Thank you very much. We’ll start by signing three very important bills. Will you discuss them, please?
This is H.R. 2808, the Home Buyers Privacy Protection Act. The Congressman here was the lead sponsor, so I think maybe he can say more about it than I can.
Well, it’s difficult for Americans to buy a home, particularly after the last four years, sir, but with the President’s signature today, we’re going to make it easy for people to buy a home without getting hassled. For years, their private, personal information has been bought and sold in the open market, resulting in them getting innumerable phone calls and text messages. But with your signature today, we’re going to put an end to that so when Americans try to realize the American dream of owning a home, they’re able to do so without being harassed.
Good job. It’s a great honor. Okay, there it is. And that’s going to help a lot of the homeowners of our great country. Want to hold that?
Sure.
Thank you, John, very much. Thank you very much. Will, you go ahead.
From a constituent back in Tennessee.
I could use that at night. Very nice. I like that.
Thank you, Mr. President, very much.
Thank you. That’s very nice.
Next, we have a number of executive orders for your attention, sir. From 1789 until 1947, our nation won some of its greatest military victories under the direction of a Secretary of War operating within a Department of War. Today, with this executive order, you will authorize the current Secretary of Defense and the current Department of Defense to once again embrace this great lineage and once again be named the Secretary of War and the Department of War.
So this is something we thought long and hard about. We were talking about it for months—Pete and I, Dan—when Dan came into the fold. By the way, a great general. He headed up the—I wouldn’t call it an attack. I don’t want—maybe even more than an attack. What he did with Iran, you saw the success of that operation. It was perfect. In fact, this was sent to me by the great company that makes that particular B-2 bomber, and it was flawless. It was actually flawless. They flew for 37 hours back and forth, and it wasn’t a bolt that was out of condition. There wasn’t an engine failure. There was no problem. It was a perfect attack, and it knocked out any possible nuclear capability for Iran, which nobody wanted to see. And we weren’t going to put up with it.
So great job, Dan. We’ve been talking about this—Department of War. We won the First World War. We won the Second World War. We won everything before that and in between. And we decided to go woke and changed the name to Department of Defense. So we’re going Department of War, and I’d like to ask our Secretary of War to say a few words—Pete Hegseth. I think it’s a much more appropriate name, especially in light of where the world is right now. We have the strongest military in the world. We have the greatest equipment in the world. We have the greatest manufacturers of equipment by far. There’s nobody to even compete. And you see that with this and so many other things. The Patriots are the best. Every element of the military—we make the best by far. So, Pete, I’d like to ask you, and maybe Dan—Dan “Raising Cane”—to say a few words, please.
After winning a war for independence in 1789, George Washington established the War Department, and Henry Knox was his first Secretary of War. This country won every major war after that, to include World War I and World War II. Total victory, Mr. President, as you said. Then, 150 years after that, we changed the name after World War II from the Department of War to the Department of Defense—in 1947. And as you pointed out, Mr. President, we haven’t won a major war since. And that’s not to disparage our warfighters—whether it’s the Korean War, Vietnam War, or our generation of Iraq and Afghanistan. That is to recognize that this name change is not just about renaming. It’s about restoring. Words matter. It’s restoring—as you’ve guided us to, Mr. President—restoring the warrior ethos, restoring victory and clarity at an end state, restoring intentionality to the use of force. So, at your direction, Mr. President, the War Department is going to fight decisively, not endless conflicts. It’s going to fight to win, not to lose. We’re going to go on offense, not just on defense. Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct. We’re going to raise up warriors, not just defenders. So this War Department, Mr. President, is—just like America—is back. Thank you for your leadership and your clarity. We’re going to set the tone for this country: America First, peace through strength, brought to you by the War Department.
Thank you very much. Very well stated. And really, it has to do with winning. We should have won every war; we could have won every war. But we really chose to be a very politically correct—woke—military, and we just fight forever. And we would win—we wouldn’t lose, really—we’d just fight to sort of a tie. We never wanted to win. Wars that—every one of them—we would have won easily with just a couple of little changes or a couple of little edicts.
I was told that ISIS would take five years to win. And Dan came—when I told him, “How long would it take?”—he said, “I think about four weeks, sir.” I said, “What do you mean, four weeks? I was told five years by the people in Washington—you know who they were—five years.” I said, “You can’t do it in four weeks.” I actually flew to Iraq to meet with them, and I met them at a big air base. Remember that famous day? It turned out to be a famous day for our country because you had the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which is the biggest deal—and he is, because he did things that everybody said you couldn’t do. So they said it was going to be five years; he knocked them out in about four weeks total. One hundred percent—we took over—and ISIS was gone. Pretty amazing.
