President Trump's full, unedited interview with Meet the Press
CHUCK TODD:
Mr. President, welcome back to Meet the Press.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
Thank you.
CHUCK TODD:
Let me start right in, what happened last night?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
Well, you had a situation that was very bad because the night before, they shot down an unmanned drone. And the unmanned is a very big factor. The fact that there was not a person on it, a U.S. person on it, or anybody. And that had an impact on me. I said, "Well, you know, we got a little problem." And I think they did that on purpose because they understand that they will be hit very hard if that were a plane with a person in it. And I think they knew that there was nobody there. So we had a very, you know, modest but pretty, pretty heavy attack schedule.
CHUCK TODD:
And this is a pre-plan that you had, something that if they did something, you had something --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
Yeah, we had it --
CHUCK TODD:
-- these were sort of ready-made plans --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
Sure, we have many of them --
CHUCK TODD:
-- to use if necessary, right?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
Oh, I have so many targets you wouldn't believe.
CHUCK TODD:
Right.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
We have targets all over.
CHUCK TODD:
So did you green light something? Or had you said --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
Nothing’s --
CHUCK TODD:
"If we do it, I'll do this." What was, what was the order you gave?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
Nothing is green lighted until the very end because --
CHUCK TODD:
Ok.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
-- things change, right?
CHUCK TODD:
So you never gave a final order?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
No, no, no, no. But we had something ready to go, subject to my approval. And they came in. And they came in about a half an hour before, they said, "So we're about ready to go." I said, "I want a better definition --"
CHUCK TODD:
Planes in the air? Were planes in the air?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
No, no. "We're about ready to go." No, but they would have been pretty soon. And things would have happened to a point where you wouldn't turn back or couldn't turn back. So they came and they said, "Sir, we're ready to go. We'd like a decision." I said, "I want to know something before you go. How many people will be killed, in this case Iranians?" I said, "How many people are going to be killed?" "Sir, I'd like get back to you on that," great people these generals. They said, came back, said, "Sir, approximately 150." And I thought about it for a second and I said, "You know what? They shot down an unmanned drone, plane, whatever you want to call it. And here we are sitting with 150 dead people that would have taken place probably within a half an hour after I said go ahead." And I didn't like it. I didn't think it was, I didn’t think it was proportionate. Now that doesn't mean --
CHUCK TODD:
So what should the response be right now?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
I think the response should be -- Well, first of all, as you know, we've done very massive sanctions. We're increasing the sanctions now. But the response is always going to be very strong. I built up a lot of capital. I've had a lot of people that aren't Trump fans saying, "I can't believe." You know, a lot of them said, "We're going to be in World War III the first week." Didn't work out that way. We're doing great in North Korea. We're doing great in a lot of different places. We knocked out the caliphate in Syria. We knocked out 100%. Remember I was going to leave it?
CHUCK TODD:
It’s not 100%. Not everybody says it’s 100%, even --
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP:
No, no, no, the caliphate.
CHUCK TODD:
Ok.
- BIG SNIP -
Transcript and full video (34:44 mins) available here: