Transcription
President Trump was asked about the situation in Iran. "Look at this," he said. "Mr. President, Mr. President, why are you..."
"War is going very well," Trump stated. "As you know, we're winning by a lot. Iran is making very big concessions. Uh, we'll see what happens, but it's been very, very, very powerful. Uh, it's going very, very well."
"Yeah. Hey guys, good morning."
Technical discussions between the United States and Iran are set to resume next week, according to the Pakistani foreign ministry. The ceasefire between the two countries is moving forward, while a focus remains on the Strait of Hormuz and Iran's nuclear ambitions. This does come as America's top diplomat, Marco Rubio, is in the Middle East to meet with counterparts about the war and the next steps in efforts towards peace. Secretary Rubio indicated again that America prefers the diplomatic track to play out, but there are other options.
"The president has multiple options at his disposal if Iran goes back on their word or if Iran decides they don't want to make a deal. Let's hope that's not the case. We don't want that to be the case."
"We're going to give diplomacy every chance to work."
"Uh, we've got a good team working on it. And um, so if, if it doesn't work out, the president knows what his options are. But, you know, I'm not going to discuss what those options are with you, but the president has a lot of options at his disposal."
On Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte met with President Trump at the White House to discuss the war with Iran and other pressing topics. "And what the entire world learned from the bizarre meeting you're about to see is that NATO, NATO doesn't really have any good news for the president of the United States. Watch this."
"About safety. This is the leader of the free world taking responsibility beyond the shores of the United States for the rest of the world. And this is what you did. Um, uh, I know there have been debates about whether your allies in Europe were with you enough. I just want to say one thing, which is, yeah. Let me say one thing, which is, I, I know you think there, but let me, Trump, I know the about the um, let's say, your, your, yeah, irritation about that, but irritation. You look at the numbers."
"Four to 5,000 US planes taking off from bases in Europe in the six weeks this war, which we pay to maintain since mid-April. Bucharest, the airport in Romania had to, heading to close, had to close for commercial traffic because they had to make sure that you were able to send a tanker aircraft up in here."
"What about the bases of Spain?"
"I know there have been isolated cases, uh, about which you are really disappointed."
"Generally speaking, your European allies have been there recently. I, I really want to make the point. Four to 5,000 US planes taking off from European air bases. So..."
"This is a salesman trying to sell President Trump on something he's already given up on. And I don't think anybody in the room expected what happened next. Watch."
"Now I want to take you, if you stay here, I go over to these boards here because it's a sales meeting. What this president was able to achieve. And I start with this chart. This chart is about the Trump trillion. The Trump trillion shows you the increase Europeans and Canadians are paying into defense since you took office in 2017. Right? 45 plus 47, a total of extra spend by the Europeans and the Canadians of 1.2 trillion. When you look at the effect of 47, so the isolated effect of the extra defense spending in 2025 and 2026, you see almost $140 billion extra spend nominal on defense, uh, by the Europeans and the Canadians. And also this year, you will again see an increase by about 120 billion, which brings a total in two years of over $250 billion. So according to these charts, NATO is a worthwhile investment for the United States. Even though isolated cases in the United Kingdom and in Spain and in Germany and with France, well, it's kind of everybody. I guess nobody really wanted to assist the United States with getting the world's energy markets moving again and preserving peace and helping the Iranian people at the exact same time. But the sales pitch continues. I can assure you this is because of Russia, because of the threat. But I'm also absolutely convinced that you being president of the United States being consistently pushing for something which since Eisenhower has not been achieved, which is the Europeans equalizing their defense spending with the United States."
"Because they've never wanted to do this because it's always been one-sided. Look here, in total, 195,000 jobs being supported by investments, investments from European companies into the United States. 83,000 jobs supported by that. 112,000 jobs created by the fact that Europeans are massively, about half of all their defense spending when it comes to defense industrial output, is spent in the United States. 112,000 jobs. Last year they spent $54 billion on US defense industrial output. There is now an order catalog, an order backlog of 300 billion. So $300 billion of defense spending from Europeans buying this in the US over the next couple of years, which is already on the order book. Last year, 54 billion, total now order book of 300 billion, totally almost 200,000. These are real jobs. So if this is creating all kinds of jobs and if this is so great for Europe and if Europe is so happy to be part of NATO and to be spending chart-topping numbers, why did it take Trump and all of his pressure to get this to happen? Why is this something that people weren't doing willingly? These are the types of questions everyone in this room is asking as this pitch continues."
"People like you had yesterday when you spoke in Pennsylvania. The people behind you..."
"I like this guy more if you allow me. First of all, he's done. We had to increase the defense industrial outputs. That is a big problem. The problem is that both in the United States and in Europe, we are not producing enough. Our stockpiles have to be replenished because of the war in Ukraine and what we do there and for all the other reasons."
