Speaker 2 (00:13):
[inaudible 00:00:06]. Come in, come in, Alan.
(00:13)
[inaudible 00:00:49].
Donald Trump (00:49):
Well, thank you very much everybody. We have a meeting with a man who's become a friend of mine and we've known each other for a little while in some very interesting times and we get along. Our countries get along very well. We have a great affinity for each other. And the chancellor has been very well received in Germany. He's a very successful man, became the chancellor of Germany, which is a big deal. And he's doing a very good job, my opinion, a really a great job, very popular. And the relationship that we have in trade and everything else has been very strong. We've been able to do our deals and it's been very strong. We'll obviously be talking a little bit about Iran today and he's been helping us out. We've been very nice actually. And that is coming along, as you see very well.
(01:42)
They have no Navy. It's been knocked out. They have no Air Force, that's been knocked out. They have no air detection, that's been knocked out. Their radar has been knocked out. And just about everything's been knocked out. So we'll see how we do, but we're doing very well. We have a great military and they're doing a fantastic job. So we'll be talking about that. And we're talking about some very big trade deals and those I know will work out too. So I just want to say it's a great honor to have you at the Oval Office. The beautiful Oval Office, beautiful White House. It's a special place. Even from your standpoint, and you have some very special places too, and I look forward to being with you.
Friedrich Merz (02:25):
Thank you.
Donald Trump (02:26):
Thank you very much.
Friedrich Merz (02:27):
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, for having me here in this Oval Office for the third time now.
Donald Trump (02:34):
Yeah.
Friedrich Merz (02:35):
Really happy to have the opportunity to speak with you in these challenging times. We are on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Tehran away. And we will talk about the day after what will happen then if they are out. We have to talk about our trade agreement, which I would like to be in place as soon as possible. And we have to talk about Ukraine. There are too many bad guys in this world actually, and this is an issue we have to talk about because we all want to see this war coming to an end as soon as possible. But Ukraine has to preserve its territory and their security interests. And well, we will talk about that.
Donald Trump (03:26):
We will indeed.
Friedrich Merz (03:26):
Looking forward to that.
Donald Trump (03:28):
Well, thank you for being here.
Friedrich Merz (03:29):
Thank you-
Donald Trump (03:30):
That's some interesting-
Friedrich Merz (03:31):
... for your hospitality. Thank you for letting me spending the night in your guest house.
Donald Trump (03:35):
That's right.
Friedrich Merz (03:36):
It's a very, very comfortable place.
Donald Trump (03:38):
Oh, you liked it, right?
Friedrich Merz (03:39):
Absolutely. Yeah. Great place. And a famous place.
Donald Trump (03:41):
Very famous.
Friedrich Merz (03:42):
So many former presidents.
Donald Trump (03:44):
That's right. Very famous place. Any questions, please?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Mr. President, Israel forced your hand to launch these strikes against Iran [inaudible 00:03:55] the United States into this war?
Donald Trump (03:56):
No, I might have forced their hand. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they were going to attack first. They were going to attack if we didn't do it. They were going to attack first. I felt strongly about that. And we have great negotiators, great people, people that do this very successfully, and have done it all their lives, very successful. And based on the way the negotiation was going, I think they were going to attack first. And I didn't want that to happen. So if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand, but Israel was ready and we were ready. And we've had a very, very powerful impact because virtually everything they have has been knocked out now. Their missile count is going way down. Amazingly, they're hitting countries that were, let's call them neutral, right? They lived together for a long time.
(04:54)
I think they were surprised. I was surprised. And now those countries are all fighting against them and fighting strongly against them. Some day they'll write a story and they'll say why they did that, but they hit countries that had nothing to do with what's going on. They were sort of leaving everything alone. All of a sudden, they had missiles shot in, which shows you the level of evil that we're dealing with. They'll hit people that were actually at least somewhat friendly and they had no problems with it. Also hitting only civilian places, hotels and apartment buildings, and we're hitting them where it is much more appropriate. We're hitting them very hard. And the big scale hitting goes now. They no longer have air protection. They no longer have any detection facilities at all left. And so they're going to be in for a lot of hurt.
