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One World with Zain Asher
Trump Threatens Another Around Of Strikes On Iran Tonight; Trump Speaks As NATO Summit In Turkey Wraps Up; Aired 12-1p ET
Aired July 08, 2026 - 12:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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ZAIN ASHER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Coming to you live from New York, I'm Zain Asher.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Bianna Golodryga. You're watching the second hour of "One World."
The U.S. president is threatening another round of strikes against Iran tonight, putting the interim agreement on the verge of collapse.
ASHER: Yes. Any moment now, we're expected to hear from Donald Trump. He's expected to hold a news conference as he wraps up his visit to Turkey for
the NATO summit.
GOLODRYGA: Earlier this morning, he met Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, promising to give Kyiv the capability to make its own Patriot
missiles.
ASHER: And after meeting with Syria's leader, President Trump said that he thinks that he will remove Damascus from the State Department's list as a
sponsor of terrorism, but the summit has been overshadowed by the flare up in the U.S.-Iran conflict.
GOLODRYGA: Senior White House reporter Kevin Liptak begins our coverage, joining us now from Ankara, Turkey.
So, the president, quite angry and frustrated with Iran, that's clear, calling them scum and cuckoos, saying that the U.S. gave them a reprieve
during these few days where Ayatollah Khamenei was buried, his funeral procession there.
And nonetheless, we've had a break in the MOU in the ceasefire. Iran targeted two tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz. The United States
retaliated. The Iranians retaliated in response to that, striking U.S. air bases.
And then the president saying that the U.S. may even have a stronger response tonight. How close are we to all of this blowing up, Kevin Liptak?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: I mean, I think if you take the president at his word, we're very close. You know, he was asked
multiple times in that appearance with Volodymyr Zelenskyy whether this means the U.S. is going back to full-scale war with Iran.
And each time, he sort of stopped short of giving a very clear answer, but he did take through some targets that he says are back on the table again,
now that he thinks that the MOU has all but collapsed. He listed bridges, desalination facilities, and Kharg Island, you know, that critical export
point for Iran's oil industry.
Now, he's threatened to target all of that before. And we should note that bridges and desalination plants would seem to be civilian facilities that
would amount to war crimes if the U.S. targeted them, but the president says that those are in his sights now that he thinks Iran has been
dishonest in its discussions.
Now, he's not ruling out the negotiations altogether. He says that he'll allow his team, you know, Steve Witkoff, J.D. Vance, Jared Kushner, to
continue trying to talk to the Iranians to get them to make some nuclear concessions. They've been trying to do that for the last three weeks since
this memo was agreed to. And it doesn't seem as if they've made very much progress.
And it's not clear that the Iranians are going to want to come back to the negotiating table if President Trump says that the agreement that brought
them there in the first place is no longer in effect. And so, where precisely all of this goes from here doesn't seem clear.
You know, the president, I still think, is caught in something of a conundrum. It's the same one that he was in before the deal was signed.
Does he start a full-scale war again and risk the political and economic consequences?
Remember, the president said that he feared economic catastrophe if this war continued. Or does he allow these negotiations to continue with
counterpart and an interlocutor who he says is dishonest and is not a dealing in good faith? Neither of those seem like particularly appetizing
options for the president.
And so, where exactly all this goes, despite the president's rhetoric, I don't think is precisely clear.
At this point, perhaps he'll expound on this during his press conference, which should start any minute now, but I don't think even the president
seems to know exactly what he wants to do here, even if he's saying that he plans to resume these strikes again tonight.
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GOLODRYGA: Kevin Liptak, great to see you as always. Thank you.
ASHER: Let's bring in CNN's Nic Robertson, who's also in Ankara, Turkey.
So, Nic, just in terms of what we heard from the president today. I mean, it's really hard to know whether, you know, with the ceasefire and this
memorandum of understanding, whether this is just a mere temporary setback and some of the president's words is to perhaps try to pressure the
Iranians back to the negotiating table or whether we're really back where we started.
And obviously, as Kevin Liptak points out, the economic consequences of this war going on, especially with the Strait of Hormuz, are -- are not
great for the U.S. president, especially when you consider that we are in an election year, just in terms of the midterms.
Just walk us through what the president's options are going forward, Nic.