But we never fought to win. And now, if we have to fight at all—you know, we solved seven wars. We had the one I thought was going to be one of the easier ones, and that’s with President Putin and Ukraine, and that turned out to be one that’s a little bit more difficult. But the seven are done. They were supposed to be much more difficult to solve. I solved every one of them, and we’re going to get the other one done too. But it turned out to be a little bit more difficult than I thought. And it will get done, or there will be hell to pay.
I used to tell you five; now it’s almost seven. I guess 7,000 people last week—7,813 people—young soldiers died. Russian and Ukrainian—not American soldiers. But it’s a shame. It’s just—human lives. And I want to see it stop.
But General Caine has done a fantastic job. Went in, defeated ISIS—didn’t take a long time at all—did other things people said really couldn’t happen. We have the greatest equipment in the world; we have the greatest soldiers in the world. Dan, say a few words, please.
Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. President. It’s a true honor for me today to represent the incredible men and women of America’s joint force. Today and every day, the 2.8 million servicemen and women stand ready to fulfill our sacred duty to protect America at home and abroad. As the President said, America’s military is the single most powerful fighting force in the world. The mission you and the Secretary have given us is clear and unambiguous: to deliver peace through overwhelming strength. And I remind everyone that the U.S. military can reach any adversary at the time and place of our choosing. Service to this nation is an incredible gift, and we’re grateful and honored every day to do so. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, and it’s an honor to sign this. And we will do that right now. I think that’s a big one, I’ll be honest. [Applause.] That’s a big one. Do you have any questions on this subject? We’re going to be discussing in a couple minutes.
What gave you the idea for this rebrand? Question for you—the Secretary of War—what message does this send to our enemies, to our allies, to the American people? And again, what do you view as the idea for this rebrand at this moment in history, sir?
I think it sends a message of victory. I think it sends, really, a message of strength. We’re very strong. We’re much stronger than anyone would really understand. And again, you know, having the great equipment—we have just so much better. You look at all of the—just any of it. Submarines, as an example. We’re 20 years ahead of everyone else. Nobody even compares. I let a lot of this happen in my first term. We totally rebuilt our military. Then, of course, you had that catastrophe in Afghanistan, where they gave up a lot of the equipment—but a relatively small amount—but a lot. It was a lot in Afghanistan.
I think it was the most—General, I’d say it was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country, the way that happened—the way they went to the wrong airport. They should have gone to Bagram. I think it was the most embarrassing moment for our country under the Biden administration. It was terrible. We were going to be leaving, but leaving with strength and dignity. We were going to keep Bagram, because it’s one hour away from China, where they make its nuclear weapons. We were going to have that all to ourselves. Built many years ago from money—turned out to be the equivalent of many, many billions of dollars—couldn’t build it. The longest runway, the most powerful in terms of load capacity—and we just walked away from it. So stupid. They were fools. The people were fools.
No, we’re the strongest military, and I think that indicates we have the strongest military. And you know we had it—and we won World War I; we won World War II; we won everything before; and as I said, we won everything in between. And we just didn’t fight to win. We didn’t lose anything, but we didn’t fight to win. We could have won every one of those wars quickly, but they went a route that I think was probably politically correct but not correct for our nation. So I think the Department of War sends a signal. Please.
You alluded to this a little while ago—you said this rename is a, quote, good reflection of where the world is at right now. How do you square naming it the Department of War when you’ve been pursuing peace in so many different parts of the world?
Well, I think I’ve gotten peace because of the fact that we’re strong, and we weren’t strong. Those seven deals I told you about—the seven wars—a majority of them wouldn’t have happened. They happened for two reasons: trade and our strength. Those are the two reasons, and probably strength may be more important than trade. So, I was very proud of all those. Those were wars that could not be settled, but we settled them. I’ll get the other one settled also. Please.
You think Congress will codify—
I don’t know, but we’re going to find out. I’m not sure they have to. We’re signing an executive order, too. But we’re going to find out. We’re going to see. If they do, we’re going with it, and we’re going with it very strongly. There’s a question as to whether or not they have to, but we’ll put it before Congress.