(05:51)
These are bad people. These are people that killed, I guess it's 35,000. It's coming out 35,000 over the last three weeks. Protestors, 35,000 violently killed. So these are bad people and the leader of the pack is gone. And as you know, 49 people were taken out in the first hit. And I guess there was another hit today on the new leadership, and it looks like that was pretty substantial also. So they're getting hit very hard and we'll see what happens. A lot of people are coming forward. A lot of the people you would least suspect want to quit. They want to have immunity. They're asking for immunity and probably at some point they'll be dropping, as you would say, laying down their guns. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, we're just continuing to go forward. Our military is the number one in the world by far.
(06:44)
And we are... Everything's big in my book. Venezuela is big. This is big. The original hit, Midnight Hammer was big. Everything you view is big, but it's not considered very big by some standards, by some of our standards. We have a military like no other military that's ever been built.
(07:06)
Please.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Mr. President, what's the worst case scenario that you have planned for in Iran?
Donald Trump (07:14):
Well, I don't know if there's a worst case. We have them very much beaten militarily from the military standpoint. They're still lobbying some missiles. At some point, they won't even be able to do that because we're hitting all of their carriers. We're hitting all of their missile stock. They built up all these missiles over the last few years. They had a lot of them. They've shot a lot of them and we're knocking out a lot. I guess the worst case would be we do this and then somebody takes over who is as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don't want that to happen. It would probably be the worst you go through this. And then in five years, you realize you put somebody in who was no better. So we'd like to see somebody in there that's going to bring it back for the people.
(08:02)
And we'll see what happens with the people. They have their chance. And we've said, don't do it yet. If you're going to go out and protest, don't do it yet. It's very dangerous out there. A lot of bombs are being dropped. But I always say that would be about the worst.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Do you have someone in mind right now? Because you said all the people you did have in mind have been taken out. What do you think about-
Donald Trump (08:20):
Well, most of the people we had in mind are dead. So we had some in mind from that group that is dead. And now we have another group. They may be dead also based on reports. So I guess you'll have a third wave coming in. Pretty soon we're not going to know anybody. But we have... I mean, Venezuela was so incredible because we did the attack and we kept government totally intact. And we have Delci who's been very good. We have the whole chain of command and they've been... The relationship's been great. We've taken out a hundred million barrels of oil already and a big part of that goes to them and a big part goes to us. And it's been great. We paid for the war many times over and we're going to be running the oil and Venezuela's going to make more money than they ever made.
(09:17)
And that's great for the people. The relationship has been great. It's been seamless. Nobody's actually ever seen anything like it. If you look at Iraq where very stupidly everybody was fired, the generals were fired, the military was fired, the police were fired, the fire departments were fired, and all of the government workers were fired. So after people would call, they had no idea. And by the way, ISIS was formed. That's where ISIS came from, all of the fired people. We don't believe in that. So we'll see what happens, but first we have to finish off the military.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
[inaudible 00:09:59]. Is he an option at all in
Donald Trump (10:00):
I guess he is. Some people like him, and we haven't been thinking about too much about that. It would seem to me that somebody from within maybe would be more appropriate. I've said that. He looks like a very nice person, but it would seem to me that somebody that's there, that's currently popular, if there's such a person, but we have people like that. We have people that were more moderate. These were radical lunatics. And you know what they get? They get nothing. All they do is kill people.
Reporter 1 (10:34):
What exactly was the imminent
Donald Trump (10:36):
You've asked, not your turn. Not your turn, please.
Reporter 2 (10:39):
Mr. President, are you going to take the heat off the Europeans to [inaudible 00:10:46] helping Mark Rutte hold on the allies to also help you and-
Donald Trump (10:47):
What does that mean?
Reporter 2 (10:51):
Well, you have to ask Mark Rutte if he says [inaudible 00:10:53] as part of NATO, but to be helpful to you in this. And will [inaudible 00:10:58]
Donald Trump (10:57):
Well, some of the European nations have been helpful and some haven't. And I'm very surprised. Germany has been great. He's been terrific. Others have been very good, terrific. I think that the head of NATO, Mark, is fantastic. Okay?
Friedrich Merz (11:13):
He is.
