Remarks Prior to a Working Dinner With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and an Exchange With Reporters

President Trump. So thank you very much, everybody. It's an honor to have Bibi and Sara with us, friends of mine for a long time, and we've had a tremendous success together. And I think it will only go on to be even greater success in the future. So it's really nice to have you at the White House.

There's nothing like the White House, and it's great to have you both and all of your wonderful people.

Ron, we've worked together for a long time, and we've done well together. We had a great—we had a great time—I would say it's a lot of work, but we had a great result recently, and we're going to have a lot of great results.

So it's great to have you. Thank you very much.

Prime Minister Netanyahu. Thank you.

I want to express the appreciation and admiration not only of all Israelis, but of the Jewish people and many, many admirers around the world for your leadership—your leadership of the free world, your leadership of a just cause, and the pursuit of peace and security, which you are leading in mainland but now, especially, in the Middle East.

We have great opportunities. The President has an extraordinary team, and I think our teams together make an extraordinary combination to meet challenges and seize opportunities.

But the President has already realized great opportunity. He forged the Abraham Accords. He's forging peace, as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other.

So I want to present to you, Mr. President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize committee.

President Trump. Oh.

Prime Minister Netanyahu. It's nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved, and you should get it.

President Trump. Thank you very much—this, I didn't know. [Laughter] Wow. Thank you very much.

Prime Minister Netanyahu. Thank you.

President Trump. Coming from you, in particular, this is very meaningful. Thank you very much, Bibi.

Prime Minister Netanyahu. Thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing.

President Trump. Thank you. It's a great honor.

Thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it.

Flooding in Central Texas

Q. Mr. President, have you spoken with any of the families of the victims of the Texas flood, and can you talk about what you would like to do when you travel there on Friday?

President Trump. Well, we're going to just make it as comfortable as possible for the State of Texas. They have a great Governor. They have wonderful Senators. They have wonderful Representatives, and we're going to work together with them. And we have been working, really, very hard. This whole table has been working. That was a terrible event. Terrible event.

You saw that, Bibi, where Texas was just absolutely so badly hurt by something that was a big surprise late in the evening.

So we'll be working with the Governor and all of the people of Texas.

[At this point, several reporters began asking questions at once.]

We'll be going on—we'll be going on Friday.

Cease-Fire and Hostage-Release Negotiations Between Israel and Hamas

Q. Mr. President, there was a security incident in northern Gaza today, right around the time that the Prime Minister was meeting with the Secretary of State and Mr. Steve Witkoff. Does that—a number of IDF soldiers reportedly have been injured, possibly killed. Does that in any way put a wrinkle in cease-fire negotiations with Hamas?

President Trump. I don't think so. They want it. They want to meet, and they want to have that ceasefire. So I don't think so.

Steve, could you respond to this? You know about it?

U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East Steven C. Witkoff. I—well, I think it's terribly unfortunate. Terribly unfortunate. We were just talking about it, how tragic it is. But we have an opportunity to finally get a peace deal, Mr. Prime Minister, as we discussed, and I'm hopeful for it very quickly.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Mr. President, are the tariff letters——

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Tariff Rates/Trade Negotiations

Q. Are the tariff letters that you sent today final offers, or are they negotiable?

President Trump. More or less, final offers.

Q. So South Korea, Japan should take it or leave it?

President Trump. Look, we're always subject to negotiate something that's fair, but we've talked to most of the countries. And pretty much, they've had their way for many, many decades, as you know, and it was time that we just wanted fairness. This is not really equitable, from our standpoint, because it's just a small token by comparison to the damage that's been done over the years. But we had no other President that was willing to do this.

I did it my first term with China and others. We took in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs. No inflation. The most successful period of time that we've ever had financially in the country—the first term.

I think this term is going to be much better, even much better than that. That was the best ever, and this is going to be, I think, substantially better, and we're on the way to doing that. We've already taken in over $100 billion worth of tariffs, and we haven't even started.

And all I say to the other countries is, you know, some of them wanted to make a deal and want it to be fair. Others perhaps got a little bit spoiled. They were a little bit spoiled, because for 30, 40 years, 50 years, they were taking advantage of the country.

