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Trump Hosts Israeli Prime Minister Amid Tariffs, Market Volatility, War in Gaza. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 07, 2025 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And other things, by the way, flying objects like airplanes. And we -- we've put a major hurt on the Houthis, which nobody's been able to do. We've really hit them hard and they know it and they don't know what to do.

And it's every night, night after night. And we've gotten many of their leaders and their experts, their experts on missiles. I mean, they actually make missiles. Nobody thought that, but they make missiles. They're highly sophisticated and they're very tough, but they've been very badly damaged. Nobody else was able to do that.

But Pete, you want to discuss that?

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Yes, sir. It's been a bad three weeks for the Houthis, and it's about to get worse. It's been a devastating campaign, whether it's underground facilities, weapons manufacturing, bunkers, troops in the open, air defense assets. We are not going to relent.

And it's only to get more unrelenting until the Houthis declare they will stop shooting at our ships. And we've been very clear with the Iranians as well. They are -- they should not continue to provide support to the Houthis. And that message has been made very clear.

So we have a lot more options and a lot more pressure to apply. And we know because we see the reports how devastating this campaign has been to them, and we will not relent.

TRUMP: There's no military like our military. And despite Biden having given a lot, but nevertheless, a pretty small piece. But it was a lot of our military weight in Afghanistan.

And one of the dumbest situations, I think, and maybe the most embarrassing situation we've ever been involved in that that short period of time in Afghanistan. What a disgrace that was. But left a lot of our military behind.

Left, left -- you see them in their annual parades where they're parading trucks that are armor plated and different things that they kept. But it's many billions of dollars we left behind.

But despite that, we have a tremendous military. That was a very small portion because we rebuilt the military during my first term. And we have great, great things happening with our military.

We also essentially approved a budget, which is at the facility. You'll like to hear this of a trillion dollars, $1 trillion. And nobody's seen anything like it.

We have to build our military and we're very cost conscious. But the military is something that we have to build and we have to be strong because you got a lot of bad forces out there now. So we're going to be approving a budget.

And I'm proud to say, actually, the biggest one we've ever done for the military. We're cutting other things that were under DOGE, but under a lot of other. When you look at a woman getting $2 billion for environmental -- and it had nothing to do with environmental -- and they had $100 in the bank and they give her two billion, many, many of those cases. All that stuff is going to be cut out.

But we are getting a very, very powerful military. We have things under order now, the likes of which we've never had before. We've never had the kind of aircraft, the kind of missiles, anything that we have ordered. And it's in many ways too bad that we have to do it because hopefully we're not going to have to use it. But the military is very, very powerful.

And it's going to remain that way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you --?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President. I want to ask you about Iran, because this is the first time we hear that the U.S. is having a direct contact with the Iranians. Is it possible to give us some more information at what level the U.S. is represented?

TRUMP: Very high level. And we're dealing with the Iranians. We have a very big meeting on Saturday. And we're dealing with them directly. You know, a lot of people say, oh, maybe you're going through surrogates or you're not dealing directly. You're dealing through other countries.

No, we're dealing with them directly. And maybe a deal is going to be made. That'd be great. That'd be it'd be really great for Iran. I can tell you that. But hopefully we're not going to have to get into that.

We we're meeting very importantly on Saturday at almost the highest level. And we'll see how it works out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you ensure, Mr. President, that these tariffs don't drive U.S. trading partners into the hands of the Chinese?

TRUMP: I'm not worried about it. I'm not worried about it. They want to be in the hands of the U.S. They don't want to be in the hands of the Chinese. The Chinese have turned out to be really not very good at that. People that are with us they're with us. But we cannot be taken advantage of any longer.

I used to watch these deals for years. I've been talking about it for years. And I've been talking about it for 35 years, how our country is being ripped off.

I mean, 30 years ago, it was Japan. Then it was something else. Then it was another group. Then it was China.

[15:35:00]

China is doing the best job of it, frankly. And it's just not going to happen. Not going to happen. China is doing the best job of it, frankly. And it's just not going to happen.

Not going to happen.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the EU has said that they have offered zero for zero tariffs on cars and industrial goods. Is that not enough?

TRUMP: Well, the EU -- no, it's not. The EU has been very tough over the years. It was -- I always say it was formed to really do damage to the United States in trade.

That's the reason it was formed. It was formed with all of the countries from Europe. I guess most of them. Not all of them, but most of them. And they formed together to create a little bit of a monopoly situation, to create a unified force against the United States for trade.

So they have NATO, which is largely the same countries. And they took advantage of us dollar-wise and militarily until I got there. I was able to get $600 billion from NATO, where they paid NATO, because most of these nations weren't even paying. We were paying for NATO.

So we're paying them to guard them militarily, and they're screwing us on trade. So that's not a good combination. So now it's really turned around. It's the opposite. And the European Union has been very bad to us. They don't take our cars, like Japan, in that sense.

They don't take our agricultural product. They don't take anything, practically. And yet they send millions of cars in a year -- Mercedes- Benz, Volkswagen, BMWs. They're sending millions and millions of cars into the U.S. But we don't have a car that's been sold to the European Union or other places. But let's go for the European Union.

And it's not going to be that way. It's got to be fair and reciprocal. It's got to be fair. It's not fair. We have a deficit with the European Union of $350 billion. And it's going to disappear fast.

And one of the reasons and one of the ways that that can disappear easily and quickly is they're going to have to buy our energy from us, because they need it. They're going to have to buy it from us. They can buy it. We can knock off $350 billion in one week. They have to buy and commit to buy a like amount of energy. And we have that.

You know, we have more energy than any country in the world. I don't know if you know that. He knows everything. But the one thing he may not know, we have more energy than any country in the world. We have more of every kind of energy, every form of energy, from oil and gas to coal. And people talk about, I call it beautiful, clean coal.

As you know, Germany is opening up a coal plant a week. They tried the windmills and it didn't work. They tried all the other solutions and they were ready to go out of business. Now they're doing a coal plant a week. China is now up to two coal plants. They're opening two major coal plants every single week in China, all over China.

And then we're not allowed to use coal. Well, we have clean, beautiful coal more than anybody else. We have oil and gas more than anybody else.

We have the most energy of any country in the world, including Saudi Arabia, including everybody by a lot. And I took it to number one. We were number three. And I took it to number one during my administration.

And the reason that we were hurt so badly and the reason that we went into such incredible inflation during Biden is energy. It was also their bad spending, but energy, because they played around with this incredible thing that we had built, this administration had built. And the energy costs went through the roof. And when that went up, everything else followed.

Now, if you look at what's happening, you're going to see this today. I said, we're going to try and get groceries down, right? An old fashioned term, but a beautiful term. Eggs. So when I got in, the press went absolutely crazy the first week. They said eggs have quadrupled in price. I said, I just got here. Tell me about it.

And Brooke Rollins and our team did a great job. And eggs are down now, 79 percent and they're all over the place. And this was a problem that somebody else would have taken a long time to cure.

We have energy is down. We have interest rates are down. We have groceries, meaning food is down. We have everything is down at levels that nobody ever thought possible.

Energy looks like it's going to be in the $2.50 a gallon range and maybe below that for a car. So for gasoline. So we are -- we're really doing amazing.

I mean, we're cutting prices because prices got so high, people couldn't live. I mean, the prices for groceries, the prices for standard, standard groceries, standard things were going through the roof. They couldn't live.

And now those prices are coming down. So call them groceries. But that's down. Energy is down and interest rates are down.

[15:40:00]

Everything's down. And the interest rates, the beauty there is when we refinance debt, you know, debts become such a big factor in this country.

We're going to get -- we're going to start paying debt off with tariffs and other things.