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes. They're not good because Iran is using the economic leverage that the president so fears.
And frankly told them several weeks ago that he feared he didn't want to put the United States into a recession as it happened in the 1930s. He flat
out told the --
GOLODRYGA: Nic, we're going -- we're going to interrupt you. I'm sorry, Nic. We're going to go straight to Ankara where the president is about to
deliver his news conference from the NATO Summit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, they've all become stars, superstars, actually. But we want to thank you very much. We've had
a tremendous time and I think a great success.
We just concluded a very successful NATO summit here in Turkey. And I want to thank President Erdogan, who's really a great man. He's a great leader.
He's a friend of mine. Been a friend of mine for a long time.
He's a strong person, a very strong personality. And that's why he runs such a successful and good company -- country and really a great -- I would
say a great country.
Militarily, he's very powerful. People leave him alone, but he's really done a fantastic job.
And from the moment we got off the plane, you look at the airports were beautiful. He built -- they built a new terminal for our arrival.
Everything was beautiful. And so I just want to thank President Erdogan, who's done a fantastic job in Turkey.
And I also want to thank NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Mark is an extraordinary person, smart, great leader. It's not easy leading so many
leaders like that. We've got a lot of leaders and their strong personalities, every one of them.
And Mark -- Mark does an unbelievable job, couldn't find anybody better. I just want to say that with tremendous love in that room, the press got to
see the -- the sitting, but they didn't get to see the speaking. And I actually said, it's too bad the press couldn't see this because every one
of them spoke for a little while and I spoke for a little while.
And it's a big -- it's a lot of speeches. We kept it short, but it's too bad the press couldn't have seen what we -- what we were doing in that room
because it was very smart people and they have a lot of good in their heart, not evil, good. And they're doing a great job for their country.
The world is doing well. We have -- as you know, the oil is down. We'll see whether or not we keep it down. We should keep it down. We're doing things
that should have been done 47 years ago with Iran.
And I just want to say that throughout my first term, and over the past 18 months, the United States has led a historic effort to dramatically
increase the defense spending and to have equipment that no other country in the world has when you look at Venezuela, when you look at Iran,
essentially demolished their military in a couple of weeks.
They had a good military, they had a good navy, they had 159 ships, everyone's at the bottom of the sea. They had hundreds of airplanes, they
were all gone. They're all lying burned up on the runways. They were totally decimated. Their radar is gone. Their - everything's gone. Their
leaders are gone, frankly.
And their combat capability is pretty low. They have a small percentage of missiles left. They have some of the launchers, missile launchers left, we
call them launching pads, but most of that's been destroyed, too.
So, we are -- we have the strongest military in the world by far, not even close. Everybody admits it.
Last year's summit in the Netherlands was great also, and we achieved an unprecedented agreement to increase the annual defense spending. And it's
the benchmark raising it from two percent to five percent of GDP, which everybody said was impossible.
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And now they're all thanking me, and -- and most of the countries have agreed to it. We have a couple of -- a couple of that didn't, but I have a
feeling they're going to, and pretty quickly.
In fact, today, they were very positive. One of them in particular was I didn't think a good team player, today was a great team player.
As all of the leaders understand very well the United States remains by far the largest contributor to NATO, monetarily and maybe otherwise, and the
strongest military anywhere in the world. And they respect us as a country.
Again, they didn't respect us two years ago. They laughed at us. NATO laughed at us. Everybody laughed at us. They don't laugh anymore. There's
no more laughing.
This year, we invested a record $1 trillion in our armed forces. And we're going to be asking for a $1.5 trillion coming up. We have the money being
spent on the best equipment anywhere in the world.
In the working session this morning, we discussed the progress other members are making toward the five percent target and they're making great
progress. Many of these countries are very rich, by the way. We don't have to feel sorry for them, but it doesn't mean they're properly protected.
There's a big difference.
Some have truly answered the call and others are making big changes. They will be answering the call. I think I can say in all cases they're going to
be answering the call. And we'll be taking in over $1 trillion a year toward defense. And that's a tremendous amount of money. That's a big up.
They were two percent. They were actually at one percent. I got them to two percent. And I wanted to get them to five. And we got up to five the last
time.
And they're, you know, just again, if you could have seen the respect and the love in the room, and it's love really for the country, for our
country. I don't want to say me because you'll say, oh, he's so conceited. He's such a conceited person, but they do. I mean, you know, they -- they
like the job I'm doing. They said, we love -- sir, we love you.
It's a grown people saying that. Isn't that nice? Maybe. I don't know. Maybe they're trying to get to me. And the way they did, because there was
tremendous unity in that room.
And I urge all nations to accelerate their plans to get the benchmark as quickly as possible. The benchmark is going to be at five percent. That's
the number it should have been for years.
As a result of the commitment we achieved last year, defense spending, of other NATO members surged by more than almost $150 billion in 2025. And
much of that money is being spent on American-made equipment. They all want American-made equipment.
We're -- we're pushing very hard to have the defense companies. They're great. We make the best equipment, the Patriots and the Tomahawks and
everything we have is -- is considered to be the best. Not by me. It's everybody wants it. I wish we made it faster because we could sell, as much
as we could make.
And as you know, I had Lockheed and every one of the companies, all of the companies who were to rate the honors an example Boeing. So many of those
great companies are now building plants.
They had big plants, but they were using them 24/7. I said, that's not the way to do it. You have to build more plants. You don't have to just go
overtime. No tax on overtime. Remember that, please. No tax on overtime. Those people are happy.
But they're going -- they were doing literally 24 hours to get the Tomahawks done and the Patriots done and all of the other defensive and
offensive equipment done. It's the most sought-after equipment in the world.
You saw that with Venezuela where they had a lot of great equipment. It wasn't ours. And it didn't work. Our -- our equipment works, but we have to
produce it faster for other countries. For everybody, including ourselves, we have to produce it faster.
So, we think within a year, a year and a half, max, we'll be, instead of waiting for a year or two years, we'll be having it on a two-week wait,
maybe a one-week wait. That's what I want. And it'll do really well. A lot of people are, you know, just waiting. They're waiting. They want to get
this defensive equipment, maybe in particular the defensive equipment, but offensive and defense.
Much of that money is being spent on American made the equipment. That's the money that the European and Canada are spending, European countries
mostly and Canada. And they're spending that with the United States largely.
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And it's American made, made in the USA, as we say, weapons, munitions, supporting thousands of American jobs. This will increase. We have the
highest number of jobs.
Right now, we have the most people working in the United States that we've ever had in the history of our country.
We have the biggest investment ever made, $19.2 trillion. That's six times more than we've ever had. Think of it, six times. What did that were
tariffs. Without the tariffs, I think we would have done fine, like, at about two or three.
The last administration had much less than one trillion invested for four years. We have 19.2 trillion invested in one year. We haven't gone into the
extra almost a half a year, one and a half years. Those numbers won't come out for a little while.
So, we have 19.2 trillion, not billion, not million, trillion with a T, invested in plants and equipment that's being built all over the country.
Eli Lilly is building plants, big drug Merck, all of them, the drug companies are building.
The car companies are building like crazy. In fact, as you probably saw the big announcement yesterday, Toyota is leaving Mexico and they're going to
build one of the biggest car manufacturing plants in the world in Texas.
That's because of the tariffs, because we don't mind if you build in Mexico, but if you build in Mexico, you have to pay 25 percent tariff. If
you build in Japan, or if you build in any place, China is a much higher tariff. It's a 100 percent tariff because we don't want to lose our jobs.
We don't want to have our workers lose their jobs.
We have the -- we have the largest number of plants being built for the most money ever. In the history of our country, car plants, A.I. plants,
and all other plants, pharmaceutical plants. Chips. We're not giving anything.
All we're saying is, if you don't start, it will give them a year and a half to two years to build their plant. If they don't have that, they have
to pay 100 percent, 200 percent, even 250 percent.
If they make a chip or they make a car or they make pharmaceuticals. So, the pharmaceutical companies are moving in at record levels. There's never
been anything like what's happening. Let me put it a different way -- put it in a more broad fashion.
There has never been anything like -- like this happened with this country or any other country in the history of the world. There has never been
growth. There's never been manufacturing plants being built. We have so many being built.
And in the big ones, like A.I., some of the A.I., we let them build their own electric plants. We force them to build. We don't want it because the
old grid that we have wouldn't be able to supply.