So we're going to—I would say final, but if they call with a different offer and if I like it, we'll do it.

Q. And the August 1 deadline—I mean, is the August 1 dead——

Q. Mr. President——

Timeline of Trade Negotiations

Q. Is the August 1 deadline firm now? Is that it, or could you move it again?

President Trump. I would say firm. No, I would say firm, but not a hundred-percent firm. If they call up and they say, "We'd like to do something a different way," we're going to be open to that. But essentially, that's the way it is right now.

Yes.

Gaza, Palestinian Territories

Q. Mr. President, is your Palestinian relocation plan still on the table? Is there a plan? Has—have there been any progress in finding countries to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza?

President Trump. Yes. Bibi, why don't I let you answer that question?

Q. Mr. President——

President Trump. Wait a minute. Wait, he's going to answer that question.

Q. Oh, I'm sorry.

Prime Minister Netanyahu. I think President Trump had a brilliant vision. It's called "free choice." You know, if people want to stay, they can stay. But if they want to leave, they should be able to leave. It shouldn't be a, you know, prison. It should be an open place and give people a free choice.

We're working with the United States very closely about finding countries that will seek to realize what they always said, that they wanted to give the Palestinians a better future. And those who—and I think we're getting close to finding several countries, and I think this will give—again, the freedom to choose: Palestinians should have it, and I hope that we can secure it close by.

President Trump. And we've had great cooperation from surrounding—meaning surrounding Israel—surrounding countries. Great cooperation from every single one of them. So something good will happen.

Brian [Brian Glenn, Real America's Voice], did you have something?

President Trump's Foreign Policy Achievements

Q. Yes, Mr. President. You've mentioned before: You want to go down as your legacy as a peacemaker. Are we in the last chapter of a closing out peace amongst this conflict now and all the other ones that you're working on?

President Trump. Well, I hope so.

I—look, we did a job with India and Pakistan, and Serbia-Kosovo, Rwanda and the Congo. And this was all over the last 3 weeks or so, Marco. Right? We did—and others that were ready to fight. And we stopped a lot of fights.

I think a very big one, frankly—a very, very big one was India and Pakistan. And we stopped that over trade. We're dealing with India and we're dealing with Pakistan, and we say, "We're not going to be dealing with you at all if you're not—if you're going to fight." And they were maybe at a nuclear stage. They're both, you know, nuclear powers. And I think stopping that was very important.

We're trying to help out with a Biden-created monster: this whole thing that's happening with Russia and Ukraine. It's a horrible—it's a horrible thing. And I'm not happy with President Putin at all, but this is something that would have never happened if I were President. This is a war that was never going to happen.

Go ahead, Brian.

Ukraine/Russia

Q. I was just going to say, how would you address your critics that—in the election, they called—they said that you would cause the next World War III, when, in fact, you're solving all the problems in the——

President Trump. I'm stopping wars.

Q. Yes.

President Trump. I'm stopping wars.

And I hate to see people killed. Like, as an example, Ukraine and Russia. They're not Americans there being killed. They're not Israeli that are being killed. They're—these are all Russians and all Ukrainians. And—but it's 5,000—maybe 7,000 last week—7,500 last week, mostly soldiers—but people in towns and cities that are getting hit. But mostly, death is mostly soldiers.

Now, so they don't come from here, but it's 7,000, last week, souls. And if I can stop that—you know, they have parents, and they have sisters and brothers and getting married and who knows. They're just people, but they're souls. And if I can stop a war, you know, because I have an ability to do so—I'm disappointed, frankly, that President Putin hasn't stopped. I'm not happy about it either.

Yes.

Iran/U.S. Airstrikes on Iranian Nuclear Facilities

Q. Mr. President, on the Iran talks. Can you say if you've scheduled the next round of Iran talks? And then, also, on strikes. Future——

President Trump. We have scheduled Iran talks. And they want to——

Q. When? Where?

President Trump. They want to talk.

Q. Yes.

President Trump. They took a big drubbing. I think when we hit the three sites—really, I would say the three sites, not just the one. The one was a big one, and it was deep in granite. And it was obliterated, it turned out. The Atomic Energy Commission said it is obliterated.

I just want to take our hats off to those incredible flyers that—the people that flew that big machine and, frankly, the mechanics and everybody else. They had zero—they flew for 37 hours with zero problem, mechanically. I mean, when you think in carrying the biggest bombs ever—the biggest bombs that we've ever dropped on anybody, when you think nonnuclear. And we want to keep it nonnuclear, by the way. But they did a phenomenal job. It was an amazing job.

And I think that was—I was talking to Bibi about it before. That was the very beginning of the end. It ended very quickly after that. I don't want to say what it reminded me of, but if you go back a long time ago, it reminded people of a certain other event and is—Harry Truman's picture is now in the lobby—in a nice location in the lobby, where it should have been—but that stopped a lot of fighting, and this stopped a lot of fighting. When that happened, it was a whole different ball game.

Iran/Nuclear Weapons Development

Q. On future Iran strikes. What—can you say what might make you have the desire to do another strike on Iran?

President Trump. Another what?

Q. Another strike on Iran.

President Trump. I hope we're not going to have to do that. I can't imagine wanting to do that. I can't imagine them wanting to do it. They want to meet. They want to meet. They want to work something out.

Q. Can you say when?

President Trump. No, they're different—they're very different now than they were 2 weeks ago.

Q. Is there a date yet, sir, for the Iran talks or a city? Do you know when and where the next round of Iran talks will be?

President Trump. Well, I can tell you I'd rather not say, but you'll be reading about it tomorrow, or seeing it tomorrow.

Cease-Fire and Hostage-Release Negotiations Between Israel and Hamas

Q. Mr. President, what is the holdup currently in a cease-fire with Hamas?

President Trump. In which?

Q. In a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, what's currently the holdup?

President Trump. I don't think there is a holdup.

Q. Well——

President Trump. I don't think there's a holdup. I think——

Iranian Airstrikes on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar/U.S. Missile Defense Capabilities

Q. Do you think that you're going to leave with a deal tonight?

President Trump. I think things are going along very well. We just, you know, left each other, and it was not a pleasant period of a few days. It was sort of longer than a few days, but it—this was not a pleasant period of time.

And you know, we were—at the end, 14 missiles were shot, and every single missile was shot out of the air. It was pretty amazing, and that was sort of the end. And they told us they were coming and where they were and what time they were coming. And they said, "If you'd like to have a different time, we'll do that." And that's respect, when they do that. I appreciated that they did that. There was no surprise.

We got the—soldiers out of the base in Qatar, in this case. But they knew they were coming. Fourteen missiles were coming. "One o'clock," they said. "Would you like to make it later?" I said, "No, let them come at 1 o'clock." And at 1 o'clock, everybody was—as you know, over 5,000 people left the base. And we had three gunners and three assistants, and out of the 14 that were shot, all 14 were knocked down. And that was the end. That was about it.

And we had a rough time. But sometimes—you know, sometimes you need the rough time in order to get—I think things are going to be really settled down a lot in the Middle East.

And they respect us, and they respect Israel. They respect a lot of things that took place. Nobody's ever seen equipment like what we sent over to knock out those sites.

But when those sites were knocked out, it essentially—that was the end.

Middle East Peace Process

Q. Do you think that there can be a two-state solution that creates an independent Palestinian state?

President Trump. I don't know. I'd ask Bibi that question. You have the greatest man in the world to answer that age-old question: two-state. [Laughter] Go ahead, give them your honest answer.

Prime Minister Netanyahu. I think the Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves but none of the powers to threaten us. And that means that certain powers, like overall security, will always remain in our hands.

Now, that is a fact, and no one in Israel will agree to anything else, because we don't commit suicide. We want life. We cherish life for ourselves, for our neighbors. And I think we can work out a peace between us and the entire Middle East with President Trump's leadership. And by working together, I think we can establish a very, very broad peace that will include all our neighbors.

