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Trump Takes Questions After Saying Iran Ceasefire May Be Over; Trump Says Ceasefire May Be Over, Threatens New Strikes Tonight; Trump Will Leave Turkey on Old Air Force One. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired July 08, 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: -- did to this country was incredible, including the fact not only the drugs, but he had people pour into the country from prisons. They opened up their prisons. They allowed them to come in. We're getting them out. We're getting them all out.

But we have, with the Biden open border policy, with Kamala as your Border Czar remember, she was the Border Czar, but she never called Border Patrol, never once. And she never went to the border. The border was a disaster. Now it's fixed. It's fixed where we have nobody -- and I don't do these numbers.

Zero people come in through our border, through our southern border. Zero. And that's been announced now every month for the last 12 months. Zero. We had millions of people come in, under 25 million people, I think more than that under Biden. And they weren't people that you want. And for the most part, they were drug dealers. They were escaped from -- think of it, all the prisons.

And I'm not just talking about from South America. I'm talking about from the Congo. I'm talking about from all over the world. The prisons were emptied out. They were emptied out into our country. But they had the worst murderers. They had the -- we had people allowed in our country that should never. And they walked in to an open border policy. And all I'm saying is that you're lucky we won this election.

Yeah, please. Go ahead. Go ahead.

No. Yes. Go ahead.

IRIS TAO, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NTD: Thank you, Mr. President.

TRUMP: Who are you with? Why don't you say your name and who you're with? It's always helpful.

TAO: Thank you, Mr. President, for doing this. Iris Tao with NTD, with their sister media with The Epoch Times.

TRUMP: OK.

TAO: On communism, you've been issuing a wake-up call to Americans at home about the dangers of communism. TRUMP: Yeah.

TAO: And now you're speaking on the world stage. What's your message to people both living under communist and socialist regimes, but also people living under democracies like in Europe and America, who might not have realized how close communism has come to home?

TRUMP: Yeah, that's a great question, actually. But look, I want to get the word out because what's forming is communism in the country. And communism is easy to sell. I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up there with Lenin. I'd be as good as anybody. You've got free rent for the rest of your life.

What they don't say is that you'll be living in squalor in 12 months. You've got free house. Would anybody like to have a free house? We'll take it away from somebody. We'll give it to you. You'll have murderers all over the place. Communism is a disaster.

It's been proven to be for thousands of years under different names, but same thing. It's very important. And, you know, it's funny. One of the reasons I do so well with Hispanic people, I set a record. Republicans, I get great numbers for the election, it helped me get elected in a landslide. The Hispanics, because a lot of them came from countries that were essentially communist.

You know, whether you call them radical, socialist or communist is not that much. But there is a little difference. When they say social Democrats, well, social Democrats, it sounds so nice. It's not nice. It's a very dangerous term. So I do talk about it and I talk about it on TikTok and I talk about it everywhere.

I talk about it here. And you're right. It has become international, but it's never worked and it's not going to work. What is working is the United States. Think of it, we have more jobs than we've ever had. People are making more money than they've ever made. I'm talking about workers now, talking about workers. They're making higher salaries than they've ever made before.

It's just the best system. And it's got flaws, but everything's going to have a little flaw. But it's been amazing. And when I watch what's happening and I see these low lives getting -- I mean, they're low lives. I watch them. I know good people. I know quality people. These are essentially low lives. And when I see what they're talking, I think they're very dangerous in many ways.

And I've said it. And then I said, boy, that's a pretty big statement. Then I realized, you know, a couple of people said, I think you're probably right. I think this country with this thing that's going around is in more danger than it was during World War I, World War II.

If you talk about September 11th, if you talk about Pearl Harbor, that was big danger. I think this is -- I think the concept of us going communist, because one thing that happens when you go communist, you never come back, never comes back. You die in squalor. You die. You die a horrible death. You die in squalor. And it gets very evil and very nasty. Yeah, please go ahead.

TYLER PAGER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Mr. President, Tyler Pager with The New York Times.

Last month, you said Iranian leaders were very rational people, nice people to deal with, strong people, smart people. Today, you said they were scum, sick people and being led by sick people. What changed? And do you think they --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I got to know them, so --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I've said that about a lot. Now, when you say rational, I think they're much more rational than level one, level two. Level one is gone. Level two is gone. This is level three. I think they are more rational, but based on their actions over the last week or two, they're not -- they're not doing a service to the people.

[12:35:00]

And I think more than anything else is I got to know them and I'm not sure I want to make a deal with them.

We can play games, but I'm not sure I want to make a deal. Let's just finish the job.

