In-town pool report #7: more Trump quotes from Oval spray

Here are some additional quotes from President Trump's spray in the Oval Office.

Trump would not comment on reports that he’s considering offering Putin a deal involving Alaskan or Ukrainian minerals in exchange for ending the war in Ukraine: “As far as rare earth, that's very unimportant relative. I'm trying to save lives.”

Trump said the “more important meeting” will be the one that includes President Zelensky: “We have a meeting with President Putin tomorrow. I think it's going to be a good meeting, but the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we're having. We're going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelensky, myself, and maybe we'll bring some of the European leaders along. Maybe not.”

On where the negotiations stand: “We're going to see what happens. And I think President Putin will make peace. I think President Zelensky will make peace. We'll see if they can get along, and if they can, it'll be great."

"You know, I've solved six wars in the last six months, little more than six months now, and I'm very proud of it. I thought the easiest one would be this one. It's actually the most difficult.”

On hopes for the meeting: “We're going to find out where everybody stands. And I'll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes left, we tend to find out whether or not we're going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting. And if it's a bad meeting, it'll end very quickly, and if it's a good meeting, we're going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future.”

Asked if his potential incentives for peace could end up rewarding Putin for his invasion of Ukraine: “I don’t think it’s a reward. I think that what we have is a situation that should never have started… It didn't start under me, and for four years, it wasn't even discussed. And I could see it was going to happen after I left... Everything that [Biden] did was wrong, everything that was done was wrong. Everybody's to blame. Putin's to blame. They're all to blame.”

On the National Guard: “ I heard [Maryland Gov. Wes Moore] today talking about how the National Guard or the military is not trained in police, but they're trained in common sense, and they're trained in not allowing people to burn down buildings and bomb buildings and shoot people--all the things." Adds that if he didn’t call the National Guard to quell protests in Los Angeles earlier this summer, “it wouldn't be existent today. We would have had to cancel the Olympics if I let that go on.”

On crime stats in DC: “They are under investigation right now. They are giving us phony crime stats, just like they gave other stats in the financial world with their phony crime stats. Washington, DC is at its worst point, and it will soon be at its best point. You're going to have a very safe, you're going to have a crime free city. I mean, I say that--virtually a crime free city.”

Nik Popli

Politics Reporter

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