Trump hosts crew of historic Artemis mission: ‘I would have had no trouble making it’ | Artemis II
Donald Trump hosted the crew of the historic Artemis II lunar mission at the White House on Wednesday.
Four astronauts (commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen) joined the president in the Oval Office for a celebratory meeting and press conference.
“We’re proud of these people. They have incredible courage, they have a lot of other things that are incredible,” Trump said at the beginning of the conference, and immediately began praising himself.
“To get in there you have to be very smart, you have to do a lot of things physically well. So I wouldn’t have any difficulty doing it, I’m very, very good physically. Maybe it could be a bit of an issue. We’ll have to try it.”
The crew broke Apollo 13’s record for the farthest distance traveled from Earth during their mission earlier this month. They reached a distance of 252,756 miles (406,771 km), surpassing the 1970 record of 248,655 miles.
The mission ended off the coast of San Diego on April 10, with the Orion capsule named Integrity making a textbook landing in the Pacific Ocean after a 10-day voyage to the moon.
Trump had previously congratulated NASA on the successful mission. Real Social While he makes no mention of his desire to make drastic cuts at the agency, he does mention how proud he is of the “wonderful and very talented” team. Earlier this month, Trump announced his intention to cut NASA’s budget by 23%, including a 46% cut to space science initiatives.
The debate didn’t stay long on the astronauts and their accomplishments, quickly moving into a discussion about the Supreme Court’s decision earlier today that gutted much of the Voting Rights Act.
Trump claimed he was unaware of today’s decision until a reporter asked about it. When another journalist confirmed that the decision was a “Republican victory,” the president celebrated.
The court struck down Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a 6-3 decision along partisan lines. Section 2 has long been used to ensure that minority voters in particular receive fair treatment during redistricting, and was the last remaining strong provision of the 1965 civil rights act that prevented racial discrimination in voting.
“I love this, this is very good,” Trump said enthusiastically. “We can finish this press conference right now. I want to read it.”
He later recommended that some states redraw their maps due to the decision. “I know the logic of the decision, I just didn’t see the outcome,” he said. “Overall, I would think they would want to do it. It helped some a lot, and it didn’t make much of a difference to others.”
He added that states “have time to do this” ahead of the midterm elections.
When the conference turned to the topic of current wars, the president said that the United States was still in talks with Iran, but these talks would no longer be face-to-face. “We don’t fly anymore, we take 18-hour flights every time we want to see a piece of paper. We do it by phone and it’s nice. I make a call or have my people make a call and you know the answer.”
Asked by a reporter whether the war against Iran or the war against Ukraine would end first, Trump appeared to confuse the two countries and said: “I think Ukraine is militarily defeated.” and added: “They” There were 159 ships. Every ship is underwater… Every single one of their planes has been shot down or destroyed. “They have missiles, 82 percent are gone, they have drones and most of them are gone.”
Trump also said his administration would release as much information as possible about “UFOs” in the near future and that he thought “some of them would be very interesting to people.”
