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Trump Takes Questions on Iran Agreement After G7 Summit; Trump Says He Will Go Back to Bombing if Deal Isn't Done in 60 Days; Iran Has to Behave to Get Investment Money in Deal. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired June 17, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: -- power was. But they have Hezbollah and you've got to get that done, one way or the other we'll do it. I think Israel can do a much better job on it. Syria would love to do it. That was very responsible for the gentleman at Syria that's now the president. He's done a tremendous job. He's put that country together in a year and a half, sort of like our country, a year and a half, pretty similar size.

They said, don't, please don't put him there. He's a very violent man, Al Qaeda. I said, well, I know one thing, a Boy Scout's not going to work. And he's actually done a very good job. He'd love to go on it. You know, Hezbollah is an enemy of his and he'd go on any, but he wouldn't knock down buildings every time he hears there's somebody. He'll just go and get them with precision. But I don't know that people want that, maybe they don't, maybe Lebanon doesn't.

We have to be guided a little bit by Lebanon. And by the way, the president is going to be coming -- prime minister, president, going to be coming over to see us very shortly over the next week or two. Good man is, you know, man is living. What a tough life he's got because he's got tough groups of people. And it's amazing -- amazing there is a Lebanon with all they've been through. They have been treated worse than just about, I think, anybody, disrespected incredibly.

So the expansion of the Abraham Accords is the other thing that we hope we're going to get. And I think Saudi Arabia, if they lead the way, they'd be doing themselves a big favor because everybody that's in it, UAE went in right from the beginning. Again, he's a warrior. And they never got out. Nobody ever got out.

You think maybe during the war, they were all afraid of -- everybody was afraid of Iran. And that's why we ended up with the original members. But then when the election was rigged, that's right. And I wasn't here at all. Nobody cared about anything. The country went to hell in every way. That was the least of it.

Middle East was the least of it. The country went to hell, allowing 25 million people into the country unchecked and unvetted, many of them criminals, many of them murderers -- 11,888 murderers allowed into our country. So this was the least of it.

But the past two days have also provided an opportunity to discuss a number of other key issues with members of the G7 and our partners. Yesterday morning, we had a productive conversation on the war in Ukraine. I spoke with President Putin. I spoke with President Zelenskyy. And he was -- he was there. And President Putin, I spoke over the phone with, and something is going to happen. We are losing a lot of people, a lot of soldiers -- they are losing soldiers. Both are losing a lot. Russia's losing more because they're the offensive ones.

And when you're offensive in war, you lose more. Pretty simple. But I provided an update on my call Sunday with President Putin and expressed my continued hope. We had a very good conversation with President Putin and a very, very good conversation with President Zelenskyy. I think they both want to do something. They just don't know how to do it. They want to do it. They just don't know how.

In our session yesterday afternoon on international partnerships, I offered an update on how the United States is leading the world in responding to the Ebola outbreak in Africa, sending $375 million in aid so far to help stop and contain the crisis at its source. And we've done great.

I was with the president of 00 a couple of presidents came over, by the way, from African nations, and they were so happy with what we did. But where it's unfair is we gave $375 million, the rest of the world gave essentially nothing, maybe a couple of bucks, but nothing. And they were all saying, thank you so much. And I think they've done a good job.

It's a terrible thing. Ebola is a terrible thing. That's an unbelievable one. Fortunately, it's not like COVID where it's that easy to spread around, but it's rough. And we've done a good job. We've moved people to certain quarantine, certain locations.

But today, we also had excellent meetings on the economy and artificial intelligence, which is amazing what's going on with that. It's going to be the biggest thing ever. We have to be very careful with it. It's both great and could be bad. We have to be careful with it. But we're leading China. We're leading the world on that. We're allowing them to do their own electric plants because they need, as an example, those buildings are so big. And they're not taking the community's electricity. I gave them the right. It's my idea. I gave them the right to build electric plants like Con Edison in New York, "Dig We Must."

