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Donald Trump Delivers Remarks To NATO Allies. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired July 08, 2026 - 04:00   ET

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

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[04:00:30]

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, everybody. Welcome to CNN Newsroom. I'm Polo Sandoval live in New York. And here's what's coming your way. Today, President Donald Trump meeting with NATO leaders in Turkiye this hour as allies look to reaffirm their commitments to the alliance. We'll take you live to Turkiye.

Plus, Iran launches attacks on U.S. military sites after vowing a crushing response to U.S. strikes. We'll take you live to the region.

And another woman accusing Graham Platner of violent behavior as pressure grows for the main candidate to end his Senate bid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from New York. This is CNN Newsroom with Polo Sandoval.

SANDOVAL: All right, let's begin in the Turkiye capital where NATO heads of state and government are currently gathering for day two of their critical summit. And potentially any moment now they will begin their formal talks. NATO Secretary General is praising the alliance's unity and what he calls a staggering $258 billion increase in defense funding.

But the meeting comes at a time of major upheaval. The U.S. and Iran traded fresh strikes just hours ago, meanwhile Russia launching a deadly new aerial assault on Ukraine. And U.S. President Donald Trump has been making more incendiary remarks, reiterating his desire to control Greenland.

He's also criticizing NATO allies for not supporting his war with Iran. And then he's also praising Turkiyesh President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his loyalty. And that's despite the leader's crackdown on dissent and opposition.

Let's go to CNN's Kevin Liptak, who joins us now from Turkiye's capital. Kevin, the Commander-in-Chief already making some headlines as he floats the idea of removing sanctions on Turkiye. He said yesterday, we don't want to sanction friends, referring to Turkiye, a nation that's at odds with Israel, another close ally of the United States. So just put all this together for our viewers as we wait to hear from President Trump. KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. And I think it's evident that the president sees this trip not so much as a NATO summit, but more perhaps as a way to show his respect for the Turkiyesh President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, someone who he has said he is friends with, he's a close ally.

And in fact, the President has said he would not be here in Turkiye at all unless this gathering, this conference was being hosted by Erdogan, which I think gives you a sense of his priorities perhaps as we now enter the formal NATO summit portion of the President's visit.

Now, he did suggest that it was essentially a done deal, that the U.S. would agree to sell these F-35 stealth fighter jets to Turkiye, despite a ban that the president actually put in place during his first term, because Turkiye had purchased Russian air defense systems that could potentially come into conflict with the F-35s. And in fact, that ban was codified by Congress.

So, at this point, it's not clear how they plan to get around that, but the President sounding very intent to make that happen, and pretty intent to ensure that this will be a successful summit for Erdogan. Now, whether that translates into a more conciliatory approach to the other NATO allies, I think, remains to be seen, and certainly didn't sound like that yesterday when the President touched down and said that he was disappointed in NATO, saying that he wasn't being treated well by the alliance, and renewing all of these grievances, whether it's Greenland and his desire to annex what is property of another NATO ally, but also his claims that NATO isn't spending enough --

SANDOVAL: Interrupt you briefly just so we can go live to Ankara, as we hear from President Trump and the head of NATO. Let's listen in, and then we'll go back to you, Kevin.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It was a very big meeting with lots of leaders from, I think, every country, right? Every country showed up.

MARK RUTTE, SECRETARY GENERAL OF NATO: They're all there.

TRUMP: Every NATO country.

RUTTE: Yes.

TRUMP: Plus, we have a couple that aren't in NATO that would like to be in NATO, I guess.

RUTTE: Yes.

TRUMP: But it's been very successful. It's been a fantastic meeting. So I'll be having a news conference after I've finished it at about 4:30, 5 o'clock. And I assume most of you will attend. But a lot of things have been determined, and some things haven't, frankly.

We attacked very powerfully last night, the very dangerous people from Iran. They're sick. There's something wrong with them. We said, go and do your funeral stuff, and instead of that, they started shooting rockets and ships yesterday.

[04:05:03]

And so we hit them very hard last night. Very hard. I would say 20 to one, 20 times tougher. And I told them, every time you hit, we hit. And of course, they're dirty players, so they go after everyone, probably including me. I've been number one on their list for years, and they're a bunch of scum, if you want to know the truth. They're scum.