Do you know how much this rebrand will actually cost?
We know how to rebrand without having to go crazy. We don’t have to re-carve a mountain or anything. We’re going to be doing it not in the most expensive way. We’re going to start changing the stationery as it comes due. We’re not going to do things like have been done in the past when they change a name. Those names of the forts should not have been changed—at least for the most part. And as you know, many of them have been changed back already. At the request of the communities—every one of those communities said, “We want our name back.” Like Fort Bragg, as an example. The people in that community wanted that name back. They refused to call it anything else but Fort Bragg. So we’re not going to be spending very much money on that. Yes.
Sir, when you spoke with the European—earlier this week, did you say—
No, this has nothing to do with anybody but the United States of America—the people of America. This is who I talk to about changing a name. This is a very important change, because it’s an attitude. And we know how to win. We’ve been winning, and we’re going to win like you’ve never seen. Wait until these factories start to open up that are going to be built all over the country. You’re going to see things happen in this country that nobody expects. We have over $17 trillion in investment coming into the country. We never did anything even remotely close to that. We never—no other country has either, by the way. So you’re going to see things that are pretty amazing. But it’s really about winning.
What about the security guarantees?
We’ll work that out. We’ll help them. But we want to save a lot of lives, so we’ll do something with that. I think people expect that. We’ll help them. Europe will be first in, by far. And they want to be first in. They want to see it end. Europe wants to see it end. And it will end. It will end. All of a sudden, it’s going to come together—you watch.
Did you want something? Behind you, please? Yes.
—action to protect American values—is that going to be—
It depends on the individual instance. We don’t want drugs coming in from Venezuela or anybody else, or any place else. We’ll be tough on that. And we don’t want human trafficking. We don’t want to see people coming in where they open their prisons from all over the world and they dump their prisoners into our country—which is what they did in the Biden administration—where they took insane asylums, places that held people that were seriously mentally ill, mentally incompetent, mentally dangerous, and they dumped those people into our country. And we’re trying to get them out now. What they’ve done—what the Democrats and Biden have done to this country—will go down in infamy, what they have done to our country. And especially that. You know, they created the worst inflation we’ve ever had. That’s nothing compared to what they did with the people in our country right now. And we’re getting them out, and it’s not easy when you have the liberal judges destroying our country.
But we’ve won them all. We’ve won it all—ultimately won it all. Hard process. It should be easy—and we know it is. We know exactly who we’re looking for. We had 11,000 murderers dropped into our country. We’ve gotten a lot of them out. Or, in some cases, they’re so dangerous we’re afraid to get them out because they’d come back in. But for the last 120 days, zero people came in. Can you imagine? This is me speaking, but these are figures developed by—they say a pretty liberal group of people. They admit that zero people came into our country. Think of that. A year ago, millions of people were coming in—millions. They were coming in—you could look at them and you could say, “Big trouble.” And that’s all we have in our country. But we’re getting them out, and despite that, we’re doing really well. Please.
The recruitment is the most exciting thing. When I was campaigning for the office, numbers were coming out that the recruitment numbers—the recruitment into the military, all branches of the military—and police and firemen and everything else, anything having to do with a public service—the numbers were horrible. Record-setting bad. And now they’re record-setting good. We’re setting every record, every month, for recruitment. We’re packed in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard. My beautiful—Air— I love Space Command—I love—Space Force has been—we’ve got a waiting list of people wanting to go in. A year ago—especially a year and a half ago—you know, when I took the lead in the polls, which was very early, it really helped with the recruiting. And when I won, from November 5th on, it’s been amazing. And over the last four or five months, it’s been— It was very hard to get police officers. Now the departments are loaded up. Everyone wants to be a policeman or woman. So it’s been a great thing. General, do you want to talk about that?
Sure. As you said, serving our nation is an incredible gift that we give, and the reward on that gift pays back exponentially year over year. And I think the young people of America are seeing the importance of service, and—whether it’s in any of our armed services or in local police, fire, rescue—service is an important thing that I personally encourage, and I know everyone else in government service sees that same reward.
And Pete, on recruitment, what do you think?