Donald Trump (11:14):
Mark Rutte, I think he's fantastic. But some of the European, like Spain has been terrible. In fact, I told Scott to cut off all dealings with Spain. Spain, first of all, it started when every European nation at my request paid 5%, which they should be doing. And everybody was enthusiastic about it, Germany, everybody, and Spain didn't do it. And now Spain actually said that we can't use their bases, and that's all right. We could use their base, if we want. We could just fly in and use it. Nobody's going to tell us not to use it, but we don't have to, but they were unfriendly.
(11:55)
And so I told him we don't want to, Spain has absolutely nothing that we need other than great people. They have great people, but they don't have great leadership. And as you know, they were the only country that in NATO would not agree to go up to 5%. I don't think they agreed to go up to anything. They wanted to keep it at 2%, and they don't pay the 2%. So we're going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain.
Reporter 3 (12:25):
What is the expectation towards Germany?
Donald Trump (12:26):
And by the way, I'm not happy with the UK either. That island that you read about the lease, for whatever reason, he made a lease of the island. Somebody came and took it away from him. And it's taken three, four days for us to work out where we can land there. It would have been much more convenient landing there as opposed to flying many extra hours. So we are very surprised. This is not Winston Churchill that we're dealing with.
Reporter 3 (12:55):
Mr. President, what's your expectations towards Germany? What can Germany do? And what should Germany do for help you in this [inaudible 00:13:02]
Donald Trump (13:04):
Well, I think they're doing it. I mean, they're letting us land in certain areas, and we appreciate it. And they're just making it comfortable. We're not asking them to put boots on the ground or anything. I mean, we're just, they're a respected country. I have a very good relationship with the country. We have, in particular now with this leader, with this new leader, I think he's an excellent leader. I had my differences with Angela. I said, "You're hurting your country with immigration, and you're hurting your country with energy." And we have a man sitting on my right that is, I think, pretty much the opposite of her on energy and the opposite on immigration. And I think he's doing very well.
Repoerter 4 (13:50):
Mr. President, commercial air travel right is severely restricted in the Middle East and thousands of Americans are stranded. Why wasn't there an evacuation plan? And will do you send planes to get people out?
Donald Trump (14:01):
Well, because it happened all very quickly. We thought, and I thought maybe more so than most, I could ask Marco, but I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked. They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack others. You're seeing that right now. And a lot of those missiles that are hitting in, those are stationary. Those were aimed there for a long period of time at these other countries. So I think I was right about that. We attacked first, and if we didn't, it could have been, look, we're really decimating them. They're being decimated. And if we didn't, and by the way, we have massive amounts of ammunition. We have the high end. A lot of it was given away stupidly by Biden, very stupidly for free. And I'm all for Ukraine, but they gave away a lot. As you know, when I give away ammunition, everybody pays for it. The European Union's paying for it. Then they can do what they want with it, but they are giving it, let's say, to Ukraine, and it's okay.
(15:03)
But we gave away a lot of high end, but we have plenty, but we have unlimited middle and upper ammunition, which is really what we're using in this war. And we have really an unlimited supply. We also have a lot of the very high end stored in different countries throughout the world. We're literally storing it there, which is actually something that I insisted on in my first term. I rebuilt the military in my first term. The military is great. A lot unbelievable amount of ammunition or munitions, as they say, we've given away to, The Wall Street Journal incorrectly covered the story when they said that it was given away to the Middle East, not to the Middle East, was given away to Ukraine.
(15:51)
Very little was given to the Middle East. Middle East would buy a lot, and some of the nations, because they're rich, they have a lot, but it was given away to Ukraine, and it just should have been done, look, it's a war that should have never happened. If I were president, that war would have never happened. But we have a tremendous amount of munitions, ammunition at the upper level, middle and upper level, all of which is really powerful stuff.
Reporter 5 (16:26):
Mr. President, a question to both of you. How worried are you that the rising prices for gas and oil are damaging the American economy and also, Mr. Chancellor [inaudible 00:16:35]
Donald Trump (16:34):
Yeah, do you want to go ahead?