And so we don't like them. I don't like them. And they're evil people, and it's the denuclearization of Iran. And we're going to denuke it. We're not going to let them, because they're crazy, and they can't have a nuclear weapon. And they go around killing people. They've killed thousands and thousands of our soldiers. They've killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

They had the roadside bomb, Soleimani. I took care of him first term, and that was a big thing, because I think he probably would be a lot stronger had he been around, because he was a bad guy, but he was an evil genius. But a bad guy. And he was the father of the roadside bomb. The roadside bomb is a bomb that goes on when you're driving your little vehicle around, and it goes on and you have no legs, no arms, and no face.

And they've killed thousands and thousands of people. Even the SS Cole was theirs, if you remember that disaster. So I don't like them at all. And frankly, I think we waste a lot of time with them. I think we should just do our business. Can you imagine? They start shooting bombs, actually missiles and ships yesterday. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, a couple of others.

And I don't think they know what the hell they're doing, but they're bad people, very bad people. I think they're incompetent, by the way, because if they were competent, they would have made a deal a long time ago, like how about 47 years ago. So they've been trouble for 47 years.

And we took out their first set of leaders. We took out their second set of leaders. They want to take out the U.S. leader, me. I'm on every list. I saw things this morning. I'm on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I've been a little bit lucky. But that maybe doesn't last very long, because that's the way it goes. But we have great people.

But these are evil, sick people, and we have to rid their cancer, their cancer. And you know what you do? You got to cut out cancer early. And that's the way I feel. And I want to thank Mark. He's been a great secretary general of NATO. I'm not happy with NATO because of what they did with Greenland.

And I'm not happy with NATO because of the fact that they didn't want to help us with the number one state sponsor of terror. That's Iran. They were unwilling to help us. Now, in all fairness, they didn't speak to Mark about it. I think if I did, it might have been different. But we didn't need help. But I was really testing. I wanted to see whether or not they'd be there. And the answer is they were. I spoke to Germany. I spoke to France. I spoke to U.K. spoke to Italy. I spoke to -- I didn't speak to Spain. Spain is a wasted cause. We don't want to do any trade business with Spain anymore, by the way. I'd like you to cut it out. Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don't participate, they don't pay.

I don't want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits. OK? We don't want anything to do. Watch them. Watch them come running back. Oh, they'll come running back. They treat this man terribly. And this man is a good man, too. Great man. They're lucky they have him. But Spain doesn't agree to anything. And you shouldn't carry him.

I mean, you sort of automatically carry him because you're protecting an area. So they're there. So they probably figured they have to protect us, right? But we don't have to. And we don't have to trade with them. I don't want to do any more trade with them. All right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, sir.

TRUMP: Take it immediately. Don't even talk to them. They're hopeless. They're bad people because, you know, they have everybody else going and paying and working in Spain, in particular Spain. There are a couple of others. But in particular Spain, they're open about it. They're hostile about it.

And let's see how hostile they remain when they call up and they, please, please, we want to trade with you, sir. We want to trade with you, sir. They make so much money with us, and we're going to see that they make a lot less. I want no business with them.

So other than that, we're having the big meeting in a little while. And I'm going to relate my problems. Greenland is a big problem for us. And the other big problem is the fact that when we wanted them, we didn't want them badly, but we did say, if you want to join us, and they all said no. But when they could have, they weren't there for us.

[04:10:00]

And we've been there for them. We spent over a trillion dollars over the last short period, a trillion, in order to protect these countries from Russia. And it has nothing to do with us. We have an ocean, but it's been a long-term thing, and they haven't treated us right. And Mark understands that. He understands that. And we're going to work something out, I think, one way or the other.

But we've been treated unfairly. We pay disproportionately. We had a time when we were paying 100 percent. We were paying 100 percent of NATO, and yet a lot of the countries weren't paying anything. But there was calls made a few weeks ago. I spoke with the U.K., and the prime minister said, well, we don't want to help you now, but we'll help you when the war is over.

I said, that's not good. And likewise, I spoke to Germany. They didn't want to help. I spoke to France. They didn't want to help. Nobody wanted to help. Some of the very small countries wanted to help because they're the most vulnerable. I mean, that's the only reason they wanted to help. So I appreciate you being here.

We're going to be going back together. Many of us together. And again, I want to I want to say, despite the fact that I'm very upset with NATO, that we pay far, far too much, billions and billions of dollars too much, because it's unfair, because we're protecting them. So we protect them, but they're not there for us. Think of it. Doesn't work.

But I want to say this is a great leader. They're lucky they have him. It's a very -- it's their biggest asset. You want to know the truth? So, Mark, would you say a few words?

RUTTE: Absolutely. Thank you very -- so much. Mr. President, dear Donald, let me start with Iran. We discussed it last night at the presidential palace. I think what you did degrading the nuclear capability crucial for Israel, the region for Europe, degrading the ballistic missile capability of Iran, crucial for Israel, for the region, for you, for the whole world. And then trying to bring this to a peaceful end.

They attacking ships yesterday. I think what you did last night was absolutely necessary. It was a very strong response. And I'm with you on this. It's really important. When it comes to when it comes to NATO, what you have achieved, and this is a huge win, and I just want to say this again, the last two years, Canada and European NATO nations spending $215 billion more in 2024 and 2025 and 2026 compared to 2024.

This is staggering, $258 billion. In the meantime, almost 200,000 jobs in the U.S. being supported by all the investments by countries in the United States in the defense industrial base, buying from the defense industrial base from the U.S. companies. So here you see there is a -- you have been able to really get them to step up, to do this.

And when it comes to Iran, I know you are disappointed. We discussed it a couple of weeks ago. I would say these are isolated cases. Five thousand planes taking off from European airports in support of Epic Fury. It was Europe as one big platform of power projection for the United States, helping with Epic Fury, including countries you mentioned, Germany from day one, France, and many others. We discussed the Bucharest airport, which was closed for a couple of days for commercial traffic because they -- you needed it for Epic Fury.

TRUMP: Well, the United Kingdom wouldn't have let us use the island for two weeks, so we had to fly back.

RUTTE: No, no. So I'm saying you're right. There are isolated cases.

TRUMP: And Italy was very bad, having to do with their bases, as you know, and a couple of others. So it didn't come --

RUTTE: But still, generally, 5,000 is huge. And you mentioned Spain. Even you got Spain to pay 2 percent. They spent -- they made a huge step in last year. So there are still issues we have to solve, but, hey, also even on Spain, I would say they got to the 2 percent.

And I know you have a very strong relationship with the United Kingdom, the king, but also you're personally always with Keir Starmer, who is now leaving office. He has now also committed to spend another $20 billion extra, 15 billion pounds on defense. So I would argue, without you in this chair, this would not have happened.

It is, of course, because of Russia, but also because of you. So grab to win, it's there. You did this. It was the Hague, and now they are implementing it. And on Greenland, you and I made a deal in Davos. I will make sure that that deal is step by step being implemented, that you can deploy, if you want the Golden Dome on Greenland, you have your trilateral talks.

Mark was leading them from your side with the Greenlanders and the Danes when it comes to if they would change their constitutional position in the kingdom, et cetera. But, hey --

TRUMP: I mean, just so they understand, Greenland is very important for the United States, but it's not important for Denmark. In fact, when Denmark was overrun by the Nazis in less than one day, Hitler beat them out in one day, took over.

They asked us to take care of Greenland. In fact, we took Greenland, and then stupidly we gave it back. We shouldn't have given it back to them, because we're the ones that need it. We need it for protection of the world, not just the United States. And it's very important. It doesn't help Denmark, but it helps us. And it's very important for us.

[04:15:07]

And again, they were defeated very quickly. Denmark was beaten in one day, less than one day, by the Nazis, by Hitler. And when this happened, they immediately switched it over to us. We owned it. We had it. We were taking care of it, and then we gave it back, which is, I don't know why. I wouldn't have -- I wouldn't have given the Panama Canal back either, you know. So what do I know?

I certainly wouldn't have done that, because China is trying to take over the Panama Canal, and that's not going to happen. So -- but I just -- you know, it's interesting. I'm very unhappy with NATO, and yet this man is a great leader. And he gets it. He gets it. He gets it maybe better than some of the leaders.

RUTTE: But also, your allies get it, thanks to you, and that is important. I could not do this without you.

TRUMP: It's too bad Biden didn't do it, or Obama.

RUTTE: Hey, but you are here now.

TRUMP: Obama.

RUTTE: And you -- and Trump 45, and Trump 47, in total, more than $1.2 trillion, I call this the Trump trillion, $1.2 trillion extra spent by Canada and the European Union. TRUMP: And I'm not always blaming NATO. They're getting a -- they got a free ride, and if Biden had any brain, which he didn't, he would have said, you got to pay more. And the same with Obama. Two bad presidents. But they could have asked, and you would have done that too. It would have been -- I mean, who knows? But who knows if they would have done it?