They need, just as an industry, more energy than the entire country it produces right now, when you think of it, which is incredible. So, take all
of the energy that the United States produces, and that one industry, which is so big, so powerful, it needs more than that, in fact, some people say
almost double.
So, this was my idea. I said, you can never service that. You can't reinvigorate the grid. You can make it better, but nothing like that. You
wouldn't be able to build. And we're leading China in A.I. And most, just about everything, but we're leading China in A.I.
Even in TikTok, you know, I was watching somebody say, oh, the TikTok deal. It's so bad for it. But well, because they say the deal was incredible. But
they think the word that gets out is bad, except the numbers just came out and I'm number one on TikTok. And all I do is talk about, come, hit us,
right? So, it's sort of good. I used it to get elected too.
But, you know, you have to get your word out. But it just -- the numbers came out just a little while ago, and I was number one. Some ridiculous
number. I never heard of numbers like that, but number one. And all these entertainers are number 27, 29. It's crazy. I don't even understand myself.
But that means that my words getting out about how great our country is, how successful our country is, and how bad communism is, and 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. I don't see anybody with the look. You know, you need the look, I guess. You need something, but they don't have it. And I
think they'll fade fast.
And it's not social democrats. This is not a social debt. These are communists that are running. And they don't want God. They don't want
successful things to happen for our country. They don't want to have a successful country. I think they're sort of crazy.
[12:20:03]
As European nations rebuild their military, as American equipment will be the largest beneficiary, the defense companies are going to be making most
of that equipment. They want the American equipment, because it works better. It's not a question of anything else. We make the best equipment in
the world.
And to that end, I provided other leaders with an update on the steps we're taking to rapidly scale up production in the United States. And they wanted
to hear that because they don't really want to get it in four years, five years. They want to get it, like, in a week.
And we'll actually be at a point like that in the not too distant future with the plants that are being built. The defense plants, it's incredible.
Lockheed is building, I think, five. Some of them are building three, four, or five. And they're big ones. It's going to quadruple the output of we
have with the munitions and -- and the basic equipment itself, whether it's a Patriot or a Tomahawk missile or any of the missiles that we make. We
make many missiles, different types, for different occasions.
And just today at the summit, we announced the $3 billion of new defense investments with U.S. companies. And Lockheed Martin will establish a
world-class, patriot missile sustainment facility, a big deal in Europe. They've given a tremendous incentive by Europe to do that. It all goes to
the benefit of us and Europe, because they're getting the best equipment.
Northrop Grumman is moving forward with the sale of advanced American drone technology. We're actually the leader in drone tech. A lot of people don't
know that. We have the -- we have the most sophisticated drones in the world. And we're a real -- I guess we're the leader, but we'll -- we'll
soon be the leader by many times over.
And Lockheed and Rheinmetall are announcing a partnership to build the Army Tactical Missile Systems, which is a big deal. And Anduril is announcing a
deal to build their new barracuda missiles, which is a very highly sophisticated, fast missile, and we're doing that for Poland. Poland's
doing very well, by the way, with a very, very good president, great president, I think.
All of these agreements directly benefit the U.S. defense industry base. And what it really does is it mean -- means jobs. And again, I -- I have to
just say that when Toyota announced yesterday -- I wasn't that surprised, but everybody wanted to get that. That's the largest -- I think it's going
to be the largest plant in the world car plant. And they're moving into the United States.
And again, they're doing that to avoid paying the tariff, because if you build your product here, you pay no tariff. If you don't, you pay a 25
percent tariff, depending, 35 percent sometimes. Sometimes 100 percent, 200 percent, depending on what the product is.
As an example, we're doing great on steel because we charged tariffs. So now, all of a sudden, the steel industry, which was absolutely dead a few
years ago. I revived it in my first term pretty good.
And then they blew it in -- in the Biden term. What a shame. They just blew it right out the win -- they had no idea what they were doing. And I
quickly revived it at the beginning of my -- of this term, year and a half.
And we are -- the steel business is through the roof. We don't even make aluminum anymore. Now, we're going to have the largest aluminum plant in
the world being built in Oklahoma. I love Oklahoma, 77 out of 77 counties. Three times. And it's great. It's a great state.