Yeah, please go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

STEVE SEDGWICK, CNBC ANCHOR: Thank you, Mr. President. Steve Sedgwick from CNBC. The oil markets are up today around about seven percent for WTI and Brent as well. The world is taking you at your word, sir, that the MOU is over, that the ceasefire is over. What happens next, sir? Are we on the cusp of a full-scale return to (inaudible)?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: No. (inaudible) I'll tell you what happens next. We're never going to see Iran have a nuclear weapon because that's much more important than the numbers you're talking about. The prices of oil are dropping like a rock, now they'll be up a little bit, and this will end very quickly. We have a tremendous -- we have an oil glut right now, because we got all those boats out of the Strait and It's going to drop and I predicted everything.

I've been right about everything and I have been for a long time. That's how I got to be president three times. It's how I won three elections. I did very well in the second one, won it. It was a rigged election, but I've been right. And oil is coming down. Now, I got to make -- I have to make sure of one thing that we don't have lunatics having control over nuclear weapons, so we have that now. There's no way they have a nuclear weapon. We have cameras as an example on the site that those beautiful B-2s at one o'clock in the morning 10 months ago blew up. They blew it up. We have cameras. That's called Space Force. They're in space, but we have cameras that can read the badge of the person going over to a site. Mohammed something, we say it's Mohammed something is there with shovels. Well, shovels won't get you there.

The biggest machinery in the world probably won't get you there if you want to know the truth. It's way, way below, but we are watching that and if anybody goes there, they get blown up. So nobody's going to touch that. Eventually, we'll take it. But what we do have is we have that. That's gone.

If we wouldn't have had that, they would have had a nuclear weapon and they would have wiped out Israel. If I weren't president, Israel wouldn't exist. And we did it two times when the JCPOA, the Obama deal, when that was originally conceived everything went to Iran. $1.7 billion in cash, hundreds of billions of dollars, they thought they could buy peace with these people. You can't do that.

So the big thing we have is, more important than anything we can talk about is you can't let lunatics have nuclear weapons and we've stopped that. And that should have been stopped on a couple of other occasions too with different countries, but they didn't do that.

Yeah, please.

STEVEN NELSON, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK POST: Steven Nelson from the New York Post. I'd like you to address speculation that you're leaving Ankara not in the new Air Force One because of security concerns involving Iran. You've spoken today twice about them possibly assassinating you and possibly being successful. Did that concern have something to do --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, I speak about it a lot because, you know, the life of a president is very dangerous. It's 5.2 percent. You know what a racecar driver is? One-tenth of one percent. A bull rider, that looks pretty dangerous to me, it's one-tenth of one percent.

No, it's 5.2 percent, is you don't make it. You should have told me, you're an excellent reporter. You should have told me that years ago, maybe I wouldn't have run. It's a very dangerous profession. You know, I'm number one on the kill list for Iran. They're lovely people. I'm number one. So I don't know, I can't tell you that, but I don't really care because I'm doing my job and I'm doing it, I hope, better than anybody's ever done it because we have a country that's hot and really, really successful.

But I mentioned it only because it's on the list, I mean, that came out. There was another list came out yesterday and I'm number one on -- I like being number one on TikTok better. But I'm number one on the list for killing.

Go ahead. SEAN MCCREESH, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Hey, Sean McCreesh, New York Times. But why aren't you flying the new plane home?

TRUMP: Say what?

MCCREESH: Why aren't you flying on the new Air Force One home?

TRUMP: It's flying to Europe to one of the big bases, two or three of the big bases where we can show it to the people. And we'll be going home by normal methods. But we have it, going to Europe to a couple of bases actually, one in particular, but it's going to go to a couple of bases, stop, so the soldiers can see it because it's truly magnificent.

Yeah, please. Go ahead. Do you want to go? OK, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, (inaudible), Turkiye. Mr. President, it seems that the war with Iran may start again.

[12:40:00]

What do you expect from your European allies?

TRUMP: No, I don't think it's going to start again. I think it's going to go very quickly. They hit a couple of ships. And so we hit them much harder. When they hit, we hit 10 times harder. You know, we hit much harder than they do. We have a lot better equipment than they do.

We may even, somebody else before, do you think you'll hit him tonight? I said, we might. Yeah, we might. But when they hit, we hit. You know, it's what they're -- we use their language. We speak their language.

No, I don't think so. I think anything that happens is going to be over very quickly, and we'll only -- and we'll only make it safer, including for oil. Oil is going to be very free, very easy, and it's going to happen very fast. We have the Hormuz Strait. The boats have pulled out. I mean, there's a gusher of oil right now. We have a lot of oil.