Q. Mr. President——

U.S. Airstrikes on Iranian Nuclear Facilities

Q. Mr. President——

Q. ——a question on Iran. You have asserted that there's complete and total destruction of their nuclear facilities. So what is the basis of the talks going forward? Is it to cap future nuclear activity? Is it ballistic missiles, tariff support, economic-based opportunities? What are the talks based on?

President Trump. It's really a good question, because if you remember, when it was done, I sort of said: "What's the purpose of talking? It's been knocked out and knocked out completely." But they've requested a meeting, and I'm going to go to a meeting, and if we can put something down on paper, that will be fine. That would be good.

I think they've gained a lot of respect for us. I think they've gained a lot of respect for Israel also. But they would like to meet, and we're going to have a meeting.

Steve, when is that meeting going to be? Do you want to say?

Special Envoy Witkoff. Rather—very quickly. Very quickly. In the next week or so.

President Trump. So we'll see what happens.

I think it would be nice to memorialize it, put it down. But because of the incredible result of that attack—if you want to call it an attack—I didn't think it was necessary to have it in writing. I think we spoke—I mean, that speaks much louder than writing.

But I can also understand why they'd want it. And they've been very nice. They've been very respectful. And it began by them telling us about 14. They had to do. You know what 14 represents, right? Do you know what 14 represents? Right? You know that, right? The number of bombs dropped. [Laughter] So it was, you know, representative. We got them all.

Q. Sir——

Q. In your—

President Trump. Yes, please. Behind you. Please. No, you.

New York City Mayoral Race/New York State Representative Zohran K. Mamdani/U.S. Airstrikes on Iranian Nuclear Facilities

Q. Oh, me? Oh. So this is a question for the Prime Minister. The likely next Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, has been a vocal critic of Israel and of yourself and has said he would arrest you if you came to New York City if he was mayor. Is that something you take seriously? Are you concerned about that? Do you have a response to that?

Prime Minister Netanyahu. No, no, I'm not concerned about that.

President Trump. I'll get him out. [Laughter]

Prime Minister Netanyahu. Look, there's enough craziness in the world, but I guess it never ends. I mean, you have—this is a folly. And it's—you know, it's silly, in many ways, because it's just not serious.

But what is serious is the question I was asked before. You know, after October 7, people said, "The Palestinians had a state—a Hamas state in Gaza," and look what they did with it. They didn't build it up. They built down into bunkers, into terror tunnels, after which they massacred our people, raped our women, beheaded our men, invaded our cities and our towns and our kibbutzim and did horrendous, horrendous massacres, the kind of which we didn't see since World War II in the Nazis, the Holocaust. So people aren't likely to say, "Let's just give them another state." It will be a platform to destroying Israel.

We'll work out a peace with our Palestinian neighbors, those who don't want to destroy us. And we'll work out a peace in which our security—the sovereign power of security always remains in our hands.

Now, people will say: "That's not a complete state. It's not a state. It's not that." We don't care. You know, we vowed "Never again." Never again is now. It's not going to happen again.

Q. So we'll see you in New York next year?

Prime Minister Netanyahu. Oh, well, I—look, I'm going to come there with President Trump, and we'll see what the—how do you know who the mayor will be? I don't know that. Do you know that?

President Trump. He's going to be very fine. And who knows, it could—we don't know who the mayor is going to be yet. But this is a Communist. He's not a Socialist. He's a Communist. And he said some really bad things about Jewish people, and he said some really bad things about a lot of people. And I think he's going through a little bit of a honeymoon right now, but he might make it. But you know, it all comes through the White House. He needs the money through the White House. He needs a lot. He's going to behave. He'll behave. He better behave, otherwise he's going to have big problems.

But it's a philosophy that this country is not ready for and it never will be.

By the way, we have a man with us who thought this was going to be very glamorous, easy job. He's the Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee. Former Governor. Former everything. I'd say he's a former everything and respected and loved by everybody. And he loves Israel. He loves the State of Israel, and nobody loves it much more. And he's not Jewish, and he loves Israel. And he wanted to be there. I said, "You know, Mike, it could be dangerous." "No, no, no." Well, I—at least I was right about that. He was in every bunker you could be in. [Laughter] He was running around from bunker to bunker, but he's still with us, fortunately. And he's done a good job.

