White House: President Trump Gaggles with Press on Air Force One En Route Anchorage, AK, May 15, 2026

Hello, everybody. How are you? So we had a great stay. It was an amazing period of time. President Xi is an incredible guy.

Got along, made a lot of great trade deals, including over 200 planes from Boeing with a promise of 750 planes, which will be by far the largest order ever if they do a good job with the 200, which I'm sure they will. And that's General Electric, also the engines. So they're buying General Electric. So it's approximately 400, 450 engines and 200 planes and a promise of up to 750 if they do a good job. We had an amazing time.

It was a very historic. Oh, look who we have. Hello, David. That was a very historic couple of days, I think. Really amazing, sir.

I know there will be a lot of questions around the China trip, but just first on Iran. Have you rejected the latest proposal from Iran or where does that stand? Well, I looked at it and if I don't like the first sentence, I just throw it away. What was the first sentence? An unacceptable sentence because they have fully agreed no nuclear.

And if they have any nuclear of any form, I don't read the rest of the. So 20 years is not enough for you? It's got to be a. No, 20 years is enough, but the level of guarantee from them is not enough. In other words, it's got to be a real 20 years, not a big.

Get all the fuel out and no more production. Get everything. But we're not even talking about. I call it the nuclear dust. Came up with a term which seems to have caught on.

I'm talking about. Because they would not remove the. They said that they can't remove it because they don't have the technology to remove it. They don't remove the type of tractors. They say the only one.

They told me directly, they said the only one that can remove it is China or the U.S. we're the only ones with the equipment. They said. You were right. It is a complete obliteration. With that being said, I want to get it.

And they agreed to it, but then they took it back. But they'll agree to it eventually. Can I ask you about Taiwan? What did President Xi say to you about Taiwan? And what did President Xi say to you about Taiwan?

And are you still going to approve the arms sale? So President Xi and I talked a lot about Taiwan. He thinks it cannot have anything to do with what they're doing. I mean, he's against very much what they're doing. We talked about Taiwan, we talked about Iran A lot.

And I think we have a very good understanding on both. On Taiwan, he does not want to see a fight for independence because that would be a very strong confrontation. And I heard him out. No, I didn't make the comment on it. I heard him out.

I have a lot of respect for him. On Iran, it's very interesting. He feels strongly they can't have a nuclear weapon. He said that very strongly. They cannot have a nuclear weapon.

And he wants them to open up the strait. As he said, they closed it and then you closed them with a smile. And it's true. We control the strain. And they've done no business, literally, they've done no business in the last two and a half weeks, which is approximately $500 million a day.

So we have. We're doing very well on all fronts. Before we leave Taiwan. Mr. President, President Xi said that there was a risk of conflict with the US Over Taiwan. What's your response?

I don't think there's a conflict other than we don't need their strength. We don't need the army on Taiwan. Mr. President Xi said there was a risk of conflict with the US Over Taiwan. No, no, I don't think so. I don't think so.

I think we're going to be. I think we'll be fine. He doesn't want to see. He doesn't want to see a war. And you have two things.

You have the Iranian situation. With that, I think we agree almost entirely, other than he's a buyer and we're not. We don't need it. And on taiw Taiwan, he doesn't want to see a movement for independence. He says, look, you know, we've had it for thousands of years, and then at a certain period of time, it left that we were going to get it back.

They had the Korean War, a lot of things happened and all this. But no, on Taiwan, he feels very strongly. I made no commitment either way. What about the arms sales to Taiwan? I'll make a determination over the next fairly short period.

But you're not necessarily going to go ahead. It was your proposal. I'll make a determination. I'm going to see. I have to speak to the person that right now, as you know, you know who he is that's running Taiwan.

Mr. President, did President Xi make any firm commitment to put pressure on the Iranians to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? I'm not asking for any favors because when you ask for favors, you have to do favors in return. We don't need favors. We've wiped out their armed forces, essentially. We may have to do a little cleanup work because we had a little month long ceasefire, I guess you'd call it.

But we have a blockade that's so effective. That's why we did this. We really did the ceasefire at the request of other nations. I wouldn't have really been in favor of it, but we did it as a favor to Pakistan with terrific people, the field marshal and the Prime Minister. But no, I mean, President Xi and I agree on many things and we agree very much on trade.

