Travel pool note #6 - Trump-Rutte fuller quotes / holding

Further quotes from the Trump and Rutte greeting.

Pool is now holding in the low-ceilinged basement press room. A ‘North Atlantic Council Plenary Session’ at 10.30am ended up being visuals only, despite print pool’s best efforts to request acccess.

Trump on his goals for Article V:

“We're with them all the way. If you take a look at the numbers we're with them and they have very big things to announce today, I don't know if you've taken the vote, you're going to take the vote. But I've been asking them to go up to 5% for a number of years, and they're going up to 5%. That's a big... from 2% (...). so I think that's going to be very big news. NATO's going to become very strong with us. And and I appreciate.”

Rutte: “I want to state it, without president Trump this would not have happened.”

Also Rutte, but on Iran: “You were a man of strength, and you're also a man of peace. And the fact that you are now also successful in getting the ceasefire done between Israel and Iran, I really want to comment, and I think this is important for the whole world.”

Trump on Iran

“Very good. Israel came back yesterday. I was so proud of them, because they came back, they went out because they felt it was a violation, And technically they were right, but it just wouldn't have worked out very well

they brought the planes back, they had gone on to another journey because it was a little bit of a violation. I said, You got to get them back. And they came back, and it was great thing, and it's going very well be confident it will hold. What

Trump when asked about his reaction to the leaked intelligence report:

“Yeah, well, they said it was, actually the report said it could have been very -- they don't know. I mean, they, they did a report, uh, I could have Pete talk to it because his department did the report -- Uh, they really don't know. I think Israel is gonna be telling us very soon because Bibi is going to have people Involved in that whole situation.

“We hear it was obliteration. It was a virtual obliteration. When you take a look at the ground above, don't forget the flame is all underground, but everything above, if you look at the before and the after picture, everything above is burned black, the trees, everything…

“I believe it was total obliteration. I believe they didn't have a chance to get anything out because we acted fast. If we, if it would have taken 2 weeks maybe, but it's very hard to remove that kind of material, very hard and very dangerous for them to remove it.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, sitting on a row of chairs next to Trump along with Marco Rubio, said the mission was “flawless.”

“It was devastation underneath Fordo… any assessment that tells you it was something otherwise is speculating with other motives.”

Hegseth said the report said it was “Moderate to severe (damage) — and we believe far more likely severe and obliterated.”

Hegseth when asked if there is a leak investigation:

“Of course we're doing a leak investigation with the FBI right now because this information is for internal purposes, battle damage assessments. And CNN and others are trying to spin it to make the president look bad when this was an overwhelming success.

Trump again: This was a devastating attack. It knocked them for a loop. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t have settled. If they had won, and we didn’t take it out, they wouldn’t have settled… if that thing wasn’t devastated they wouldn’t have settled.”

Rubio: “Everything beneath that mountain is in bad shape.”

How long has the Iranian nuclear program been put back?

Trump: “Basically decades because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again.

“We’re actually getting along with them quite well now. But that that hit ended the war. I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war, this ended this war.”

Asked if US would strike again if Iran rebuilds: “Sure, but we’re not going to have to worry about that. It’s gone for years, years. Very tough to rebuild because the whole thing has collapsed.”

And on Gaza: “I think great progress is being made on Gaza. Because of this attack that we made (on Iran) I think we're going to have some very good news.”

Danny Kemp

AFP White House correspondent

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@dannyctkemp