00:00The president giving an update on the war with Iran, saying the ceasefire is, quote, on massive life support.
00:06The president also reiterated that he has a plan and that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
00:11The president saying he can work with Iran's moderate leadership, who he says want to make a deal.
00:17But President Trump also calls the recent proposal from Iran, quote, stupid.
00:22The president adding that he believes gas prices will, in his own words, drop like a rock when this war
00:27ends.
00:28So let's go to senior national politics reporter John Allen, who's been listening in from the North Lawn.
00:33John, I'll caveat this by saying this did begin as an event with the president speaking on a new maternal
00:38health initiative just off the heels of Mother's Day.
00:41But really, the bulk of these questions centered on this ongoing conflict with Iran, the president essentially calling the ceasefire
00:47unbelievably unstable.
00:49What else did he say? What were the main takeaways here?
00:52When you use those words, Zinclair, the ceasefire is on massive life support.
00:57That's the huge headline out of this.
00:59There are some other things that came out here from the president in terms of what he wanted to talk
01:03to President Xi about.
01:05He's saying that it's President Xi, not himself, who wants to talk about Taiwan.
01:09Of course, the United States having maintained strategic ambiguity for many decades about whether or not it would defend Taiwan
01:17if China were to invade and try to take over Taiwan.
01:21You heard the president saying that he believes gas prices will drop precipitously once the war with Iran is over.
01:28He did not say it exactly clearly in this news briefing, but told another network today he wants to suspend
01:35the gas tax, which would, of course, take an act of Congress.
01:38And then the one other thing I thought was interesting he said today was that he believes Republicans should walk
01:45away with the midterm elections, even though most prognosticators believe that that's an uphill climb for them to continue to
01:53hold the House of Representatives after November.
01:55Yeah. And, John, as the conflict continues, there were a lot of questions, understandably, about this ceasefire, the proposal.
02:00He was asked about his thoughts on the most recent proposal.
02:03What did he say?
02:05He said that it was a stupid proposal.
02:08He said it wasn't a good proposal.
02:09And he basically, interestingly, said that he does believe that he can work with Iran's leadership right now.
02:15Of course, the United States has been trying to continue negotiations with Iran's leadership and at the same time divided
02:23that leadership into the moderates and what he called the lunatics, defining the lunatics as people who want to continue
02:31to fight a war against the United States.
02:33Past the point at which he believes Iran has been obliterated.
02:38The Iranians obviously have a much different view of that.
02:41Yeah. And, John, this is not happening in a vacuum.
02:44The president has a highly anticipated and delayed meeting in China.
02:48He was asked about his expectations for that meeting with President Xi.
02:52What did he say?
02:53Not much, St. Clay.
02:55I think he was doing a very good job of trying to avoid answering questions in a way that would
03:00prejudice those negotiations.
03:02He said, as he often does, that he has a great relationship with President Xi.
03:06He attacked his predecessor, Joe Biden, for not having been tough and for President Xi not respecting Joe Biden, according
03:15to Trump.
03:16But basically avoided the major questions.
03:18And even on that issue of Taiwan, which is something that I think a lot of people in the United
03:23States expect the American president to bring up, he said that he thought President Xi would care more about that
03:29than he does.
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