We're going to be doing a lot of trading. Our farmers are going to be taking in. I mean, our farmers going to be very happy with the deal we made. Is your instinct that he will put pressure, that he will try and get. Them to do more?

He's going to put pressure because I don't need favors. I think he will, I think automatically he'd like to see it opened up. He gets about 40% of his energy or his oil from that, you know, from this trade. We get none. We get none.

We don't need it. Mr. President, on truth Social, you said that President Xi had made a reference to the decline of the US we didn't hear him say that. Maybe it was something he said in privacy. So what was it, first of all,. That he said the promise, he made a statement, it might not have been from him, it was somebody, but they talked about the decline.

But he said today, and he said it very publicly, he said the US Was declining for the last four years. And he said what President Trump has done in the last 15, 16 months has been virtually a miracle. He said we have the hottest, he said we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. But he said it was a declining country under Joe Biden. He said we had a declining, a seriously declining country, which we did with people pouring in from all over the world from prisons and everything else.

He said what President Trump has done has been a virtual miracle. It's the hottest country anywhere in the world and it is. Yeah, it's real. On a different subject on Cuba, there's reporting that Raul Castro could be indicted by the, the doj, I believe. What does that mean?

I don't want to comment on that. I'll let DOJ comment on it. But they need help, as you know, and you talk about a declining country, they are really a nation or a country in decline. So we're going to see. We have a lot to talk about on Cuba, but not maybe for today, tariffs.

Mr. President, did you agree with President Xi to extend that year long truce on tariffs. We didn't discuss tariffs. I mean they're paying tariffs, they're paying substantial tariffs, but we didn't discuss, you know, before I came along, it was the opposite. We didn't discuss terrorists. How come it wasn't brought up?

Mr. President, you said in January to us that you were going to bring up the expansion of their nuclear program. Obviously they've got 600 weapons now by the Pentagon's estimate, going to 1,500. Did that come up? Did you succeed in getting them into any form of arms control or remember we discussed New Zealand. You're talking about China.

China. We brought it. The denuclearization. I talk about it all the time with Russia and with China. And it did come up.

We did discuss. And what did you conclude? I don't. I got a very positive response since the beginning. You know, we're going to be together four times potentially this year.

We have the G20 which he wants to come to, which I'd like him to come to. It's going to be in Miami. It's going to be a Doral and it's going to be, I think, very good. Much more important if he's there. And so you have the G20.

We have one that he has, as you know, in November. Right. In China. He's asked me to be there. I'm going to try to be there.

And then we have another one on September, I guess 26 or 24th when he's coming into the White House. I'm trying to understand what it is he committed to, if he committed anything. Well, I don't want to say anybody committed, but we have a very good understanding. Are you, you know the concept of denuclearization? Denuclearization or just a new, an extension.

Denuclearization, in other words, building down and you bring Russia into it also. But the concept of that is something would very good. About the political prisoners in China, did you bring up with President Xi and any. The political prisoners in China, are any going to be released? Any progress?

I think he's giving very serious consideration to the pastor. The pastor has said he's giving very serious consideration to that. What about Jimmy? I discussed it. What about Jimmy Lyman?

It's a tougher one. I said I did bring it up. It's a tougher one for him. It's a tougher one. What did he say about it?

He said for him it's a very. He told me, I don't want to mislead anybody. He said Jimmy Lai is a tough one for him to do. They went through a lot, and right or wrong, they went through a lot. So he told me that would be a tough one.

He said he's going to strongly consider the best. Sir, can I ask you two on technology? First, computer chips. Advanced computer chips like the H2 hundreds. The Jensen has.

Did that come up at all with. It didn't come up. But as you know, Jensen was there. He's an amazing dominion and he would be inclined to, you know, they have much higher level than the H200, but the H200 is good. China needs it.

And so, yeah, it came up. They haven't bought it. We have a bunch. No, because they chose not to. They want to try and develop their own.

But it did come up and I think something could happen on that. Artificial intelligence, they have quite a bit higher level, but the H200 is a good. It's a great ship. And then on artificial intelligence, what is it that you want to get done? Did you bring up.