They're going to be building the largest aluminum plant in the entire world in Oklahoma, starting very soon.
Over the course of the past two days, I had a number of excellent discussions with other leaders at the summit and held productive bilateral
meetings with essentially all of them. We had dinner last night just about all of them were there.
President Erdogan of Turkey, as well as President Zelenskyy, and he just came in, as you probably saw, had a little press conference.
And also, President Al-Sharaa of Syria, who's doing an unbelievable job in unifying Syria. What a job he's doing. Syria was a mess with what happened
with the previous government. You know that. A very dangerous place. And now it's just come -- it's just come together. He's done a fantastic job.
People are talking about it.
In every conversation, it was clear that America is back and we're stronger and bigger and better than ever before. We have more jobs, as I said, than
ever before. And we're respected again like maybe never before. We are so respected as a country.
That's why I wish I told the Secretary General, Mark, I said, it's too bad the press could not see what's happening in this room. You saw the big
round circle with all of the leaders of all of those countries. And I don't know. I think they should allow it.
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The theory is that they won't be speaking quite as freely and it won't be quite as good, but who knows? It was amazing, actually.
The -- the unity in that room was incredible. The -- the -- yeah, really a love. It was sort of pretty wild. There was a love in that room that was
great. So, this was a tremendously successful summit.
And again, I want to thank President Erdogan, Turkey, and president -- so many of the presidents, presidents, prime ministers. They were all here
from NATO, the NATO countries.
And in particular, we have to thank the Secretary General Mark Rutte for doing a fantastic job. He really put on a tremendous -- this was just
something he just -- he's a unifier. He's a tremendous unifier.
So, I could take a few questions. We've done a few of these already today. So, I don't think we should take too many.
I don't think we should take -- right? So, we're going to keep it a little bit short. And I know a lot of you are going home. Some are going with me.
So go ahead, please.
Sir, yes. Yes. No, no, no. The gentleman right here. The very tall gentleman who's very insecure. He doesn't want to ask a question. He's a
handsome guy, but he's very insecure. Go ahead.
Do you want to shout it out? Give him a mic. How about giving him a mic? He shouted it out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, your operation in Venezuela (INAUDIBLE) is a military success, and yet, the Iran War seems to be a strategic dead-
end for you. Why are you apparently unable to end the Iran war?
TRUMP: So, I think we're doing just the opposite. The Iran war has been a tremendous military success. And, you know, I can only answer the question
by saying they're not going to have a nuclear weapon.
I think it's been -- I was there for one reason, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I call it we denuclearize Iran, and that's what happened.
They will never have a nuclear weapon.
That stuff is so far down under a mountain. It's a granite mountain that collapses on top of it. Take months to get it out. I think it's a
tremendous success, Iran.
And you see the oil prices are lower than they were when I started, and people like to say that, but look, they have no military left. Their --
their Air Force is gone. As I said, their ships have gone, 159 ships have gone. They're at the bottom of the sea. Their radar is gone. Everything's
gone.
So, when you say not a success, it's a tremendous success. The fake news likes to say how well they're doing. They're doing terribly. They have 350
percent inflation. When the war started, they had like six percent, five percent.
They have -- they want to make a deal, but they don't know how to make a deal. And then they go around shooting ships at night. I don't like that.
You know, they're dealing with very fine people. They're dealing with Steve Witkoff. They're dealing with Jared Kushner and J.D. Vance. And they're
dealing with Marco and Scott. They're dealing with great people, but I don't know. I think they're a little loco. They're a little crazy.
But they told us they'd like to go to the funeral. The funeral of a very -- a person who was -- killed a lot of people. Khamenei killed a lot of people
over the years and there for a long time.
Don't forget what we did. Should have been done 47 years ago. It could have been done anytime within 40 -- this has gone on for -- they were the bully
of the Middle East. So, they're a much different country.
Now, in one day, all of their anti-aircraft things are gone. That doesn't mean they're not going to get a plane at some point, but all of it is gone.
Everything's gone. Their leaders are gone. They had leaders, they're gone. And they had another set of leaders, they're gone.
Now, they have another set of leaders. They may be gone. Who knows?
And, you know what? I may be gone too, because I'm their number one target. It's out all over the place. I'm the number one -- because they're scum.