I was down at Fort Benning—the properly renamed Fort Benning—yesterday, watching Army basic training. They can’t handle the throughput. There’s been a surge into the— I was going to say the Defense Department, but I will say the War Department. You might almost call it a vibe shift—an attitude shift—a feeling that service is back. There were military families last year, Mr. President, that said, “I don’t know if I can recommend service to my son or daughter, given what’s been done to our military.” You heard it over and over and over again. I hear from those same military families right now, sir, and they’re saying, “I recommend to my kids that they go into this department, this Pentagon, under this Commander-in-Chief—who they know you’ll have their back—and they want to serve.” So it is historic, and it’s the biggest reflection of how motivated Americans are by your leadership, sir.
Really, it’s nothing more than spirit—love for the country. I guess the esprit de corps—we have more of that than maybe ever, frankly. But to see it turn over in less than a year— I would say nobody wanted to go into the military; now everybody wants to go into the military. Jennifer?
There’s some new reporting on North Korea and the Navy SEAL incident in 2019. Can you say if the administration would engage with North Korea—
I don’t know anything about it, no. I’d have to— I could look, but I know nothing about it.
Could you confirm that it happened?
I don’t know anything about it. I’m hearing it now for the first time.
Okay, great. And then—in Georgia—construction workers at the plant. Have you heard anything back from Hyundai?
I just heard about that a little while before the news conference, and I would say that they were illegal aliens, and ICE was just doing its job. But I know nothing about the incidence. It happened a little while ago.
There has been some pushback on that, though, from South Korea already. Of course, they pledged to invest $150 billion in the U.S. in the last week. Are you—
The right to sell cars and things in our country. It’s not like a one-sided deal.
Are you concerned at all about your immigration agenda clashing with these economic goals?
Well, we want to get along with other countries, and we want to have a great, stable workforce. And we had—as I understand it—a lot of illegal aliens. Some—not the best of people—but we had a lot of illegal aliens working there. So, look, they’re doing their job. That’s what they have to do. These are people that came through with Biden. They came through illegally; they came into our country. So we have to do our job.
Mr. President, has the Department of War been involved in—Congress with—a crime bill? What are some things you would really like to see codified in that crime bill?
I think one of the things is the cashless bail—that’s killing it. When that came out—originally, when that came out the first time—that’s when you saw the real big crime start to happen. Cashless bail. What a disaster that is. You murder somebody, you don’t have to put up bail, and you go out in the street and you murder somebody else. That’s what’s happened. It happens so often. And that’s one of the things. And the other things you’re reading about—you know, standard—but just a certain toughness.
I have to say, one of the elements of fascination for people over the last period of time has been what’s happened to D.C. So we’ve gone from one of the most dangerous cities in our country to a—what they call—a safe city. It’s a totally safe city. In fact, I set up dinner in Washington, D.C., next week. I wouldn’t have done that, to be honest. I would have had an obligation not to do it before I came into office, or even at the very beginning when things were so corrupt and so dangerous out on the streets. So, Washington, D.C., has had virtually no crime. We even have a mayor that’s admitting to it—and she’s a liberal Democrat, in all fairness. She’s a person that hasn’t gotten exactly along with Republicans over the years. And she said she’s never seen anything like it. So, Washington, D.C., is a totally safe city. We have virtually no crime. It’s gone from the most unsafe city in the United States—almost, just about—to one of the safest cities—maybe the safest city—in the United States. That’s a tremendous compliment to our military—what we did. The National Guard has done a fantastic job. Please.
—at the White House yesterday— Mr. President, what did you talk about, and also—
I didn’t—we didn’t talk about that, but he’s done a fantastic job. He’s respected all over the country, really. He’s a leader, and he’s done just a fantastic job. We didn’t discuss anything having to do with his future. I’m sure he’d be very good at that.
Second question—“Alligator Alcatraz”—remain open for now. Your reaction?
I think they’ve done a fantastic job in building it—the Governor and everybody else that’s been involved. It’s an incredible facility. It’s housing people for usually a very short period of time before they get brought back to their countries. As you know, we focus on criminals before we focus on anybody else, and we take thousands and thousands of criminals out every month—out of our country. Some of them murderers. And I think Florida has done a great job by building it. And whether it’s “Alligator Alcatraz” or anything else you want to call it—I was there. I visited with the Governor, with other people—I guess Nikki was there; Tom Homan has been there a lot. It’s an amazing facility for what it is. It’s not a hotel. Not supposed to be a hotel. But they’ve done a great job with it. I’m very happy with the judge’s decision.