Friedrich Merz (16:36):
Yeah. Sure. This is, of course, damaging our economies. This is true for the oil prices, and this is true for the gas prices as well. So that's the reason why we all hope that this war will come to an end as soon as possible. And we are hoping that the Israelii and the American army are doing the right things to bring this to an end and to have really a new government in place who is coming back to peace and freedom.
Donald Trump (17:00):
Yeah. Something had to be done. And it's been 47 years. They've been killing people all over the world for a long time. They were the kings and fathers of the roadside bomb. Soleimani, we killed him last term. If we didn't, I think it might be a different story today. They would have been much stronger and smarter than they are, but they did the roadside bombs. 95% of the people lost their legs, arms, had their face wiped out, just wiped out. I've seen some young people that it's so sad to watch. And that was almost all, 95% comes from Iran and was Soleimani. Soleimani loved it, his favorite weapon. He loved the roadside bomb. And when you see people walking around with no legs and no arms and a face that's been blown to hell, these people, what they have to go and the way they have to live, this is Iran.
(17:59)
When you look at the barracks, the famous barracks, when you look at the hostages, when you look at a lot of hostages, when you look at all of the problems, they were really a purveyor of terror all over the world for many, many years. And it's something that had to be done, something, and I believe that if we didn't, because I see where Congress, if I didn't do this, guys like Schumer, who are losers, the Democrats, they're losers. That's why they're not here. Guys like Schumer would say, " Well, you should have done this." In other words, if I did, it's no good. If I didn't do it, they would have said the opposite that you should have done this. But most people feel, I'll tell you what, I have never had more compliments on something I did. People felt it's something that had to be done. So if we have a little high oil prices for a little while, but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before. Go ahead, please.
Reporter 6 (19:00):
Mr. President-
Reporter 7 (19:02):
Mr. President.
Donald Trump (19:02):
Yes.
Reporter 7 (19:03):
How do you want to solve the conflict on tariffs between EU and US [inaudible 00:19:09]
Donald Trump (19:08):
Between who?
Reporter 7 (19:14):
The conflict on tariffs between EU and US? How do you want to solve-
Donald Trump (19:15):
US and who?
Friedrich Merz (19:15):
EU.
Reporter 7 (19:17):
EU.
Friedrich Merz (19:17):
European Union.
Donald Trump (19:17):
Oh.
Reporter 7 (19:17):
European Union. How do you want to solve [inaudible 00:19:21]
Donald Trump (19:21):
We won on tariffs, actually. Somebody said you actually won the case. We won on tariffs. We had a decision that was wrong. It was a very bad decision from certain standpoints. From other standpoints, a very powerful decision because it reaffirmed all the fact that we have all these various forms of tariffs that we felt right, but it totally reaffirmed. It said you can use all of these tariffs. So we have all these vast menus of tariffs. And tariffs have made our country very rich. We have to charge tariffs to nations who play with their
Donald Trump (20:01):
... money. They move their money up and down like a yo-yo. We have to take care of nations that have been good to us and fair to us, and we're going to take care of them. Other nations, they haven't, and we haven't let them take advantage of us. The whole thing with tariffs is we had a decision that... As an example, we have a license situation and the license is something that allows us to immediately stop all business with... Nobody even knew we had this power, but we do now because of the decision, we have the right to stop all business having to do with a certain country.
(20:40)
If a certain country is not treating us well, the president, without going to Congress, has the right to stop. Sort of interesting. I have the right to stop, but under that one law, I didn't have the right to charge them. I have the right to license them, but I don't have the right to charge, which is frankly ridiculous. The right was given to us by the Supreme Court. We have the right... As an example, we talked about Spain. I could tomorrow stop, or today, even better, stop everything having to do with Spain. All business having to do with Spain, have the right to stop it. Embargoes, do anything I want with it. We may do that with Spain.
(21:19)
What do you think?
Speaker 5 (21:20):
Well, sir, I think we're going to talk about it with you. I know that you have a strong power, and the Supreme Court clarified. We know you can use it, and if you need to use it to assure national and economic security, we'll do it.
Donald Trump (21:32):
Scott, do you have an opinion?
