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Trump: Iran war will end after midterms

Ahead of his appearance at the Republican midterm convention in Texas on Wednesday, President Trump told reporters that he thinks the war with Iran will end "immediately after" the midterm elections. CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes has more.
Sep 9 (05:30)

TRANSCRIPT FOR: “TRUMP SAYS IRAN WAR WILL END "IMMEDIATELY AFTER" MIDTERM ELECTIONS”

ELIZABETH COOK:
00:00:00

OK, let's take a live look at Dallas, Texas. That's where Republicans are kicking off their two-day midterm convention ahead of midterm elections in November. And some prominent Republicans set to be in that room and speak on that stage, including President Donald Trump. He took off from Washington earlier today, taking a moment to say this about Iran before takeoff. Take a listen. I think the war is going to end immediately after the election.

REPORTER:
00:00:25

Why? I think the war will end immediately after the election.

REPORTER:
00:00:29

Because? Because they can't hold out any longer. They're desperate to try and affect the election so that we can get a nice, weak group of people in there and leave them alone and let them have their nuclear weapon. All they want is a nuclear weapon, and if they had a nuclear weapon, the whole world is in deep trouble. This war will end immediately after our election. OK, I want to bring in CBS News Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes. Nancy, the president giving a new timeline on this war. He now says, as you saw there, it will end immediately after the election. How has that timeline changed since the war started? Well, Liz, back when the war started, the president insisted that the war was going to last four to six weeks. Now he's predicting that it will last at least nine months, and this is, indeed, a new prediction and a new rationale from the president. He has not said before that he thinks that the Iranians are in any way concerned with the midterm elections. And we haven't seen much evidence of that. We've seen plenty of evidence that the Iranians are not interested in sitting down to negotiate over their nuclear program and that they see a benefit to holding out, knowing that the war is unpopular here in the US. But even earlier this summer, President Trump was insisting that it was going to be over any day now, that they were very close to a deal, that they were working very hard on one, that they were speaking to each other. And now he's got a very different story to tell, insisting, as he heads to this convention in Texas that is all about the midterm elections, that, really, US voters shouldn't expect to see this war end anytime soon. And, Nancy, the president, we should note, just landed in Texas for the convention, but his trip was delayed after an emergency slide deployed on the new Air Force One while it was still on the tarmac. What more are we learning about that? This is a really curious situation, Liz, and I'm not sure that we have all of the details yet. Basically, what I can tell you is that it's a pretty standard procedure when the president heads to Air Force One. He takes off from the White House on Marine One, the helicopter. It's about a 10-minute flight to Joint Base Andrews. Then he gets off Marine One, and he boards Air Force One. This time, that didn't happen right away. And at some point, either right before Marine One landed or once it was on the ground, the slide deployed on the other side of this Air Force One jet, the new Air Force One that was gifted by Qatar. And reporters could see that there were workers kind of gathered around the slide, inspecting it. And President Trump sat on Marine One for about 20 minutes-- which, again, is really unusual-- before he got off Marine One and then came over to reporters and spoke to them for a few minutes before he boarded Air Force One. Take a listen to how he described what was going on there. Mr. President, do you know why they're checking the slide? Is there a security concern with the plane? Well, they were checking it before, and they just wanted to make sure. So they've-- I guess they've already put it up. They want to make sure everything works perfectly. Mr. President, are you sure this plane is safe to fly? Yeah, I am, or I wouldn't be on it. Yeah, so, obviously, whatever the situation was, it was resolved because that Air Force One jet did take off. We've asked the Secret Service what exactly was going on. They referred us, respectfully, to the Air Force, and we're still awaiting more information from them. And, Nancy, I also want to ask you about these new accusations. House Democrats are saying the venture capital firm of Donald Trump Jr. is involved in insider political influence. First of all, what is that, and how is he responding? Right. This is an investigation that is being done by Jamie Raskin, who is the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, longtime member of Congress. He's from the state of Maryland. He, himself, is a lawyer. And he says that he's looking into whether 1789 Capital, which is a venture firm, that Donald Trump Jr. is a part of, that it began making suspiciously fortuitous investments in various companies after Don Jr. became a partner. And he's basically arguing that this company must have had some insider knowledge because it kept making such great picks of companies to invest in right before those companies ended up getting, say, a contract with the US government or some other favorable treatment. We have heard back from 1789 Capital. They say this is just Raskin throwing spaghetti at the wall. They say, in some cases, these companies that they invested in already had US government contracts before they invested. But I think the bigger picture here is that this is just a taste of the kind of investigation that is likely to be front and center starting next year if Democrats do win back control of the House and control of these key committees. Nancy Cordes, always great to be with you. Thanks so much.

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