Karoline, how are you? How are you doing?
Good, Monica. How are you?
Good. How are you doing?
You're getting close to your due date and so am I.
[Laughter]
Um, hi everybody. Good to see you out here. It's a busy day here, as you all know. Um, the president will be meeting with defense contractors, uh, here at the White House in a few minutes with Secretary Hegseth. Uh, this is a pre-scheduled meeting, and the purpose of it, uh, is to talk about the president's, uh, aggressive and fierce, uh, support for rapidly increasing, uh, the ability of U.S. manufacturers to, uh, produce, uh, American made weapons, which we know are the best in the world.
The president signed an executive order on this earlier this year. This is a long held, uh, policy objective of this administration. Um, and so he'll be speaking directly with these defense contractors, but of course, as the president has maintained, uh, we have more than enough ammunitions, weapons, stockpiles to achieve the, uh, objectives of Operation Epic Fury and beyond.
After that, you'll be hearing from the president directly at 4:00 PM in the East Room. Um, at the college sports round table, we have coaches, and we have scholars, and we have athletes from around the country who will be joining. I know some lawmakers will be up there as well. President, again, a long sought goal is to fix college sports, and so he'll be holding a round table to hear from all of these great people in the a- -- uh, this afternoon, and you'll see him up there as well.
Why don't we take a few questions? Sure.
Thank you very much. The president said that as we're not going through all of this so that we can end up with another [Inaudible] and he also said that we can keep this up forever. Does that mean that this current mentality in Iran remains in place, you're gonna have to keep doing the fight?
I won't get ahead of the president on broadcasting any timelines. What I will tell you is what President Trump has already laid out, which is that the achievable objectives of Operation Epic Fury, uh, we expect to last about four to six weeks, and we are well on our way to achieving those objectives. Annihilating, uh, Iran's Navy, we know that we've shunk, sunk more than 30 Iranian vessels and ships.
Um, their Navy has now been deemed, uh, combat ineffective. Uh, taking out the ballistic missile threat that Iran posed to the United States and our troops and bases in the region, uh, we have done a tremendous job. The United States military has done a tremendous job at achieving that objective thus far, just six days in. The retaliatory ballistic missile strikes from Iran are now down 90%. Of course, uh, assuring Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon as well, and significantly weakening their proxies in the region, which we know are responsible for the deaths of Americans.
And we've seen Hezbollah, uh, in the Houthis hardly putting up a fight over the course of the last six days. Ultimately, the president has made it very clear. He wants to take out the threat of Iran to the United States and Operation Epic Fury as well on its way to doing that.
Karoline --
As for the future of Iran, as the president has pointed to, of course, it's in the best interest of the United States of America for Iran to no longer be led by a radical terrorist ir- -- uh, regime, that chants death to America and is lying to the United States and the world about their secret ambitions to possess a nuclear bomb.
President Trump does not want to see that. Uh, he wants to take an interest in, in, in pursuing, uh, who the next leader of the Iranian, uh, country is going to be, uh, and that has yet to be seen and, and the president is discussing it and deliberating it. Kristen.
You just said on Fox that it doesn't really matter if Russia is giving Iran information about military assets. Why doesn't it matter if U.S. military is good in danger by Russia and that what the president believes as well?
What I meant, Kristen, and thank you for giving me a chance to, uh, make it very clear, is that it clearly is not making a difference with respect to the military operations in Iran, because we are completely decimating them. Oh, as I said earlier, we've taken out nearly 30 of their ships. Their Navy has been deemed combat ineffective, 90% reduction in ballistic missile, retaliatory strikes against the United States and our Gulf Arab and partners in the region.
Um, so of course, uh, it, it, we are achieving the military objectives of this operation and that is going to continue because the United States military is the best and most, most lethal fighting force in the world. Sure. Go ahead, Benny.
Uh, can you confirm if U.S. has taken full control over the airspace in Iran, like it's been reported these past couple days?
Mm-hmm.
Trump said within hours, within days. Can you confirm anything along those lines?
Yes, we are well on our way to doing so.
Karoline, um, has the president's faith in Russia to cut a peace deal with Ukraine been shaken by the knowledge that Russia is apparently supplying intelligence to Iran in this conflict?
I think the president would, uh, say that peace is still an achievable o- -- objective with respect to the Russia-Ukraine war. You saw Special Envoy Witkoff put out a, uh, a tweet yesterday announcing a new prisoner exchange between both Russia and Ukraine. So it's something this administration still wants to see and something I know the president will continue to work on.