That's the way they act. And that's the way they've done it for 47 years, but I'm doing what's right for their country.
I'm doing really what's right for the world. They have to be stopped. And they've killed thousands -- hundreds of thousands of people. They killed
52,000 protesters over the last three months.
So, when you say we're not doing well, I think we're doing phenomenally well. We -- our military has been incredible. Plus, we had a blockade. Did
we have a blockade? Did you ever see a blockade work that way?
You know, for you that said we're not doing well there? We did great in Venezuela. That was a one-day war. And they're very good military. You
know, it's a very military country. We took out one of the worst human beings in the world, Maduro. And we -- he's in jail, waiting for trial.
[12:30:02]
But what he 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 a 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 -- 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 -- the worst murderers. They had the -- we had people allowed
in our country that should never -- and they walked in through an open border policy. And all I'm saying is that you're lucky we won this
election.
Yes, please. Go ahead. Go ahead. No. Yes, go ahead.
IRIS TAO, NTD NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Thank you, Mr. President. (INAUDIBLE).
TRUMP: Why don't you say your name and who you with? That's always helpful.
TAO: Thank you, Mr. President, for doing this. Iris Tao with NTD, with a sister media with the Epoch Times?
TRUMP: OK.
TAO: On communism. You've been issuing a wake-up call to Americans at home about a dangers of communism. 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: Yes. 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's easy to sell. I would be the greatest communist in history. I'd be right up there with Lenin. I'd be -- 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 the 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 murders all over the place. Communism's a
disaster. It's been proven to be for thousands of years under different names, but the same thing.
It's very important. And, you know, it's funny. One of the reasons I do well -- so well with Hispanic people, I set a record, Republicans. I get
great numbers for the election to help 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's a little difference. When they say social Democrats, with
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. So 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 -- 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.
Yes, 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 were --
TRUMP: I got to know them, so. 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.
[12:35:03]
But based on their actions over the last week or two, they're not -- they're not doing a service to the people. 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.
Yes, please. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.
STEVE SEDGWICK, FINANCIAL JOURNALIST, CNBC: 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 before conflict?
TRUMP: No. Well, 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 oiled
lot right now because we got all those boats out of the Strait.
And it's going to drop and I've predicted everything. I've been right about everything and I have been for a long time. It'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, the 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 in the site that those beautiful B2s at one o'clock in the morning, 10 months ago
blew up. They blew it up.
We have cameras as called Space Force there 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 -- we're 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 G -- 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 that 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.
Yes, please.
STEVEN NELSON, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: Steven Nelson from the "New York Post."
I like you to address a speculation that you're leaving Ankara not in the new Air Force One because of security concerns involving Iran. You've spoke
-- spoken today twice about them possibly assassinating you and possibly being successful.
Did that concern have something to do --
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 race car
driver is one-tenth of one percent? A bull rider, that looks pretty dangerous. It's one-tenth of one percent.
No, it's 5.2 percent is you don't make it. You should tell 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.
No, 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, it came out. There was another list came out yesterday and I'm -- I'm number one on -- I
like being number one on TikTok better, but I'm number one on the list for -- for killing.
Go ahead
SHAWN MCCREESH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Hey, Shawn 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 -- 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.
[12:40:59]
Yes, please. Go ahead. You want to go? OK. Go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, (INAUDIBLE) media (INAUDIBLE), Turkiye.
Mr. President, it seems that the war with Iran may start again. What do we expect from your European allies?
TRUMP: No, I don't think -- 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 asked before, do you think you'll hit them tonight? I said, we might, yes, we might. But when they hit, we hit, you know, it's
what they're -- we use -- 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 -- there's a gusher of oil right now. We have a lot of oil.
And, no, if anything that's 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.
INES DE LA CUETARA, MS NOW REPORTER: Mr. President, you said today -- Ines de La Cuetara with MS Now.
You said today that country --
TRUMP: You're with who?
DE LA CUETARA: MS Now.
TRUMP: MS Now, what -- 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.
DE LA CUETARA: You said today that --
TRUMP: When you hear -- when you hear this question.
DE LA CUETARA: 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's been good. And almost all of the countries have
been good. They just had a bad moment.