But it's such a big factor because the interest rates so high. Well, now that's coming way down. So our budget is going to look a lot better because interest costs are way down. And I guess I've done that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many Israelis are watching you now on that show. What is your specific way to get the hostages out from the horrific activity?

TRUMP: We are trying very hard to get the hostages out. We're looking at another ceasefire. We'll see what happens.

But we have we want to get the hostages out. The Israeli people want the hostages out more than anything. They want the hostages out.

This man is working very hard with us to do that. I mean, I don't know. I hope he's being appreciated because he's been a great leader.

He's working very, very hard on the hostages and many other things. And there are plenty of things you have to work on. That's a it's a tough place in the world.

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: I have a good partner.

TRUMP: Yes, you do have a good partner. And so do we.

We're working very hard on the hostages.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you're going to negotiate a new deal with Iran, can you elaborate how it's going to be more effective than the JCPOA?

TRUMP: Well, I can't really say that, but I think it'll be different and maybe a lot stronger. But they were so happy when we made that first deal because we did get a lot out. You know, I had people right in this office, this beautiful oval office. They came in 10 people, hostages, you know that. And I said to him, so how was it? And the stories they told me, I mean, as an example, I said to them, was there any sign of love? You were there. 10 people. It's only 10, but it's pretty representative.

Did the Hamas show any signs of like help or liking you? Did they wink at you? Did they give you a piece of bread extra? Did they give you a meal on the side? Like, you know, you think of doing like what happened in Germany, what happened elsewhere? People would try and help people that were in unbelievable distress.

They said no. I said all of them. I said, did they ever wink at you like you'll be OK? You're going to be OK? No, they didn't do that. They'd slap us.

The hatred is unbelievable. And the lives, you know, they lived in a pipe, not really a tunnel. It was a pipe. And they always thought they were suffocating. They were going to suffocate. And then they'd open up the pipe and it was like three and a half feet high.

This isn't -- you know, we hear tunnels bad, but pipes are worse. And the stories I heard were incredible. But I just said, was there any sign of potential love or affection? And there were none whatsoever. It was amazing to me. There was nothing like, here, take this. It's a little extra meal or something. They lived like hell. I don't know.

They seemed to be -- they were amazing to me because they seemed to be pretty normal. They weren't scarred. But I guarantee underneath, they have to be scarred. And one was there for 356 days. Another was there for about 180 days.

You know, a long time. These are people that have been really, really horribly treated. I've never seen anything like it actually, I was very surprised to hear the answer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President. Are there two or three countries that on your list that you feel are farther along in getting their tariffs lowered?

TRUMP: I think, well, I think there are many that want to get rid of tariffs right now. European Union, I mean, as badly as they've treated us, they've, you know, they've brought their car tariffs essentially off. I guess they've brought it down to two and a half a year, maybe to nothing.

But it's not only tariffs. It's non-monetary tariffs. It's tariffs where they put things on that make it impossible for you to sell a car. It's not a money thing. They make it so difficult, the standards and the tests. They drop a bowling ball on the top of your car from 20 feet up in the air. If there's a little dent, they say, no, I'm sorry, your car doesn't qualify. When the same car from Germany or would dent likewise, unless you can have an army tank, it's going to dent. So they come up with rules and regulations that are just designed for one reason, that you can't sell your product in those countries.

And we're not going to let that happen. Those are called non-monetary barriers. They make barriers that are so tough that it's impossible to qualify.

So tariffs are a big part of it. But there's another big part of it and that's barriers.

They also do something else. They manipulate their currency and they drive it down. They want to drive it. They want to have low currencies. You know, it sounds better to have a high currency, a strong dollar or whatever. But they bring their currency down.

And when it competes with our currency, it's very hard to sell a tractor. It's very hard to sell product.

[15:45:00]

They bring their currency down. And when it competes with our currency, it's very hard to sell a tractor. It's very hard to sell product because their currency is low and ours is much higher relatively. And so it makes it very hard.