You know, we're leading by a lot, but they're second and they're very strong. And we talked about possibly working together for guardrails and what kind of guardrails? The standard guardrails that we talk about all the time. AI is fantastic. So many things can happen in terms of health and medicine and operations, everything military.

So many things can happen. But it's also got some drawbacks. And we're talking about. We probably will. We had a very good conversation about.

A lot of, so biological, nuclear, cyber. Did you specifically discuss those risks we discussed? I would say almost everything you can discuss, except for a reduction of tariffs on Iran. Mr. President, just to be clear, I mean, what's next Is the threat of the bombing starting again? How realistic is that?

I don't want to say that. I mean, I'd like to tell you, I'd like to see on a certain hour, a certain day, the bombing is going to start. I don't want to say that. I can only say that Iran. I can say this with very, very strong conviction.

Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Not going to happen. Mr. President, what would the use of. You have no chance. What would the use be of repeating the bombing?

You did it for 38 days. No, we did. And you did not get the political changes in Iran. I had a total military victory. But the fake news guys like you write incorrectly.

You're a fake guy. And guys you write about it correctly. We had a total military victory. We knocked out their entire Navy we knocked out their entire air force. We knocked out all of their anti aircraft weaponry, we knocked out all of their radar.

We knocked out all of their leaders, number one. And then we knocked out all of their leaders in the second division and we knocked out numerous of their leaders in the third division and they were very confused. We've had a total victory except by people like you that don't write the truth. You know, you should write. I actually think it's sort of treasonous what you write.

But you and the New York Times and cnn, I would say are the worst on another war. You should know better. You know better. Your editors tell you what to write and you're right and you should be. Ashamed of another war.

I actually think it's treason when you write like they're doing well militarily and have no navy, no air force, no anti anything. By the way, we knocked out 85% of their manufacturing for the missile. We knocked out everything. We haven't knocked out other than one bridge. And we did because they misbehaved.

But we have bridges we could knock out. We could knock out their bridges and their electrical capacity. Within two days we could knock out the whole thing. And then I read the New York Times and they act like they're doing well. Everybody knows that.

That's why your subscribers are way down. You know the Times subscribers are way down because it's fake.

Did you discuss Ukraine at all with President Xi and is there any movement on. I did. We had. We discussed. Well, it's one that we'd like to see settlement.

Until last night it was looking good, but they took a big hit last night. So it's going to happen. But It's a shame. 25,000 People died last month. Yeah.

Admiral Cooper of CENTCOM was asked yesterday about the strike on the girls school on the first day of the war. Well, it's under investigation. You're talking about the original case of. Investigation at the moment into civilian casualties. I think we have a couple of things under investigation, but that is.

That is under investigation. Are you able to confirm yet that it was a US missile? Who you with? BBC. For the radio.

Big BBC. You mean the ones that put AI in my mouth? The ones that gave me that had me saying a statement that they now admit was not true. That the ones that put terrible words in my mouth and then had to admit that it was fake. The ones that are being sued now for $5 billion and don't know what to do.

You're with BBC. They're another fake outfit. Yes. You see how the deals in. Did you get a deal on soybeans?

You know, the farmers did. The farmers are going to be very happy. They're going to be buying billions of dollars of soybeans. Well, we were talking about Britain, but Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister there, is in a lot of trouble. I know you were asked about this.

In trouble. Well, he's in trouble for two reasons, energy and immigration. He's very bad on energy. He should open up the North Sea. He's got a gold mine and he should open up oil in the North Sea, and he doesn't.

They have a tremendous value, you know, they. Their oil, a lot of it from Norway. Norway gets it from the North Sea. Not as good an area as Scotland and the UK has. So they're paying Norway a fortune for oil that they take out of the North Sea.

Do you think Starmer's going to survive as Prime Minister? Tough thing. Unless he can straighten out immigration where he's weak. And if he doesn't start drilling, then stop with the windmills all over the place that are causing havoc. They're causing havoc.

Most expensive form of energy, they kill the birds, they're unsightly, ruining the landscape. If he doesn't stop with the windmills, he's got to do energy. He's got to open up the North Sea. You know, he's got one of the greatest oil finds anywhere in the world and he's not using. And I tell him that he's not using it.