And they've come up with plants that nobody's ever seen anything like them. Those are very high IQ people. So they're actually building electric plants.

[12:35:00]

So -- because, otherwise they could never build a building because the grid is old and tired and broken and a mess. So they're building and they're going to sell their very cheaply. They're going to sell their additional -- their extra electricity into the grid. So we take care of a lot of things like California, which doesn't have nearly enough electricity. They don't know what they're doing there. And instead of having blackouts and brownouts, they'll be able not to. We found a great deal of unity here at the G7 and we signed a declaration on illegal immigration, the first time ever for a G7 statement. They did a beautiful statement. We signed other agreements to step up the -- to step up and to really coordinate and spend a lot of time coordinating drug trafficking and stopping of drug trafficking, which is crazy.

Comes through Mexico, comes through the Southern border, the little that comes through. They find a way, they put it, they're genius. If they would use that genius for good, they'd be very rich people. They have it in engines. They have it in hubcaps. They have it in areas you wouldn't even believe. They have it in the structures of cars, most incredible thing. But we've done a great job on it.

We have drugs coming through the border are down 61 percent. Drugs coming through water at the sea -- ocean, sea, gulf, down 97.2 percent. That's the ones that get hit. Just like we hit the Iranian minesweepers and mine droppers, they call them, they dropped. Who would have 28 mine droppers? Who has 28 mine droppers? They actually had them, but they don't have them anymore. We hit them just like we hit the drug dealers.

But drugs are down by water 97 percent and over 60 percent they are down. And now we're going to go and focus on the land. They come through Mexico. Mexico has lost control of their country. The cartels run Mexico, and it's sad. And the president is a very good woman, but she's a very scared woman.

The drug cartels are totally running Mexico. It's not even close. We agreed to accelerate our efforts to secure our critical minerals and rare earth supply chains, where we have great companies really going to town. We're going to give everybody a big run because we do it better than -- we had to get motivated.

The G7 also agreed to the United States' new approach to international development based on the private sector. Investment is working at levels that they never thought possible. It's really working. I held a number of very positive bilateral meetings, including with the president of France. It was a very good meeting, actually.

The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim, who's -- I tell you, I wish you could really know the guy. You know, some people say, well, he lived in that neighborhood. You can't be saying things that you'd like to have him say. He was fantastic on this, and he's been a fantastic guy in terms of energy and getting energy out there.

President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, who's an amazing warrior. President El-Sisi of Egypt. Prime Minister Modi of India, we spent a long time together today. I spoke to Mohammed. I spoke to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia a number of times. They're all so happy that they're still -- you have to have them happy too, you know. We're using their airports. Not that they could stop us if we didn't want them to, but it would be nice that I went to get that little sucker. But I missed -- I hate missing. But we spoke to -- we spoke to all of them and many countries all over the world. So every country -- I think Israel too. Look, think of what Israel is getting. They're not going to be nuked. It's very simple. I told Bibi, Bibi, your biggest risk was that they'd drop a nuclear weapon into the middle of Israel. They'd only need one, and there would be no more Israel. Think of it, Bibi. You got the best -- the most important thing that you were asking for is that. So I think they're happy.

Some people are going to be -- not him, but there are some people, some writers, some that I thought were friends of mine, but I don't want them as friends anymore because they're either stupid or they're bad people. But we stopped nuclear holocaust, and it's stopped too. I mean, there's not going to be any of that.

So from the beginning to the end, it was clear that this week America is back. It's bigger and better and stronger. We're more respected as a country right now, I think, than we ever have been.

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And we were a laughingstock two years ago. They would laugh at us. We had a man that should have never been there.

You know that -- a man that would walk up to a podium once every year and they'd ask him, what flavor ice cream do you like? I like vanilla. Then he'd try and find the stairs which he couldn't find most of the time and he'd leave. This is very unfair reporting and then you said, you didn't know about that.

