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17 Jun 2026, 16:09

Trump's Press Conference:‌
🔸On Sunday, we reached an agreement with Iran that achieves everything we intended to achieve—everything and even more.

🔸If we hadn't made this agreement, we could have dropped more bombs for 2 to 3-4 weeks or even 2 years. You would never have seen the Strait of Hormuz open.

🔸If I hadn't killed General Soleimani, we probably wouldn't be talking about this agreement now, because he was a mad genius. They could never replace him.

🔸World leaders are very happy that we reached an agreement, all of them. No country came to us and said, "Please, sir, drop bombs on them. Please drop bombs" — only foolish people say that.

🔸The new leaders of Iran are smart, very smart. They have become much less radical. I think they really love their country. They are good people.

🔸I didn't want to witness an economic disaster; if this process continued, it could have happened. Every time we talked about peace, the stock market went up. The stock market is smarter than anyone who is there, including the people on this stage—except me.

🔸The stock market is doing brilliantly. And every time we said something amazing, like "we are going to agree," the market went up. And every time, every time we said something negative, like "look what happened, we can't agree," the market went down — a lot, a lot, a lot. That tells you something.

🔸I didn't want to be like Herbert Hoover, the great delay. I didn't want that.
[ChatGPT: Herbert Hoover was the U.S. President at the onset of the Great Depression in 1929. In American political memory, Hoover symbolizes a presidency that exploded under crisis and was later accused of reacting too late, inadequately, and with excessive caution. Even the impoverished neighborhoods during the depression were mockingly called Hoovervilles.
So Trump likely means: I didn't want to wait until the crisis spiraled out of control and then everyone says the president acted too late.]

🔸About killing Qassem Soleimani:
This was a joint operation, as we say in real estate business. It was a joint operation between Israel and us. We studied it for a month. We knew almost a month in advance which plane he would travel on. He only traveled on commercial airlines, the big and crowded ones, because he knew we wouldn't take him down. They are very smart.
But we knew he would be on that plane, we tracked him, and then Israel informed me that they wouldn't do it. And I had to make a decision.

And I told him, "Well, if Israel isn't doing it, we are all ready. Are we doing it? Do you want to do it or not?" I said, "Of course, if you want to do it, we can do it."

🔸About Netanyahu: Bibi Netanyahu is a good man. He sometimes gets a little excited, but he is actually a very good man.
We had a small disagreement about Lebanon — I said, you can be a little gentler, Bibi, you don't have to destroy a building every time someone comes in; that's Hezbollah's job.

🔸Netanyahu came to the country and begged Barack Hussein Obama, the president, not to proceed with the JCPOA. He said it could be the end of Israel, and if I hadn't gotten involved, it would have been.
And Obama didn't listen to him.
Bibi really went to Congress and begged them, but it went nowhere. And they had this terrible agreement that was disastrous for Israel.

🔸This is a memorandum of understanding. If it is not executed in 60 days, that's fine, we go back to bombing.
You know, I don't want to do that, because it's very good, very good.
But, well, we might have to, because we will never allow them to have nuclear weapons.

🔸The agreement we reached with Iran on Sunday will be signed soon, tomorrow, maybe the day after.

🔸Trump on Israel:
I think they can do better regarding Hezbollah. I'm not saying they shouldn't protect themselves, but I'm saying — when two drones are shot into the desert and safely land, there's no need to destroy buildings in Beirut.
They can behave better. And honestly, they can do a better job — I love them, they were a great partner, but they can do much better regarding Hezbollah.

🔸Trump on Iran:
Well, they need investment because we inflicted one and a half trillion, maybe two trillion dollars in damage.
So someone has to help them — well, there’s no guarantee of helping them, and their neighbors might help them a little, I don’t know, but that’s a lot of money.
Almost no one has that kind of money — that’s the kind of damage that has been done.

🔸They have a primitive cultural perspective, but this primitive culture is genius; they are very smart people and very good negotiators.

🔸About missiles:
We are working on a parallel effort with Gulf countries to address non-nuclear issues, such as conventional ballistic missiles, which we will discuss and support.
I mean, they need to have some because others have some; you should have some too — someone said, "You shouldn't give them one," and I have people — I like some of these people, but I don't think they are smart.
"Of course, you shouldn't let them have any missiles" — I said, well, what do I do, do I want to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but not them? "Yes, sir."
It doesn't work that way, you know, it doesn't work that way, and missiles are not the problem — missiles hit a small place, but they don't blow up the planet.

🔸If they do not respect the agreement, or if some issues are not even mentioned in the agreement — this is a memorandum of understanding, but we have a common understanding of some issues without writing it down — and if they do not respect it, we will probably go back to bombing them until they do.
You know, it's amazing what bombs can do.

🔸People want me to bomb the bridges.
I did that before, because you know, they didn't keep one of their promises, and I bombed their biggest bridge, equivalent to the George Washington Bridge in Iran.
But we bombed that bridge, you saw it.

🔸I want to thank China, President Xi, I was with him, and he remained completely neutral, completely neutral, and I appreciate that.
And I want to thank Vladimir Putin, he was very neutral.

🔸Well, the release of the funds — it has an easy answer.
We took a lot of their money, and we took their money from them.
When it's not our money, it's their money, and we blocked it at a certain time.
I think we should give it back, you know?
If we didn't give it back, no one else would ever invest in dollars again.

🔸Reporter: A wise man once said, in January 2020, "Iran has never won a war, but has never lost in negotiations."
Trump: Who said that?
Reporter: Donald Trump.
Trump: Oh, I thought that’s what you were going to say.

🔸If they raise the white flag of surrender and say, "Thank God that Donald Trump is the greatest president in history," the New York Times and CNN will say, "Iran achieved a great victory."

🔸By the way, the blockade was more impactful than all the airstrikes where we dropped a billion dollars' worth of bombs on Iran.

🔸Reporter: Why is it now acceptable for you that they retain part of their missile capability?
Trump: What are they retaining? They have less now than other countries.
We probably took out 84, 85 percent of their missiles; the rest are underground, and they can't even bring them out.

🔸Trump on Iran: Do you want to let 91 million people die of hunger?

🔸Reporter: Can you now say if anyone in your administration will be held accountable for the attack on the school that killed over a hundred children on the first day of the war?
Trump: Mistakes happen, war is an ugly thing, I know it is under review.
I will ask Pete Hegseth because they are reviewing this matter.

🔸Reporter: Why don't you stay for the signing ceremony of the peace agreement with Iran?
Trump: I might stay.

🔸Reporter: Is there an element in this that you send the Vice President, if he succeeds, great, you look like a genius for sending him. And if he fails, it's the Vice President's fault.
Trump: I like that idea. Well, that way, if he succeeds, I take the credit. If he fails, it's JD's fault.
You better watch out, JD. He'll take his plane back and run away from here.
Yes, I like that idea. I think it's a good idea.

📡 @VahidOnline
I didn't choose the above sections. I posted them simultaneously with his words from foreign sources with machine translation.

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