00:00Mr. All right. Good morning, everybody.
00:04Nothing to talk about. Slow news day here in Washington, D.C.
00:08So let me just say a couple of things off the bat.
00:10First of all, I think the President's peace plan in Iran
00:13is already bearing real fruits for the American people.
00:16Last night, 12.5 million barrels of oil went through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:21That is a high since the beginning of the conflict.
00:23Oil prices are down nearly at their level from the pre-war conflict.
00:27Gas prices dropped below $4 a gallon today for the first time since the conflict.
00:32And importantly, they're going to keep falling further, given how low price – low oil prices are.
00:37On the military side, the Iranians for the second night in a row did not shoot at any ships in
00:43the Strait of Hormuz.
00:44So, so far, they are honoring their end of the commitment.
00:47And on the blockade, CENTCOM has allowed north of a dozen ships to go through our naval blockade.
00:52And so we're also honoring our end of the early part of the agreement.
00:56On the military side, a couple of things that are still true and will be true whether the Iranians comply
01:02with the rest of the deal or not.
01:03Number one, their nuclear program has been completely destroyed.
01:06Their capacity for enrichment, the facilities at which they were using to develop enrichment and develop a potential nuclear weapon
01:13–
01:13those facilities are still destroyed.
01:15Their conventional military is still destroyed.
01:17Their capacity to threaten their neighbors is still largely gone.
01:21And now we see whether they are willing to comply with the next step of the President's peace plan.
01:27As you all know, the part of the peace plan, the part of this MOU that I think have been
01:32most misrepresented by certain parts of the media is the idea that the Iranians get all these benefits.
01:37You will hear things about $300 billion or $24 billion or this or that number of money or amount of
01:42money.
01:42And the simple fact is that the only way the Iranians get any of those resources – not a single
01:48penny, by the way, from the United States of America under any circumstances –
01:52But the only way that they would ever get any benefit of the bargain is if they comply fully and
01:58change their behavior.
01:59And so you really have a win-win situation for the United States of America.
02:03If the Iranians don't change their behavior, their military and their nuclear program is still destroyed.
02:09If they do change their behavior, then they are going to have a transformative relationship with the Middle East,
02:15and the Middle East will have a transformative relationship with the people of Iran.
02:19That's a win for the American people and for the President of the United States, regardless of which option the
02:25Iranians ultimately choose.
02:26We obviously want them to choose the right option.
02:29The interesting thing about their system – and I think it's important for the American people to appreciate this point
02:34in particular –
02:35is that there are real divisions within their country about how exactly to proceed.
02:40And what we've seen over the last couple of months is that the pragmatists within the Iranian system,
02:45and the people who really do want to transform their relationship with the Middle East and with the world,
02:51those people are winning the argument.
02:53The United States wants those people to win the argument.
02:56The United States wants to have a better relationship.
02:58But in order for that to happen, the Iranians have to perform.
03:02And if they don't perform, as we've said before, they don't get any of the benefits of the bargain.
03:07So what I'd ask all of you is just to report honestly that the United States isn't giving up a
03:12cent of money to Iran,
03:14and even the economic benefits – the sanctions relief and so forth – that comes along with this bargain
03:19only happens if the Iranians perform.
03:22So with that, I want to say thanks to all of you.
03:25It's good to be with you this morning.
03:26And I'll kick it over to questions.
03:28Let's start right over here to the right.
03:30The Press Press, President of the United States,
03:31I wanted to ask a follow-up on something you just mentioned.
03:34You talked about the possibility of the current Iranian leadership fundamentally changing their behavior.
03:39Do you think that the current Iranian leadership recognizes the leverage that the U.S. holds over itself economically
03:45and militarily enough to actually go forth with fundamentally changing their behavior over the long term
03:52and going about things differently?
03:53The Press Press, President of the United States,
03:53So I certainly think they recognize the leverage that the United States has over them.
03:57We've seen that in a number of our conversations.
03:58We've seen that just in their behavior over the last couple of days.
04:01They certainly recognize that the United States has great leverage.
04:04Will that ultimately lead to a change in behavior?
04:06I don't know.
04:07You know, I've seen skeptics of the deal.
04:09People say the Iranians will never change their behavior.
04:13Well, maybe that's true.
04:14And if so, they don't get any of the benefits of the bargain.
04:16But isn't it worth trying?
04:18Isn't it worth seeing whether this incredibly weakened position that the President of the United States has put the Iranians
04:25under,
04:25whether that motivates them to change their behavior, not just vis-a-vis the West, but vis-a-vis the
04:30Middle East?
04:31And one of the interesting things about this is, you know, the technical details of this we can, of course,
04:37get into.
04:37There are going to be any number of opinions about the negotiation, about where it's ultimately going to go.
04:42But I tend to think that you should trust the people who know the Iranians the best and who have
04:47the most to lose.
04:48What are the Gulf Arab states saying about this deal?
04:52What are they saying about this deal compared to the JCPOA in 2015?
04:56This is the Obama nuclear deal.
04:58Well, back then, they hated that deal.
05:00They felt like it empowered the Iranians to be bad actors across the region.
05:04And, of course, that's exactly what happened.
05:06They were right about that.
05:07What are they saying about the President's peace deal?
05:10They're saying this is an amazingly transformative thing for the region because, either way, we and the broader region win.
05:18Iran is weakened.
05:19Their nuclear program destroyed.
05:21Their economy in desperate straits.
05:23And if they change their behavior, big things are going to happen for Iran and for the world.
05:28If they don't, no skin off our backs.
05:30Either way, we win.
05:32And that's the way the President has set up this deal and this negotiation.