And no, anything that happens is going to happen very fast. We're not -- we're not looking -- we're not looking for long term.

OK, go ahead, Red.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, you said today -- (inaudible) MS NOW. You said today that countries --

TRUMP: You're with who?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: MS NOW.

TRUMP: MS NOW? What a -- that's a failing network. Why would you want to work for them? MS Now, can you imagine? They wanted to get away. They took the name NBC because they were embarrassed by it. Go ahead. Let's go. Where did you hear this question?

You said today that countries like Spain, Italy and the U.K. were not there for the U.S. in its war with Iran. Should those countries be attacked, will the U.S. be there for them?

TRUMP: Well, I'll tell you what. Number one, Spain has been very bad. But, you know, the Italy has been good and almost all other countries have been good. They just had a bad moment. They didn't help us. We didn't need their help. But if we would have wanted their help, I said, by the way, if I want help, sure (ph) would rather remain on the sidelines. And I didn't like that answer.

U.K. gave an answer that was sort of weirder than that. They went out -- I said, would you like to help? They said, we do. But we want to wait till the war is over. This was not in the spirit of Winston Churchill.

So, yeah, I mean, I'll tell you what, I can only say, if there's one word that comes out of today, it's unification. I've never seen anything like it. Every one of those countries, they love us. They love each other. That was tremendous unification. It was a nice thing to say. It was a very fair question too.

Yeah, green. Green. Yeah, you weren't green, right?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President. (Inaudible) from Haber Global TV, Turkiye.

Mr. President, after your meeting with President Erdogan, can you tell us whether you and President Erdogan reached an understanding on Turkey's return to the F-35 program and the future of U.S.-Turkey defense cooperation? And do you believe U.S.-Turkey relations are entering a new chapter right now?

TRUMP: Well, I had a great relationship in my first term. You remember Pastor Brunson, and he was put in jail for 35 years. And I called -- he was an evangelical hero, actually, very good man. And I called President Erdogan and he let him out. I didn't pay anything like Obama and Biden pay billions of dollars all the time.

I didn't, I never paid any for anybody. I just said, let him out, let him out. But in this case, I didn't say it the second way. I said it the first way. I said, look, he's been -- he's a good man. He's highly respected in the evangelical. And I'd like you to let him out. And he was in my office, in the Oval Office the following day, Pastor Brunson.

I had a great relationship. When sleepy Joe Biden got in, bad things happened with a lot of things between the border. Everything was bad. We were laughed at all over the world. And we had a very bad relationship with a lot of countries. I think Turkey was one of those countries. But that changed on November 5th when we had the election.

And we've -- it's one of our best relationships. We have a great relationship. And they're talking about the F-35 airplane. And it's the best plane and everybody wants it. And we have to make a decision who we give it to.

I mean, my inclination, because, again, he stayed out of -- he's not a huge fan of Bibi and he's not a huge fan of Israel, but he stayed out of that war. He could have gone into that war very easily. And he didn't. At my request, he stayed out of that war. He's been a very good ally. I mean, Marco could tell you, we have a very strong relationship with Turkey.

You know, it's a very big country. It's a very powerful -- militarily, it's a very -- it's the second most powerful country in NATO. It's a NATO country. So whether or not we do that, I haven't totally made up my mind. But my inclination is to say, look, he's done everything. He's helped us in so many different ways.

And you know who else has been good to us? China. China never came into the war. They get 50 percent of their oil from Hormuz Strait.

[12:45:00]

They never came into the war. They never said, I'm going to send a ship and five destroyers along each side of the ship. They never did. No, he was -- he's been -- President Xi has been great. Everyone's been sort of great, to be honest.

You know why? Because they respect our country again. They laughed at our country. They thought we were a bunch of fools. They saw a president that couldn't talk. He couldn't walk. It was a disaster. They lost respect for our country, but now they have more respect for our country than they've ever had before.

Thank you all very much. We'll see you back. Thank you very much, everyone.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': And we've been watching and listening to President Trump at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkey, been talking and answering questions about a host of issues, mostly on the world stage, some without being asked on the domestic stage.

Generally speaking, the headline was all of the things that the president said about Iran. It's saying that in terms of their leadership, that they are a little loco, a little crazy. Was asked about the fact that he said things, the opposite beforehand, that beforehand, back in June, he said that the leadership was -- they were rational people, nice to deal with, strong, smart people. And the question was, what changed? And his answer was, well, I got to know them.