Sec. Scott Bessent (21:35):
Sir, I agree. The Supreme Court reaffirmed your ability to implement an embargo. As we've talked from your first term, the Section 301s and the 232s have withheld more than 4,000 lawsuits. USTR and commerce are going to begin investigations, and we'll move forward with those.
Donald Trump (21:57):
We've instituted a 15% tariff on everybody, as you know. Just used a... I'll tell you, we had a couple of paragraphs written in that opinion that were really incredible. Justice Kavanaugh wrote a fantastic dissent, but in his dissent, he said what we should do. We knew that too. We just wanted to simplify it. For some reason, I think very, very foolishly, the courts decided no, but they said you can do it many other ways. And that's what we're doing.
(22:39)
What we've done is we've gone to a very simple, straight 15% tariff. We've taken in hundreds of billions of dollars in our country because of tariffs. We've taken in all of this money, hundreds of billions of dollars. Honestly, it's made us very rich as a country, right? It's been doing good. When will you have the full plan implemented? We have a five-month period, up to five months, where we can go at 15%.
(23:11)
While we're doing that, as you know, we're doing the various studies and things, and we'll be coming out with tariffs, different tariffs on different countries. Do you want to talk about that first?
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Yes, sir. By the time the five-month period has elapsed, we'll have completed investigations under Section 301 that Secretary Bessent talked about. We know there are countries out there with deals who are very interested in keeping the deals. We need to go through and investigate all these unfair trading practices, the kinds of things you've talked about, and make sure that we're protecting U.S. economic security. We know there are countries-
Donald Trump (23:41):
How are we going to treat Germany?
Speaker 5 (23:42):
Well, the-
Donald Trump (23:43):
I think you should hit them very, very hard.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
You knew he was right there when you said that. They have expressed an interest. Germany's been quite constructive and wanting to move forward and be helpful. The rest of you, we'll talk to them as well. Obviously, we'll-
Donald Trump (23:58):
I will say every country, every single country, wants to make the deal they already have. In other words, a deal that we have using the other authority, they want to make the same deal. We'd like to see... Actually, we're going to adjust it somewhat upward actually, but they would like... They all want to stay in the deal, and so we'll probably be able to do that pretty easily.
Speaker 6 (24:25):
After all, Iran won't be able to deliver drones to Russia anymore. What does this more mean to Ukraine, and having Chancellor Merz sitting next to you, who would you call if you wanted to talk to Europe? Chancellor Merz, you've just been in China. The President-
Donald Trump (24:41):
Who are you? What country are you from?
Speaker 6 (24:43):
I'm German.
Donald Trump (24:44):
Okay. I thought so. I could see.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
So this... Chancellor, you have been in China and the President-
Donald Trump (24:51):
She likes you.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
... [inaudible 00:24:51] in China.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (24:51):
I don't know.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
Will you be talking about China, and [inaudible 00:24:56]?
Donald Trump (24:56):
We'll be talking about China. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (24:57):
What about-
Donald Trump (24:59):
I'll be going to China in a little while. Every time you meet, you talk about China. We respect China. I do. We both do, I think, but it's always a topic of conversation. We've had a very good relationship with China. We used to lose a tremendous amount of money with China, and that's no longer the case. We have a very, very good relationship with China, and we have a very good relationship with Germany. All right.
Speaker 7 (25:26):
Mr. President, we've seen countries around the world, many of whom don't usually work together working with the United States on Iran, whether it's Saudi Arabia working with the United States, Israel, Qatari shooting down Iranian aircraft, and we've also seen European countries step up.
(25:41)
Why are we seeing such unity around the world against Iran?
Donald Trump (25:45):
That's a great point. Look, they're just evil. It's not the politics. It's their whole philosophy. It's their whole where they come from. It's terrible, where they kill 35,000. I thought it was 32. Now it turns out it's much more than 35,000 people. And in some cases, using machine guns with people that have no weapon. They have no weapon, and they're being machine-gunned, they're being snipered from buildings.
(26:14)
They're hitting their people with snipers right through the eyes. It's just a very evil ideology, and nobody's really seen anything like it. As I said, even the fact that they've attacked all of their neighbors... And the neighbors weren't attacking. They thought they'd maybe sit it out or whatever. They've hit Qatar, they've hit UAE, they've hit Saudi Arabia, they've hit Oman. They were helping us negotiate. They got hit.
