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Trump Gaggles with Press on Air Force One En Route Waterford Township, MI, Jul. 27, 2026

July 27, 2026 · The White House · 0:13:07

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

What happened

President Donald Trump took questions aboard Air Force One on July 27, 2026, leading with the Iran war. Asked whether he was frustrated with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s advice, he answered: “I think he’s done a great job. We’ve pretty much destroyed their military. They want to meet and we’re meeting. We’ll see what happens. There’s a chance we can make a deal.” Iran, he said, “requested a meeting through their surrogates and directly… They would not have requested the meeting if we were doing poorly.”

On his patience for the talks: “I have plenty of time. Their whole shoreline’s wiped out… They wanted to talk. Their people said, ‘Please don’t drop. Don’t shoot last night, the night before, for two nights.’ We’re having good talks.” He reported no involvement, for now, in the Houthi/Red Sea file, and on stockpiles said the United States has “a lot of ammunition” while rebuilding what was sent to Ukraine: “We’re building it very rapidly. Plants are being built.”

Why it matters

This gaggle is the President’s own status report on the Iran conflict a week before the August 2 decision point he later described — a requested Iranian meeting, talks underway, and a public defense of his Secretary of War’s counsel — and it dates the stockpile-rebuilding claim the scoreboard tracks against Pentagon reporting.

Scoreboard watch

This gaggle carries a scoreboard-watch claim: negotiations with Iran underway at Iran’s request, with a deal possible. The scoreboard will check the talks’ progress against the official readouts — including the President’s own August 2 account of the strike held at the allies’ request.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Gaggles with Press on Air Force One En Route Waterford Township, MI, Jul. 27, 2026” (official upload, embedded above). All characterizations as stated by the President in the gaggle.