"Yeah, there's a reason Europe's stockpiles have a problem. China minerals control threatens EU rearmament. These stockpiles are dependent on minerals that these guys are not able to get on their own and therefore they cannot build the munitions they want to build. They do not have the ability to help our country like the United States has the ability to help them because of our ability to build these things which they don't have. Which begs the question, what is America paying for? Do you, you, you've been so transformative visa vi NATO and I think the secretary general just stated that you transformed NATO like of which nobody would have even thought that you, you could have done. After all that, do you still think the European allies, like you told me, um, treated you badly? And if so, what can they do to make things better?"
"Good question. Can you confirm that all the thousands of flights, as you stated today, uh, and yesterday on Fox News, are in compliance with the NATO treaty, sir?"
"Well, let me just say, uh, he's been a friend of mine. He's a great guy, great leader, great secretary general. Everybody respects him and I appreciate you and I really have done a good job. And, uh, I think if anybody else were in that position, we wouldn't even be meeting today, to be honest with you, because we were let down."
"Uh, we didn't need help on this at all. But it would have been nice if they would have said, 'We'd like to help.' We didn't even need it, but it would have been nice if they said that. They didn't say it. But as Secretary General, and he's the boss of the whole operation, he was, uh, I believe if I would have called him, and I didn't bother doing that because I was doing individual countries just to take the temperature and see how they were doing, but I think if I would have called him, he probably would have found a way to help if we needed it. I feel, you know, would have been a little bit different, but I was disappointed. I was disappointed with Italy. I was disappointed with the UK. He's now gone."
"Starr. And, you know, he had a lot of problems, but we were disappointed with the UK. We were disappointed with Germany and France. We're disappointed with most of them. Spain is a horror show. Spain is terrible. Even from your standpoint, I mean, they don't want to pay anything. They, they think they're in for a free ride. Spain is not a, not a good group."
"What countries in NATO aren't a problem? And I realize NATO is more than just England, France, Spain, Germany. But those are like THE BIG COUNTRIES. WITHOUT THEM, there is no NATO. They're supposed to be the leaders here. The UK is supposed to have our back. But is the president going to let NATO get a free ride, as he calls it, forever? Or is that going to change when he shows up at this meeting next week?"
"Not a good group at all. Uh, but, uh, but I have great respect for this man. And so we're going to be discussing what took place and we'll see what happens. Thank you. All."
"Interesting. Second question because I don't have many disagreements with the president of the United States here. I have slightly because I do agree there's reason for disappointment. Absolutely."
"But my argument is this. These are isolated cases. When you look at the over-take, for example, Germany, from day one, they delivered on their, these are bilateral commitments, bit of the techniques of this, but the technology, but these are bilateral commitments these countries are having with, uh, with the United States. So this is not strictly speaking NATO, but bilateral commitments. They all did what they promised to do. And this led to the four, between four and 5,000 US planes taking off from Europe. I would argue it would have been very difficult to do Iran without having Europe as a power production platform for the United States."
"Except for, he's right. Uh, there is also reason for disappointment."
"And the UK."
"Well, the big question is, are they paying the 5%? They agreed six months ago when we were together to pay 5%. And for the most part, they're not paying."
"Well, when you look at the numbers, take for example, Germany. So we agreed they get a couple of years to get there because you, you cannot spend it in one year because you have an absorption problem. But Germany, for example, you can't..."
"Germany has doubled, is doubling its defense spending between."
"So these are commitments that they're agreeing to today, but do not have to actually carry out that agreement for a few more years. That's the problem with all of this stuff because you have all these agreements. Countries say, 'Yep, we'll do it.' But, 'Oh, we can't do it today. We're not ready to do it today. We got to, you know, rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic so we can stay afloat a little bit longer to come up with the things we're supposed to commit to an agreement that's been around for 50-plus years."
"Speaking of Germany, they, uh, they were building what looks like the turrets right here and they canceled it, uh, because they didn't have the money. This frigate right here that you see pictured, it had a pocket battleship displacement of well less than a pocket battleship, 10,000 tons. They were supposed to build six of them. The total financial requirement was going to be $18 billion. They spent several billion dollars and then shut down the program because they weren't able to meet their commitment to their own defense industry and now they're supposed to meet commitments to other, uh, people's defense goals as part of the NATO conglomerate. See, these are the problems these countries are all having."
"Donald is doubling its defense spending between 2021 and 2029. They will spend over 150 billion in 2029, which is staggering, more than the French and the Blitz combined. Even take the Dutch, take, and Poland and the Baltics already there, uh, countries like Denmark really stepping up. So, um, and the Nordics. So you're, you, it's a bit of a mixed bag, but most of them and the alliance is so much stronger because of this man."
"That is true."
"Please, yell, address. Thank you. Left from GB News. Um, you mentioned our..."