(26:45)
Everybody got hit because they're evil and they're bad. It's a bad seed, and somebody had to do it. It should have been done sometime during a 47- year period, because so much death has been caused by them, so much unbelievable death. From Germany too. I mean, Germany's been hit. Everybody's been hit by them. It's an evil ideology, and I've never been... Look, I've done a lot of good things. So many people are saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
(27:19)
You see it in the streets of Los Angeles. They have thousands of people, I saw it the other day, pictures of Donald Trump, and I'm looking, I'm on the phone, probably talking to you, and I'm looking, and I see my picture, I say, "Oh no, it's another protest." Then I started saying, "Boy, they were very friendly people." Then I saw a woman hugging the picture of me. I said, "What's going on?" It turned out to be these are Iranian people that live in the United States.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (27:48):
So many. So many.
Donald Trump (27:49):
Thousands and thousands. You saw the rallies. In New York too, they had a big rally, my pictures all over the place. The fact is that people are happy what we did. You could never, and I've always said it, you could never have had true peace in the Middle East if Iran was allowed to go... Even beyond the nuclear, if Iran was allowed to have all the...
(28:10)
Look at all the missiles they built. A lot have been now taken out by us and a lot have been expended, but they had thousands of missiles in a fairly short period of time. I'll go... Two things. The attack that we did known as Midnight Hammer, had we not done that, Iran would have had a very powerful nuclear weapon within one month. We did it. It was great timing, and you've been able to see that too.
(28:40)
The other thing was Barack Hussein Obama made maybe the worst deal I've ever seen, because he gave all power in the Middle East to Iran. He went the exact opposite way, and I terminated that. If I didn't terminate that deal, they would be sitting with a massive nuclear weapon three years ago, which would have been used already on Israel, at least, and other countries also. And we wouldn't be talking about it right now.
(29:07)
If I didn't terminate... The deal that Obama made giving them everything, including plane loads of cash... Do you remember the airplane flew over there? It was a Boeing 757. It was two of them loaded. They took out all the seats. It was loaded with green cash, so much cash that you could... It was in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington DC. Cash from all the banks. They put it... And they flew it to Iran.
(29:38)
I never knew a president had that power. I'm going to maybe try it sometime if it's okay. I think I'm going to do it. I'll fly it somewhere. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. Two planes loaded from floor to ceiling, big planes, Boeing 757s, taken over there and given cash. In addition to that, he was giving them billions of dollars,
Donald Trump (30:00):
But worse, he was giving them the right to have the path to a nuclear weapon. And that deal expired. A lot of people said, "Oh, you terminated." Well, it was going to be terminated anyway because it expired. It gave them the right to have top-of-the-line nuclear weapon because they're crazy. They're crazy. Just like the people on my right during the State of the Union, I looked at them, I said, "You're crazy," these people are crazy. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it. All right. How about one or two more?
Press (30:31):
Mr. President!
(30:31)
[Inaudible 00:30:32].
(30:31)
Mr. President!
Donald Trump (30:32):
Go ahead, please.
Reporter 7 (30:33):
Chancellor Merz, you just heard that the president is thinking about punishing Spain. What are your thoughts spontaneously on this and what can you do [inaudible 00:30:42]? Yeah.
Friedrich Merz (30:45):
Well, the answer on that is quite simple. We are trying to convince Spain to catch up with the 3% or 3.5%, which we agreed on in NATO. And as the president said, it's correct. Spain is the only one who is not willing to accept that. And we are trying to convince them that this is part of our common security that we all have to comply with this numbers. And this is 3.5 for military and another 1.5 for our military infrastructure. So Spain has to comply with that.
Press (31:18):
[inaudible 00:31:20].
Donald Trump (31:21):
Spain has been very, very uncooperative. And so has UK. Now the second one is shocking, but this is not the age of Churchill. I will say the UK has been very, very uncooperative with that stupid island that they have, that they gave away and took a hundred-year lease, having to do with, perhaps, indigenous people claiming the island. They never even saw the island before. What's that all about? And they ruin relationships. It's a shame. And that country, UK, and I love that country. I love it. My mother was born there. I love it. My mother was born there. My father was born... He knows all about my father. My father was born there. So places that you sort of automatically, very feel warmly about. But the UK, what they're doing with energy and what they're doing with immigration is horrible.