Would you say a few words, Mike?

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Michael D. Huckabee. I just want to say what an honor it is to serve you, Mr. President, and to see a historic horizon that we are looking at in the Middle East. And when the President made his trip to the Middle East and then he really reached out to the new Syrian Government, knowing they needed a partner and knowing that they could pick the wrong partner—and what the President did, which took us all off guard, but the strategic move in that has set up something that is absolutely historic.

And, Mr. President, I don't even think you fully comprehend the impact that you're having on the region in a way that is so remarkable. And it was your leadership, your foresight. You did that.

When the B–2s went in, the celebration, the sense of partnership that you gave with the Israeli people was so dramatic that the message was bigger than to Israel. It was a message to the world: America's friends can trust us, but America's foes had better fear us. And that is a message that the President sent to everyone on the planet, and it is a message that will resonate toward a matter of peace, the likes of which I don't think we've ever seen.

So thank you.

President Trump. Thank you. Great job you're doing too.

Ambassador Huckabee. Thank you.

President Trump. They love you over there. They really—they respect him and they love them.

Prime Minister Netanyahu. That's right.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

President Trump. You know, it's very, very interesting. We had the pilots here yesterday, as you know, and they were incredible. And we also had the mechanics. We had a lot of people here that had to do—a lot of—I think about 170 people that had to do with that incredible journey—a journey that could have been horrible.

You remember what happened with Jimmy Carter, with the helicopters and all of the problems and, ultimately, hostages. We had the exact opposite. Everything was perfect. It worked perfectly.

But I didn't realize—I was saying to one, "Is this something that you felt strongly about?" "Absolutely, sir. I couldn't wait." I said, "Better that you—really, better you than me." [Laughter] But they couldn't wait. He said, "Sir, we've been practicing for this mission for more than 20 years." From just after 2000, they've been thinking and practicing to go into that area.

I guess you probably know that better than anybody, Pete. They've been looking to going in, but they never had a President that would allow them to do it. And perhaps right. Perhaps wrong. I don't know if that's true or not.

But I didn't realize they were preparing for that journey from just a little bit after 2000—the year 2000. And I was pretty amazed by that. They knew it. They knew every inch of it. And they came back, and they said, "We got it better than we ever did in practice." But they've been practicing for more than 20 years. Can you imagine?

Yes.

Ukraine/U.S. Security Assistance

Q. On Ukraine, Mr. President. Are you planning to send more weapons to Ukraine?

President Trump. We're going send some more weapons. We have to. They have to be able to defend themselves. They're getting hit very hard now. They're getting hit very hard. We're going to have to send more weapons. Yes, defensive weapons, primarily. But they're getting hit very, very hard.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

It's very sad. So many people are dying in that mess.

The President's Legislative Agenda/U.S. National Economy

Q. Mr. President, with the "One Big Beautiful Bill" now signed into law by you, what would you like congressional Republicans to turn their focus to now?

President Trump. All they have to do now is talk about how good it is. The biggest tax cuts ever. No tax on tips. No tax on Social Security. No—think of it, no tax on overtime.

For—from a business standpoint, the jobs are coming in like we've never seen them before. As soon as that was signed, there were nine factories that announced that they were building. The 1-year deductibility. You know, things that, from a business standpoint, you'd understand. The jobs that are being created.

And one of the things that is—and this is also that, but it's also because of the tariffs, the tremendous success. We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs.

One of the things that is so exciting is the number of companies and car companies where they're building plants. AI is the big thing. We have over $15 trillion announced already, and it's been—I mean, really, I would say it's been during the last 3 months. But we're here for a short period of time, and some administrations never had anywhere near that number for a whole term—probably for a whole two terms. But we're up to over $15 trillion coming into our country.

There's never been anything like it anywhere in the world. There's never been an investment like that anywhere in the world.

We—look, I told this story, and I just told it to Bibi backstage. I was talking to him, and I said, "You know, the King of Saudi Arabia, a smart guy"—and also, we went to Qatar, and we went to U.A.E. Really, three strong leaders. Smart guys. They all told me the same thing.