You didn't know there was something wrong. We can never let that happen to our country again. To me, the worst, we had the worst inflation ever. We had the worst in prices, the costs. It's all coming down now because the oil is bringing it down. You're going to see numbers that are going to be amazing.

But this evening, I look forward to a very special dinner with President Macron and his fabulous wife at the Palace of Versailles. I sort of like that palace, the palace has a lot of gold. I want to check it out. It's a beautiful palace, maybe the most beautiful of all. I hope you're going to get to see it. The ones that are traveling with me, I hope you're going to get to see it because it's amazing.

But they asked me if I'd stay a little bit longer and go to Paris. So I'll get home a little bit later, but it'll be a nice dinner, but I'm interested to see it. I love -- I Mean, that's the ultimate I guess, it's the ultimate of its type, Louie XIV. Celebrating the 250th anniversary of America's founding and America's oldest alliance and we're celebrating that a little bit tonight. They'll have the biggest people in Europe at the dinner and those people love our country.

And hopefully, Europe is going to find its way. Europe is having a lot of hard times. They're doing some things very badly on energy and on immigration. They're doing things very badly and we'll be talking about that tonight. So with that all said, if you want to ask us any questions, feel free to ask the people behind me.

Yeah. Peter (ph)? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bonjour. You've been clear President Trump, the United States is not going to directly pay Iran but the U.S. is going to let the Iranians start making billions of dollars selling oil, accessing this reconstruction fund.

TRUMP: Only if they're doing things right. Peter, only if -- we're not doing anything. We're not putting up money. Only if they're doing things right. If they're doing things right, if people want to invest, they can invest, but they had this $300 billion fund. It's only $300 billion fund. It's only if they're doing things, right? Remember this also, when you talk about billions of dollars, they've had much more than $1 trillion worth of damage done. They got a long way.

They'll be 15 to 20 years to rebuild what they have right now. So they have to behave themselves. If they're not behaving, they get hit again, you know they'll be hit again because we can do it very easily. It's going to take a long way for them to build back their anti- aircraft stuff. It's going to take -- and you know, the other thing. I want to thank China, President Xi, I was with him and he stayed neutral, totally neutral, and I appreciate it. And I would want to thank Vladimir Putin. He was very neutral.

They could have made it much more difficult for us and I want to say it, you know, somebody was saying, oh, that's terrible. He's thinking -- he's thinking President Xi of China. Well, let me tell you, I had a long talk with him. You know, they have shoulder weapons to knock down airplanes that it's not like the real deal, but they're accurate. They're fairly accurate.

I said I would really appreciate you're not giving or selling any of that stuff to Iran. And you know what? For the most part, he didn't. So I just want to thank them because they made it a lot better.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you explain though what the difference is between giving Iran U.S. dollars and unfreezing U.S. dollars (inaudible)?

TRUMP: Well, the unfreezing, it's an easy one to answer. We have taken a lot of their money and we have their money. We have taken their money. It's not our money. It's their money and we froze it. At a certain point in time, I guess we're going to have to give it back. You know, if we didn't give it back, nobody would ever invest in the dollar again.

If you took their money because I thought about it, you know, I'm not the most perfect person. I said to Scott, Scott, why don't we keep their money? What the hell are we giving it back to them? But you know, people from lots of nations, some nations we don't agree with, they have their money. The dollar has become very strong under me and they don't want to have a little conflict with somebody and end up having the United States just take their money. So if you do that, you really don't have a system.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I just want to ask you about this. A wise man once said, in January of 2020, Iran never won a war but never lost a negotiation. That wise man -- [12:45:00]

TRUMP: Who said that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump.

TRUMP: That's what I thought you were going to say.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So how do you go back to the United States and convince a skeptical American public that this deal is a win?

TRUMP: Well, look, here they lost militarily, OK? It's very tough because I know that no matter what, if I would go, by the way, if I'd go another three or four weeks, those same people that are critical would say, he went too long. He should have ended, you know, no matter what.