(32:32)
You have the North Sea. Somebody said yesterday, "What would you do if you were the UK? Open up the North Sea." They got windmills all over the place that are ruining the country, ruining the landscapes, ruin the beautiful fields. Open up the North Sea. It's one of the greatest, think of it. They buy their energy from Norway, which gets the energy, the oil, from the North Sea. So Norway drills in the North Sea and sells it to UK. And UK has a better part of the North Sea. Open up that.
(33:04)
And number two, illegal immigration. They got to solve that problem. And I must say that's not only UK, that's other parts of the European Union. They have the same problem. Immigration and energy. The energy is through the roof, the highest in the world. And the immigration was... I mean, look, you have places where in the UK, you have a terrible mayor of London, terrible. He's an incompetent guy. But you have Sharia courts. You don't have Sharia courts. You don't want Sharia courts. You have Sharia courts, adjudicating law. So it's very simple. Immigration, very importantly, immigration and energy. And you bring it back. Otherwise, you're not going to bring it back.
Press (33:49):
[inaudible 00:33:53].
Donald Trump (33:52):
One more, one more. Go ahead.
Speaker 8 (33:53):
I have a question for the chancellor and for you.
Donald Trump (33:53):
Yes, please.
Speaker 8 (33:54):
To the chancellor, Chancellor Merz, you've called for unity and joint force in this moment against Iran. What does that look like to you? And then Mr. President, where is getting a deal with Russia and Ukraine on your priority list right now?
Friedrich Merz (34:11):
As I said in Germany, the last two days, we are supporting the United States and Israel to get rid of this terrible, terrorist regime. And we are looking forward to a day after. And we have to talk about the strategy, what is following after this regime is away. And we have to strategize on this entire region. And we are having a high interest in common approach and common work and what we can do. And this is important, not just for the Americans, this is extremely important for Europe and extremely important for Israel and their security. So we are really looking forward to find ways how to deal about the day after.
Donald Trump (35:00):
And as far as Russia, Ukraine, where is it on my priority list? Very high. I thought it was going to be one of the easier ones. I've settled eight wars, and actually maybe one more than that. But minimum, eight wars, big ones, potential India, Pakistan, big, big wars, very important, big ones. I thought this was going to be much easier than it is. There's tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelenskyy. Tremendous hatred. I've seen a lot of hatred in my life, but I think this is about top scale. I believe it's going to happen. Sometimes I blame one, sometimes I blame the other. I think it's going to happen, but it's high on my list. Not in that it affects the United States so much because it's very far away. But last week, I just see last week and for the last four weeks actually, 32,000 soldiers died. 32,000. And it's been averaging 25 to 30,000 soldiers a month have been dying in that stupid war. And I'd love to see it end. It's the worst that there has been since World War II.
Speaker 8 (36:13):
If you can't get a deal, what will that mean for you?
Donald Trump (36:18):
All you can do is do your best. It takes two to tango and they have to get along. They have to be able to talk to each other. They hate each other a lot. That has an impact. It really has an impact. It's bad for both. The sadness is that if the election weren't rigged, my election, that war would have never taken place. And you know what else wouldn't have taken place? Allowing 25 million people to pour through an open border. That wouldn't have taken place. A lot of things would have been different, but we're doing very well. And I think a big, big factor in this world and future factors, what we're doing right now with Iran, if we don't stop them or if we didn't stop them or if we didn't start, they've been decimated. But if we didn't do what we're doing right now, you would have had a nuclear war and they would have taken out many countries because you know what? They're sick people. They're mentally ill, sick people. They're angry. They're crazy. They're sick. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Press (37:20):
[inaudible 00:37:21].
Donald Trump (37:26):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 9 (37:27):
Thank you, press. Thank you. Thank you guys. Keep moving. Thank you. Thank you, guys, thank you. This way. Thank you, guys. Thanks guys. Thank you guys. Thank you, keep moving.