Trump takes questions after Netanyahu arrivies

Moments ago, President Donald Trump greeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida. And you can see right now, our live cameras are trained on that greeting outside the front doors of Mar-a-Lago right now. The focus today, getting to Phase II of a ceasefire deal in time, when Israel and terror group Hamas each blame each other for ceasefire violations. Let's listen in.

Do you expect Turkish forces to be stationed in Gaza? So I have a great relationship with President Erdogan, and we'll be talking about it. And if it's good, I think that's good. And a lot will be having to do with Bibi. We're going to be talking about that. But Turkey's been great, and he's been excellent as far as I'm concerned. I don't know about you. [REPORTERS YELLING QUESTIONS] To me, he's been-- to me, he's been very good. [CHATTER]

Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship with Prime Minister Netanyahu, and how important it is for you to see him be pardoned by the Israeli President? Look, he's a wartime Prime Minister. He's done a phenomenal job. He's taken Israel through a very dangerous period of trauma. Israel with other people might not exist right now, if you want to know the truth. That's a pretty big statement, but it's true. I feel that. You had the wrong Prime Minister. Israel right now would not exist because they were-- they were met with a force, the likes of which very few countries could have handled. And we worked together and we were extremely victorious, to put it mildly. Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again. And if they are, we're going to have to knock them down. We'll knock them down. We'll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully, that's not happening. I heard Iran wants to make a deal. If they want to make a deal, that's much smarter. You know, they could have made a deal the last time, before we went through, you know, a big attack on them. And they decided not to make the deal. They wish they made that deal. So I think, again, they should make a deal. They want to make a deal, but sometimes that doesn't happen. Yeah, please.

Mr. Trump, 24 News Israel. Would you support the overthrow of the Iranian regime? Of who?

Iranian regime. I'm not going to talk about overthrow of a regime. They've got a lot of problems they're in. They have tremendous inflation. Their economy is bust, economy is no good. And I know that people aren't so happy. But don't forget, every time they have a riot or somebody forms a group, little or big, they start shooting people. You know, they kill people. And the people tend to-- I've watched this for years. There's tremendous discontent. They form 100,000, 200,000 people-- all of a sudden, people start getting shot. And that group disbanded pretty quickly, so-- I watched it for years. They're vicious, vicious people. Yeah.

Mr. President, will you support an attack-- Israeli attack on Iran if Iran will not have a deal, if Iran will continue with their ballistic missiles and also nuclear weapons? If they will continue with--

Yes. Yes. --the missiles? Yes. The nuclear? Fast. One will be yes, absolutely. The other was we'll do it immediately.

Mr. President, from Channel 12 News. What are your plans regarding Gaza for the next few weeks? Well, we're going to be dealing on Gaza. That's why this very great Prime Minister is here right now. We're talking about Gaza. We're talking about a lot of things. We have about five major subjects that we're discussing, and Gaza will be one of those subjects.

Mr. President, can you guarantee that the last hostages on film will be released before we continue to the second phase of the Gaza-- Well, let's put it this way. Every hostage just about that's been released was released because of me, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, my whole team, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth. They were all released because of us. None were released in the Biden administration. None. They were all released because of us. Then we had a lack of releases with respect to the dead. And all of a sudden, they started coming back because I said, nope, you said you were going to-- we have one wonderful young man whose parents are right now inside, and he's got beautiful parents, beautiful brother, sister, and, like, a beautiful family. And they're waiting for their son. It's the only one left, and we're doing everything we can to get his body back. And the parents just said, hopefully he's alive. And I said, I love you to think that way. OK?

President Trump-- But we will never do it again.

Do you have-- President Trump-- Out of all of these people-- and I'm not just talking about the final 20. Look at all of the people. What do you think the total number is? 255. 255. 254 came out. One more. Think of that. And we got them all.

President Trump-- Trump President, does the reconstruction of Gaza-- President Trump, does the reconstruction of Gaza-- Hold on one second. Yeah, I'll do you. Just let her go.

Does the reconstruction of Gaza will begin even before Hamas is disarmed? I think it's going to begin pretty soon. Yeah.

Before Hamas is disarmed? He's looking forward to it. So am I. Look, what a mess. What a mess it is. And it's been a mess for centuries, really. It's been a mess for a long time. It seems to be born for that. But we're going to straighten it out. No, we're already starting certain things. We're doing things with sanitary conditions and others. But Gaza is a tough place. You know the expression, it's a tough neighborhood. It's truly a tough-- that's truly a tough neighborhood. Yeah, you had a question in the back. Go ahead. [REPORTERS YELLING] Yeah, please go ahead.

Can I ask about the relationship between you and the Prime Minister? What about it?

They said that there is no relationship, good relationship between you. I don't think it can be better. We just won a big war together. You know, if we didn't beat Iran, you wouldn't have had peace in the Middle East. Because nobody would have been able-- the Arab countries, who have been fantastic, would not have been able to make a deal. If we didn't wipe out their nuclear-- and we wiped it out. If we didn't wipe out with our beautiful B-2 bombers-- if we didn't-- and we sent a lot of Tomahawks in there also, by the way, from a submarine.

What about the pardon that the President of Israel needs to give the Prime Minister? A pardon?

A pardon. I think he will. How do you not? He's a wartime prime minister who's a hero. How do you not give a pardon? You know, I think it's a very hard thing not to do it. I spoke to the president and I-- it's on-- I mean, he tells me it's on its way.

Mr. President. You can't do better than that. Right? Please.

Can I follow up on Venezuela? Was the facility taken out by the US military, or was it another entity like the CIA? Well, I don't want to say that. I know exactly who it was, but I don't want to say who it was. But, you know, it was along the shore.

Mr. President, have you or anyone in your administration talked to Maduro in recent days? Well, I spoke to him.

Recently? Pretty recently, reasonably. But nothing much comes of it. Yeah.

Mr. President, can you explain the importance-- You have to understand what he's done. They've sent billions of dollars of drugs in, but maybe just as bad they've sent hundreds of thousands of people in from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions and insane asylums. The drug lords, the drug dealers were all sent into our country. But think of it, what he's done. Tren de Aragua-- probably the worst gang. They cut off people's fingers. One man made a phone call to complain about them. He cut off their hand. They cut off his hand. Don't ever make a phone call again. We'll cut off your other hand. After that, we'll kill you, they said. That was in Colorado. I know they sent in all of the bad ones. They sent in some bad people. And that, to me, was just terrible, and they send in drugs. Now, I will say this. 97% of the drugs coming in by sea stopped. We're trying to figure out who the other 3% are. They have a hard time getting people to pilot those boats. But 97% of the drugs coming in by the ocean, by the sea, by water are gone. Every boat that we take out, we save 25,000 lives of Americans. Thank you very much, everybody. We'll see you-- we're going to have a big meeting, and we'll see you in a couple of hours, if you'd like. And if you'd like, you can come up and have lunch like you did yesterday. Would you like that or not? Do you want that?

Oh, yes. Because some of them think it's terrible. It's a bribe.

We want that. But a bribe for $25, I don't know. If you'd like, you can go. And if you don't, you can stand in the driveway and melt. All right? But if you want-- will you work on that, Margot?

Yes, sir. Is Margot doing a good job?

Yes. She's a star. She's too nice. All right, so the President of the United States inviting members of the press to come on in to Mar-a-Lago and have lunch. That, of course, is the president, shoulder to shoulder with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, talking about some of the agenda items that they will be looking at, not the least of which getting one more hostage back and, of course, moving into Phase II of that ceasefire agreement with terror group Hamas.