Trump is not quite ready to get his hands dirty…
On Wednesday, President Trump said he had declined an offer from Russian leader Vladimir Putin to help with negotiations with Iran and Israel.
President Donald Trump spoke about the ongoing Israel-Iran conflict during an impromptu press conference on the White House lawn on Wednesday after he visited with some construction workers putting up new flag poles on the ground.
At one point in the exchange, Trump boasted about the U.S. achieving dominance over Iran’s skies before pivoting to discuss a recent phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I mean, they’re totally defenseless. They have no air defense whatsoever. They’re totally captured. You know, we’ve totally captured the air,” Trump said of Iran’s airspace.
Trump then called on a reporter for another question, who asked, “Mr. President, you’ve been fairly compassionate towards the Iranian people—”
“I know a lot of people from Iran, from New York, from Washington, mostly from New York. They are incredible people. They’re smart, they’re energetic, they can be difficult, but so can you. You know, they are great people, smart people. And those people are getting the hell beat out of them now. And it’s really a shame. It’s so stupid. It’s stupid. This is another one. You know, Russia-Ukraine is so stupid, would have never happened if I was president,” Trump replied.
“You guys agree with that, right?” added the president, turning to the construction workers for reassurance.
“Would have never happened if I were president. Putin wouldn’t have done it. And I spoke to him yesterday, and I said, you know, he actually offered to help mediate. I said, ‘Do me a favor. Mediate your own. Let’s mediate Russia first, OK?’ I said, ‘Vladimir. Let’s mediate Russia first. You can worry about this later.’ But I think that’s going to work out, too, but so many people have been killed. The big thing with that one is far more people are dead than have been reported in the Ukraine-Russia. Many, many more people. A building falls down, they say nobody was hurt, you know. So, it’s ridiculous,” Trump concluded.
A different reporter then asked, “What does ‘unconditional surrender’ mean?”
“Well, you know what it means, ‘unconditional surrender.’ Two very simple words. A very simple, ‘unconditional surrender.’ That means I’ve had it. Okay, I’ve had it, I give up, no more. Then we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that’s all over the place there. No, they had bad intentions. You know, for 40 years they’ve been saying, ‘Death to America, Death to Israel,’ death to anybody else that they didn’t like,” Trump replied
Watch:
The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rejected President Donald Trump’s calls for unconditional surrender on Wednesday.
“It isn’t wise to tell the Iranian nation to surrender,” he posted to X. “What should the Iranian nation surrender to? We will never surrender in response to the attacks of anyone. This is the logic of the Iranian nation. This is the spirit of the Iranian nation.”
In another tweet, he criticized Trump for his “absurd rhetoric” and “demands that the Iranian people surrender to him,” adding that he should “make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats.”
So far, Israel has killed at least 20 of Iran’s top military leaders, damaged key nuclear facilities, destroyed more than a third of Iran’s missile launchers, and hit over 1,100 targets around Iran.
