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White House Press Pool Reports @WHPressPool - VP Pool report #12 departure and fuller quotes
AF2 is rolling at 2:12 pm CT and wheels up at 2:17.
On Iran:
"…we came into the situation with maximum leverage and maximum strength. Their nuclear program was destroyed, their conventional military was destroyed, and you've got some people within the Iranian system who are saying, you know, what we want to change our relationship with the United States. We want to turn over a new leaf, and the President said, "Okay, we will sit down at the table and negotiate and see if the smart people in that system can take over from the crazy people.' Well, here's the basic deal that we cut the basic deal that we cut was we'll lift our blockade if you stop shooting at ships, but if you shoot at ships, we are going to punch back, and we're going to punch back harder than ever before. That was the deal. They said they would stop shooting at ships, and what happened 24 hours ago, they started shooting at ships again. Now they were good, they were well behaved for about a week, but then they start shooting at ships. so the deal is very simple. If they shoot at
ships, we're going to knock the hell out of them, and it's that simple. And that's the basic way it's going to work."
"Now, the President maintains a lot of options. I'm obviously not going to tell you exactly what's going to happen tonight, but the President has said to them very simply, the Strait of Hormuz is going to be open. That means oil and gas is going to flow to the American people. That's why we see gas prices starting to come down. That's why we see the oil prices so low, is because the President said that crucial artery, through which we ship a lot of the world's energy, that artery has got to remain open, and that is what the Iranians have to know. If they try to close it down, there's going to be response for the American military. It's that simple. That's the deal. They can either follow it, or they can have exactly what happened to them last night. It's just going to keep on happening until they open up that lane and stop shooting at ships."
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