They didn't help us. We didn't need the help. But if we would have wanted the help -- I said, by the way, if I want help, sure 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. We -- they went out. I said, would you like to help? They said, we do, but we want to wait
until the war is over. This was not in the spirit of Winston Churchill. So, yes.
I mean, I'll tell you what, I can only say if -- 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.
Yes. Green. Green. Yes. You're wearing green, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Mr. President. (INAUDIBLE) T.V., Turkeyi.
Mr. President, after your meeting with President Erdogan, can you tell us whether you and President Erdogan reach 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
evangelic. 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 left 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 -- I'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 he -- 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.
And 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 we -- he's helped us in
so many different ways.
[12:45:06]
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. 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.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: All right. You've been listening to President Trump with his press conference there as he departs Ankara and the NATO summit, heading
back to Washington. There you see his cabinet members behind him as well.
Let's go to a senior White House reporter, Kevin Liptak, who begins our coverage from Ankara, Turkey.
So, Kevin, and the President summing up this meeting, basically saying that he has given advice to a number of these world leaders and NATO members
about how to boost their defense spending and production. He seemed to be a bit more optimistic about the state of the alliance right now.
What stood out to me were the questions that he got as it relates to the war in Iran. He continues to call it a big success. His eye is on the price
of oil. He's very keen on keeping the price low and is aware that any sort of tension, kinetic action, sees that -- that price go up as it did today.
What did you make about his -- his answers and his takeaway that the conclusion he keeps coming back to is that Iran won't have a nuclear
weapon?
LIPTAK: Right. And he's not specifying how he plans to do that in the absence of a negotiated deal, which he continues to say doesn't sound like
it's going to happen. He says that he doesn't think a deal can be made with this new regime.
And he was asked at one point to explain this shift in tone from three weeks ago when he said the new Iranian leadership was rational and smart to
today when he called them scum and cuckoo. And he said that that was because he just got to know them better and he no longer views them as good
faith actors in these negotiations.
But I do think it was notable in here, the president offering perhaps the clearest view of where he sees this all going. You know, previously, the
president wouldn't say whether the U.S. was going to go back to war with Iran. And now he says no.
He doesn't think the war is going to start again. He doesn't think this is going to be long-term. And he thinks it will all be over very quickly,
which may be an overly optimistic view from the president who, as you correctly noted, very aware of how this will affect markets and the price
of oil, but still offering some more clarity on perhaps where he thinks all of this might be headed.
And so a -- a staunch defense of his own actions in Iran, but still suggesting that the war will not begin again in earnest, at least in the
way we saw it happening back in February.
On NATO, you know, it was striking the difference in tone from the president. We heard him this morning as he was walking into this summit
really furious at the NATO allies for not supporting him on Iran, for not spending enough on defense.
And it seemed as if this session that he was in behind closed doors was fairly effective in changing his point of view. The president, by his own
description, was showered with praise at this meeting. The NATO allies saying that they loved him. And the president, even acknowledging that that
was a very obvious attempt to curry favor with him.
But emerging, he sounded, you know, much more favorable about their attempts to bolster their own defenses, to try and build, for example, the
Patriot interceptor facility in Europe.
So, I think it was an effective attempt by these allies to get on the president's good side. You know, so many of them were coming into this
summit with an enormous amount of anxiety, with apprehension that the president would talk about withdrawing American forces from Europe, or even
withdrawing the United States entirely from the NATO alliance.
But he's leaving here on a good note. Now, how long that lasts is anyone's question based on precedent. I think the president could have a completely
different point of view on NATO next week.
But at least for now, the U.S. remains in the grouping. The countries are on the president's good side, except for Spain, of course. But he sounds
positive about the NATO alliance in a way that he often doesn't.
[12:50:09]
And so I think for them, that will be considered a success. The bar was obviously very low, but he's leaving here, I think, making them feel fairly
good about how all of this might have gone.
ASHER: All right. Kevin Liptak, do stand by. Let's bring in Kristen Holmes, who was there at that press conference with the U.S. president.
So, just in terms of just picking up on a point that Kevin made. I mean, one of the key issues here is really, and this is a question that President
Trump got from a reporter. How on earth is the U.S. war with Iran completely going to end?
And when you think about the fact that the U.S. president sees the Iranians as bad faith actors, he views negotiating with them as a complete and total
waste of time.
