President Donald Trump held a press conference on Wednesday while attending the G7 meeting in France and spoke at length about his Iran peace deal, including a long riff about how the stock market influences his thinking.

“The past two days have provided a chance to discuss the details of this historic agreement with many of our closest friends and allies, including the G7 nations and many presidents and prime ministers, as you saw. Prime Minister Modi was here. We had a long talk. He’s a great guy. They are thrilled that we made a deal,” Trump began his remarks, pivoting to the deal:

Every one of them. There’s not one nation that came to us and said, “Please, sir, keep dropping bombs on them. Please keep dropping bombs.” That’s what stupid people say. But I’m thrilled to report — and by the way, those last two days were brutal — $200 million worth of bombs. And, you know, it is expensive, too, by the way, aside from everything else. And they knew I was coming for a third night.

We informed them we’re coming for a third night. They didn’t have their Navy — it sunk. They didn’t have their Air Force — it’s gone, not one plane. They didn’t have anti-aircraft equipment, so we got free rein. They didn’t have their leaders, but they have a new group of leaders that I think is — actually, I think they’re smarter. I think they’re very smart. I think they’re far less radicalized, and I think they’re really good.

They love their country. You know, you talk about regime change — nobody will say that, but I guess that’s… look, their one set of leaders is all gone. The second set of leaders is all gone. Their third set of leaders, a little bit gone, but for the most part — and frankly, I think that’s regime change. I think they’re going to behave much differently. I think that they see a different way of life that they were never exposed to.

Trump then launched into a tangent about the market, “So the one thing I didn’t want to see is — I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened. But all I know is, every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship. It never went down. They didn’t like it — the people. You know, the stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage, other than me, of course. Let’s see — I don’t know. What do you think, Scott? Is the stock market more brilliant than you?”

“No, sir,” replied Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“Oh, that’s a terrible statement. All right. The stock market is quite brilliant,” Trump quipped, adding:

And every time we said something amazing, like, “We’re going to settle,” it would go up. And every time we said something negative, like, “Guess what, we’re not going to be able to settle,” it would go down — very big. Peter, very, very big. Tells you something.

And, you know, I’ve studied presidents — some good, some bad, some great, not too many are great, and some really bad. We had one just recently. And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that. And who knows what would have happened, but bad things happen.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.

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