India Strikes Pakistan

Forbes Breaking News

President Trump takes questions from reporters in the Oval Office after a swearing-in ceremony for Steve Witkoff.

Transcript

00:00Marco Rubio that you're swearing in a very important person and Steve reports

00:05to Marco I said Steve you better do a good job of Marco we fire he will fire

00:08you so violently you have no idea but Marco if you could administer the oath

00:15thank you very much Marco

00:30do you solemnly swear to solemnly swear that I will support

00:35and defend that I will support defend the Constitution of the United States

00:37the Constitution of the United States that I take this obligation freely

00:54freely without any mental reservations without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion

00:59or purpose of evasion and that i will well and that i will well and faithfully and faithfully

01:05discharge the duties of the office discharge the duties of the office on which i am about to enter

01:11on which i am about that so help me god so help me god you have any uh good job thank you mark any

01:28questions for steve no it's a shame we just heard about it just as we were walking in the doors of

01:39the oval uh just heard about it i guess people knew something was going to happen based on

01:45a little bit of the past they've been fighting for a long time you know they've been fighting for

01:50many many decades and centuries actually if you really think about it

01:55no i just hope it ends very quickly

02:09well the plan we haven't talked about but we're not planning on stopping in israel but we will be

02:15doing it at some point but not for this trip there's a report that the uk is offering various trade

02:21concessions uh what's your response to that and also who what uh the united kingdom yeah and can can

02:26you also say if you were discussing tariffs with mr and all and what about the united kingdom uh

02:31they're offering various trade concessions apparently cars steel digital service they're

02:35offering us concessions i hope so they do want to make a deal very badly you say uh your guests

02:43here are you discussing tariffs or business no i think that united kingdom like every other country they

02:49want to they want to be uh go shopping in the united states of america china wants to very much wants

02:55to make a deal they all do uh but uh yeah i would say that um every country wants to make a deal and

03:02not the ones they had in the past where we were like look we were being ripped off by every country

03:09practically without exception in the entire world and those days are over those days are over and you

03:15know i said before in our meeting with the new and very talented prime minister of canada that we

03:21have some very big uh announcement to make it's not about trade it's about something else but it's going

03:26to be uh a truly earth shattering and positive development for this country and for the people of this

03:33country and that'll take place sometime within the next few days

03:37that's a lot of progress you know it's small it's a portion of ukraine

04:07but no i think a lot i think if we weren't here uh they would be right now fighting to take the

04:12whole country and they're not doing that so i think that's a lot of progress mr president please

04:27it leads to scores of casualties almost on a daily basis i don't like anything about that war it's a

04:33war i don't like anything about it and i'm not happy with that no not at all not even a little bit

04:38yeah these are backing down we're seeing conflicting reports that they plan on continuing to attack

04:45israel in support of gaza does that change the equation uh no i don't know about that frankly but

04:51i know one thing they want nothing to do with us and they've let that be known through all of their

04:57surrogates and very strongly

05:06is there a hostage deal that's imminent and are you talking to netanyahu right now about their plan

05:12to level the rest of gaza we're talking to him about a lot of things right now

05:16this is really crunch time i would tell you for iran and uh for their country this is a very

05:24important time for iran this is the most important time in the history of iran for iran and i hope they

05:30do what's right i'd love to see a peace deal a strong peace so they cannot have a nuclear weapon but

05:35i would say that this is the single most important period in the history of iran which is a long

05:42history and we want it to be a great country let it be a tremendously successful rich country they

05:48have everything you need the people are incredible they have vast amounts of oil and assets we want

05:54it to be a successful country we don't want to do anything that's going to get in the way of that but

05:59they can't have a nuclear weapon and if they choose to go a different route it's going to be a very sad

06:04thing and and it's something we don't want to have to do but we have no choice they're not going

06:07to have a nuclear weapon they're not going to have a nuclear weapon do you understand that okay

06:20have you told the military to stop attacks against we just yeah we just informed them a little while

06:26ago and uh all action is stopping some people probably haven't heard yet you know there are

06:33various people in various rather strategic locations but by this moment they should just

06:39about all know marco i think that the attacks are going to stop both ways and uh that's uh