And he again leaned in, as he has done now a couple of times today, to the idea that the U.S. is going to potentially strike again militarily tonight, despite the alleged ceasefire. Again, underscored the idea that the goal he said today was to make sure that they never get a nuclear weapon.

A couple of other quick things that certainly bear noting. He was asked a question by a conservative reporter about the dangers of communism, which the president has been talking a lot about, certainly since the July 4th holiday. And he tongue firmly in cheek, but still said, I would be the greatest communist in history. Communism is easy to sell. I would be the greatest communist. I'd be right up there with Lenny, meaning Lenin.

And then one other thing that I do want to say, and we can talk about it a little bit more. This is before he was getting questions when he was talking about a whole host of issues. On the domestic front, he talked about the Democrats who have been elected recently in some of the primaries, Democratic socialists. And he said that how bad these lunatics are that are running for election that don't sound good, don't think good, and don't look good. I don't see any looker.

Again, that's the president on the world stage at a NATO Summit, finishing it up, talking again, mostly about international affairs, but making that comment about candidates back home.

I want to bring in CNN's Nic Robertson in Ankara, Turkey. Oren Liebermann is in Jerusalem.

Nic, to you first, what's your takeaway?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, I did get a sense of what a difference a day makes in a way, because the president came in full of sort of anger and frustration at NATO partners, yet his summing up about the NATO partners today was quite positive. It's a lovely room. I wish you could have been in there. They all love me. They all praise me.

Look, we have heard some praise of President Trump here that he has done the right thing to get European countries to spend more on defense, particularly heard that from the Poles, particularly heard that from the Finns. I've spoken to both their foreign ministers.

You know, the war with Ukraine and Russia, very close to their borders, great concern. So, you know, if the president picked up on that vibe in the room, he was really playing that up. It was strong. And that was different to yesterday. He'd really, this morning, chastised Spain for not making its defense commitments financially and said that he wanted to sort of cut trading ties.

But then when he was asked about Spain this afternoon, he was a lot softer on it. I thought his tone on Iran really seemed to have perhaps opened the door slightly wider, not wanting a longer war, but going to show military toughness towards Iran, sort of indicating there that they could get back to more detailed discussions on the MOU.

I thought that the overall tone seemed to be, I think, a lot softer coming from the president than when he came in. The question about Air Force One -- not flying back on his --

BASH: Yeah.

ROBERTSON: -- new Air Force One, but flying back by other means, that was sort of something we didn't see coming. But there's been quite a few things. And I think he sort of backpedaled a little bit there on the F-35s.

[12:50:00]

He said fairly clearly that he was going to give them to Turkey above Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu's protest, now he seems to be --

BASH: Yeah.

ROBERTSON: -- backing away from that slightly. But it's been, I think, a summit of surprises here. Some of the other things, the Patriot missile defense systems under license to be made in Ukraine, that was a surprise here too.

BASH: Yeah. And Oren, as you well know, the Israeli prime minister yesterday came on the show in order to really plead with the president not to sell those F-35s to Turkey. So I wonder what your take on that is and more broadly about, you know, being in the region as it prepares, according to the president, for more military strikes tonight in Iran.

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF & CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's take those one at a time. On F-35s, President Donald Trump kind of indicated he hadn't made up his mind yet, theoretically at least. Congress should have some oversight here.

But he believes he can push that through if he decides that Turkey should have the most advanced F-35 fighter jet. That will obviously be something very concerning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has gone very public with you, Dana, and others to try to lobby against that, both likely lobbying Trump and lobbying Congress here.

Perhaps the more concerning part of that was how much praise you heard Trump heap on Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

BASH: Yeah.

LIEBERMANN: So that was a theme at the beginning. He kind of came back to that as he talked about F-35s. And then there's a question of where does the fighting and the escalation we just saw go with Iran.

And I thought one of his clearest messages, one of his only really clear messages, and he came back to this a couple times, was the idea, and I quote here, "This will end very quickly in response to Iran." And he came back to that point that this isn't about to lead to an all-out war again. This will be quick and over.

He was asked about the effect it's having on oil prices that are already surging after he indicated that the MOU is canceled, the ceasefire is over. Here he had a very different message. This will end very quickly. That is, the ceasefire will remain in place. He also said earlier in that press conference that the U.S. had denuclearized Iran. Well, if that's the case, then why are there supposed to be negotiations on Iran's nuclear program and its highly enriched uranium? That's the whole point of where these negotiations are supposed to go. And then, Dana, perhaps it's no surprise that he criticized the Obama- era JCPOA, saying it gave Iran billions. Well, of course, he forgot to mention that the current MOU was supposed to set up a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran after this war, even if that money doesn't come from the U.S. The U.S. had, until the last 24 hours or so, lifted sanctions on Iran selling oil. So that gave them money.