Has he expressed any frustration to Putin about this intelligence [Inaudible]
I'll let the President speak on that directly. Mary?
What does the President mean when he calls for unconditional surrender? Is he saying that the regime has to fully relinquish control?
What the President means is that when he, as commander in chief of the US Armed Forces determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, uh, then Iran will essentially be in a place of unconditional surrender. Whether they say it themselves or not, uh, frankly, they don't have a lot of people to say that for them because the United States and, and, uh, the state of Israel have completely wiped out, uh, near, more than 50 leaders of the former terrorist regime, including the Supreme Leader himself.
Monica.
Thank you, Karoline. Um, the President had a July 4th deadline for the One Big, Beautiful Bill. Does he see a deadline for the Save America Act as I know that's a priority of his to get passed?
As soon as possible, I know the President would say. This is a huge priority for the President. It remains one. I know he has added on some priorities to the Save America Act in recent days, uh, namely no, uh, uh, um, transgender transition surgeries for minors. Uh, we are not gonna tolerate the mutilation of young children in this country, uh, and no men in women's sports.
And the President, uh, putting these, all of these priorities together, it speaks to just how common sense they are. These are all common sense priorities of this president that are backed by, uh, the vast majority of Americans and he wants Republicans to act on them as quickly as possible.
Thank you. Ken Paxton laid out some conditions yesterday, uh, saying that he would drop out of the race if Senate leadership on the Republican side agreed to, um, you know, getting rid of the filibuster, for example. What are the President's thoughts on that?
Oh, I won't get ahead of the President on the Texas Senate race. I know it's of great interest to everyone. I'm no longer his political spokesperson. I'm a government spokesperson, so --
Karoline.
I'll let him speak on that record.
You elaborated on the President's decision to tap Markwayne Mullin as the next DHS Secretary. Can you talk a little bit about the rationale for the choice, why Mullin was the best candidate in his eyes, and also your message to congressional Democrats who continue to keep the DHS unfunded?
Yeah. Well, Senator Markwayne Mullin has been a, a strong friend of the President and a big supporter of the President's immigration policies. Not only that, he's except exceptionally talented, qualified, and I know well respected by, uh, his peers on Capitol Hill from both sides of the aisle. So we look forward to his expeditious confirmation, and I know the White House will be working with our counterparts in the Senate to make that happen as quickly as possible.
Karoline. Karoline.
Sure.
Thank you, Karoline. Uh, the President has said he wants to be involved in Iran's future. He has also called the son of, um, Supreme Leader Khamenei a lightweight, and he has also said that, uh, United States strikes have taken out the potential candidates. So does the United States now have any candidates or, like, looking at candidates who may replace, who may lead Iran for the future?
I know there's a number of people, um, that our intelligence agencies and the United States government are looking at, but I won't get any further on that. Sure.
Karoline. Karoline. Is the President satisfied with the pace of the investigation into whether the US military did hit that Iranian school? Is the White House concerned that this was the United States?
Again, as I said at the briefing two days ago, I don't have any updates with respect to the investigation. I would expect those to come from the Pentagon. Sure, Haley.
[Inaudible] that the US was operating in the region of the school?
Again, I don't have any updates for you on the investigation. Those will come from the Pentagon directly. Haley.
Karoline, does the President think Russia should face questions for providing intelligence to the Iranian Department [Inaudible]
Again, I'll let the President speak on that directly.
Do you have any comment -- Karoline, do you have any comment on the MAGA influence or divide on the Iran war? It seems like everyone on X is -- everybody's going at each other. Any message to both sides of the aisle?
I would just remind people X is not real life.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, this president lives in the real world, and with respect to MAGA, uh, President Trump is the leader of MAGA. He's the creator of the MAGA movement, uh, and there is nothing more America first than taking out terrorists who have maimed and killed our own service men and women, who chant death to America, and who pose a threat to the homeland.
And so President Trump, uh, is, is a leader of the peace through strength foreign policy doctrine. Uh, he attempted peace through diplomacy exhaustively and extensively with the rogue Iranian regime, um, and so they have been struck with the strength and the sheer might and will of the United States Armed Forces and President Trump has proven he's a man of his word.
If you go back and look, not just over the past year as president, but in his first term and, and many years in his private life as well, when he has said that the Iranian regime can never obtain a nuclear bomb, well, now he's finally acting on it and he has the courage to do what so many presidents in the past did not.
We'll see you guys later.
[Crosstalk]