06:46pretty much it but we've just informed everybody just a little while ago

06:52to attack israel which you said you didn't know about but if they continue to attack israel

06:57just well i'll discuss that if something happens okay if something happens with israel

07:01you know and the hooties yeah

07:08well i can announce all of them now i could announce uh 50 to 100 deals right now because

07:14you know i'm the shopkeeper and i keep the store and uh you know i know what countries are looking for

07:20and i know what we're looking for and i can just set those terms and they can go shopping or they don't

07:25have to go shopping because everybody wants to shop here this is like a beautiful store this is like

07:30one of uh bernard arno or maybe i should say alex even more importantly young the future

07:37but bernard it's an honor to have you have a meeting after this uh but he has the greatest

07:43stores in the world and they want to shop our country is the greatest store in the world of that

07:48kind and everybody wants a piece of it and they took advantage of us for years because we allowed

07:53presidents our presidents allowed it to happen you know i don't blame china and i don't blame uh vietnam

08:00and i could name every single country all the way up and down the line south korea

08:05every single country took advantage of us without exception japan these are friends of mine but they

08:10took advantage of this country they ripped off our country selling us millions and millions of cars

08:17a year and we sold them none we weren't allowed to sell them a car they took advantage of us i don't

08:23blame them i blame the people that sat behind that desk that allowed it to happen but

08:27uh i don't allow it to happen i didn't in the first term but this is a much stronger position

08:33because uh we did we the greatest economy in history in our first term stock market was up 88

08:40percent we had numbers much better than that but uh this is going to be i think a much better term and

08:45i think uh the tariffs are coming in starting to come in uh we're we were losing five billion dollars

08:53plus a day on trade now we're not losing that kind of money and we'll soon be making a lot of money

09:00a day and a year and a month

09:05perhaps the attorney general um the justice department recently received a criminal referral

09:10against new york attorney general tish james for fraud we haven't heard much about it uh you or

09:15the attorney general give us an update as to what's going on for that investigation well i don't want to

09:19get involved in something that uh pamela is involved with if you'd like to say something pam

09:29i can say unrelated to that she's a disaster for new york she's a horrible horrible human being

09:35and i think she's a total crook there's no question about it but that's just my opinion

09:39pam's gonna have to do what she wants she's a very bad person she's a very very a very bad person who

09:44campaigned solely on i'm gonna get donald trump over and over again she's a sick person but that's

09:51has nothing to do with what pam does uh pam is going to do what's right she always does i've known

09:57her a long time yeah go ahead behind you thank you um on gaza you said there's been progress and

10:04progress in the middle east at the moment as a colleague said um israel netanyahu is saying he

10:10now wants to conquer gaza is there any prospect of any movement on that are you happy with what

10:14well we've done very slowly because we want to try and get as many hostages saved as possible and we've

10:21done a good job in that regard uh two weeks ago i had 10 hostages come in and they thanked me

10:26profusely and i said you have nothing to thank me about you what they went through is incredible they

10:32lived in a pipe you know they keep hearing about caves it was a pipe three and a half feet high

10:37and they didn't know if they were going to breathe they didn't know if they were going to live to the

10:41next day they lived like hell i couldn't believe the stories i was hearing and and they weren't

10:45grandstanding these were people that were seriously mistreated one was in for 512 days one was in for

10:53361 i guess days and uh one was in for a shorter period of time the stories were unbelievable i said how

11:00many people are left how many are left they said 59 i said oh wow that's more than i thought they said

11:09well only 24 are living but now it's 21 that was a week ago now it's 21 are living and these are young

11:15people these are young people don't die old people die young people don't die under these conditions

11:21so of the 59 people and they said 59 and i said really uh but they said only 24 are living and

11:32i now correct i say 21 because as of today it's 21 three have died so this is a terrible situation

11:40uh we're trying to get the hostages out we've gotten a lot of them out

11:43uh as the expression goes there's 21 plus a lot of dead bodies you know parents came up to me

11:51on numerous occasions but a couple in particular they came up to me two weeks ago and they said

11:56please sir my son is dead please get us back his body they wanted his body he's dead they know he's

12:03dead they wanted his body as much as you would want the boy if he was alive it's a very sad thing thank

12:10thank you very much everybody thank you

12:40thank you

Category

Transcript

Recommended