Trump interested in calling on Arab states to help pay for Iran war - White House

Good afternoon everyone. With respect to the ongoing major combat operations in Iran, Operation Epic Fury is moving ahead successfully and according to plan. With each passing day, the United States military is increasing its advantage over the terrorist Iranian regime. It's no surprise that we are seeing the remaining elements of the regime become increasingly eager to end the destruction and come to the negotiating table while they still can. Despite all of the public posturing you hear from the regime and false reporting, talks are continuing and going well. What is said publicly is of course much different than what's being communicated to us privately. As a result, President Trump issued a 10-day pause to postpone planned strikes on Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure. This remains a truly once-in-a-generation opportunity for the regime to make a good deal with the United States, permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions, and stop acting as the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism. One way or another, Iran will no longer have the credible ability to threaten the United States or our allies, which is of course the overall objective admission the President set out when he launched Operation Epic Fury. In the ongoing negotiations, of course, anything that they say to us privately will be tested and we will ensure that they are being held accountable to their word and if they are not, the President has laid out the military consequences that the Iranian regime will see if they don't hold true to the words that we are hearing privately behind the scenes. When the President says more reasonable, again, these folks are appearing more reasonable behind the scenes privately in these conversations than perhaps some of the previous leaders who are now no longer on planet Earth because they lied to the United States and they strung us along in negotiations and that was unacceptable to the President, which is why many of the previous leaders were killed. Back during the Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991, Arab countries paid for the vast majority of the cost of the war, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the UAE. Who's paying for the cost of this war? Will those Arab countries step up to do just that? Well, I think it's something the President would be quite interested in calling them to do. I won't get ahead of him on that, but certainly it's an idea that I know that he has and something that I think you'll hear more from him on. Does the administration support a regime or system where Iran is effectively charging tolls on these vessels to access? That's not something we support and I would reject that they are cherry-picking. In fact, as you know, these tankers that are moving through, the 10 that were previously announced and now the new 20, the announcement of 20 additional tankers, which we expect to see over the coming days, are a result of the direct and indirect talks that are taking place between the United States and Iran. So you wouldn't have seen those tankers if not for the President's diplomacy and his team engaging on this matter, which we expect that compliance moving forward, and it's again something that we're working on very closely. And then secondly, I know President Trump says we're ahead of schedule in achieving his military objectives in Iran. He laid out that four to six week timetable for this conflict and we're now within week five. So how do you square kind of those two? Well, four to six weeks estimated timeline. Again, you just said we're on day 30 of the operation. I just provided you with some of the updates from the Pentagon directly and achieving the objectives and the military has been enormously successful. I think we should all be very proud of our armed forces for what they have done over the past 30 days. The mission will continue until the objectives are achieved and that four to six week timeline does remain right now. I don't have any updates for you on that. What we're hearing from them is more reasonable. They have agreed to some of the points the United States laid out, as the president said last night, aboard Air Force One. But again, as for the specifics, as these negotiations are ongoing, we're not going to broadcast them to the world unless the president chooses to do so, which he has the full right to do as the leader of the free world. But I know the president has set a deadline for April 6 in just one week. What does the president need to see to not move forward with those strikes by April 6? Well, I think he said it in his true social post this morning. He wants to see a deal over the next 10 days. That timeline is waning. Several days left and we'll see. I won't get ahead of it. We'll see what happens in the end of the 10 day period.