If they raised the white flag of surrender, and if they said, praise be to Allah, Donald Trump is the greatest president ever. We totally concede, we totally give up. This war is over. We have failed. The New York Times and CNN and a couple of others, they're not all that dishonest, they'd say Iran had a great victory, OK? They practically do that.

You know, it's amazing when we knocked out their last ship, they had 159 ships. When we knocked out the last ship, The Times refused to do a story on it. They said, why would you need -- they don't have a Navy, and you don't want to do a story on it. They don't have an Air Force, you don't want to do a story. We need a fair press, and that's why they're all doing so badly, because they lost credibility.

When I went in a landslide, and I had 93 percent bad press, they'd take good stories about me and make them bad. But the only reason that happened is because they have so little -- the media has so little credibility that the people voted for me. 93 percent of the stories on network, ABC is horrible. I think ABC is the worst. NBC is terrible, and CBS is terrible. CNN, obviously.

And I never get good stories. No matter what I do, I could do the greatest thing. I won't get good stories on this. I'll get it from fair media. I'll get it from all over the world. They're writing good. But no matter what I do, I'm going to get bad press. I know that.

Now, if I did the opposite, if I went out and continued to bomb them for another four, just bomb the hell out of them, I'd get bad press on that. No, there's nothing I can do. But what this does is it allows the ships to go. If we keep bombing, those ships won't be going.

And you're talking about $500 million, $600 million, $700 million a day. It's a lot of money, a lot of money. That's why the world is OK. It's liquid. It's fine. Also, we run out of reserves in about four weeks. You know, there are reserves all over the world. And we would really run out. And there would be a time when you wouldn't be able to get it.

And you want to see Bedlam? So, for all those so-called geniuses that want to show me how smart they are, ask them why didn't they blow up General Soleimani? Ask that of the general and a couple of other people that I like very much. But, boy, are they wrong.

Go ahead. How about you? Thank you, Peter (ph). I'd give you more, Peter (ph). But people will say I like you too much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President. Bonsoir, Mr. President.

TRUMP: He told me that first day in office, he asked me like seven questions. I answered all of them. Is this true, he said, he just answered more questions in one meeting than Joe Biden did in four years. OK? You know, I'm not going to get you in trouble. But that's what you said. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible), Mr. President. In "The Art of the Deal," you write about the importance of leverage. Obviously, you have a lot of leverage when it comes to Iran, whether it's militarily or through economic sanctions.

What leverage, sir, do you have when it comes to Israel and Hezbollah to ensure that they abide by the ceasefire?

TRUMP: Well, I think we have leverage just by the fact that we really have Iran now has to be good. They have to behave. And we might help. That's a much smaller conflict. It's a conflict that should be able to be over with. I'm surprised it's taken so long. And it's a much smaller -- but we have a lot of leverage. We have -- look, we have the greatest military anywhere in the world.

We have the strongest, most powerful. Look at the blockade. By the way, the blockade was more impactful than all of the bombing raids where we dropped a billion dollars' worth of bombs on Iran. The blockade was so incredible. The naval blockade, the Admiral, the whole thing -- not one ship got through. That meant no money got through.

They were dying. They had no money. They have inflation that's 250 or 300 percent. They have no money. We have tremendous leverage. We have the leverage of the economy, as an example. We'll get that done. That's a small one, and we'll work with Israel and get it done. But I'd like to do it -- I mean, you have people living there.

Buildings are being dropped on top of them or right alongside of them. How would you like to live there? It's so unfair, especially Beirut. You know, you go into Beirut, and I looked at the scene two days ago, yesterday, where they hit. That was a big hit. That was unnecessary in my book. Yeah, please.

[12:50:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two questions, if you could clarify something you said just a few minutes ago, what are the goals of Epic Fury. Going into it, you said it was --

TRUMP: Say it again. Speak up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sorry, one of the goals of Epic Fury you said going into it was to destroy Iran's ballistic missiles and its capabilities to build more.