You also mentioned—cartel—pushing back, saying the U.S. regime-changed through military—would you like regime change—
We’re not talking about that, but we are talking about the fact that you had an election which was a very strange election, to put it mildly—I’m being very nice when I say that. I can only say that billions of dollars of drugs are pouring into our country from Venezuela. The prisons—they’ve taken the worst prisoners—Tren de Aragua—the worst prisoners you could imagine—are happily living in the United States of America. Now, many of them—we’ve gotten out. It’s not easy to get them out because of the liberal system that we’re working with in many cases—not in all cases. But millions and millions of dollars—billions of dollars—of drugs are pouring out of Venezuela and other countries. Look, China—what they’re doing with fentanyl—is a terrible thing. It comes through Canada, and it comes through Mexico. But a lot of it’s coming through Venezuela. Venezuela has been a very bad actor, and we understand that. And when you look at that boat, you look at the—you see the bags of whatever it is—those bags, you know what those bags represent? Hundreds of thousands of dead people in the United States. That’s what they represent. Please.
Mr. President, your reaction to the jobs report this morning?
Well, I’m going to talk about that in a minute. We have great people here, so I’ll talk to that in a minute. We’ll give a couple of— These two people want to get to work on the Department of War, so let’s keep them first.
—reportedly considering a ban on transgender people owning guns after the Minneapolis shooting?
Are we talking in the military? I thought you were talking about in the military. I’ll refer to that, because that’s not a military question. I’ll be able to pass on that very nicely—unless you’d like to talk about it. Pete doesn’t want any part of that question. Yes, please.
Mr. President, who do you blame for losing India to China—
I don’t think we have. I’ve been very disappointed that India would be buying so much oil, as you know, from Russia. And I let them know that. We put a very big tariff on India—50% tariff—very high tariff. I get along very well with Modi, as you know. It was great—he was here a couple of months ago. In fact, we went to the Rose Garden. The grass was so soaking wet, it was—such a terrible place to have a news conference. I said, “Let’s use a beautiful white stone emblematic of the White House.” Okay? And it’s been very well received. But we had a news conference on the grass. It was my last news conference I had on the grass because everybody sunk in. You probably sunk in—every reporter out there—they ruined their shoes. We made that change. It’s been a really well-received change. Please, go ahead.
—on Venezuela, you said—Puerto Rico—you sent naval vessels to the Caribbean. You’re concerned about drugs getting— How do you describe this buildup, this situation?
We’re strong on drugs. We don’t want drugs killing our people. I believe we lost 300,000—you know they always say 95, 100,000. I believe they’ve been saying that for 20 years. I believe we lost 300,000 people last year. I know families that lost their son. Those families will never be the same. I know a family that lost a daughter—beautiful daughter. In fact, it was like she took something that she thought was like a minor deal, and it turned out to be riddled with fentanyl— the size of the head of a pin—and you’re dead. And no, we’re stopping the drugs. We’re going to save a lot of people. Look, whether it’s 100,000—but it’s not—it’s 300, 350,000 people died last year from drugs. And we’re not going to let that happen to this country.
Think if you’re in a war and you lose 300,000. We lost 600,000 in the—pretty much between Gettysburg and all of that, the Civil War. We lost—what—600,000. So we’re losing half of that every year to drugs. We’re not going to do it. We’re not going to allow it to happen. You think of the wars—if we lost 600,000 people in a war—but we lose that every two years. More than that. So with 300 to 350,000 people—and when I see boats coming in, like the other day—loaded up with all sorts of drugs—probably fentanyl mostly, but all sorts of drugs—we’re going to take them out. And if people want to have fun going on the high seas, or the low seas, they’re going to be in trouble.
I will tell you—boat traffic is substantially down in the area that happened. They called it “the runway.” It’s a runway to the United States. And boat traffic is very substantially down on the runway. You can imagine why. I think anybody that saw that is going to say, “I’ll take a pass.” I don’t even know about fishermen. They may say, “I’m not getting on the boat. I’m not going to take a chance.”
What happened in the Venezuela—
Well, I would say they’re going to be in trouble. We’ll let them know about that. We heard that happened, but it wasn’t really over—not like they described. But I would say, General, if you do that, you have a choice of doing anything you want, okay? If they fly in a dangerous position, I would say that you can—you or your captains can make the decision as to what they want to do. All right?
Yes, sir.
We have one more.
Say it?
How close did they get?