And then that was reiterated at NATO, just recently, when we got back, where they agreed to spend a trillion dollars a year, by the way, which is about three times what they were spending. But they all said the same thing: "We thought your country was dead." Horrible term, right? "We thought the United States of America was dead, and now you're presiding over the hottest country anywhere in the world."

We're the hottest country in the world. I think Bibi would admit it. Even hotter than Israel, though Israel was pretty hot about a week ago, I can tell you, for the wrong—for the wrong reasons. [Laughter] But we are the hottest country in the world right now, and it happened faster than anybody thought possible.

But we have over $15 trillion, and that means jobs and that means building and that means things like we've never seen before. So all we can do is keep working hard. There'll be always surprises. Some of the surprises are going to be bad surprises.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Iran/Israel

Q. Mr. President, again, real quick, on Iran. In your view, is the war between Israel and Iran over? Or do those talks need to happen before you can—

President Trump. Well, I would say that—you know, the best man to answer that is the Prime Minister. But I will tell you that, in my view, I hope it's over. Yes.

I think Iran wants to meet. I think they want to make peace, and I'm all for it.

Now, if that's not the case, we are ready, willing, and able, but I don't think we're going to have to be. But I think Bibi would answer that question very well.

Prime Minister Netanyahu. I think the partnership between Israel and the United States, the partnership between President Trump and me, produced a historic victory. It's an incredible victory, actually. It brought the greatest capabilities of the United States—that are unmatched—with the great capabilities of Israel and the army of Israel, the pilots of Israel, the soldiers of Israel, and the Mossad. And the combination of these two extraordinary capacities produced a decisive result. It set back the two tumors that were threatening the life of Israel: the nuclear tumor and the ballistic missile tumor. Because they were planning to build 20,000 of these things and launch it in a country the size of New Jersey, and no country could withstand that.

So what do you do when you have two things that are going to kill you? You have to remove them. With our combined effort, we did. But when you remove a tumor, it doesn't mean that it can't come back. You have to—constantly monitor the situation to make sure that there's no attempt to bring it back.

So we've had a great achievement, and I think part of the effort of consolidating this and ensuring that we don't have to repeat this is to monitor this carefully. Of course, the President and I are talking about it. Our teams are talking about it.

But there's no question, this is a historic victory. And I think, as was said here today, this has already changed the face of the Middle East.

Q. But it's not over, in your view?

Prime Minister Netanyahu. But I think that there is an opportunity here to create a historic expansion of the Abraham Accords, which were themselves an act of history that deserve a Nobel Prize for the President. But I think the opportunities are much bigger. And I hope—I'd like to believe that Iran would not test our fortitude, because it would be a mistake.

Q. And do you believe——

Prime Minister Netanyahu. It's better to go a different way.

Q. Do you believe a regime change is still necessary there?

Prime Minister Netanyahu. I think it's up to the people of Iran.

Q. You do?

Syria/U.S. Sanctions

Q. Mr. Prime Minister, speaking of that. On Syria, the Trump administration was fully supportive of the changes in Syria, backing the new regime there. Obviously, your Government more cautious from a security standpoint. Are you comfortable with the pace of change, with the security situation vis-à-vis Syria right now?

Prime Minister Netanyahu. I think there's an opportunity to explore. I think that everyone understands that the situation has changed. Before that, Iran was essentially running Syria—okay?—directly through Hizballah. Hizballah has been brought to its knees. Iran is out of the picture.

So I think this presents opportunities for stability, for security, and eventually for peace. And I think that's been opened up also by the fact that the President has opened up a channel so they have something.

There's a lot to lose by going back to conflict, and there's a lot to gain by moving towards peace. And I think that—I think that opportunity has been opened by the President and by the changed security situation, which we brought about with the collapse of the Assad regime.

Q. Are there direct talks with the al-Sharaa Government?

Prime Minister Netanyahu. Let's suppose there were. Would I answer "yes"? No. Right? [Laughter]

Q. That's my duty to ask. I appreciate it.

Prime Minister Netanyahu. Right. It's your duty to ask and my duty to ask you back, so——

President Trump. You know, at the—request of a lot of countries in the surrounding area of the Middle East, including Bibi, we will—we took the sanctions off Syria. And I met the new leader. I was very impressed by him. Somebody said, "Well, he comes from a very tough background." I said: "Well, you know, I'm not that surprised. It's a tough part of the world." But I was very impressed by him.

