Remarks on United States Diplomatic Efforts and an Exchange With Reporters Upon Arrival in Morristown, New Jersey

The President. Hello, everybody.

So we just learned that Rwanda—you know all about Rwanda—and the Congo will be doing a peace settlement, probably coming in on Monday or Tuesday. We're going to be signing it up, and we've stopped a very vicious war. So that was an honor for me to be involved.

I want to thank J.D. Vance and—for a great job. And also, our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has done a fantastic job.

So Rwanda—a long-term war with the Congo, a very bloody war—they're all bloody, but this was a really bloody one—is going to be making peace with Congo, and they can get on to making trade deals with the United States and other places and have a much more normal form of life. We're very honored by that.

As you know, we did a very great job with India and Pakistan. And we had India in. It looks like we're going to be making a trade deal with India. And we had Pakistan in. It looks like we're going to be making a trade deal with Pakistan. And it's a beautiful thing to watch.

Serbia, Kosovo, likewise. They've been fighting for years, and, as you know, we brought that one to a conclusion.

And now we have a couple of big ones. We have Russia-Ukraine, which is making a little bit of progress. And we have Israel, and nobody really knows what that one is all about. We're going to find out pretty soon, I guess.

Iran

Q. The Iranian Foreign—Mr. President, the Iranian Foreign Minister, this afternoon, said if the U.S. is serious about negotiations, that you would call up Israel and request that they stop their airstrikes. Will you make that request?

The President. Well, I think it's very hard to make that request right now. If somebody is winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody is losing. But we're ready, willing, and able, and we've been speaking to Iran, and we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens.

Iran/Nuclear Weapons Development

Q. Mr. President, what was the thought process behind the 2-week timetable?

The President. Just time to see whether or not people come to their senses. That's all it is.

Q. Mr. President, did the Europeans help at all in talking with the Iranians?

The President. No, they didn't help. No. Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us. Europe is not going to be able to help in this one.

The President's Foreign Policy/Weapons of Mass Destruction

Q. What—20 years ago, you were skeptical of a Republican administration that attacked a Middle East country on the idea of questionable intelligence of weapons of mass destruction. How is this moment different with Iran?

The President. Well, there were no weapons of mass destruction. I never thought there were. And that was somewhat prenuclear. You know, it was the nuclear age, but nothing like it is today. And it looked like I'm right about the material that they've gathered already. It's a tremendous amount of material, and I think within a matter of weeks—or certainly within a matter of months—they were going to be able to have a nuclear weapon. We can't let that happen.

I was very much opposed to Iraq. I was—I said it loud and clear, but I was a civilian, but I guess I got a lot of publicity. But I was very much opposed to the Iraq war. And I actually did say: "Don't go in. Don't go in. Don't go in." But I said, "If you're going to go in, keep the oil." But they didn't do that.

Iran/Nuclear Weapons Development/U.S. Intelligence Assessment

Q. What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your intelligence community has said they have no evidence that they are at this point.

The President. Well, then my intelligence community is wrong. Who in the intelligence community said that?

Q. Your Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

The President. She's wrong.

Iran

Q. Mr. President, are the Chinese in any way helping Iran in this moment? We're hearing reports of mysterious planes landing in Iran from China.

The President. I don't know. They say that they're there to take people out, but I can't tell you about that.

I get along very well with China. Get along very well with President Xi. I like him. He likes me. We have a very good relationship. We'll see what happens. I can't imagine them getting involved.

Potential U.S. Involvement in Iran

Q. Is this decision that you need to make on Iran—whether to strike militarily—is this the biggest decision you'll have to make as president?

The President. Well, I can't tell you that. I have to see what happens. I can't, you know, really say that. It depends what the decision is. But I wouldn't really be able to tell you that now. I'll tell you in about a year from now, maybe 5 years or 10 years from now. You never know about decisions. You never really know.

Q. Sir, former President——

Iran/Israel

Q. Sir, would you support a cease-fire while the negotiations happen with Iran?

The President. I might, depending on the circumstances.