I don’t want to talk about that. But if they do put us in a dangerous position, they’ll be shot down. Thank you very much, everybody. So we’re going to now cover the G20. And I’m going to let these people go back to the Department of War and figure out how to maintain peace. Okay? Thank you very much. Thanks, Pete. Congratulations, General. Great job.
Sir, just before G20, we do have one more E.O. for you today. I should also say that the Department of War E.O. you signed was actually your 200th E.O. since you came back on January 20th. That’s more than Joe Biden did in his entire term in office—more than Obama did in either of his two terms in office—so quite a tremendous accomplishment.
That’s good, but Biden never signed one. They were signed by the autopen, so we really beat him by much more than you think.
The 200th executive order, sir—this relates to hostages and wrongfully detained Americans—to declare foreign countries to be countries that engage in those sorts of practices, and it gives your administration powerful tools to get American hostages out. This has been a focus of your administration this time around. Adam Moller is here; he’s done incredible work already.
I think it’s good. Adam is amazing. Adam, do you want to describe how many hostages we’ve gotten out together—you and I—and you and a couple of other people that we know? Me and a couple of other people that you don’t know. But we’ve gotten a lot of hostages. Do you want to describe it?
Mr. President, you’ve brought back 72 hostages since your term. If we compare that to Biden, he has 20. So, Mr. President, when we spoke, you said that that was a primary focus, and I’ll tell you—the job is easy because of you.
And we paid nothing, too.
We paid nothing. We don’t—
They always paid $6 billion—for five people—$6 billion. It was just a number I kept hearing. Not only that—$6 billion plus—we’d get like one person and they got six. They got one—“the Prince of Doom,” they called him—the number one arms merchant anywhere in the world, ever—and they got him out. On top of that, we paid money. So, no—we don’t do that. You know, once you pay money, then a lot of people start disappearing. They start grabbing reporters, too. They think the reporter is going to get a lot of money. And to me, they would—you’ll be well taken care of. I better stress that, because otherwise we have headlines, “He said this,” or “He said that.” No, I’m not smiling about it. But they would. They’d be grabbing reporters—they’d be grabbing everybody. Especially with the money they pay—Biden and Obama—they’d pay money that was crazy. We don’t pay. And if you don’t pay, they find it to be not a lucrative business anymore.
That’s fantastic. Would you like to say something?
It really—Special Envoy Moller, Rick Grenell—who brought Americans home—but with this E.O. you signed today, you are drawing a line in the sand that U.S. citizens will not be used as bargaining chips, and it provides your Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the same tool set to punish those wrongfully—as the same way that we can punish those who sponsor terrorists. This is a very significant E.O. you are signing today, sir.
Thank you. Very good. You’re doing a great job, too.
And, sir, this is your—
I heard you’re doing unbelievable. Would you like to say something?
Absolutely. It’s an outstanding E.O.—actually unprecedented action against those foreign adversaries who would take our people. They now know they are on notice. And it’s not acceptable. If you take our people now, you will pay.
You know, Adam gave up a job where he was making tremendous amounts of money—big, big stuff—top-of-the-line Wall Street—and he wanted to do this. He wanted to do hostages. I offered him other jobs, too—very big jobs. He said—I was shocked, actually—he wanted to do hostage negotiation. Pretty amazing. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you all. Do you have any questions for them on this very important subject?
I think it shows a lot of your leadership as far as fighting for Americans and fighting for humans. And to think that Joe Biden was negative—
He went way negative.
Way negative. And you’re actually—I think this does—negotiate, stay strong—what they call—
One little anecdote that may be of interest. We were told by numerous families who had missing loved ones during the Biden administration that this building—Biden’s National Security Council—told those families not to talk about their missing loved ones. To be quiet. Not to create any pressure on Biden and on Jake Sullivan—the key propagator of the Russia hoax. This administration has met with those families on a weekly basis. People like Adam—yourself, sir—your envoys—are doing everything to get every single American home. Not to tell them not to talk about their loved ones—but bring them home.