TRUMP: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is it acceptable to you now that they keep some of that capability and Iran is -- Iran --

TRUMP: What are they keeping? They have less than other nations now. We knocked out probably 84, 85 percent of their missiles. The rest of them are underground. They can't even get them out. You know, the other night's raid, I think it was on the first night. We knocked out hundreds of their missiles, actually by mistake.

We were hitting an area and it -- you know, you can sort of see, when the bombs are going off and then you see one that looks like, wow, what happened? A lot of missiles knocked down. No, but what are you going to do? Let's spend another two weeks and give them, then they don't want to be firing missiles, right now.

They're going to have a hard time rebuilding. They're going to have a hard time rebuilding. And if people from the Middle East, you know, if people want to invest -- and again, they don't have to invest at all. But if they do want to invest, it does have oil. It does have probably a future, but it's going to take a long time. But are you going to let the 91 million people starve to death? I mean one of the things I was very intent on, they have water desalinization plants, very good ones.

I could have knocked them out in five minutes, just like I knocked out Kharg Island. I knocked out everything but the oil. I said 25 -- it was so complete, the only thing there is the pipes coming with you up because I didn't want to ruin the world market because they do a lot of money. But I didn't want to do that. No. It would have been so easy.

It would have been easier and I would have satisfied a group of 10 percent of the people. But it would have been the wrong thing to do and it could have caused an international depression. Maybe not.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Iran's position has always been that their nuclear program was for civilian purposes. If they come back after the signing of this and say they want to continue to have a civilian nuclear program, is that acceptable to you?

TRUMP: Well, I've said to them always, I say, look, you have probably the third largest oil reserves in the world. What the hell do you need nuclear for? You need nuclear for some electricity. So I've always felt that way. So we've been pretty tough on that. You know, it's also -- it is a little hard though when you say that somebody wants it, other people have it, other adjoining states have it, and you're not letting them have it for purposes of electricity and things like that. It's always a little tough.

You have to use a little common sense. Please, New York Times please.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr. President, for the question. Now that you're approaching a new phase in this conflict with Iran, can you now say whether you will hold anyone in your administration accountable for the strike on a school that killed more than a hundred children on the first day of the war?

TRUMP: No, if it was a fault and as you know, that's under investigation. It's such a strange question to be asked at this stage, talking about a long time ago, but nobody did that on purpose. I guess you'd have to say about them, what about the thousands of soldiers that they blew up when they opened their car door?

What about the thousands of people that were killed by Iran? No, mistakes are made. A war is nasty. But I know it's under investigation and I could have a report for you tomorrow or I would ask Pete -- I would ask Pete Hegseth that question because they have it under investigation. Please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President you've been saying all week that this deal permanently prevents Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But the drafts of the deal that have been floating around barely mentioned Iran's nuclear program. So, can you explain how exactly the deal achieves that goal?

TRUMP: So when I say permanently, it should be permanently. But if it's not permanently, we will bomb them. They will be bombed just like I bombed them on Wednesday night and Tuesday night, and was going to bomb them on Thursday night at a level that was three times greater, and they knew that. I will bomb them.

Now that's with me as president. If you have a weak pathetic president, maybe that doesn't happen, but I can only do the job that I have to do. I have a long time to go. I have almost three years, close to three years. Time is going fast. But our country has become the -- we are the most respected country in the world.

Those leaders today, they said we used to laugh at you. Two years ago, the same guys, they'd laugh at the country. And now they say, you're the most respected country anywhere in the world, militarily -- even military. Take a look at what happened in -- look at what happened in so many different locations. Afghanistan, that horrible retreat that these people made, leaving equipment behind.

They weren't under any pressure. You take your time. You can get out.

