Remarks #2 transcript, Jul 21, 2026 (Donald Trump)

Well, thank you very much. It's a great pleasure to be with the President of Lebanon. He's highly respected in his country and, actually, long beyond his country.

We've spoken previously on numerous occasions through representatives, and the relationship is very good. I think that Lebanon has been a very mistreated country for a long period of time. It's an amazing group of people: professors, doctors, lawyers, great intellects. And it's been hit hard for many, many decades, really.

Unfortunately.

It's been hit very, very hard. And yet I have people that live in Lebanon, people that are parents of friends of mine, in many cases, and they would never leave. They would not leave under any circumstance—they love it. They love the country, and it's probably a dangerous place in a lot of ways, but they live in areas—they say, "We hear bombs going off all the time, but we want to live in Lebanon." They love the country. Very smart people, very successful people. And they live there.

But it has been. It's been a country of great intellect, great intellectuals. They still love it. They want to be there. And we're going to help it. We're going to help it a lot.

So it's an honor to have the President and your representatives here. We've already met a couple of times, and we've had some good meetings. And we are going to solve a lot of problems. We've already solved some of them for Lebanon.

As you know, there's a Hizballah problem, but we've done some things that I think the world will take notice. Again, it's been a very badly treated place and country, and we're going to have it properly treated and treated with respect that it deserves.

And, Mr. President, it's an honor having you. Thank you very much.

Honor. No, thank you.

Thank you very much.

I've been looking forward to this visit for a long time——

Thank you very much.

——meeting such a great President like yourself.

Wow. That's a very nice thing.

See, he knows how to get to me. [ Laughter ] He knows.

He can have anything. Now he can have anything.

Would you like to say something?

No, really, I would like to thank President Trump, really, and his team for the historic visit and for the historic achievement that we did together by signing the framework with the ultimate objective of ending the state of hostility between Lebanon and Israel forever.

I think, Mr. President, this will be your legacy. Together, we'll be able to achieve this objective. It's about time for Lebanon and for the whole region to be stable and secure. And I know your vision is peace, your vision is stability, and I think my vision coincide with your vision.

And together, I think we will be able to achieve and to score success in that regard.

I agree with that. I do agree with that. And you have tremendous spirit on your side. You have people that love their country, and they're going to make it work.

We're going to make it work.

Right. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

President Trump, MTV Lebanon. I have two questions. One for you.

President Trump, as you work to expand the Abraham Accords, Lebanon still enforces a 1955 law criminalizing contact with Israeli for over 70 years. You previously stated you would push Lebanon on this issue, and people—there are some people still going to prison last month. So did you raise it with the—you will raise it with President Aoun today?

I will. I—the Abraham Accords have been, I think, a tremendous success. I think you're going to see a lot of countries joining pretty soon.

As you know, we have our original group, and they are—it's so successful for them—economically successful. It's been that. Nobody left, even during this time of conflict.

So, no, I think Lebanon has a very important place.

What is your level of concern of a blockade of the Red Sea by the Houthi rebels, opening in—up another front in the war?

Well, we'll have to see what happens. So far, it hasn't happened. Might happen. But we take care of things. If something like that happens, we take care of it.

You know, we've done that with the Houthis before, and we haven't heard from them in a while, since we did what we did originally. That was about 45 days of very powerful action we took against the Houthis. And we've had no problem with the Houthis. They've had no problem with us for a long period of time, including during this conflict.

I think that if there is something like that, we'll just have to take care of business.

The Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament rejected the agreement between Lebanon and Israel and said—he said it's a sedition that's going to cause civil war. He's the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament and he speaks for Hizballah. He's the—Hizballah's "big brother."

Yes.

What do you have to say about that?

Well, maybe I'll let you speak to that.

Actually, the framework doesn't require the endorsement of the Parliament. Okay? It's part of our constitution. It's a prerogative of the President. And we are committed to it. And I think the Speaker of the Parliament is—really wants to—to see the end of this war.

He's from the south, and he knows. He did his best to rebuild the south, but unfortunately, the south being destroyed in front of his eyes. So, he's actually supportive what we are doing, but we need to be careful. His position as the Speaker and as a leader of the Shia community, we have to understand how critical is his position.

But I can tell you that Speaker Berri is a man of state. He's supportive of what we are doing, and he's supportive of ending the state of hostility, ending the war once for all.

And I think—just one thing. I think when he sees—because I've heard that he's a good person, good man—and when he sees the progress made, I'm sure he's going to come on.