Q. Would you—former Congressman Matt Gaetz——

The President. It's very hard to stop. I will say this. It's very hard to stop, when you look at it. Israel is doing well, in terms of war. And I think you would say that Iran is doing less well. It's a little bit hard to get somebody to stop.

The President's Foreign Policy Achievements

Q. Sir, Liam Cosgrove with ZeroHedge. Former Congressman Matt Gaetz threw out an interesting idea, suggesting that if—if you were to broker a deal where nuclear inspectors go into both Israel and Iran that you could win a Nobel Peace Prize, and they might even rename it the Trump Peace Prize. Did you hear those? What do you think of that?

The President. Well, they should give me the Nobel Prize for Rwanda and—if you look—the Congo, or you could say Serbia, Kosovo. You could say a lot of them. You could say—I mean, the big one is India and Pakistan. You could—I should have gotten it four or five times.

I should get it for the—I would think the Abraham Accords would be a good one too.

Q. But what do you think of that idea?

The President. They won't give me a Nobel Peace Prize because they only give it to liberals.

Iran/Civilian Nuclear Energy

Q. Would you support Iran being able to have nuclear—or would you support Iran being able to have civilian nuclear energy capabilities up to 3.76 percent?

The President. You know, they're sitting on the top of a—one of the largest piles of oil in the world. I just don't know why they need that for civilian work. You know, it's one thing for certain countries to say, "Hey, I want to have a certain amount where I can go nuclear a little bit, because we need it for electricity, we need it for air conditioners, et cetera." But when you're sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world, it's a little bit hard to see why you'd need that.

Yes.

Iran/Terrorism Threats

Q. Mr. President, are you concerned that Iran or its proxies would wage terror attacks against American targets abroad if you order military action?

The President. We're always concerned about that, and we have to take them out and be very strong. You're even in danger talking to me right now. Do you know that? You are in danger talking to me right now. So I should probably get out of here. But you guys are actually in danger. Can you believe it?

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

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Q. Is it still your expectation that NATO countries spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense spending?

The President. Well, I think they should do that. I don't think we should, but I think they should. We've been spending—we've been supporting NATO so long—in many cases, I believe paying almost a hundred percent the cost. So I don't think we should, but I think that the NATO countries should. Absolutely.

Spain

Q. And if a country like Spain decides not to?

The President. Well, NATO is going to have to deal with Spain. Spain has been a very low payer. They were always a very low payer. They were either good negotiators, or they weren't doing the right thing. I mean, I think Spain has to pay what everybody else has to pay.

Spain has been notorious for low pay. You know who else was a low payer, the—just about the lowest? A place called Canada. Because Canada said, "Why should we pay when the United States will protect us free?" And they've been right about that.

Russia/Ukraine

Q. On Russia-Ukraine. You've been making progress towards a peace deal. But—I don't know if you know this, but Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo were there on the ground in Ukraine, seemingly doing the opposite, trying to provoke the Ukrainians to keep fighting. What do you think of that?

The President. Well, we're going to see, and people have to be very careful with what they say. They've got to be very careful with their mouth, because their mouth can get them into a lot of trouble.

Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. One more: ICE has said that they're trying to arrest up to 3,000 individuals a day. There are some communities that are saying they are fearful of being wrongfully detained or separating some families, even if they are undocumented. Is the fear in some of these communities worth the deportations of these undocumented individuals, a mass deportation program?

The President. Always a tough subject, because, look, we have farmers. I love farmers. I won 80 percent, 85 percent of the farmers, and I love them, and I'm never going to do anything to hurt our farmers. And you could also say the leisure business, et cetera.

There are some businesses where you have a disproportionate amount of people that are the people that you're talking about. At the same time, we have to get the criminals out of our country. And we're looking at doing something where in the case of good, reputable farmers, they can take responsibility for the people that they hire and let them have responsibility, because we can't put the farms out of business.

And at the same time, we don't want to hurt people that aren't criminals. Most of the people that came in over the last 3 years under Biden—I would say probably 3½ to 4 years—those people, you have a lot of criminals, you have a lot of—I mean, we're looking at that very closely.

You've had people that have worked on farms for 20 years, and it's very hard to go in there and say, "You know, you—you're coming out." But we're going to let the farmers take responsibility. They're great people. They'll do it. They know the good and the bad.

So the hard part about this is not like a normal war where people wear uniforms. They don't wear uniforms. But we have murderers that came out of the last 4 years. We have murderers. We have drug lords. We have people that we don't want to—we have prisoners.

They emptied out—Venezuela and many countries, they emptied out their prisons into the United States. We have to get those people out. But we have stone-cold murders—11,888 murderers. We've already gotten a lot of them out of here, but we don't want them, so we have to be careful.

But I never want to hurt our farmers. Our farmers are great people. They keep us happy and healthy and fat.

Political Protests in Los Angeles, California/National Guard Deployment

Q. Are there other cities that you're going to try to replicate what you've done in Los Angeles?

The President. Well, I mean, we had a big victory last night in the court, court of appeals, with respect to Los Angeles, but really the country, where Gavin Newscum—who is really an incompetent Governor—he's just doing a terrible job between his fires, between all the houses burning down, his forest fires, and now Los Angeles.

If we didn't go to Los Angeles—and the sheriff admitted it, he had no control—he would have lost control. We saved Los Angeles by having the military go in. And the second night was much better. The third night was nothing much. And the fourth night, nobody bothered even coming. We put out that fire. We did a great job of it.

He sued us for going in and for helping him. We went and helped him. Right now you'd have Los Angeles burning to the ground. Largely, it would have already been destroyed.

Q. So do you think deportations should——

Iran/Potential U.S. Involvement

Q. Do you still want your legacy, Mr. President, to be that of a peacemaker? Do you worry that striking Iran would change that?

The President. Always a peacemaker, yes. Always a peacemaker. That doesn't mean—sometimes you need some toughness to make peace, but always a peacemaker.

Q. Can you win in Iran without ground forces?

The President. Say it.

Q. Is an aerial campaign in Iran enough? Or do you need ground forces if you're——

The President. Well, I'm not going to talk about ground forces. The last thing you want to do is ground forces.

Iran/Israel

Q. Does Iran have 2 weeks, or could you strike before that? Are you essentially giving them a 2-week timeline?

The President. Well, I'm giving them a period of time. We're going to see what that period of time is, but I'm giving them a period of time, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum.

Q. Mr. President——

Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. Mr. President, do you think deportations should focus on criminals or all people who are here illegally?

The President. Should start focusing on criminals, and that's what we've been focused on: very bad criminals, dangerous criminals.

Q. But Stephen Miller said to go out and arrest every person who's here illegally. He's told ICE to arrest everyone who's here illegally. Do agree with that?

The President. We—Stephen and I have a very good understanding. He's a terrific person. We have a great understanding.

Go ahead.

Iran

Q. Mr. President, if there are—if there is an attack on U.S. assets, will you promise to conduct a full investigation and make it transparent with the American people before blaming Iran for such an attack?

The President. Well, if there's an attack, we'll know almost immediately with modern equipment who made the attack. And those people will be very, very unhappy.

Q. Prime Minister——

The President. And I want to get you people out of danger. You're in danger standing with me.

Israel/Iran

Q. One more. Prime Minister Netanyahu said that they had the capacity to take out all of Iran's nuclear facilities. So what role would the U.S. be able to play? And why would they, if Israel says that they have all of the abilities, their own military?

The President. Well, I'm not sure he said that, but they really have a very limited capacity. They could break through a little section, but they can't go down very deep. They don't have that capacity. And we'll have to see what happens. Maybe it won't be necessary. Maybe it won't be necessary.

Transgender Transition Procedures

Q. Mr. President, would you like to see Congress pass a bill that bans child transgender surgeries?

The President. Well, I know they're talking about it, aren't they? Huh? We're going to have to see how it comes to me and what form. Certainly, it's been something I've been talking about also.

Okay? Thank you. Thank you. Be careful.

Q. Thank you, Mr. President. Appreciate it.

The President. Good luck. Good luck.

Thank you, everybody.