RUTTE: And it is a huge --

TRUMP: And it should have happened years ago. And it couldn't, but Obama didn't do it, and Biden didn't do it, and frankly, Bush didn't do it either.

RUTTE: But you did what Eisenhower started trying to do, equalizing the U.S.

TRUMP: He tried. Eisenhower tried.

RUTTE: And all the other presidents, none of them were successful. You're the first one. It's your win. Your win in the end.

TRUMP: That's why I like him. And the win now. That's why I like him.

RUTTE: This is true. Without you, this would not have happened. Really, great to win.

TRUMP: Do you have any questions?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President. Is the ceasefire over? Is the ceasefire done? Is the MOU done?

TRUMP: That's a very interesting question. To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum. You know what scum is? They're scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people. And they're vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over.

I'll speak to our negotiators. They want to negotiate. They're good people. Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner. But they have to come back to me. As far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. They're liars. We make a deal. And if I make a deal with him, we have a deal. And he goes out, he talks. We make a deal. Everyone's agreed. No nuclear weapon. We make a deal. They go outside, talk to the press. They say, we never even talked about it. There's something wrong with them. They're cuckoo. As far as I'm concerned, it's over.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- talks won't resume after we get through the funeral proceedings?

TRUMP: What?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does this mean that talks with Iran will not resume after you get through the funeral proceedings?

TRUMP: I don't care. They can talk. But I think they're wasting their time. They're a bunch of lying guys. I do it -- my whole life, that's all I do is deals. My whole life, that's how I became President, I guess. That's a deal too, right? But I made a lot of money. I had a lot of great success. Tremendous success. Everything I did, I was successful.

And I deal with these guys, and I say, this is from a different school. They're liars. They're cheats. They're sick people. They've hurt their people. They killed 54,000 people as of now that were protesting. You know, when people say, how come they haven't taken over? They can't take over. Because they're dead. They killed them. Nobody's going to take over. They have no guns. And the other side has machine guns.

And they're killing them. The press doesn't report it. But they're bad people. They're bad people. And, frankly, I don't want to waste my time with them. Now, I'll let our wonderful negotiators keep talking if they want, but I don't see it. I don't like these people. You know that? I like him. I like the leaders. I like, I think, all of these leaders. I think they didn't treat the United States fairly for many years, but that's OK. But they're sane, rational, good people, most of them.

I don't like a couple of them, to be honest. But there are a couple of them I don't like much. But I like Erdogan. I'll tell you. I like President Erdogan. He rolled out the red carpet. He's terrific. You know, he could have gone into the war. A lot of people are saying, like with Bibi. I like Bibi. I think Bibi was a terrific wartime prime minister. But Bibi said rough things yesterday about Turkiye and Erdogan. And I said, you know, I spoke to him.

I said, he could have gone into the war because he doesn't like Israel much. And he doesn't like Bibi much. And he didn't go because of me. And this is a military power, millions of soldiers. Turkiye is very strong. They have a lot of our best equipment. They're trying to get the F-35s. But he didn't go in. He wanted it. He would go in. If it weren't for me, he would have gone in.

[04:19:59]

And he would have been on the other side, even though I don't think he likes the other side either, because he happens to be very sane and they happen to be very crazy. But so I think, you know, they treated us right. I think China treated us right. I was with President Xi and I said, I hope you're not going to go into the war because we don't want that.

You know, he gets 50 percent of his oil from the Strait of Hormuz and he gets more than 50 percent. And he never went into the war. He didn't supply him equipment. You know, he was great. I'm a big fan of President Xi. A lot of people say, oh, why? You know, I watched a couple of people critical of the fact that TikTok, TikTok. It's so bad. It's so dangerous. It's so horrible. They're spreading all these rumors. And the numbers came out yesterday. You know, who's number one on TikTok? I am. I'm number one on TikTok. And all I talk about is how bad communism is, right? They say, oh, it's terrible. They're spreading. But I'm number one. And I listen to Gordon Chang. I like Gordon Chang, but he's always like negative. Oh, China is so terrible. They're so terrible. And TikTok is so terrible. But I'm number one on TikTok.

I have like 4 billion views or something like that. So I don't know. People have to get their priorities straight. We have had a really good day. We're going to have another good half a day. And then I'll see you later. 0We'll talk to you. Thank you very much. Thank you everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

SANDOVAL: All right. We just heard from President Trump a few moments ago as he speaks alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte during this latest summit in Turkiye, the President airing a very long list of grievances from NATO as an alliance, not directly at its leader, in fact, praised the leader, Mark Rutte, but also but really in general, the alliance itself, as well as Spain for falling short of its commitment numbers.

