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Calls for purchase of eight f-15s. there are concerns that you're going to lower the number of f-35s. what's the reason for buying the f-15's? >> we go along the lines of what the defense department has requested with their five year defense program. it's an allocation of different planes. so this is something that has been requested by the military and we think it's something that will make sense when congress considers it. >> reporter: two questions. one, you mentioned what the president promised during the campaign. he all promised he would eliminate the national debt in eight years. the de...

>> i am not surprised at all. i would like to say that we have many things that we will be talking about, and in particular protectionism, and military-type, and also trade, and we are doing a lot of business with japan in trade, and the deficit is coming down, and it is a massive deficit between japan and the united states. it is coming down. [ speaking foreign language ] >> japan is buying many of our fighter jets and the f-35s and we appreciate it very much, and they are working with us to balance the deficit, because we have a deficit that is substantial with japan. we hope to be balancing...

Stay completely out of this story. talk about the tensions that exist or you experienced as ambassador to saudi arabia. the saudi versus turkey tensions that you see at play in this story. >> well, let's remember that turkey is not really an ally of the united states, even though they're a member of nato. they have frustrated us at many turns including when we were planning to invade iraq in 2003. they refused to allow the fourth infantry division to come through turkey into northern iraq. they're proposing to purchase the russian s-400 missile defense system which is designed to shoot down ou...

Exist or you experienced as ambassador to saudi arabia. the saudi versus turkey tensions that you see at play in this story. >> well, let's remember that turkey is not really an ally of the united states, even though they're a member of nato. they have frustrated us at many turns including when we were planning to invade iraq in 2003. they refused to allow the fourth infantry division to come through turkey into northern iraq. they're proposing to purchase the russian s-400 missile defense system which is designed to shoot down our f-35s. at the same time they're trying to buy f-35s from us. s...

Then his berating -- continued berating of the nato members for those who fail to continue 2% of their gdp, which to me is not a very meaningful measure. not to get off on this, but just take greece, for example, which spends 60% of -- it makes the 2%, but a good part of that, over half is for pay and pensions. then you look at a country like norway, which is a staunch ally of the united states, who doesn't make the 2% but is buying, you know, significant weapons systems like f-35s, and p-8s just to name a couple things. so having as a common denominator the 2% thing, to me, is pretty silly. i...