From Lebanon. From LBCI TV from Lebanon. I have two questions, please. When will the Israeli army fully withdraw from Lebanon? Is there a clear timeline for that?

And last question, please. Last week, you met with the Iraq Prime Minister and discussed him—or described him as "handsome," say—and saying he could become one of the best leaders in the Middle East. How you describe President——

Which one are we talking about?

The Iraqi Prime Minister.

Oh, yes.

Yes. How you describe President Joseph Aoun?

Well, I'd say he's handsome also—[ laughter ]—and I think he could become one of the most important leaders in the Middle East, actually, if we do this. Because they've been doing—trying to do this for decades, right? Decades and decades.

Yes, 1948.

So, if I made that statement about somebody else, I would put him in the same category.

When the Israeli army withdraw from Lebanon? When the Israeli army withdraw from Lebanon? Is there a clear timeline for that, please?

They're in the process of doing that. They're in the process of redeploying into other sections. And again, they get along very well. That was a great agreement they signed with Lebanon, and they're redeploying.

Thank you, Mr. President. The Lebanese army needs help, and the United States said that it's very important for the Lebanese army to take over the villages that Hizballah withdraw from. How are you going to help them? And how the CENTCOM is going to be involved——

Well, we're going to be speaking about that today.

——in making sure that they will be in the south as well?

Yes. We'll be speaking about that today with your President, and we have some very concrete plans already in store for that, with others going in and helping. But they're also becoming much more self-sufficient, and we will be speaking about that. That's one of the subjects we're going to be talking about.

Thank you, Mr. President.

My question is—sorry. Israel—the Lebanese army said today that Israeli forces opened fire in proximity to the Lebanese trying to deploy in one of these pilot zones. This is day two of the pilot zones. Are you prepared to take any steps—additional steps to put pressure on Israel to withdraw, which I believe President Aoun is planning to ask you?

Well, I'll look at—I just heard about that before this conference. Just happened, and we'll be looking at that, yes.

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, there are no signs that Iran is ready to stop fighting. So what is the plan? Is the plan——

Well, how would you know if there are——

——to just keep bombing until they give up?

How would you know if there are no signs? Why do you know something that I don't know?

Well, they continue to attack our allies and kill Americans.

Yes, but you don't know what the dialogue is behind the scenes: that they want to meet desperately to try and end it because they're getting decimated. You don't get that when you listen to your fake station, but you don't know. You don't know anything. What——

So talks are still possible? Likely?

You know something that I don't know? Do you know something I don't know?

Well, tell us.

I will tell you they want to desperately meet, and until they're ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest in even wasting our time.

Mr. President, are you planning on putting any pressure or consequences on China for what you announced about them meddling in the 2020 election?

Well, we're going to talk to them about it. It took place a long time ago. I think China is maybe a little bit different today than it was then.

But, look, they're—they do things and we do things to them. I'll be honest. We do things to them too. It's not a one-way street. But we'll be talking to them.

Yes.

Daniel [Daniel Baldwin, One America News Network].

Border Security/U.S. Casualties From Iran Conflict/U.S. Naval Blockade of Sanctioned Commercial Transit Through the Strait of Hormuz

Mr. President, sir. It's something that doesn't get talked about a lot, that the Border Patrol reported 14 consecutive months of no releases at the southern border. This is something you talked a lot about on the campaign trail, that you could run on the job that you did on the southern border. Do you feel similarly at this point in time with the midterms, considering how well a job you've done? What is the lesson to be learned about Border Patrol enforcement?

Well, thank you for that question. The fact is—and maybe it pertains a little bit with respect to you and borders and everything else.

We had a border that was totally out of control. I probably won the election at least partially on the border. Would you say? And the border now—we literally, in 14 months—I think it came out this morning, actually—it was just announced that in 14 months we had nobody coming through. Zero. Zero people.

I have to say, millions came through, and we had zero people come in illegally into our country. And that's made by people that happen to be Democrats—largely Democrats, the people that do those stats. And I'm sure they don't like saying it, but we really had virtually nobody coming in, and they actually say nobody, not even virtually.

So it's amazing what's happened there, and very people talked about that anymore. You know? They don't like talking about that.

They don't like talking about Venezuela, where we lost no people.

I'll be going to Dover for something that I feel is—it's a great honor for me to do it. These are people that wanted—and they feel like I do, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. It's a very simple dictum: They cannot have a nuclear weapon. And they won't have. They're not going to—they have no chance of having a nuclear weapon.

And as far as Iran is concerned, I'll let Pete maybe say a couple of words. But we are doing very well. We are degrading them at levels that nobody thought was possible. They're being degraded, really, so seriously.