And even in the middle of the war, as the U.S. was carrying out strikes on Iran, the U.S. had lifted sanctions on Iran selling its oil at sea. So all of these are under the negotiations that Trump himself has led, negotiations that haven't led to a final deal to try to eliminate Iran's nuclear program.

BASH: Oren, those are such important fact checks. Thank you for bringing all of that up. And Nic, you as well, the analysis and the reporting. I appreciate it.

We have some terrific reporters here at the table. David Chalian, your takeaway?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR & WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Yeah. Well, I think what you started with and what Oren was just sort of ending with there, I think, captures -- hearing him go from early this morning being like, this is, I think we're done with this MOU.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: His anger was palpable.

CHALIAN: Yeah. Like that, which to like, I don't think this is going to start up again as a war. And I, you know, I think it can go very quickly. Clearly, he was trying to shift the narrative of what the last several hours has been.

BASH: And the markets.

CHALIAN: Yeah. Without a doubt.

BASH: Yeah.

CHALIAN: And we'll see the effect of that. But you know, I still don't think we have the clear answer of, well, what's next then in terms of the options on the table?

TREENE: Absolutely. I mean, you heard the president earlier, you know, signaling that he could move to all of those things that he was threatening before the ceasefire was struck. Going after desalination plants, he argued he doesn't want to do that, but he will if he has to.

Infrastructure, Kharg Island, all of the big things that he believes Iran wanted to deal with, make a deal with the United States to avoid. Part of this, of course, the question I have is, how much is this him trying to signal to Iran, get your act together and we're going to come after you versus let's actually make these plans?

Obviously, there were strikes overnight. He's previewed potential more. But I do think he does not want this to be all-out war. And also his whole team does. I mean, I remember I was speaking with several of the people involved in these negotiations when this MOU was actually struck and they said, part of the reason everyone got on board is because everyone wanted this to be over.

Something Susie Wiles said, something that, you know, Pete Hegseth has said, something that Vance has said. And they still have that belief. So I think that's part of what he was trying to make clear with that softer language.

BASH: Yeah. With the question being from one of the one of the European reporters, it appears, the question being you appear to be in a dead end with the Iran War.

[12:55:00]

And then his answer was effectively, no, no, no, it will be short term.

ADAM HARRIS, CO-HOST RADIO ATLANTIC: Yeah, I mean, the thing that we've seen kind of throughout this entire conflict in Iran is that the president is trying to project a sort of control over the situation when it's quite obvious that he doesn't necessarily have control, right? We're in a worse strategic place than the United States was at the very beginning, right, with thinking about things like the Strait of Hormuz, knowing that Iran can use that as a bargaining chip whenever they would like to.

And so he's threatening these additional strikes with the sort of knowledge that it's not necessarily in his power to say, OK, well, they're fighting on two different fronts, right? Iran is saying, we're trying to survive this when the U.S. is trying to win in a different sense.

BASH: Can we talk about Air Force One for a second? Yes. I'm not going to put you on the spot here, but the question was about his safety, the concerns about his safety, and whether that is the reason why this new Air Force One plane that he's so proud of, that is incredibly controversial, that he got from Qatar, is not being used.

He's not going to get on that plane to go back to London. He had reasons that he gave, but as part of the question about his security, he said several times, I'm number one on the kill list for Iran. They're lovely people, obviously, joking. I'm number one, so I don't know. That was something that he repeated throughout the press conference, how much the Iranian leadership wanted to take him out.

TREENE: Yeah, it's clearly something that's been weighing on his mind now, I think, more than ever. I mean, obviously, Trump knows this. He -- you know, part of the reason a lot of people wanted to go to war inside the West Wing and in Trump's camp was because of the threats Iran has made on his life previously, in addition, of course, to the nuclear weapon and all the things that they have stated for this war.

It's definitely on his mind. I think it's fascinating what happens with this plane. It's unclear, as of this moment, I know we were asking the White House, is he actually going to take that Qatari luxury jet, as he calls it, back from the U.K. to the U.S., or is he taking, because what he's going to be taking from Turkey to where their refueling stop is in the U.K. is the former Air Force One.

BASH: Right.

TREENE: If he doesn't take that back all the way to the U.S. from the U.K., it's definitely going to have, I'm assuming, has to have something to do with security.

BASH: Thank you all for this abbreviated conversation. Thank you for joining "Inside Politics." A lot more news on "CNN News Central" which begins after a quick break.

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