Travel pool #4 - POTUS gaggles

Mid flight, POTUS took several questions from reporters for about 13 minutes.

On Iran:

POTUS said Iranian leaders requested a meeting and “the only reason they want to meet is because we’ve been hitting them very hard.”

Asked how much patience he has for negotiations, he said: “I have a lot of patience.”

“We’ll see what happens. I think there is a good chance that something could happen,” he said. “If it doesn’t, we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago.”

On Saudi Arabia deal:

Asked if he has gotten any indication from Saudi leaders on whether they will sign on to the Abraham Accords, he said he had not.

“We haven’t talked, no,” the president said.

On military stockpiles:

Asked if he was concerned about depleted stockpiles amid Iran war, POTUS said he was not.

“We have a lot of ammunition,” he said. “We have a lot of the mid-level stuff too, more than we could ever use no matter what. We have a lot. I’d like to have more, to be honest, but so much was given to Ukraine.”

On Leader John Thune:

POTUS said his relationship with Leader Thune is “fine.”

“I have a good relationship with John Thune. He just has to get his job done,” he said. “You got to get the SAVE America Act passed or better than that would be filibuster. If you terminate the filibuster everything happens. If you don’t terminate the filibuster, only bad things will happen.”

On Venezuela money:

Asked where the billions of dollars the U.S. has taken from Venezuela is going, Trump said:

“We’re running the country. It can go to the military.”

He added: “We are taking in a lot of money. Billions of billions of dollars. That will happen with Iran too.”

The full audio was posted by the White House on its YouTube channel.

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Ana Ceballos

Washington Correspondent, Los Angeles Times