"GB News. Got one foot out the door. The new guy's coming in, Andy Burnham. What do you know about him, Mr. President? And what does he need to do to improve the relationship between our two countries? The new incoming prime minister, Andy..."
"I don't think I see that he was, I guess, the mayor of a town. I hear he's extremely liberal. Extremely. So that means he probably won't open up the Nazi. You know, I gave, uh, I gave Kier some pretty good advice. So I said, 'Open up the North Sea. Go to Aberdeen, which was the hottest city in the whole, on the whole continent. It was the oil city. It was the oil of, of Europe.' And they closed everything. It was terrible. I saw, I saw it before my eyes and I couldn't believe it. The North Sea is loaded. I have had every oil company come to see me. Sir, could you give us access to the UK? We would do anything to drill in the North Sea, and they haven't even found what's there. The amazing thing is they buy their oil from Norway, which gets the oil from the North Sea. Think of it, and they pay a big premium. Norway's got now $2 trillion in the bank."
"So this comment comes up, what do you think of Britain's new incoming PM? Trump says the guy's very liberal. And then Trump mentions the thing that's holding these countries back from being able to meet their commitments under NATO, which is energy. Energy is a huge problem for the United Kingdom. Here they are buying energy from somebody else when it exists in their own backyard and they're unable to get it. And it's situations and entanglements like that with agendas that do not make financial sense and do not make countries stronger that weaken NATO and make it ineffective. It would be great for the United States to be partnering up with countries that were self-sufficient and that could provide for their own needs, their own energy needs, their own defensive needs. But this just exposes who we're actually dealing with in NATO and what future geopolitical conflict will look like given the status quo that is apparently about to continue."
"Two weeks from..."
"Yeah, I'm a Turk myself and..."
"I like him. He's a friend of mine."
"You're talking about Turkey. War. You know, he was a prime candidate to go into the war with Iran, maybe on the Iran side, 'cause he's not a big fan of Israel, as you know, and I asked him to stay out. He stayed out. And you know who else was great was President Xi of China. He could have come in. He gets half of his oil from that area. You know, I could see him wanting to. And I asked him to please stay out. And he did. We did, uh, we did a good job. But he stayed out. Erdogan's a great leader, very strong person, great military."
"And they buy us stuff. And he did. And so did, uh, President Xi. And frankly, so did Putin, if you really look. But you could say that Vladimir has some other things to focus on. But they all stayed out. I mean, it was pretty, pretty amazing. People Trump has more praise for America's competitors on a global stage than for our own allies in NATO. Notice that. That's very interesting. And it's a very sad state of affairs when our greatest ally, the United Kingdom, is showing less favorably in this discussion than countries that we really do have to worry about and keep an eye on. And it is the inaction of those countries that helped bring the situation in the Middle East to the peace deal that we're experiencing today and could actually be a good thing for the Iranian people. Countries like Russia did more for this conflict by doing nothing than our allies who actively resisted us. Think about that for a second."
"And I, and I think that Erdogan is, look, he loves Turkey, right? He's doing a great job. He loves Turkey. I love the US, but he loves Turkey and he's doing a great job. He's a respected man, a respected leader, and he's been a friend of mine. Now, I shouldn't say that because guys like Peter would say, 'Oh, he likes her to what? He likes No, Peter. Peter is good. Some of the others, let's say, but, but Erdogan is, uh, is a strong man. Uh, but he's been everything I've ever asked him for, he's done."
"Mr. President, uh, Mr. Secretary General clearly pointed out that allies want to do defense business with you, and Turkey is definitely one of them. They want, they want the F110, uh, jet engines, and they want the F-35 fighter jets. Are you going to Turkey with a big gift bag for everyone?"
"Yeah, I think so. He's a member of NATO."
"Some people don't consider him so, but he really is. He's a, he's a strong member of NATO. Yeah. I'm..."
"I'm going to probably do something that's going to make him very happy."
"Turkey has, tell him hello. He's a good man."
"And Turkey has a huge defense industrial base. 3,000 companies working all over the alliance, also in the United States. So strong."
"People don't know how big Turkey is in terms of the military. It's a very strong, they have a lot of our equipment, a very strong military."
"Because of him."
"Yeah, please. Your..."
"Expectations, sir, about this meeting and what do you..."
"Yeah. What's going to happen for..."
"The fact that it was being held in Turkey by, uh, President Erdogan? I don't think I would have gone to it."
"You must have come for me. But I might go."
"That tells you all you need to know about where Trump and the United States are with NATO right now because he might not even be headed to this meeting next week if the secretary general personally invited him. What do you think about all that? Where do you think about the ability of countries like Spain to stand up and defend the United States if the United States has, has a problem on the other side of the world? What do you think about that? And the UK and Germany. I will see you in the next."