President Trump and the First Lady are now wheels up after a whirlwind trip the United Kingdom, where they were wined and dined by King Charles himself. It wasn't all pomp, of course, with the president meeting Thursday with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer to hammer out a trade deal being called the U.S. - U.K. Tech Prosperity Deal.

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Following the signing of the deal, Trump and Starmer held a joint press conference, where they were peppered with questions about trade, the Russia-Ukraine war, the Biden autopen scandal, and the designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization by the Trump administration. It got a little bit spicy when Starmer was pressed about free speech crackdowns in his nation, then was outright asked if Great Britain was still a Christian country. You can watch the entire thing on the White House YouTube page.

President Trump broke some news during the presser by dropping this little nugget: he's actively working to reclaim Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan from the Taliban. "We're trying to get it back," the president said. "We're trying to get it back because they need things from us." He added, "We want that base back, but one of the reasons we want the base is, as you know, it's an hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons."

Trump was brutally honest about the Biden-led withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan back in August of 2021, which saw 13 service members killed at Abbey Gate, calling it a "total disaster."

"We were going to leave Afghanistan," Trump said at Thursday's press conference. "But we were going leave it with strength and dignity. We were going to keep Bagram, the big air base -- one of the biggest air bases in the world. We gave it to [the Taliban] for nothing."

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Trump has spoken previously of his desire for the U.S. to reclaim Bagram:

"We were going to get out, but we were going to keep Bagram, not because of Afghanistan but because of China, because it’s exactly one hour away from where China makes its nuclear missiles," he said in March. "We were going to keep a small force on Bagram."

In addition to its proximity to China, there are other reasons the administration would like to have Bagram back under U.S. control, including to "gain access to rare earth elements and mining in Afghanistan; establish a counterterrorism node to target ISIS; and possibly reopen a diplomatic facility."

Reports indicate that the Taliban, for its part, is interested in "normalizing ties" with the United States after it has faced international backlash for its numerous human rights violations. Representatives for the Trump administration met in March with Taliban's foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, to discuss, according to a Taliban statement, ways to "develop bilateral relations between the two countries, issues related to citizens, and investment opportunities in Afghanistan."

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