President Trump offered his latest comments on Iran, speaking Friday to reporters at Morristown Airport. Asked why he’s given Iran two weeks to come to the table before considering launching U.S. strikes, Trump said: “Just time to see if people come to their senses.” He said National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard’s assessment that Iran is not close to a nuclear weapon is “wrong.” “I this the biggest you have to make as president?” a reporter asked. “I can’t really say that. It depends on what the decision is,” Trump said. “Prime Minister Netanyahu said they had the capacity to take out the nuclear capabilities of Iran. What role would the U.S. play and why would they?” another reporter asked. “I’m not sure he said that,” Trump said. “But they really have a very limited capacity. They can break through a little section, but they can’t go down very deep. They don’t have that capacity.” “We’ll have to see what happens. Maybe it won’t be necessary. Maybe it won’t be necessary.”

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: 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 no one really knows what that one is all about. But we will find out pretty soon, I guess. REPORTER: 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 air strikes. Will you make that request? DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think it is very hard to make that request right now. If someone is winning, it’s harder to do than if somebody is losing. But we are ready and willing and able and have been speaking to Iran, and we will see what happens. REPORTER: What was the thought process behind the two weeks? DONALD TRUMP: Just time to see if people come to their senses. REPORTER: Europeans talking with Iranians? DONALD TRUMP: Nah, they didn’t help. Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe but to us. Europe will not be able to help on this one. REPORTER: Twenty 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? DONALD TRUMP: There were no weapons of mass destruction. I never thought there were. That was somewhat pre-nuclear. It was the nuclear age, but nothing like it is today. And it looks like I’m right about — uh, the material they have gathered already. It is a tremendous amount of material, and I think within a matter of weeks or certainly within a matter of months, they would be able to have a nuclear weapon, and we can’t let that happen. I was very much opposed to Iraq. I said it loud and clear. I said it loud and clear, I was a civilian but I guess I got a lot of publicity. I was opposed to the Iraq war, and I did say: 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. REPORTER: What intelligence do you have that Iran is building a nuclear weapon? Your intelligence community said they have no evidence that they are at this point. DONALD TRUMP: Well then, my intelligence community is wrong. REPORTER: Your director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. DONALD TRUMP: She is wrong. REPORTER: [Indiscernible] landing in Iran from China? DONALD TRUMP: They say they are there to take people out, but I can’t tell you about that. I get along very well with China and get along well with President Xi because I like him and he likes me, and we have a good relationship. We will see what happens. I can imagine them getting involved. REPORTER: The decision to make on Iran whether to strike militarily, is this the biggest you have to make as president? DONALD TRUMP: I can’t tell you that. I have to see what happens. I can’t really say that. It depends on what the decision is. But I wouldn’t really be able to tell you that now. About a year from now. Maybe years or ten years from now. You never know about decisions. REPORTER: Do you want a cease-fire while the negotiations happen? DONALD TRUMP: I might, depending on the circumstances. It is very hard to stop when you look at it. Israel is doing well in terms of war, and I think you would say Iran is doing less well. It is a little bit hard to get someone to stop. REPORTER: A former congressman, Matt Gaetz, suggested that if you were to broker a deal where nuclear inspectors go into both Israel and Iran, you could win a Nobel Peace Prize, and they might rename it the Trump Peace Prize. Did you hear that? DONALD TRUMP: They should give me the Nobel Prize for Rwanda. And have you looked at the Congo? You could say Serbia. You could say a lot of them. The big one is India and Pakistan. I should have gotten it four or five times. I would think that Abraham Accords would be a good one too. They won’t give it because they only give it to liberals. REPORTER: Would you support Iran being able to have civilian nuclear energy capabilities up to 3.76%? DONALD TRUMP: They are sitting on top of one of the largest piles of oil in the world. I don’t know why they need that for civilian work. It’s one thing for certain countries to say I want a certain amount where I can go nuclear a bit because we need it for electricity and we need it for air-conditioners and et cetera. But when you’re sitting on one of the largest oil piles anywhere in the world, it is a bit hard to see why you would need that. REPORTER: Are you worried they would have terror attacks if you order military action? DONALD TRUMP: We are always worried about that, and you have to take them out. You are in danger talking to me right now. Are you aware of that? You are in danger talking to me, so I should probably