Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump was asked about his former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, calling for an end to Russia's annexation of Crimea.
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00:00Mr. President, 2018, your former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called for an end to Russian occupation of Crimea.
00:10Why does this administration, why has this administration changed its stance on territorial concessions for Crimea?
00:17Well, the war started, it would have never started if I were president.
00:20This is a war that is a horrible, horrible, the old wars are horrible.
00:24This one is in particular bad, and I don't know that you can ever say there's going to be a winner to this
00:31because so many lives have been lost, not only soldiers, a lot of lives have been lost.
00:37I think that we want to do one very simple thing.
00:42It would have never happened if I were president, zero chance it was going to, and it didn't.
00:47You know, people say, how do you know that?
00:48Number one, it didn't happen.
00:49We never even discussed it.
00:51I would talk to Putin about it.
00:52It was the apple of his eye.
00:53You know, Ukraine was the apple of Putin's eye, but we never, there was never even a thought that he'd go in.
01:00And I think he understood that I would not be happy if he did.
01:04And it was only when I got out, and you know, when you mentioned what happened to Ukraine years ago
01:11under President Obama and a vice president that was also president later, unfortunately, for this country,
01:18what happened is large chunks of lead were given up, and it was called Crimea.
01:25And that was a big, that was a big thing.
01:27That was a big moment.
01:28But this isn't my war.
01:30This is Biden's war.
01:31This is a war that Biden was president when this war happened.
01:37But I'm trying to put out the fire, and I think we'll be successful.
01:40And if we do, we're going to save a lot of lives.
01:43Otherwise, and the prime minister had a statement.
01:46He said, this is just a point in time.
01:48We're very lucky because this is a point.
01:50And if this doesn't happen, this could go on for a long time.
01:54Mr. President, do you have meetings with other world leaders here in the world?