| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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with all stakeholders, including full phone conversations with the Iranian counterparts, to call on Iran to take decisive steps to return to negotiations and pave the way for a diplomatic solution. | |
| In this vein, the High Representative and the E3 ministers are meeting as we speak in Geneva, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs. | ||
| The meeting began this afternoon and it is ongoing. | ||
| We will continue to engage for de-escalation and in view of a lasting solution, we're going to be the only solution bringing peace and hope to the region. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| And now President Trump responds to reporter questions after disembarking from Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey. | ||
| He touches on several topics, including the conflict between Israel and Iran. | ||
| A peace deal, he said, was just reached between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. | ||
| And trade deals, he said, will be struck with India and Pakistan. | ||
| We just learned that Rwanda, you know all about Rwanda, and the Congo will be doing a peace settlement, probably coming in on Monday or Tuesday. | ||
| We're going to be signing it up and we've stopped a very vicious war. | ||
| So that was an honor for me to be involved. | ||
| I want to thank J.D. Vanson for a great job and also our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has done a fantastic job. | ||
| So Rwanda, long-term war with the Congo, a very bloody war. | ||
| They're all bloody, but this was a really bloody one, is going to be making peace with Congo and they can get on to making trade deals with the United States and other places and have a much more normal form of life. | ||
| We're very honored by that. | ||
| As you know, we did a very great job with India and Pakistan. | ||
| And we had India in. | ||
| It looks like we're going to be making a trade deal with India. | ||
| And we had Pakistan in. | ||
| It looks like we're going to be making a trade deal with Pakistan. | ||
| And it's a beautiful thing to watch. | ||
| Serbia, Kosovo, likewise, they've been fighting for years. | ||
| And as you know, we brought that one to a conclusion. | ||
|
unidentified
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And now we have a couple of big ones. | |
| We have Russia-Ukraine, which is making a little bit of progress. | ||
| And we have Israel. | ||
| And nobody really knows what that one is all about. | ||
| We're going to find out pretty soon, I guess. | ||
|
unidentified
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The Iranian foreign, Mr. President, the Iranian foreign minister this afternoon said if the U.S. is serious about negotiations, that you would call up Israel and request that they stop their airstrikes. | |
| Will you make that request? | ||
| Well, I think it's very hard to make that request right now. | ||
| If somebody's winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody's losing. | ||
| But we're ready, willing, and able, and we've been speaking to Iran, and we'll see what happens. | ||
| We'll see what happens. | ||
| Just a time to see whether or not people come to their senses. | ||
|
unidentified
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Did the Europeans help at all in talking with Iran? | |
| No, they didn't help. | ||
|
unidentified
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No. | |
| Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. | ||
| They want to speak to us. | ||
| Europe is not going to be able to help in this. | ||
|
unidentified
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20 years ago, you were skeptical of a Republican administration that attacked a Middle East country on the idea of questionable intelligence of weapons of mass destruction. | |
| How is this moment different with Iran? | ||
| Well, there were no weapons of mass destruction. | ||
| I never thought there were. | ||
| And that was somewhat pre-nuclear. | ||
| You know, there was a nuclear age, but nothing like it is today. | ||
| And it looked like I'm right about the material that they've gathered already. | ||
| It's a tremendous amount of material. | ||
| And I think within a matter of weeks or certainly within a matter of months, they're going to be able to have a nuclear weapon. | ||
| We can't let that happen. | ||
| I was very much opposed to Iraq. | ||
| I said it loud and clear, but I was a civilian, but I guess I got a lot of publicity. | ||
| But I was very much opposed to the Iraq war. | ||
| And I actually did say, don't go in, don't go in, don't go in. | ||
| But I said, if you're going to go in, keep the oil. | ||
| But they didn't do that. | ||
|
unidentified
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What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? | |
| Your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point. | ||
| Well, then my intelligence community is wrong. | ||
| Who in the intelligence community said that? | ||
|
unidentified
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Your director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. | |
| She's wrong. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. President, are the Chinese in any way helping Iran at this moment? | |
| Are they reports of serious claims landing in Iran from China? | ||
| They say that they're there to take people out, but I can't tell you about that. | ||
| I get along very well with China, get along very well with President Xi. | ||
| I like him. | ||
| He likes me. | ||
| We have a very good relationship. | ||
| We'll see what happens. | ||
| I can't imagine them getting involved. | ||
|
unidentified
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Is there a decision that you need to make on Iran whether to strike militarily? | |
| Is this the biggest decision you'll have to make as president? | ||
| Well, I can't tell you that. | ||
| I have to see what happens. | ||
| I can't really say that. | ||
| It depends what the decision is. | ||
| But I wouldn't really be able to tell you that now. | ||
| I'll tell you in about a year from now, maybe five years or ten years from now. | ||
| You never know about decisions. | ||
| You never really know. | ||
| Do you want a ceasefire while the negotiations happen? | ||
| I might, depending on the circumstances. | ||
| Would you very hard to stop? | ||
| I will say this. | ||
| It's very hard to stop. | ||
| When you look at it, Israel's doing well in terms of war. | ||
| And I think you would say that Iran is doing less well. | ||
| It's a little bit hard to get somebody to stop. | ||
|
unidentified
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Liam Cosmer was here. | |
| Former Congressman Matt Gates brought out an interesting idea suggesting that if you were to broker a deal where nuclear inspectors go into both Israel and Iran, that you could win a Nobel Peace Prize, and they might even rename it the Trump Peace Prize. | ||
| Did you hear those? | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| Well, they should give me the Nobel Prize for Rwanda and, have you looked, the Congo or you could say Serbia, Kosovo, you could say a lot of them. | ||
| You could say, I mean, the big one is India and Pakistan. | ||
| I should have gotten it four or five times. | ||
| I should get it for the, I would think the Abraham Accords would be a good one too. | ||
| They won't give me a Nobel Peace Prize because they only give it to liberals. | ||
|
unidentified
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Would you support Iran being able to have nuclear, or would you support Iran being able to have civilian nuclear energy capabilities up to 3.76%? | |
| You know, they're sitting on the top of one of the largest piles of oil in the world. | ||
| I just don't know why they need that for civilian work. | ||
| You know, it's one thing for certain countries to say, hey, I want to have a certain amount where I can go nuclear a little bit because we need it for electricity, we need it for air conditioners, etc. | ||
| But when you're sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world, it's a little bit hard to see why you need that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Are you concerned that Iran or proxies would wage terror attacks against American targets abroad if you order military action? | |
| We're always concerned about that, and we have to take them out and be very strong. | ||
| You're even in danger talking to me right now. | ||
| Do you know that? | ||
| You are in danger talking to me right now, so I should probably get out of here. | ||
| But you guys are actually in danger. | ||
| Can you believe it? | ||
|
unidentified
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Is it still your expectation that NATO countries spend 5% of their GDP on defense spending? | |
| Well, I think they should do that. | ||
| I don't think we should, but I think they should. | ||
| We've been spending, we've been supporting NATO so long, in many cases, I believe, paying almost 100% the cost. | ||
| So I don't think we should, but I think that the NATO countries should, absolutely. | ||
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unidentified
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Spain decides not to? | |
| NATO's going to have to deal with Spain. | ||
| Spain's been a very low payer. | ||
| They were always a very low payer. | ||
| They were either good negotiators or they weren't doing the right thing. | ||
| I mean, I think Spain has to pay what everybody else has to pay. | ||
| Spain has been notorious for low pay. | ||
| You know who else was the low payer, just about the lowest? | ||
| A place called Canada. | ||
| Because Canada said, why should we pay when the United States will protect us free? | ||
|
unidentified
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ICE? | |
| Ukraine, you've been making progress towards a peace deal, but I don't know if you know this, but Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeii were there on the ground in Ukraine, seemingly doing the opposite, trying to provoke the Ukrainians to keep fighting. | ||
| What do you think of that? | ||
| Well, we're going to see, and people have to be very careful with what they say. | ||
| They've got to be very careful with their mouth, because their mouth can get them into a lot of trouble. | ||
|
unidentified
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ICE. | |