Should he quit? The oil companies call me every day, please, please, we want to go to the North Sea. He doesn't allow it to happen. Should he quit? I don't say that.

I think he's a nice man, actually. But I mean, I didn't like when he said we're going to send ships as soon as you're finish with the war. As soon as you. Well, we sort of finished militarily pretty much, but we, you know, David, we are. We finished probably 70, 75%.

We didn't finish every one of the things. We'll go back and finish them off. And by the way, and more than. That, you saw the reporting on the missile capability, missile launchers that have remained. Does that seem accurate to you?

No, it's New York Times fake news. The missile launches are probably 80% gone. The new York Times said it's like we haven't. We were hitting them like pinatas. The missile launches are largely gone.

The manufacturing of missiles is about 80%, 80 to 85%. Gone. And we know where the rest of it. So if we go in, we'll take that out very early. The intelligence reports seem to indicate, though, that.

There are no intelligence reports. They weren't intelligence reports. They were New York Times fake news. Sir, would you consider lifting the sanctions on Chinese oil companies that buy Iranian oil? Well, we talked about that, and I'm going to make a decision over the next few days.

We did talk about that. Do you think Xi feels felt stronger in his dealings with you than he did the last time that you had relationship? Last time until Covid came along. You know, I blame them for that. I said it was Wuhan and it was.

I was right. And you know, look, that was a strain on everybody, Covid. And so, you know, it affected our relationship at the time, but we always had a great relationship before that and after that, and now it's as strong as ever. I mean, I went over to where he lives, which is something that rarely happens. Were you there?

I don't know. Yeah, it was beautiful. People have never seen it before. It's amazing, actually. We had lunch.

We have a great understanding. I mean, it's a very positive thing to have these two nations getting along. Mr. President, I'm Taiwanian. You said you were going to check with the president of Taiwan, but the 1982 assurances that President Reagan gave said you would not. Said the United States would not consult with China on arms sales to Taiwan.

So it sounds to me like you have consulted. Well, I think 1980s is a long way. It was. Has a big far distance. You dispensed with that.

No, I didn't say anything about it, but certainly, you know, brought that up. He talked about that to me, obviously. So what am I going to do? Say I don't want to talk to you about it because I have an agreement that was signed in 1982. Now, we discussed arms sales, too.

And what's his request to Taiwan? You know, the whole thing with the arms sales was great detail, actually, and I'll be making decisions. But, you know, I think the last thing we need right now is a war that's 9,500 miles away. I think that's the last thing we need. We're doing very well.

Would the US defend Taiwan if it came to it? I don't want to say. I'm not going to say that. There's only one person that knows that you know who it is. Me.

I'm the only person. That question was asked to me today by President Xi. I said, I don't talk about that? Yes, he asked today. He asked you if you would send.

Troops, if you would. He asked me if I defend them. I said, I don't talk about that. He told him that. Did you talk to him about the cyber attacks that he's done in the United States or the mss?

I did. He talked about attacks that we did in China. You know what they do? We do, too. It's like the spying they're talking about.

Oh, the spying. I said, well, the spying infrastructure. Look. No, I'm talking about spying. The question was asked to me yesterday, I guess, what about the fact that China is spying in the United States?

I said, well, it's one of those things because we spy like hell on them, too. So what about the fact that China is putting in the US Infrastructure code that they could use if we. If you ever decided to come to. The U.S. well, you don't know that. I mean, I'd like to see it, but it's very possible that they do and we're doing things to them.

I told them we do a lot of stuff to you that you don't know about, and you're doing things to us that we probably do know about, but we do plenty. It's a double. It's a double edge again on presidency. A couple of years ago, when President Biden met him in San Francisco, he was asked if he thought President Xi was a dictator. Do you think President Xi is a dictator?

I think that President Biden was an incompetent president. He gave us the Iran nuclear deal, which allowed Iran to have a nuclear weapon within a matter of years from the time they said I terminated it. If I didn't terminate that, Iran would have a nuclear weapon and they would have used it with it probably two years ago, three years ago. If I didn't go in with the B2 bombers nine months ago, Iran would have a nuclear weapon and nobody would be able to talk to him. By the way, they would have used it already.

But do you think President Xi is a dictator or not? I don't think about it. He's the ruler. He's the president of China. I don't think about it.