[12:55:00]

I was going to get out. We're going to get out with dignity and pride, take a hundred percent of the equipment. I was even taking the tent stamp, but then they got in and they just left -- they left all the equipment. I may get all that equipment back. Now here's the thing, more symbolic, because it's a little old now, but we may get it all back.

Afghanistan is kissing our ass, you know that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible) bomb Iran if they don't comply, but there's nothing enforceable in the deal itself. Is that correct?

TRUMP: It doesn't have to be. I let him know. I said, look, if you don't adhere to the agreement, I don't want to do that, but we're going to bomb the hell out of you. And I don't think that they're going to veer from the agreement. What else am I going to do? I'm going to say I'm going to take you to court? Let me take you to court. Let me sue you.

No, we're going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement. I don't want them to. I want them to honor the agreement. Again, the Strait is close up, bad things can happen. You know in war, terrible things happen, like you mentioned the question before about the school gets hit. Other things get hit, bad things happen in war, war is a nasty place. I see it. I see it. I see it better than maybe anybody has ever seen it.

Go ahead, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, President Trump. Oil prices are now plummeting. How do you see this agreement further affecting energy prices in the U.S. and the U.S. economy in the long term? And secondly, Mr. President, how do you think Vice President J.D. Vance did on "The View" yesterday?

TRUMP: Well, first of all, thank you for the word plummeting because that's what's happening. Oil prices are plummeting and that means all prices are going to come down. You know, if you make doughnuts, you have a heating, you have a stove, and you have to buy the heat you need, the gas or the electricity or whatever you're using.

And when oil prices come down, oil is the biggest thing, oil is -- you get oil prices coming down and they're going to come down and we're hitting into $3s now for gasoline and then it will come down a lot lower.

So, I was in Iowa just before this started. I was saying to myself, I can't believe we're doing so well but I have to go and we have to put out this fire in Iran because I don't want them using a nuclear weapon. They would have used a nuclear weapon, a hundred percent they would have used it. The only question is, was it going to be that day or that week? They would have used a nuclear weapon.

They were on the way and I said we're going to have to put out the fire and I said, you know, oil prices, so gasoline -- we passed two gas stations in Iowa, made a speech up there. The people are great. I want it by so much and I love the people, farmers. And we passed two gas stations. One was $1.85; one was $1.91. No, that's Iowa.

But it was -- I mean, California has all those crazy taxes that they put on, you know, California taxes. But the oil was down to $2 -- I'd say between $2 and $2.50, and it was heading down further. And we were going to have a great run. We took a little journey down to a place called the Islamic Republic of Iran and we bombed the hell out of them. And now, they can never have a nuclear over.

Now, we had a disturbance, but I must say, it was much less than anybody thought. The oil never went to $350 a barrel. It went to $115, $120. The oil never went anywhere near that and the other thing I thought the stock market would go down 25 or 30 percent. The stock market, a week ago, before we started this, was higher than it was when we started, which tells you that we have a very resilient economy. We have the strongest economy we've ever had.

Now, the word affordability, it's a fake word made up by the Democrats. Here's where it's fake, because they made it up, because I inherited these prices. And when I had my first news conference, first day, they started screaming affordability, the Democrats, affordability, affordability, they're screaming. I say what's that all about? They gave it to me. They gave it to me.

It's affordability and they use that word to a fare-thee-well. Well, they were the ones that created the affordability crisis. I'm the one that got it down. Remember, highest insurance rates in history, highest rates for everything. Eggs, remember eggs, they were four times more expensive than they were in my administration and I got it down, Peter (ph), very quickly.

Our Secretary did a good job, of agriculture, Brooke. She did a great job with eggs and everything else. And now that the oil is coming down, you're going to see everything follow. Everything follows the cost of energy and we're going to end up having the lowest energy anywhere in the world. Please. Yeah.

No, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

TRUMP: You're from ABC. You're fake news. Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To follow up on oil, can you confirm, will Iran be able to immediately sell their oil to market and will the U.S. sanctions snap back immediately --