Remarks transcript, Jun 4, 2026 (Donald Trump)

No, we're very highly sophisticated—we've become very highly sophisticated. We had 4 years. I rebuilt the military. We had a military that was not good, and we rebuilt it. And I didn't know I'd use it quite as much, but we used it.

Ukraine has been given a tremendous amount of our military—without our military and our equipment, Ukraine wouldn't be alive to fight today, you know, I mean, just in terms of the question. We gave them hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of equipment and the best equipment in the—we make the best equipment anywhere in the world, but they wouldn't have—they wouldn't have lasted one or 2 days. They wouldn't have been able to do it.

Remember the antitank missiles—remember that, right?—when the tanks got stuck in the mud, and then they went around and boom, boom, boom. And those were given by yours truly. They said Obama gave sheets and Trump gave the antitank—the—one of the most devastating weapons.

But you check that out.

But we have the greatest military. We have the greatest military equipment anybody has ever seen before.

Look at Venezuela. We went in there; it was over after about 48 minutes, and, you know, they have a strong military—a different kind of a military, but a lot of soldiers.

And you look at Iran, where we essentially wiped out their military. No, there's some missiles left, but very few compared to what they had.

And speaking of our military and Iran, I wanted to ask you about this report that you would only restart the conflict with Iran if they killed U.S. troops. Is that your red line for ending the ceasefire?

If they killed——

U.S. troops.

What does that mean?

That you would restart the war with Iran if they killed U.S. troops, but that's——

Well, I—it would be a good reason. I'll be honest with you: Yes, if they killed U.S. troops, I think I would do that very quickly. Yes, that's a very interesting question.

Mr. President, on Iran. You—responded to the vote in the House yesterday of the War Powers Resolution. Also, we've seen Hizballah reject the U.S.-brokered peace in Lebanon. You said that negotiations are—negotiations are in final stages.

Well, you don't know. What does "reject"——

But Iran is saying they're stalled.

Yes.

How long is this going to go on?

Yes, what does "reject" mean? They didn't reject. Look——

They didn't reject it?

They're looking. I think Hizballah—I will tell you, they called us and they said, "How about stopping?" And I think you see things happen over there.

That's been, like, a little bit of a different world, but it's interconnected with Iran, and it would be really nice if Lebanon could have some peace. Lebanon has been under attack for so many years and always like an underdog. And it would be really nice if it could end.

And I spoke to Bibi Netanyahu about that, and I speak to them about it, and I actually spoke to Hizballah about it, and I think progress is made. That's been going on for a long time. You know, when you look at that, for years and years—48 years. I say, "Well, let's get this settled. How long has it been going on?" "Forty-eight years." I said, "That's a long time." [ Laughter ] Not that easy.

But go ahead.

As we get closer to the midterms, are you starting to factor in domestic reaction to this in your handling of this? Or are you——

No. I have—I just do what's right.

Indefinitely you're——

No, I—mean, look, it was like Venezuela was very unpopular, then we won, and my numbers went through the roof. I have very high poll numbers. They went through the roof.

It was very unpopular when I went to Venezuela. They said, "Oh, we don't want"—well, first of all, that one is relatively close. It's sort of a semineighbor, right? And the relationship with Venezuela is incredible. We've taken out millions and millions of barrels of oil out of Venezuela. It's very oil-prone, I guess, Chris. One of the most, right?

Yes.

And we've taken out—you're sort of leading it. But do you want to just tell them real fast about the relationship we have with Venezuela, Chris?

Yes. Things with Venezuela have gone very well. Venezuelan oil exports today are three times higher than they were right before we went in, so it has been a meaningful incremental supply of oil to the world and one of the reasons we're solving a 47-year-old problem of Iran's race for nuclear weapons and oil prices in the U.S.

We wish they were lower, but gasoline prices in the U.S. are, you know, a little over $4. They're $10 in Europe. They're higher in Asia. They're very high in California.

The bigger threat to energy prices in the United States is Democratic green energy policies. They have driven up energy prices far more than a conflict in Iran.

And the conflict in Iran will come to an end. We hope that crazy, green energy—drive-up-energy-prices policy, the Democrats at Federal and State levels—we hope that comes to an end too.

And remember this: We're—if you want to call it a war or if you want to call it a military operation, you cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon, and everybody agrees to that, no matter—almost everybody.

But wait a minute. Our gasoline prices are lower than they were with Biden without that. And he would have let them have—in fact, he inspired them to have, frankly, a nuclear weapon—him and Obama. Obama picked the wrong country. You know that.

And the Obama deal—I terminated that, or they would have had a nuclear—that was a road to a nuclear weapon.

Our deal, if we make that deal—and it's going well, but who knows—if we make that deal, it's the exact opposite. They will not have—they will never have a nuclear weapon.

It sounds like you're in it for as long as it takes.

I'm not going to let them have a nuclear weapon, no.

With Obama, it was a road—you know that. It was a road to a nuclear weapon. That was a short-term agreement, and at the end of which they would have a nuclear weapon. So, they would have had it 4 years ago.

Then we attacked with this beautiful plane right here, the B–2 bomber. We attacked—10 months ago, we attacked their nuclear sites, and they were obliterated. It turned out that, you know, CNN was wrong. They said, "Well, maybe they weren't hit that hard." They were hit so hard nobody knows if you can even get it out.

But the only ones that have the capability of getting out is us and China. We're the only ones with that kind of equipment that's powerful enough to go down that deep into a mountain.

But that mountain crushed it. That mountain literally collapsed on top of it. Those pilots did one hell of a job.

That's right.

And now the Atomic Energy, as you know, has backed us up on that. They think it's a very, very hard thing to get it, but we'll get it anyway.

But we're the only one—and China. I believe China too, but we're the only two that have the capability of getting it.

Mr. President, Jill Biden is out promoting a new book this week. When you met with Joe Biden—President Joe Biden—right here in the Oval Office on November the 13th of 2024, could you detect any cognitive decline in President Biden at that time?

No, not really. He was the same guy I've been watching for a long time. I mean, you can go back 40 years. I watched him 40 years ago, 30 years ago. He was never the sharpest guy. You do know that, right? It wasn't like he was sharp as a tack. But no, it was the same guy.

He actually invited me here before the election, which was strange. You know, we went here before, but then I met also—as you know, we did the ritual. And, I mean, he was fine, as far as I was concerned.

I don't know. Something happened to him during the debate. It could have been me. You know, I thought I had a very good debate. Nobody ever says that. They say that Biden did badly. What about me? Did I do well? You know, there's a reason he did badly. And so, the question is: Did he do badly because he choked or because he didn't have it?

But he didn't have a good—I would say this: He did not have a good night.

But during that—during that time period—you met with him for about 2 hours—you didn't feel he was slowing down or he was——

No, he spoke softly.

Okay.

Very softly. And as we started to speak, he—you know, I mention this to people: He spoke very, very softly. Very low. Very low. And as we talked, we got along really well, and I thought he was fine. I thought he was fine.

When I say "fine," I mean was he, like, talking to Doug Burgum? [ Laughter ] Was he, like, talking to Chris? Was he, like, talking to any of these monsters up here, all these tremendous politicians and environmental geniuses? Was he, like, talking to Andy Barr? No. He was fine.

I have a question about Hunter Biden. He's on social media now, and he has suggested—maybe joking; I don't know—that he could run for President in 2028. How would he do, Hunter Biden, in a 2028 Democratic primary?

Well, you would think that, you know, past has something to do with winning an election, and I would say his past is not the greatest. "Where's Hunter?" Remember my "Where's Hunter?" It became the number-one shirt anywhere in the world for about 3 weeks.

I'm not going to say bad. I'm sure—you know, hey, if the guy from Maine can do well—[ laughter ]—I guess Hunter could do well too. [ Laughter ] Because the guy from Maine is a basket case, and I would say worse than him is the one from Texas that looks like Alfred E. Neuman. [ Laughter ] I would say that if he can do well, maybe Hunter can do well. I'm not sure. It would be pretty close, as far as I'm concerned.

And I've got a question about the nuclear dust. So the bombers go in, they entomb a lot of this enriched uranium.

Right. Yes.

At this point, do you need a deal with Iran to go get it?

No.

Or have you thought about just——

I was——

——a covert, daring—send in the SEALs, send in the Rangers?

Yes, but I didn't want to be Jimmy Carter. You know, I didn't feel like being Jimmy Carter.

So that's off the table?

We did—well, we thought about it right at the very beginning, before you saw, before we did what we did, where—before we destroyed their entire military. We thought about it, and I didn't want to be in a position where you had to be—you know, to get there, it's not like—it's not like Venezuela, like you go in, you're there for a matter of minutes, and you're out and everybody is waving goodbye as you, you know, take off, and you've brought the cargo back.

This is different. You'd have to be there for 2 weeks. You'd need massive equipment. You'd have to airlift the equipment in. You know, you're in a war zone.

And there was a time at the very beginning when we thought about doing that because they would have not been watching, but they would have found out. I mean, during a period of a week to 2 weeks, you know, that's—you would have had a major construction operation, because that plane and, more importantly, those people that operate those planes, including the mechanics—you know, they flew for 37 hours round trip. Think of that. And the tankers that refilled them four times, and—what an operation it was. Amazing.

And—but we would have been—Peter, we would have been there for a period from a week to 2 weeks. We would have gotten it, but I said, "I don't like the idea of that." All of a sudden, they, you know, pinpoint—they still had missiles left. That means they would pinpoint you and just keep lobbing them in until one gets through, and people would have gotten killed. So I didn't like it.

We could get it right now. I don't think they could stop us if we wanted, but there's no reason to. It's entombed. You used a good word. It's entombed.

Thank you.

We also have cameras on it through Space Force. We have very powerful cameras. Every door—there's a door. You know, the—you know where the doors go? They go to bad places.

But every single place on that—on those mountains—there's three—basically three, because we also hit it with Tomahawks after. You know, after that, we hit it with Tomahawks.

Every inch of that land has cameras on it. We have about nine of them, and they're on it. We cover it. So, if anybody even got near it, we would know what we had to do.

And we've heard that you want to meet with the new Ayatollah, the new Supreme Leader.

I don't want to meet, but if—if I did meet, I'd be honored to meet him. I'd like to see if we make a deal. But if we make a deal, it's possible that I would meet him. I'd be okay with that.

Would that happen here in the U.S.? White House? Camp David?

Oh, I don't know, Peter. I haven't really heard too much about it. It's not—I—didn't suggest it, but some people have suggested it. If it happened, it would be—happen. I'd be be respectful.

Do you think—do you think because Epic Fury killed his dad and his wife and his kid, that he's got hard feelings and wouldn't want to meet? Have you heard——

Well, I would say I'm not his favorite person. But with that being said, he's probably a—I don't know him. He's probably a professional. In some circles, he has a very good reputation, actually. You know, sometimes some people say bad, but a lot of people say bad about me. It's totally false, of course.

Please.

On jobs. Tomorrow, the jobs report will be released.

Yes.

While the unemployment rate has been steady at 4.3 percent, the Black unemployment rate has been 7.3 percent. When you ran for President, you courted Black voters and talked about what you described as "Black jobs." How do you describe why—this disparity is happening? And what can you do to close that gap?

Well, we're doing very well with the Black jobs, African American jobs. We're doing—I saw some numbers that we're doing really well.

But where we're really going to do well is when all these plants are open. You know, we're building many car plants. We're bringing cars back from Germany. We're bringing—you know, we lost the car industry years ago. Fifty-four percent of the industry went to Germany, Japan, Canada, Mexico. It's all coming back. It's amazing.

And where your Black worker is really going to do well is when those factories open. So, I think they're going to be great.

Yes, we've—been doing very well. It's been a big focus for me.

Yes, please.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. On today's announcement, how do you ensure the estimated cost savings are passed on to the consumers and not held by the company?

And then, on Iran, what specific progress has been made today in talks with them, and where are the sticking points still?

So we're really lowering costs. You know, when I came into this job, we had the highest inflation in the history of our country. Forty-eight years, they say, but I—think the history of our country, whether it's 48 years or more. But we had tremendous inflation with Biden. During the Biden—they had the highest—they had one of the highest ever, and I inherited that.

The costs were very, very high. And at my first news conference, Peter and others were screaming at me about eggs. Remember, Peter? "Eggs! What about eggs?" Maybe it wasn't you.

I don't think I screamed about the eggs. [ Laughter ]

I know, but I wanted to inject Peter into it. But he was screaming to me on eggs, and I said: "What? Tell me about eggs." This is 2 days in. They said eggs had quadrupled. I said, "Well, they didn't quadruple under me. They"—and they didn't want me to order eggs for the Easter egg hunt that was going to take place in a few months, right? [ Laughter ] And I said: "Nope. We're not going to"—they wanted me to order plastic eggs, and I said, "Nope."

And we got eggs down to lower than what it was long prior to when I took over, and eggs today are about 15 percent lower.

What we had is a bunch of con artists, the Democrats—the "Dumocrats." And what they did is they said—they left. They gave the highest prices that we've ever had for all products—groceries, everything—and they started saying, "Affordability." They'd say, "This is about affordability." It's a con job.

I inherited their high prices. We brought those prices way down. And when the—and if you go back 3 months ago—if you go back before the—war started, think of it: 3 months.

So, with Vietnam, we were there for 19 years. With Iraq, it was about 9 years. With another one, it was about 12 years. And with another one—we had all these wars that lasted for 9, 10, 12—19 years for Vietnam. Think of it.

And they said: "You're in there for 3 months. This is a terrible thing."

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed in these other wars. We lost not one soldier in Venezuela. We didn't lose one soldier. And we lost a total of 13, which is 13 too many, but when you look at hundreds of thousands of soldiers were killed in these various wars. They lasted many, many years. We're in there for a few months, and what we've done is amazing. They won't have a nuclear weapon.

And we did—it was tough because we just got—Doug and everybody came in to see me. We just got the best numbers. Well, today, again, the New York Stock Exchange and every other exchange just hit a new alltime high. That's 73 days out of my short term we've hit brand-new highs. Every 401(k) is setting records.

And 401(k)s, a lot of people have. You probably all have 401(k)s. Every—I'll tell—look at your 401(k). You're happy about your 401(k)? You know, the nice reporters are smiling at me, and the stupid reporters are like that. [ Laughter ] But their 401(k)s are setting records. They should be happy. They shouldn't be angry; they should be very happy.

But 401(k)s are setting records. They've never had anything like it. So, you know, we've done a good job.

As far as Iran is concerned, you're going to find out what the deal is, but the main parts of the deal is, they can't have a nuclear weapon. The Strait will open immediately. You know, it's going to open immediately.

And we've largely swept for mines. We have the most sophisticated minesweepers—they're underwater minesweepers. I actually said to somebody, one of the generals, "Why underwater?" He said, "Because usually it's hostile." You know, when you're looking for mines, typically it's not in a good neighborhood, right? So underwater made a lot of sense, when you—it didn't take long to figure that one out.

So I think we're doing very well, but we're going to see. If—we're going to win one way or the other. We're going to win on paper or we're going to win military. One way or the other, it's going to be militarily or on paper.

Thank you, Mr. President. How critical is energy dominance—whether it be coal, whether it be LNG, whether it be oil——

Yes.

——to national security?

Very critical. Without it, you can't win.

As an example, AI is a big deal. Whether we like it, not like it, it's going to be amazing in many ways. It's going to be—I think, for medical, it'll be amazing. But without massive amounts of energy, you can't even play the game.

And we're leading China by a lot in AI. I was talking to President Xi about it. But if we didn't do—Lee Zeldin has done so great because, number one, fast approvals from professionals. You know, you have the best firms in the world submitting papers to him, and we didn't keep them waiting for 10 years and then vote against them after 10 years. That was your—guys would file with the environmental for a plant of some kind. After 15 years, they would be rejected. It was terrible.

Now we have great professionals there, and we accept—we only accept plans from great professionals, but we give them fast turnaround, and it's been really amazing.