I certainly wouldn't. You deal with what you have. I respect him. He's very smart. He loves his country.

I respect him. Whether he's a dictator. That's for you to figure out, sir. President, you said you didn't talk about tariffs, but did you talk about fentanyl at all? I talked about fentanyl.

As you know, I put a Tariff on because of fentanyl. And they discussed that. But I put a penalty. It's a penalty a very, A lot of money would take in because of that. I'd prefer not taking it and I'd prefer that we don't have.

But we did talk about fentanyl. What did you. Well, you know, the fentanyl is down, way down from where it was and it could be because of the tariff penalty. Sergeant Domestic issue, if I could. Where are you on the Texas Senate race?

Well, I'll maybe make a decision. I know them both very well. I like them both a lot. And you know, my records, record of endorsements is extraordinary. You look at what happened with Indiana and out of all those races the one that won was there were three drunk people in the race.

If they had won, he would have won in a landslide. But I took out all of these candidates, you know, long time candidates with big leads against people that never ran before. And the people that never ran before won virtually all the races. And as you know, two nights ago I won every single endorsement. A week ago before that I won every single endorsement.

There's never been a record of endorsements like this, which is a great honor as far as I'm concerned. The MAGA is a movement the likes of which our country has never seen before. But you might not endorse Surrey, Texas. I don't want to say that. I mean I'm looking at it very strong.

I like them both. I mean, I'll tell you what I do think. I think the Democrats have a weird. A weird candidate, six genders, a real hit on Jesus. I mean this guy is bad news with his mask from relatively recently.

And he's vegan. He's a vegan. All of a sudden he's not a vegan. He was a vegan. Now all of a sudden he's not.

Texas doesn't like vegans. I do believe either one of them will easily win the race. I think that the candidate the Democrats have in Texas is a very flawed, very weak, very. I think he's a pathetic candidate, especially for Texas. Did you see Secretary R in the briefing room the other day?

And what did you think? You're talking about his outfit? Yeah, that too. I thought he looked very good in the outfit. I don't know if I'd do it, but I thought he looked very good.

I think he's outstanding. I thought he was. I mean I saw every word of it. I thought. Mr. President, back to what you were saying before about the enriched uranium at isfahan so what would your logic be in having just a 20 year deal?

I mean they now the deal that. You pulled back was 15 years. Whether they would have gotten it faster or not is up to you. But what would the difference be here if. Well, Obama had virtually no deal.

Obama had a road to a nuclear weapon and I terminated that deal. And if I didn't terminate Barack Hussein Obama, if I didn't terminate that deal, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon two years ago. As you know, that deal long expires. This was taken the most years doing it. And after your bombing they're not.

I'll tell you what. I know you backed Obama, which shows what a fraud you are because that was the worst deal. They would have had a nuclear weapon within a period of a year and a half after I terminated it. If I didn't terminate that and if I didn't send the B2 bombers in nine months ago to obliterate, you know, one thing that did happen which was very nice. The top person in Iran representing them was the top person.

He said I'm the only one, meaning the United States is the only one, along with possibly China, that would be able to get the nuclear dust out of that disaster that we created with the. Are you willing to do that? Why do you call it? Yeah, no, at the right time. At the right time we'll either go in or we'll get it.

I think we'll probably get it, but if we don't get it, we'll go in. But you're willing to mount the operation. To take it out? No, I think they'll be totally defeated and we won't have any risk. We have the equipment to take it out.

Nobody else does. China might have the equipment. They said you're the only one. They said you and China, but they weren't sure we have the equipment to take it. Sir John, did you discuss North Korea with Xi?

What came out of that? You know, I have a very good relationship with Kim Jungkook.

Pretty quiet. Have you had any communications with him? Yes. Of what kind? Doesn't matter.

I mean, I don't tell you about that, but I have a good relationship with him. He's been respectful of our country. I want him to be respectful. He's been respectful of our country. Hey, thank you very much.

Enjoy the flight, everybody. Thank you. I heard you didn't have cameras back here. In fact, I loved it. I heard now they got a camera.

I heard that you were shut out for two hours until we leave the airspace. But he's got a camera. He's got. Never misses a trick. You better make me look good with that camera.

All right, thank you very much, everybody.