Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump defended his Golden Dome project.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Any questions?
00:01Mr. President, you had mentioned at the beginning of your remarks that this was a campaign promise of yours.
00:05Have military commanders asked for this system specifically?
00:09Because NORAD had said previously that the current system was adequate.
00:13So what does this get the United States?
00:15Is it already in before?
00:17There really is no current system.
00:19We have certain areas of missiles and certain missile defense, but there's no system.
00:23We just have some very capable weapons that hopefully we never have to use, but we have some very capable weapons.
00:31Now, this is a different league.
00:33There's never been anything like this.
00:35This is something that's going to be very protective.
00:38I think you can rest assured there'll be nothing like this.
00:41Nobody else is capable of building it either.
00:43Was it something that military commanders asked you for?
00:45Did they ask you to do this?
00:47Well, let me put it differently.
00:49I suggested it, and they all said, we love the idea, sir.
00:52That's right.
00:52It's the way it's got to be, right?
00:54But they want it, and they wanted it badly once it was suggested.
00:57I don't know if they ever thought they would be lucky enough to have it, but we were able to get it done, and we have all the funding, so pretty much tucked away.
01:07I think most people feel it's very important to have.
01:09Yeah, please.
01:10Thank you, Mr. President.
01:10When you first announced this idea, critics said it would be prohibitively expensive, potentially ineffective, and could trigger an arms race in space.
01:19What do you say to those critics about that?
01:21Well, the wrong is about as close to perfect as you can have in terms of real production.
01:28I told you Canada wants to be a part of it, which would be a fairly small expansion, but we'll work with them on pricing.
01:36We'll be dealing with them on pricing.
01:37They know about it very much.
01:38They've asked to be a part of it, actually.
01:40They've asked us to be a part of it.
01:43I think it's something that is great.
01:47If you can afford to do it, we can afford to do it.
01:49You know, we took in $5.1 trillion in the last four days in the Middle East, and when you think about it, this is a tiny fraction of that.
01:58But we make it all here.
02:00We're going to make it all here.
02:01We have, when, I will tell you, an adversary told me, a very big adversary told me, the most brilliant people in the world are Silicon Valley.
02:10He said, we cannot duplicate them.
02:12We can't.
02:12This was somebody that, I won't tell you who it is, but you'd be amazed.
02:16We have the most brilliant minds in the world doing this kind of thing.
02:19The equipment, the space, the computers, everything.
02:22But he said that we just can't duplicate what you have there in Silicon Valley.
02:27We never have been able to.
02:28And this is a very strong group of people and very strong minds, but they can't.
02:34So we have things that nobody else can have.
02:37You see what we've done helping Israel with that.
02:40You probably wouldn't have in Israel.
02:41They launched probably 500 missiles altogether, and I think one half of a missile got through,
02:47and I was only falling to the ground as scrap metal.
02:51It's pretty amazing.
02:53And this is, in terms of technology, far advanced from that system.
02:58And just to follow up on the adversaries, have you addressed Russia's ventures in space with a space-based nuclear weapon
03:05and told Putin to stop in your conversations with him?
03:08We haven't discussed it, but at the right time, we will.
03:11Mr. President, keep the goal of keeping Americans.