They did slip something through in Jordan, and if we had other operators, you know, would have—would not happened, unfortunately. But we—because we have the best equipment in the world. You know, we've stopped almost everything. But when you let other people do your job—with the United States, we let other people do the job, and sometimes it doesn't work out so well. But we're going to be going and paying our respects at Dover.

Mr. President——

Pete, would you like to say—hold it—just how we're doing, generally speaking?

Well, it will be an honor as well to join you at Dover to recognize these incredible Americans who committed to the cause, just like you are. Something no President's been willing to do 47 years.

They built up conventional capability like the North Koreans did. Remember—that's how North Korea made their way to a bomb. So much weaponry that they—no one was willing to stand up to them. President Trump was, and he continues to to this day.

Iran's been given every opportunity to negotiate, to show that they're reasonable on the Strait of Hormuz. But if they're going to shoot at commercial shipping, then we're going to hit them, as the President said, 10 times harder, which every night we're degrading them further and further. And the President has all the options necessary. If they want to talk, they can talk. Otherwise, they can deal with the War Department, and we're prepared to do that.

And the blockade is up and fully—I mean, it's—nobody gets through. Nobody gets through the block—it's like a steel wall.

Illegal Immigration/Crime Rates/Federal Law Enforcement Support in U.S. Cities/Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup

Thank you, Mr. President. Yesterday, there was another attack on an ICE facility, this time in New York City. What, in your view, is prompting these attacks? And do you have a message for those who are attacking ICE?

You're talking about the fire that was set——

Yes.

——in front of the Federal building? Well, this is what's happening with the people that they allowed to come into our country. They shouldn't have allowed them to come in. They shouldn't be here. They're radical lunatics, and I'm getting them out.

You know, we're getting them out at a pace—you know, we've gotten rid of more than any other—I read stories. They try and give you a phony stats. I was with Tom Homan this morning. He'll give you the statistics if you want. But we're getting bad people out of our country at levels never seen before. There's never been a time when more bad people——

And you take a look just here in Washington. We got almost five—we took out almost 5,000 hard-line, hardcore criminals, most of whom came in during the open-border periods of the previous administration. And an amazing statistic.

And this is something that I hate to be talking about in front of the President of Lebanon, but he's got his problems, and they're different problems. But we don't have any problems in Washington, DC. We have virtually—we've wiped out about 92 percent of the crime, and we're going to get very close to—I believe we're going to get close to a hundred percent of the crime. And if you take a look at this city and compare this to what it was 15, 16 months ago, this was a dangerous city.

I don't know how—I'd better not compare it to Lebanon because I don't exactly have your stats. [ Laughter ] But it might have been Lebanon was safer.

This was a dangerous city under the previous administration—Biden—and now it's a very safe city. There was an article that came out 2 days ago that Washington, DC, is—has made the greatest progress of any city in the Nation.

Now, Memphis also, and New Orleans also. And if they would ask us for help in Chicago, we would turn that around so fast. If they'd ask us for help in New York, we would turn that around so fast. Los Angeles, we would turn that around so fast.

But the stat that's so amazing is that 2 percent of the people create 91 percent of the crime. Think of that. It's a great stat, because if it was 70 percent of the people, that's a problem. If it was 20 percent, that's a—2 percent of the people create 91 percent of the crime. Think of that. Two percent of the people. You can handle that easily.

So Washington, DC, is now one of the hottest cities in the country. We have the hottest country in the world, but Washington is now hot.

And I do have to say one other thing. We just had the World Cup, as you know very well, and it was the most successful World Cup ever. We didn't even have a protest. We had no crime.

With all those events, was like having many, many Super Bowls. Each one was like a Super Bowl, and with all of that, we didn't have crime. We didn't have bedlam. Everybody left here with a different opinion than what they read in the fake news. They love this country.

I saw Scotland. I saw Norway. I saw all these countries. I mean, the level of love. They—nobody wanted to leave.

And I just want to congratulate everybody. The job that we did, and all of us—everybody in this room, because everybody in this room was involved. The Vice President was very much involved. It was amazing. I was with Gianni the other day, who's—the job he did is great. But he said he never thought in a million years it could be so free of any difficulty.

Think of it. We didn't even have a protest. Not only no crime. Now, there's a reason for all this.

But part of it was that people just wanted to pull together. This country for, like, a 4-week period just pulled together. Really amazing.

And I didn't want to say it before the final. I didn't want to say how well it was doing. I wanted to get the final over with, because you never know. It only takes a bad moment.

