In-town pool report #4 - Oval Q&A

Pool entered the Oval Office at 3:30. He took questions from the pool from 3:58 until the pool departed at 4:20.

Asked how confident he is that there actually would be a signing of the Iran deal mentioned in the last pool report, he said he was “pretty confident it will be soon… may be this weekend.” Asked if the Supreme Leader had signed off on it, he said he had. He said Iran had made a commitment on nuclear. “They will not have nuclear weapons” and “would not purchase, develop in any way, shape or form a nuclear weapon.” Asked why that is, he said, “because they have taken a pounding.” He added, “It’s a great deal for the United States and for the Middle East” and “for Iran.” He said the agreement is “more notional.” But he said the “most important paragraph” deals with nuclear. He described it as “a very strong Memorandum of Understanding,” adding, “They want to sign it more, maybe a lot more.” He disputed the notion that the Iranians may be “tapping” the United States along, saying their “level of enthusiasm for getting it done” is clear and attributed that to the threat that the United States would “hit them harder.”

He said, “We won this war militarily very early. The only place we didn’t win was with the fake news.” Back to the deal, he said, “It’s a great deal… The Straits are going to open immediately with the signing.” Asked if taking Kharg Island is off the table, he said, “Now, it would be.” Asked if he will take any action to keep FISA going, he said, “Let’s see what is happening.” He said Bill Pulte will remain acting DNI and called him “smart.” He dismissed Mitch McConnell as “an angry man” who is “very disloyal to John Thune.” He talked at some length of McConnell taking credit for Republican judges, saying that, instead, he, as the president who appointed the Republicans, should get the credit. He also criticized Sen. Murkowski saying that no president has ever been as good for Alaska. He suggested fertilizer prices will come down when the war ends. And he explained why his endorsement in the Iowa gubernatorial primary did not carry the day with the voters after his endorsed candidate Randy Feenstra lost to Zack Lahn. He said that the winner also was MAGA. He also suggested that he was not well advised on the Iowa race.

Before he turned to questions, he talked at some length about the importance of removing regulations that have hampered the fishing industry. He heard from Secretaries Lutnick and Burgum, who were among the 17 people arrayed around his desk, many of them fishermen. One fisherman from New Bedford, Mass., intrigued the president when he spoke about limits on scallop fishing. He said there are 300 fishing vessels, some costing as much as $3.5 million and they can only fish 35 days a year. He complained that they have been barred since 1995 from fishing in the best scallop waters. One of the other fishermen said the scallops are just dying instead of being harvested. “A scallop will die of old age?” asked the president, who followed up his own question by asking, “How does scallop taste when it is dead?” The answer was: not very good. He was also told the price of crab has tripled because of regulations. The first question in the Q&A was a reporter telling him that windmills are killing fish.