I speak to a lot of companies that do business, tractor companies. And they say it's so hard to sell because what they've done is they've lowered the yen or they've lowered the yuan or they've lowered their currency. So then it's very hard to compete.

We don't want that either. So we have a lot of things that we're talking about, but we're going to fix it properly. And it's going to be fair to everybody. And in the end, I think we're going to have a world that does a lot better, you know, but they have to respect the United States. And nobody but me would do this. Nobody but me would do this.

You know, it would be nice to serve a nice, easy term. But we have an opportunity to change the fabric of our country. We have an opportunity to reset the table on trade.

We lose billions of dollars. We lose close to $2 trillion a year on trade. We lose a trillion dollars a year to China, a trillion.

We lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year on trade to China. We lose hundreds of billions of dollars overall, probably close to $2 trillion. Why would we do that?

Number one, why would we do that? And then you have to say, is it sustainable? Then you hear about all of the people that say, well, deficits.

If we have a deficit with the country or if the country has a big surplus with us, like China has a massive surplus that they take and they spend on their military. Well, we don't want that. I don't want them to take $500, $600 billion a year and spend it on their military. I don't want them spending money on their military. And I shouldn't have to spend money. We shouldn't have to spend it either.

Because, you know, hopefully -- and I said this to President Xi. Hopefully, it's money that we're never going to use. In other words, because we're not going to use those incredible weapons that we have and that they have. We don't want that.

So it's going to be very interesting. It's the only chance our country will have to reset the table, because no other president would be willing to do what I'm doing or to even go through it.

Now, I don't mind going through it because I see a beautiful picture at the end. But we are making tremendous progress with a lot of countries. And the countries that really took advantage of us are now saying, please negotiate.

You know why? Because they're getting beaten badly because of what's happening. They're getting beaten badly. They're being devalued as countries. But it's the only chance we're going to have to reset the table on trade. And when we do, we're going to come out unbelievably well.

We're going to have a strong country economically again. And we're going to have those factories that are empty all over the United States. We've lost 90,000 plants and factories. Think of this 90,000. You wouldn't think it's possible. 90,000 plants and factories since NAFTA, which was, by the way, the worst trade deal ever, ever developed, ever had by any country anywhere -- NAFTA. And I terminated NAFTA. Everybody said it would be impossible and I terminated it through Congress we terminated it. You had to get it through Congress.

It was a trap. It was a horrible thing. We got it done.

And we went to the USMCA, which was much better. The problem is they cheat. They cheat like crazy. Canada cheats. Mexico cheats. Just one of those things.

But we are -- we're setting a table, and we're going to have great trade, and we're going to have a very strong country. Our country is going to be at a level that it has maybe never been or maybe -- you know, our country was the strongest, believe it or not, from 1870 to 1913. You know why? It was all tariff-based. We had no income tax.

Then, in 1913, some genius came up with the idea of, let's charge the people of our country, not foreign countries that are ripping off our country.

And the country was never relatively -- was never that kind of wealth. We had so much wealth, we didn't know what to do with our money. We had meetings. We had committees. And these committees worked tirelessly to study one subject. We have so much money.

What are we going to do with it? Who are we going to give it to? And I hope we're going to be in that position again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, do you plan to reduce the tariffs that your government put on Israeli goods, 17 percent? On Israeli goods, the 17 percent.

TRUMP: Well, we're talking about a whole new trade -- maybe not. Maybe not. Don't forget, we help Israel a lot. You know, we give Israel $4 billion a year. That's a lot. Congratulations, by the way.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE:

That's pretty good. But we give Israel billions of dollars a year. Billions.

[15:50:00]

Billions. It's one of the highest of -- and we give a lot of -- we give a lot of countries money. You wouldn't believe it if I said we give Afghanistan a lot of money. Do you know that?

Because that was a Biden deal. Another Biden deal. Not only did he embarrass us with that, but they give them billions of dollars, Afghanistan. Right?