And then, of course, there was Iran, but with plenty to say there. Let's go straight to my colleagues now, Kevin Liptak and Paula Hancocks as well. Both were listening closely to the President. Kevin, I'm so sorry I interrupted you there. But as we were hearing from the President, curious what your immediate takeaways are.

LIPTAK: Yes. And the clear takeaway is that the President says that the MOU that he signed with Iran exactly three weeks ago today is over. He did condition it by saying that he would consult with members of his team, that he would allow them to keep going with the technical negotiations that are meant to curtail Iran's nuclear program. But the President making very clear that this deal has all but collapsed.

And we saw that overnight when Iran targeted merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. That was, you know, the second or third time that it happened. The U.S. responded. And the President coming into this meeting very, very angry at how this has all proceeded, calling Iran scum, calling them dirty people, saying that it was a complete waste of time, talking with them and saying very explicitly that this ceasefire agreement that has been in place now for three weeks is finished.

And that is hugely significant because, remember, the President said when he signed it that he feared if this war continued, there would be economic catastrophe. And so what this portends going forward, I think, is now a huge open question. Does the President resume a full- scale war with Iran, whatever that would mean? Does the U.S. go back into conflict with that country? Does it greenlight Israel going back into conflict with Iran?

A lot of questions about what it means for this MOU to be over. But the President very frustrated and very angry that this has not worked out, perhaps, the way he had hoped it would. Now, what this means for the negotiators, for J.D. Vance, for Steve Witkoff, for Jared Kushner, who had been engaged in the start of these discussions, remains to be seen. They had not actually advanced to some of the more technical discussions about the nuclear program. They were still sort of discussing how to implement the MOU.

And so they had not made a ton of progress on that front, but the President suggesting that he wants to throw that all aside and go back to the conflict. He said that he thinks that the U.S. should finish up business, essentially, in Iran, and so quite a significant statement from the President. Also extremely frustrated at NATO in a way that I think we perhaps expected heading into this summit, but that a lot of European leaders had hoped to avoid, and certainly Mark Rutte had hoped to avoid.

And you saw him trying to very gently push back on the President's claims about European participation in the war with Iran and European defense spending. But the President, I don't think, very receptive to those arguments. And I think this is all setting up to be a very confrontational meeting that is now going to be getting underway here in Turkiye.

[04:25:00]

SANDOVAL: Indeed. President Trump referring to Spain as a terrible partner, even threatening to cut off Spain. So we'll see where that goes. Kevin, do stay with us as we're going out to Paula Hancock's.

Paula, you were listening to Kevin's reporting right now, and really what this likely will mean for the U.S. delegation in the middle of these technical talks. Let's go to you now for the Iranian side now. I mean, we had heard from Iran's regime say very directly that they would pull out of any negotiations at any sign of any threat. And as Kevin just laid out, we heard some very pointed language coming from the President. How will that go over in Iran?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Polo, what we've been hearing consistently is both sides blaming the other. We've heard the U.S. saying that they had to carry out these strikes against Iran military targets overnight because of those three vessels that were targeted in the Strait of Hormuz. But then we are also hearing from the Iranian officials saying that it is the U.S.'s fault and responsibility for the MOU being negated at this point with what this most recent escalation in violence is bringing.

We heard from Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. He's the chief negotiator. I want to read you part of his post on social media where he said major MOU violations by the U.S. saying they're violating Iranian adjustments in the Strait. Also saying the era of bullying and extortion is over. It leads nowhere. We don't fold.

Now, there, of course, they are specifying about the Strait of Hormuz, which is really the major sticking point at this point. As far as Tehran is concerned, they are in control of this critical waterway. They believe that all of the vessels that are trying to go through the Strait of Hormuz need to be taking the northernmost point, the Iranian route, where they have to get Iranian permission.

And what many vessels are doing is trying to hug the Omani coast along the south coast, south part of the Strait of Hormuz. And those appear to be the vessels that Tehran has been targeting, according to U.S. officials. A Qatari tanker, also a Saudi tanker, being targeted. But at this point, both sides very much blaming each other for this current escalation in hostilities. Polo?

SANDOVAL: Paula Hancocks, Kevin Liptak, thank you both so much for all of your reporting. And we'll have more of your headlines in a moment. Don't go anywhere. You're watching CNN Newsroom.

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