We took the sanctions off because we want to give them a chance. They would never have had a chance without the sanctions. And one of the things we have with Iran is—you know, we have very—we—they call them "biting"—they are very biting sanctions. And I would love to be able to, at the right time, take those sanctions off, give them a chance at rebuilding, because I'd like to see Iran build itself back up in a peaceful manner and not going around saying, "Death to America, death to the U.S.A., death to Israel," as they were doing.

You know, they were the bully of the Middle East, and now they're not the bully anymore. But they were saying terrible things. And we would like to see them—they have such potential. You know, they have the oil power, and they have great people, smart people, energetic people. Amazing.

And I know so many Iranians, Iranians from New York. I have a lot of friends, and they're great people. So it's a shame when you see a thing like this happen.

But I think that taking the sanctions off of Syria is going to give Syria a great shot at making it.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

The President's Legislative Agenda

Q. Mr. President, if I could follow up on the congressional question. Are there any Executive orders that you'd like to see Congress focus on when they come back in session? Do you have any that you prioritize to go first?

President Trump. Well, we've done a lot of them in the last—as you know, in the—I always say the "Great Big Beautiful Bill." I add the word "great." But it was the largest bill of its kind ever passed. We were talking about it before. It was a beauty.

But you know, a lot of the things that we did, Executive orders, have been codified in the legislation that we just had passed, and we're going to be sending in a lot more over the last—next period of about 2 months, separately. But a lot of it has—was part of that big—that beautiful, big bill.

Tariff Rates/Trade Negotiations

Q. Mr. President, on tariffs. What happened to "90 trade deals in 90 days," as Peter Navarro, your trade adviser——

President Trump. Oh, we've spoken to everybody. We know every—we—it's all done.

Q. Well, it's day 88. [Laughter] Day 90 is Wednesday.

President Trump. I told you—I told you, we'll make some deals, but for the most part, we're going to send a letter. We're going to say: "Welcome to the United States. If you'd like to participate in the greatest, most successful country ever"—I mean, we're doing better than ever. We have—I don't think—and you're going to see these numbers soon. We've never had numbers like this. We've never had investment like this.

We have more than 90. We're going to have much more than 90, but most of those are going to be sent a letter. This is exactly what I said.

Now, we've made a deal with United Kingdom. We've made a deal with China. We've made a deal—we're close to making a deal with India. Others, we've met with, and we don't think we're going to be able to make a deal, so we just send them a letter: "If you want to play ball, you have to—this is what you have to pay."

So we're—as far as I'm concerned, we're done. We're sending out letters to various countries, telling them how much tariffs they have to pay. Some we'll maybe adjust a little bit, depending if they have a, you know, cause. We're—not going to be unfair about it.

And actually, it's a small fraction compared to what we should be getting. We should be—we could be asking for much more, but for the sake of relationships that we've had with a lot of really good countries, we're doing the way I do it. But we could be getting a lot more. We could ask for a lot more than what we're asking for.

Communication of Tariff Rates

Q. When you say, "We're done," because you're sending the letters—to follow up on what Ed [Ed O'Keefe, CBS News] had asked earlier, you're counting these as deals by saying, "Here's the tariff rate we're going to charge now, and that's it."

President Trump. I'm saying: "Here it is. Congratulations. Welcome to the United States. I hope you make a lot of money, and you're going to pay us money." They were ripping us—they were charging us tariffs at levels that nobody's ever seen before. We have some countries that were charging 200-percent tariffs and making it impossible to do business.

And what the tariffs are doing is they're driving people in and companies in into the United States. That's why we're building all of the—all of the work that you see happening in this country right now, and it's at a record level. All the factories, all of the AI institutions that are being built, it's largely because—well, I think it's because of November 5, a good election, and I think it's because of the tariffs.

Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Menu for the Working Dinner

Q. What's for dinner?

President Trump. I don't know, but it looks good to me. [Laughter]