And then on top of that, you have this idea that both sides seem to be perfectly fine with escalating while negotiating. Dropping bombs and
conducting military strikes in the middle of talks.
How on earth does this come to an end, Kristen?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I mean, I think we need to look at who the people are that are talking here. We're talking
about Iran. We're talking about President Trump, both views this kind of over-the-top rhetoric.
He, as we saw just a few weeks ago, was saying that these were good negotiators, that they were rational people. Now, of course, he's saying
they're scum. And on the other side, of course, as you mentioned, they are just as happy to escalate.
The takeaway here is that President Trump doesn't know what's happening next. And that was the frustration that you saw there. He wouldn't say that
the ceasefire was completely over. He said he believed it was over, but they could still do negotiating.
He talked about strikes. I've said maybe we'll do strikes tonight, but also maybe we won't. He talked about what exactly was going to happen moving
forward without any detail at all. And that just goes to show where we are in this moment.
Another thing I want to bring up about the war in Iran, he was asked specifically about the prices we saw today, the -- the crude oil
skyrocketing, going to $80 a barrel, the Dow tumbling 800 points. All of these things affected the economy.
He had just said that oil prices were going up. After that, he said, well, they might take a small hit and then they'll go back down.
What are we looking at here? Because at the same time, he's saying a small hit. He's also saying that he's getting out of the ceasefire. He's also
saying that he is not -- that he's not interested -- oh, someone just stood right in front of me in here. Sorry about that.
He's also saying that he thinks the talks are a waste of time. So, as that is happening -- so as that is happening, he is also saying that this is
only going to be a small blip, which just goes to show you that this process has been completely unaligned. And they are still so many questions
about just the fact that President Trump erupted today. We still don't know what that means for this war in Iran.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. That's a good way to sum it up there, Kristen Holmes. And masterful deflection there as somebody stood in front of the camera.
ASHER: Yes. We caught with you in the video. Don't worry.
GOLODRYGA: How dare they? Don't they know Kristen is talking? Thank you. Safe travels home.
HOLMES: They do not. Thank you. Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: All right. Joining us now is CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger, also White House and national security correspondent
at "The New York Times." David, thank you so much for being patient and sticking around for us through that press conference.
The president began by summing up the takeaway here and the -- the outcome of this NATO summit that his own secretary of state had said just a few
weeks ago would be the most consequential in NATO history. The president saying that members are making great progress to five percent of their GDP
spent on -- spent on defense and military, I think barring Spain. And he really has a lot of animosity towards Spain.
But what stood out to you, if anything, David, from this two-day summit from the president and his encounters with NATO members?
DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, first, thanks for having me back on.
Just to add to the -- the list of contradictions that you were just running through. Let's try this one. That he said at his sit-down with reporters
when he was seeing President Zelenskyy, that he wasn't that worried about the Iranian nuclear material because it was buried so deep in the ground.
Well, it's been buried there since the U.S. attacked in June of 2025. And yet, the premise for the initial attack on February 28th of this year was
that there was an imminent nuclear threat from that same material. Now, he's saying it's buried again.
So, I mean, if you believe his current position, it's worth asking the question, then what was the real rationale for the attack in February?
[12:55:04]
To what struck me today, that he was so conciliatory about NATO. Just yesterday, he was raising again the possibility of -- of needing to make
Greenland part of the United States. He was railing about insufficient spending.
All the worst he said today was that he just wishes that the NATO nations would speed up the schedule by which they get to five percent of GDP. And
that schedule is long. It runs out nine more years.
ASHER: Yes, and we did. We have to wrap it up now because we don't have much time left in show.
But just in terms of some of the significant announcements we had at this particular NATO summit, everything from the possibility of selling F-35
aircraft to Turkey, to removing Syria as a state sponsor of terrorism from the State Department, and also licensing, allowing Ukraine, essentially to
license its own Patriot missile systems and just a whole host of massive breaking news on the military front in terms of the president's
announcements.
David Sanger, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much.
SANGER: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Thank you so much, David.
All right. That does it for "One World" today. I'm Bianna Golodryga.
ASHER: And I'm Zain Asher. Appreciate you watching. "Amanpour" is up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[13:00:00]
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