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Trump Gaggles with the Press on Air Force One, Sep. 18, 2025

September 18, 2025 · The White House · 0:19:40

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump took questions from the press pool aboard Air Force One on September 18, 2025, flying home from the United Kingdom state visit, in a gaggle carried on the White House channel. He called the visit “a really good day and a half — very intensive,” and said the best part was “being with King Charles; he’s a wonderful guy… They treated our country great.”

On Afghanistan, the President returned to a theme from the Chequers press conference: “Bagram, I’d like to get Bagram back… It should have never been given.” He called it “one of the most powerful bases in the world in terms of runway strength and length — you can land anything on there, you can land a planet on top of it,” and noted it sits “an hour away from where they make their missiles, China.” Asked how he planned to recover it, he said only: “They need a lot from us, and I’d like to get it back.”

Asked whether he had discussed regime change in Venezuela with Secretary Rubio or military leaders, he answered: “No, I haven’t,” and “No, haven’t” to follow-ups about planning. On a Ukraine ceasefire a month after the Putin meeting, he said it “doesn’t feel like it, but at the right time, if I have to do it, it’ll be harsh.” He also discussed the Antifa designation (“We’re going to find out… People have been talking about it for a long time”), defended his view that the protesters who confronted him at a Washington restaurant should be jailed (“I think they were a threat”), said New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s pledge to arrest Prime Minister Netanyahu would be “inappropriate” and that he would intervene, and backed English requirements for truck drivers.

Why it matters

The Bagram line — repeated from the press conference into this gaggle — is the clearest statement of an Afghanistan objective the administration had not previously put on the record, and the flat Venezuela denial sets the baseline against which subsequent Caribbean policy is checked on this site’s Foreign Policy record.

Scoreboard watch

This gaggle is a scoreboard reference point: the President’s September 18, 2025 statements that he wants Bagram Air Base returned to U.S. control and that no Venezuela regime-change discussions had taken place, each as stated aboard Air Force One.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Gaggles with the Press on Air Force One, Sep. 18, 2025” (official upload, embedded above). All characterizations as stated by the President in the gaggle.