| ICE has said that they're trying to arrest up to 3,000 individuals a day. | ||
| There are some communities that are saying they are fearful of being wrongfully detained or separating some families, even if they're undocumented. | ||
| Is the fear in some of these communities worth the deportations of these undocumented individuals, a mass deportation problem? | ||
| It's a tough subject because, look, we have farmers. | ||
| I love farmers. | ||
| I want 80%, 85% of the farmers, and I love them. | ||
| And I'm never going to do anything to hurt our farmers. | ||
| And you can also say the leisure business, etc. | ||
| There are some businesses where you have a disproportionate amount of people that are the people that you're talking about. | ||
| At the same time, we have to get the criminals out of our country. | ||
| And we're looking at doing something where, in the case of good, reputable farmers, they can take responsibility for the people that they hire and let them have responsibility because we can't put the farms out of business. | ||
| And at the same time, we don't want to hurt people that aren't criminals. | ||
| Most of the people that came in over the last three years under Biden, I would say probably three and a half to four years. | ||
| Those people, you have a lot of criminals, you have a lot of, I mean, we're looking at that very closely. | ||
| You've had people that have worked on farms for 20 years. | ||
| It's very hard to go in there and say, you know, you're coming out. | ||
| But we're going to let the farmers take responsibility. | ||
| They're great people. | ||
| They'll do it. | ||
| They know the good and the bad. | ||
| So the hard part about this is not like a normal war where people wear uniforms. | ||
| They don't wear uniforms. | ||
| But we have murderers that came out of the last four years. | ||
| We have murderers. | ||
| We have drug lords. | ||
| We have people that we don't want to. | ||
| We have prisoners. | ||
| They emptied out Venezuela and many countries. | ||
| They emptied out their prisons into the United States. | ||
| We have to get those people out. | ||
| But we have stone-cold murders, 11,888 murders. | ||
| We've already gotten a lot of them out of here, but we don't want them. | ||
| So we have to be careful. | ||
| But I never want to hurt our farmers. | ||
| Our farmers are great people. | ||
| They keep us happy and healthy and fat. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Are there other cities that you're going to try to replicate what you've done in Los Angeles? | |
| Well, I mean, we had a big victory last night in the Court of Appeals with respect to Los Angeles, but really the country where Gavin Newscomb, who's really an incompetent governor, he's just doing a terrible job between his fires, between all the houses burning down, his forest fires, and now Los Angeles. | ||
| If we didn't go to Los Angeles, and the sheriff admitted it, he had no control. | ||
| He would have lost control. | ||
| We saved Los Angeles by having the military go in. | ||
| And the second night was much better. | ||
| The third night was nothing much. | ||
| And the fourth night, nobody bothered even coming. | ||
| We put out that fire. | ||
| We did a great job of it. | ||
| He sued us for going in and for helping him. | ||
| We went and helped him. | ||
| Right now, you'd have Los Angeles burning to the ground. | ||
| Largely, it would have already been destroyed. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So do you think people can sense... | |
| Do you want everybody to see, Mr. President, to be that of a peacemaker? | ||
| Do you worry that striking Iran will change that? | ||
| Always a peacemaker. | ||
| That doesn't mean sometimes you need some toughness to make peace, but always a peacemaker. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Can you get in Iran without ground forces? | |
| Sed? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is an aerial campaign in Iran enough, or do you need ground forces? | |
| Well, I'm not going to talk about ground forces. | ||
| The last thing you want to do is ground force. | ||
|
unidentified
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Does Iran have two weeks, or could you strike before that? | |
| Are you essentially giving them a two-week timeline? | ||
| I'm giving them a period of time. | ||
| We're going to see what that period of time is, but I'm giving them a period of time. | ||
| And I would say two weeks would be the maximum. | ||
|
unidentified
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Mr. President. | |
| President, do you think deportations should focus on criminals or all people who are here illegally? | ||
| Should start focusing on criminals, and that's what we've been focused on. | ||
| Very bad criminals, dangerous criminals. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But Stephen Miller's got to go out and arrest every person who's here illegally. | |
| He's told ICE to arrest everyone who's here illegally. | ||
| Stephen and I have a very good understanding. | ||
| He's a terrific person. | ||
| We have a great understanding, Mr. President. | ||
|
unidentified