But we just had the most successful World Cup in history. Did five times the business of any World Cup in history. And I can't wait to get them back, but I think we won't be able to get them for the next time.

Mr. President, what about you? Do you feel safe here, especially with this upcoming——

Say it. What?

Do you feel safe, especially considering the attempts on your life——

I feel safe.

——the upcoming dinner on Friday?

I feel safe. Why wouldn't I feel safe?

Mr. President, I'm Pedro Ghanem from Al Jadeed. Are you still speaking with Hizballah? You said in previous interviews that you're speaking with Hizballah.

Well, I wouldn't say that, but I would speak to Hizballah, yes. I speak to everybody. I'll speak to people that a lot of people think I shouldn't be speaking to and things work out. I would speak them. Yes. I would speak to——

Q. [ Inaudible ]—earlier—[ inaudible ]—Mr. President?

——I would say this: If the President wanted me to speak to Hizballah—you know, he's lived with Hizballah for a long time. [ Laughter ] And if the President wanted me to speak to Hizballah, I would. You know, I would. I would—[ inaudible ].

Thank you, Mr. President. A follow-up on Iran: If the Iranians do not make a deal, ultimately, how long will it take for you to stamp out their threats to the Strait and enable full shipping to——

So, if we left right now, it would take Iran 20, 25 years to rebuild. Okay? And we're not finished at all. But if we left right now, it would take them a long time—years—years to rebuild. But we're not leaving right now. So we've had a big impact on Iran.

If we didn't do what I did with regard to two things—the Iran nuclear deal done by Barack Hussein Obama—I terminated that. If I didn't terminate it, you wouldn't have Israel right now, because they would have had a nuclear weapon years ago.

And if we didn't do the B–2 bombers knocking out the nuclear sites a year ago—one of the first things we did early in the administration—they would have a nuclear weapon.

And you wouldn't have Israel, and, in my opinion, you wouldn't have various other countries in the Middle East. They'd all be gone. They would have been terminated, extinguished.

But I believe that by doing what we did—by terminating Iran, who's—very evil people leading their country. You saw the number of protesters that they killed—52,000 plus. I put a couple of them up today. Young kids. They kill them. They kill them like they're—like they're candy. It's crazy what they do. They treat them so badly. They're just killing people just at random. Over 52,000 people, and nobody talks about it.

But if I didn't do the attack on their nuclear sites or if I didn't terminate the Obama agreement with Iran, which was a absolute—it was an absolute hit on having them get—that was a road to a nuclear weapon, and our deal will be a wall. It already is.

They can't have a nuclear weapon right now. It would take them years to produce it. And we will absolutely attack. We—you know, the new site that they're talking about. I mean, how about these people?

They're in this because of nuclear weapons, and they're trying to possibly reconstitute a site. We'll hit that site. Any site where they're even thinking about nuclear, we'll be hitting it very, very powerfully.

Now, nobody knows, except the Iranians, the damage that we've done to them. We have done damage that will take them 20, 25 years to recover from.

So, if we left tomorrow—we had a big success, but we're not leaving tomorrow.

Please.

There's an—there's a bill right now that's being considered that would allow illegal aliens who are working in farming to get legal status. Do you support that legislation?

I don't know about it. I'll take a look at it.

And on the tariffs last night, the Canada tariffs. One, are those a response to the wildfires in Canada?

No. No. No, that's separate. We're looking at that separately.

And what—is there anything Canada can do?

It's only response to the way they've treated our farmers and our people, yes. Canada has been very, very tough on us over the years. For many years. And no other President's done anything about it.

I love Canada. I love the people of Canada—many friends that live in Canada. But their leadership from Trudeau to the current leadership—I mean, in all fairness to them, they need us to survive. Without us, there's no way they can survive. So—but they've been very, very tough over a period of the last 50 years, actually.

On Syria, Tony Murat, LBCI TV from Lebanon: Do you still support Syria entering Lebanon to disarm Hizballah?

You mean coming in and doing something with Hizballah?

Yes.

Well, it's a concept. You know, we get along very well with the President of Syria. He's done a very good job.

I wouldn't be surprised if this gentleman's——

——going to do a job just like that.

He's done a very good job. He's pulled Syria together. He would like to come in and do something with Hizballah. You know they've been fighting—he's been fighting Hizballah for a long time. I think it'd be very effective.

So it's something I think about.

In the back, please.

Mr. President, on tariffs. You've increased the tariffs on Canada yesterday. Can you say if you still expect to impose tariffs on the wildfire problem? And can you say when——