00:00Hi, everyone. Good morning. We start with breaking news. Check out your screen. This is happening right now. President Donald Trump meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. Now, you can see him and the Crown Prince are shaking hands with various dignitaries and members of delegation in the Saudi royal court. This is the start of President Trump's four-day trip to the Middle East, and it's his first major foreign trip since returning to the White House. Our News Nation's Kelly Meyer, she's
00:29live in Qatar with the latest on the president's trip. Hi there. Good morning, Kelly.
00:36Good morning, Anna, from a cool 95-degree day here in Qatar and Doha as President Trump begins his multi-nation tour of the Gulf region, his first stop in Saudi Arabia. As you mentioned, you can see that live picture coming in of him greeting dignitaries. We saw him shaking hands with Elon Musk, who will be attending a major lunch with some of the biggest names in business attending that lunch there.
00:59And Saudi Arabia today. As you mentioned, this is his first major foreign trip of his second term. It's interesting that because Saudi Arabia was his first stop during his first term as his first major trip then, he's really interested in eyeing some major deals during this trip and strengthening economic ties with these major U.S.
01:19allies and hoping for and walking away with some more investment in the U.S. So there is the expectation that several deals could come out of this major week here in the Middle East.
01:30We know, as we mentioned, that business lunch happening in the next few hours. We could bring up some of those names you might recognize that will be there at the lunch today.
01:39Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock. Kelly Ortbeg, President and CEO of Boeing. Andy Jazzy, he's the CEO of Amazon.
01:50And Ruth Porat, President and CEO of Google. So the goal here, we're told, is business, business, and more business, is what the White House is telling News Nation.
02:01And Qatari sources telling me that they are hoping for $200 billion in investment here.
02:06So overall, over this three-day or so visit in the Middle East, he's hoping for $1 trillion in investment.
02:12And some interesting video we can show you both from the skies and here on the ground.
02:16So first in the skies, you can see Saudi F-15s escorting Air Force One into the region as it was landing in Saudi Arabia.
02:24So quite the escort for President Trump today.
02:27And then as we were arriving here in Doha, we saw the streets covered with the Qatari flag as well as the American flag as they prepare for his visit.
02:35He will stop in Qatar here tomorrow and then on to the United Arab Emirates, some of the wealthiest nations in the Middle East.
02:43So we are told that they are expecting more business deals to be discussed here throughout the week,
02:47as well as potential negotiations on the hostage negotiations and peace deals they're hoping to reach,
02:53as Doha has been a major negotiator when it comes to both the Ukraine and Russia deal, as well as Israel, Hamas, and ending the war between them.
03:02So it sounds like they're talking a lot about security concerns, but even more economic deals more than anything right now.
03:08And Kelly, there is a chance the president could be heading to Turkey as well during this week's trip.
03:13What will that hinge upon?
03:15Yeah, it's interesting.
03:18The president weighing in on that in the last several hours, basically saying that he is potentially going to join those two leaders,
03:26as Ukrainian President Zelenskyy plans to go to Turkey to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
03:32Now, the Kremlin has said they haven't decided whether or not Putin will go.
03:35But the president, President Trump, weighing in on whether or not he will be there as well.
03:40Take a listen to this.
03:41I think you may have a good result out of the Thursday meeting in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine.
03:48And I believe the two leaders were going to be there.
03:50I was thinking about flying over.
03:52I don't know where I'm going to be on Thursday.
03:56Now, we're watching to see if President Trump attends because this has been a major focus of his second term.
04:01He had promised to end the Russia-Ukraine war on day one.
04:04The president has told me that it's been harder to deal with Zelenskyy than he thought.
04:08He encouraged Zelenskyy to go meet with Putin in Turkey on Thursday.
04:12Zelenskyy then saying he would be there.
04:14And he even said that he would like President Trump to go, saying that it could change a lot if the U.S. president was there in person as well.
04:21Hannah, we are all ready for that bloodshed and we'll see how things shake out there.
04:26Kelly, thank you so much.