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If there are, if there is an attack on U.S. assets, will you promise to conduct a full investigation and make it transparent with the American people before blaming Iran for such an attack? | |
| Well, if there's an attack, we'll know almost immediately with modern equipment who made the attack. | ||
| And those people will be very, very unhappy. | ||
|
unidentified
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Prime Minister, I want to get you people out of danger. | |
| Standing with me. | ||
|
unidentified
|
One more. | |
| Prime Minister Netanyahu said that they had the capacity to take out all of Iran's nuclear facilities. | ||
| So what role would the U.S. be able to play, and why would they, if Israel says that they have all of the abilities they're on? | ||
| I'm not sure he said that, but they really have a very limited capacity. | ||
| They could break through a little section, but they can't go down very deep. | ||
| They don't have that capacity. | ||
| And we'll have to see what happens. | ||
| Maybe it won't be necessary. | ||
| Maybe it won't be necessary. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Would you like to see Congress pass a bill to advance child transgender surgeries? | |
| Well, I know they're talking about it, aren't they? | ||
|
unidentified
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We're going to have to see how it comes to me in what form. | |
| Certainly, it's been something I've been talking about also. | ||
| Okay? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| Thank you, Mr. President. | ||
| Appreciate it. | ||
| Thank you, everybody. | ||
|
unidentified
|
C-SPAN's Washington Journal, a live forum involving you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy from Washington, D.C. to across the country. | |
| And coming up Saturday morning, U.S. Conference of Mayors Vice President David Holt and second Vice President Todd Gloria will talk about themes for the group's 93rd annual meeting in Tampa, Florida. | ||
| And then the Foundation for Defense of Democracy senior fellow retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery talks about the Israel-Iran conflict and U.S. military capabilities. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Saturday morning on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Sunday on C-SPAN's Q&A, University of Texas at Austin history professor Peniel Joseph shares his book Freedom Season and talks about the pivotal events of 1963 that impacted the civil rights movement in America. | ||
| That year marked the centenary of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the assassinations of President Kennedy and Mississippi civil rights activist Medgar Evers, and the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four little girls. | ||
| 1963, I think, is the most pivotal year of the 1960s. | ||
| It's the year that gives us both triumphs and tragedies. | ||
|
unidentified
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And it's really the year that makes the 1960s the 60s. | |
| So it's civil rights insurgency, it's the Kennedy administration going back and forth with activists like Martin Luther King Jr. and others about what to do next. | ||
|
unidentified
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We see a right-wing insurgency. | |
| George Wallace becomes one of the pivotal figures of the year. | ||
| And people like William F. Buckley in the National Review are engaged in a war of ideas with people like James Baldwin, who becomes the best-selling author and really perhaps the most pivotal figure in the entire year. | ||
| So it's really an extraordinary year. | ||
|
unidentified
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Penillo Joseph, with his book, Freedom Season, Sunday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN's QA. | |
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| Next week on the C-SPAN Networks, the House and Senate are in session. | ||
| The House will consider several bills aimed at reducing undocumented immigrants in the U.S. Members will also consider funding for military construction projects and the Veterans Affairs Department as the first of 12 federal spending bills for 2026. | ||
| The Senate continues to vote on President Trump's executive nominations and may consider Republicans' tax and spending cuts bill if it is ready for floor action. | ||
| C-SPAN continues live coverage of Cabinet Secretary's budget hearings. | ||
| On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before a House Appropriations Subcommittee. | ||
| Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before a House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee. | ||
| Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will testify before two committee hearings on the Federal Reserve's semi-annual monetary policy report, first on Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee and then on Wednesday before the Senate Banking Committee. | ||
| Wednesday, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vogt, testifies before the Senate Appropriations Committee on President Trump's $9.4 billion rescission package request. | ||
| Watch live next week on the C-SPAN networks or on C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app. | ||
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