I think the biggest thing we've done, Lee, is we let these geniuses with all this money build their own electric plant. We don't take it from our grid; we let them build their own plant. They become a utility. So they're building a plant, and at the same time, they're building electricity, because if we didn't do that, you couldn't have anything. You couldn't have—and we're letting that happen too with car plants and other plants, if they want to build their own electric.

But with the AI, you know, when you hear so much about it—but one of the biggest things, they build their own. And then excess energy that they create will go back into the grid.

Yes, please.

Mr. President, on Cuba. Are you——

Mr. President——

Mr. President, on——

Wait a minute. Just let him have one.

Mr. President, Secretary Rubio was in Delhi last week. He delivered a letter from you to Prime Minister Modi. And, sir, you also addressed people of India through your favorite Ambassador, Sergio Gor.

That's right.

Yes. Both of them have said the trade deal is around the corner. Where do we stand on the trade deal with India?

Well, we have it. And you know, look, India, for years, has—and I don't blame them; I blame us, because we had stupid people here. India, for years, really took advantage of the United States. You know that.

Are you from India, by any chance? Huh?

Both people—both countries——

I thought you were from Germany. [ Laughter ]

I am from India, sir.

I'm only kidding. You're central casting, okay? And that's a very good thing. [ Laughter ]

India, for years, took advantage of this country. They charged us tremendous tariffs, and they paid nothing. They wouldn't let Harley—as an example, in the past, they wouldn't let Harley Davidson sell its motor. They would charge 200-percent tariff, so Harley Davidson was precluded. They ended up going to India and building their own plants, which is unfortunate that that happened, but it happens. That was before me.

But they charged tremendous amounts of tariffs to our—and—we didn't charge them anything. You know, they sell—sold motorbikes here too. You know what we charged them? Nothing. And now it's the exact reverse.

And we're making a lot of money with India, but we'll get to a deal because I like—you know, I like your Prime Minister a lot. He's a good friend of mine. Get along great. And we're going to make a deal. We get—we have a very good relationship.

Mr. President, yes. Speaking of deals, Mr. President. On Cuba, are your sanctions on Cuba meant to accelerate its collapse?

No. It's just—we just want them to be a nicely run country that can feed its people.

Look, it's a failed nation. Without Venezuela—you know, Venezuela, because it has such wealth in the ground—mostly in the ground—but Venezuela took care of them for years, and they took care of Venezuela. They were like the bodyguards. When we went in and burst into their country, the Venezuelans were guarding Maduro and everybody else. It was mostly—I mean, the soldiers were—in that case, we were a lot—we had a lot of Cubans were guarding. The Cubans were the guards. And they're good soldiers.

But the country is starving, and it's got no energy, it's got no oil, it's got no money, it's got nothing. It's got a beautiful piece of land. You could have beautiful resorts. Doesn't have oil, but Venezuela was giving them the money to survive. And now, you know, the money is—I guess you could say it's coming to us and is going to Venezuela.

Venezuela has been an amazing thing because we've paid for the cost of the attack many, many times over, and it's been a long time since you've heard of it.

Do you think Cuba is close to collapsing though? Based on everything you just laid out, do you think that Cuba is close to collapsing?

It's sort of collapsed, and we're going to handle that as soon as we've—I like to do one thing at a time. And we'll take care of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And as soon as that's done, on our way back we'll just make a little brief stopover.

We'll take care of it. We want to help them out.

Look, we have a lot of people that voted for Trump. Whether they did or not, it didn't matter, but I had 95 percent of the Cubans voted for me. They're unbelievable people. They're energetic. They're entrepreneurial. You know, some of the richest people in Miami are Cuban. They're unbelievable. And I'm going to take good care of them. I'm going to let them go back to their land. They want to be back with family. You know, they have a lot of family over there. They've been treated very badly by Cuba.

But we're going to treat Cuba well, and we're going to let our people go back and let them invest in Cuba if they'd like. So we have some very good plans for Cuba. I think, you know, we have to get rid of the—the regime was—very tough, very nasty. The difference is now they don't have money coming in.

They had a lot of money coming in from Venezuela. They don't have any money coming. They had oil coming in. They had money coming in. But we're going to take care of Cuba. And they—you know what? They want us to. The people want us there so badly.

Mr. President, sir.