So -- but, no, we take good care of our friends, and we don't take care of our enemies. We're not taking care of our enemies anymore, but we do take care of our friends.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, this is a reference to the Times of Israel. The IDF is fighting to get into Gaza Strip. I, myself, might be called up in a month.

Do you think that's the way to pressure Hamas to get to a deal? And do you think blocking humanitarian aid is also an effective pressure?

TRUMP: Well, you know how I feel about the Gaza Strip. I think it's an incredible piece of important real estate. And I think it's something that we would be involved in.

But, you know, having a peace force like the United States there controlling and owning the Gaza Strip would be a good thing. Because, right now, all it is is, for years and years, all I hear about is killing and Hamas and problems. And if you take the people, the Palestinians, and move them around to different countries, and you have plenty of countries that will do that, and you really have a freedom -- a freedom zone.

You call it the freedom zone. A free zone, a zone where people aren't going to be killed every day. That's a hell of a place. It's a -- you know what I call it? A great location that nobody wants to live in because they really don't. And when they had good -- when they have good living, real living, where Hamas and all of the problems they have -- the level of death on the Gaza Strip is just incredible.

And I've said it. I don't understand why Israel ever gave it up. Israel owned it. It wasn't this man, so I can say it. He wouldn't have given it up. I know him very well.

There's no way -- they took oceanfront property and they gave it to people for peace. How did that work out? Not good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the immigration -- sorry, Mr. President. Is the immigration plan still on the agenda?

TRUMP: Which immigration?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From Gaza.

TRUMP: All it is, is a concept that I had that I think is good. And now people are copying it, you know? Maybe you want to tell -- people are talking about the Trump plan.

Gee, why don't we do that? Would you like to answer that question?

NETANYAHU: I think what the President talked about is, first of all, to give people a choice. Gaza -- Gazans were closed in at every other place, including in arenas of battle. I mean, whether it's Ukraine or Syria or any other place.

People could leave. Gaza was the only place where they locked them in. We didn't lock them in.

They're locked in. And what is wrong with giving people a choice? Now, we've been talking, including over lunch, about some countries -- I won't go into them right now -- that are saying, you know, if Gazans want to leave, we want to take them in.

And I think this is -- this is the right thing to do. If you give -- you know, it's going to take years to rebuild Gaza. In the meantime, people can have an option.

The President has a vision. Countries are responding to that vision. And we're working on it. I hope we'll have good news for you.

(INAUDIBLE)

TRUMP: I will say, people love -- excuse me -- people really do love that vision. It's a long-term vision. But so importantly is to have that be a safe field, because you're right smack in the middle of the Middle East. You're right along Israel. It should have never, ever been given away. It shouldn't have been given away by Israel.

I don't know why they did it. I mean, I do know why. Because they were promised peace, but that didn't work out too well.

Because it's one of the most dangerous pieces of land anywhere in the world. Gaza is one of the most dangerous places in the world. So they gave it away for good intention, and it didn't work out that way.

And a lot of people like my concept. But, you know, there are other concepts that I like too. And there are some concepts I don't like.

You know what I don't like? The way it is now. Because right now it's a dangerous death trap -- Gaza.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir. Can you talk a little bit about your meeting, potential meeting with Vladimir Putin? Do you still plan to meet with him?

Could that happen in Saudi Arabia? And maybe you could elaborate as well a little bit on not providing tariffs on Russia, sir.

TRUMP: So the reason we're not talking about tariffs with Russia is because we're not doing business, essentially, with Russia, because they're in a war. And I'm not happy about what's going on with the bombing. They're bombing like crazy right now.

They're bombing. I don't know what's happening there. That's not a good situation. So we're meeting with Russia. We're meeting with Ukraine. And we're getting sort of close.

But I'm not happy with all the bombing that's going on in the last week or so. Horrible. It's a horrible thing. It's a horrible thing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, can countries negotiate to get below 10 percent?