get out of here. But you guys are actually in danger. Can you believe it? REPORTER: One more. Is it still your expectation NATO countries spend 5% of GDP on defense spending? DONALD TRUMP: I don’t think we should, but I think they should. We’ve been supporting NATO for so long. In many cases, I believe, paying almost 100% of the cost. So I don’t think we should, but I think the NATO countries should, absolutely. REPORTER: If Spain decides not to? DONALD TRUMP: NATO will have to deal with Spain. They’ve always been a very low payer. They were either good negotiators or not doing the right thing. I think Spain has to pay what everyone else has to pay. Spain has been notorious for low pay. You know who else? Just about the lowest? A place called Canada. Because Canada said why should we pay when the United States will protect us for free? And they’ve been right about that. REPORTER: You’ve been making progress towards a peace deal, but I don’t know if you noticed, but Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo were on the ground in Ukraine doing the opposite, seemingly trying to provoke the Ukrainian scheme fighting. What do you think? DONALD TRUMP: We will see, and people have to be careful with what they say. They have to be very careful with their mouth, because their mouth can get them into a lot of trouble. REPORTER: On ICE, ICE said they are trying to arrest up to 3,000 individuals a day. There are some communities 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? DONALD TRUMP: It is a tough subject because we have farmers. I won 85% of the farmers and I love them and I will never do anything to hurt our farmers. And you can also say the leisure business and et cetera. There are some businesses where you have a disproportionate amount of people that are the people you’re talking about. At the same time, we have to get the criminals out of our country and we are looking at doing something where, in the case of good, reputable farmers, they can take responsibility for the people 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 are criminals. Most of the people that came in over the last three years under Biden – I would say probably three and a half or four years – those people, you have a lot of criminals. We are looking at that very closely. You’ve had people work on farms 20 years. It’s very hard to go in there and say you are coming out. But we will let the farmers take responsibility. They are great people and they will do it, and they know the good and the bad. The hard part about this is it’s not like a normal war where people wear uniforms. They don’t wear uniforms. But we have murderers out of the last four years and murderers and drug lords and people and prisoners. They emptied out Venezuela and many countries, they emptied out their prisons into the United States and we need those people out. But we have stone cold murderers. 11,888 murderers. We’ve 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. They are great people and they keep us happy and healthy and fat. REPORTER: Are there other cities where you will try to replicate what you’ve done? DONALD TRUMP: We got a big victory in the court of appeals last night with respect to Los Angeles but really the country, where Gavin Newsom – who is an incompetent governor – he is just doing a terrible job between his fires and all the houses burning down and the forest fires and now Los Angeles. And the sheriff admitted if we didn’t go to Los Angeles, 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 no one bothered coming. We put out that fire and did a great job of it. He sued us for going in and for helping him. We went and helped him. Right now, you would have Los Angeles burning to the ground. Largely would have been destroyed already. REPORTER: Do you worry striking Iran will change that, as a peacemaker? DONALD TRUMP: Sometimes you need toughness to make peace. But always a peacemaker. REPORTER: Can you win Iraq without air forces? Is an aerial campaign in Iran enough? DONALD TRUMP: I will not talk about ground forces because that’s the last thing you need. REPORTER: Does Iran have two weeks, or will you strike before? DONALD TRUMP: I’m giving them a period of time and we will see what that period is, and I would say two weeks would be the maximum. REPORTER: Do you think deportations should focus on criminals or all people here illegally? DONALD TRUMP: Focus on criminals and then we can focus on very bad criminals. Dangerous criminals. REPORTER: Stephen Miller said every person here illegally. He told ICE to arrest everyone here illegally. DONALD TRUMP: Stephen and I have a great understanding. He’s a terrific person. REPORTER: 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? DONALD TRUMP: If there is an attack, we will know almost immediately with modern equipment who made the attack, and those people will be very unhappy. I want to get you people out of danger. You are in danger standing with me. REPORTER: One more. Prime Minister Netanyahu said they had the capacity to take out the nuclear capabilities of Iran. What role would the U.S. play and why would they? DONALD TRUMP: I’m not sure he said that, but they really have a very limited capacity. They can break through a little section, but they can’t go down very deep. They don’t have that capacity. We’ll have to see what happens. Maybe it won’t be necessary. Maybe it won’t be necessary.

RealClearPolitics Videos