TRUMP: In terms of tariffs.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In terms of tariffs, yes. TRUMP: Look, we've been ripped off and taken advantage of from the standpoint of it. They do it because they think it's good politically.

But October -- I've seen the tapes. I've seen things that you don't want to see. October 7th was a horrible day. And we'll go down as one of the really bad days in the history of the world. It was a horrible, horrible thing that happened. And they grabbed some of these people.

I'll give you an example. When I was with the 10 hostages a few weeks ago, I said, so how many are there? 59. I said, oh, so 59. So we can get 59.

They sort of knew the territory pretty good. And I said, how are they doing? They said, well, only 24 are living. The rest are dead. And these are young people, largely. Young people don't die. You know, young people have an amazing ability to live. They can live through horrible things. But these are young people.

And when they said that 24 are living and the rest are dead. And, you know, I've had parents come up, Israeli parents, largely. We have some Americans.

And we had, I guess we have one left, Alex. We have the one left. But I've had Israeli parents come up to me at events and say, my son is there.

I said, well, how's he doing? Well, he's dead. But would you do me the biggest favor ever? Could you bring his body back home? They talked about a young dead boy and a young dead girl like they were living.

And that could have something to do with religion. That could have something to do with, I guess, maybe any parent would be. But I was surprised. And they said, sir, my son is dead. It is just as important to bring that body back home. I asked that question as if he were alive. So you have a lot of them dead.

And we'll be able to bring them back. But it's a horrible thing that's happened. These are largely young people, some old ones, too, frankly.

And those people have lived in hell. When they came off the second group that came out, they look like they just got out of a concentration camp. They look exactly like the pictures that I see from the 1940s, the concentration camps.

And then they got a little bit better. You know, but that second group, those people came out. And I said, this is unbelievable. We're going back into a chapter in history that is one of the worst ever. It's really very bad. OK.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, you've said it could take two years to get American manufacturing fully up to speed in response to these tariffs. What happens in the meantime? Should Americans be prepared potentially for years?

TRUMP: I'll tell you what happens. We have now $7 trillion. Think of this, seven trillion of commitments from companies wanting to go in, from Apple to many, many companies, many from Taiwan.

What?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It takes time. (INAUDIBLE)

Are you asking me a question? Are you telling me?

Yes, it takes time. You know, you got to build a thing called a factory. You have to build your energy. You have to do a lot of things. I'm giving them energy. You know, we're going to let them build their own power plants.

They'll be their own -- essentially, they're going to be in charge of the power plant because our power is not reliable enough. You have a grid that's old and susceptible to a lot of things, including bombing and weather and a lot of other things.

And we're going to give them record timing in terms of approvals of electric plants. Most of them want to build electric plants. We need massive amounts of electricity if we're going to compete with China and others.

And interestingly, we're way ahead right now in the AI race with China. But the way we lose that race is if we can't give them electric.

But we have more plants being built. We have everything. We're doing so great. And we want to keep it that way.

And tariffs will be an important part of it. But one of the other things -- Lee Zeldin has done a fantastic job, head of environmental protection. And he's doing very rapid approvals for people to get -- for big companies to -- that are going to build a plant that's going to cost billions of dollars.

And we're going to get them their approvals. They have to be environmentally perfect, everything good. But they're going to be in record time. A matter of months versus a matter of many, many years.

LIZA ROZOVSKY, HAARETZ: Yes. Liza Rozovsky from Haaretz. Turkey claims it will stabilize the situation in Syria.

TRUMP: Turkey?

ROZOVSKY: Yes. Israel doesn't want Turkey to influence Syria.

What do you think? Do you think Turkey's influence in Syria can actually make it a better, more peaceful country, or vice versa?

TRUMP: Well, I have great relations with a man named Erdogan. Have you heard of him? And I happen to like him, and he likes me.

And I know the press will get very angry. He likes Erdogan, but I do, and he likes me. And we've never had a problem.

And we've gone through a lot, and we've never had a problem. We've always got -- as you remember, we got our minister back from --

END