Well, you know, I can tell you one story that was amazing. A few weeks ago—very little written about it, but there should have been—but it was a very nice gesture—the head of Belarus, who’s a very respected man—strong person, strong leader—he released 16 hostages. John Kall, lawyer who works for me—great lawyer, actually; one of the greatest lawyers—but John Kall was over there, and he heard they had hostages, and you know about this—16 people—he released. And I just want to thank the head of Belarus. But while John was over there, they had, I believe, another 1,400 hostages—not from us—from places all over the world. And—just a pretty tough place, in all fairness. But 1,400—and I believe they’re going to be releasing a lot of those 1,400. They’re not—I think very few, if any—we got pretty much ours back, and we didn’t pay anything. But I very much gave our respects to the leader of the country—very strong man. But he’s got 1,400 or 1,500—large number—and we’re talking about releasing them. Some are political, I guess—a lot of them are political. And it looks like they’re going to be released at some point in the pretty near future. So it’s a great thing. They have to respect your country. They respect you, and they respect your country if they release. If they don’t—you have to pay $6 million—I mean $6 billion. Can you imagine, paying $6 billion?
—behind bars—a couple days ago.
We have a wonderful woman who was an election official, and she saw cheating in Colorado. And she viewed it as horrible. And she said, “What’s going on here?” And she went to the machine, and she tried to open to find out whether or not it was cheating. They went to her, and they said, “Did you touch this machine?” “Yes.” And they arrested her instead of the people that did the cheating. It’s a state charge, so it’s hard to do anything with, but we’re going to do something. What they did in Colorado—look, Colorado just went to all mail-in voting. That means they cheat. That’s why they lost—that’s one of the reasons, but that’s a big reason—why they just lost the whole Space Command situation that’s going to Alabama. But when you have mail-in voting, you have nothing but cheating. But this woman is a real patriot, and they put her in jail for a long time. She’s 72 years old—73 years old. And she wanted to find out. She didn’t do anything. She touched the machine. She looked at the machine. She’s trying to find out what was going on, and they went and arrested her for doing that. And it was supposed to be the other way around. I’m glad you brought that up. They should let her go. Let her out. Thank you. Please.
What about your—strategy—hostages—
I think they respect us. I think they respect us. They know we’re not going to pay. Adam is a great negotiator. Steve Witkoff is a great negotiator. Some people aren’t good negotiators—nothing you can do about it.
And they’re afraid of you, sir.
Well, maybe. I don’t know. I hope so. I like to say “respect,” but whatever it takes. You know, I actually say “whatever it takes.” But we’ve gotten a lot of people out, and we’ll continue. We don’t have too many in. How many are you working on right now?
There’s not a lot left.
We got most of our people out. We’ve got them mostly back.
Mr. President—on the negotiations to release the rest of the hostages in Gaza?
We’re in very deep negotiation with Hamas. We said, “Let them all out. Right now—let them all out.” And much better things will happen for them. But if you don’t let them all out, it’s going to be a tough situation. It’s going to be nasty. That’s my opinion. Israel— But that’s my opinion. You’ve got to let them out. You have 20-plus—you have about 38 dead people—young, beautiful dead people. And I’ll tell you—the parents want them every bit as much—almost more than—as if their son or daughter were alive. But you have many dead people that are coming out as part of the deal. It’s 20 people, but I think of the 20, there could be some that have recently died—is what I’m hearing. I hope that’s wrong. But you have over 30 bodies—in this negotiation. Can you believe? I mean, we negotiate for people that—we know that at least 30 people are dead, and we’re negotiating to get them out. The parents want them back so badly. So badly. As if they were alive—every bit as much. It’s really pretty amazing. It’s a very sad—I’m in the middle of it. And I put out the other day—I said, “We want all 20. We don’t want two.” You know, I was—with myself and my people—Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner was great on this—but they had a lot of people. We got almost all of them out. They’re down to 20. But, Adam, we’ve got like a tremendous number out. But I always said when you get down to the final 10 or 20, you’re not going to get them out unless you’re going to do a lot. And “doing a lot” means capitulation. That’s no good either. It’s a very tough situation. But I put out the other day: let them all out—every single one. No more twos and ones—“We’ll give you one this week; in two months, we’ll give you two more.” And there’s negotiation going on right now.
What is the biggest challenge with Hamas right now—10 to 20—what do they want?
Well, they’re asking for some things that are fine. Look, you have to remember October 7th, you know? People forget October 7th. It’s not an easy thing to forget, right? But people forget—or they maybe purposely forget—October 7th. So you have to put that into the equation very strongly. It’s amazing—some people even deny it. They deny it. Crazy. But I’ve seen tape that’s as violent as anything that you can imagine. Many of you have seen those same tapes. So you have to put that into the equation, too. So it’s not an easy equation. It’s a tough one. But there are 20 people—maybe a little less—but there are 20 people that we want out. We want the bodies—these parents—they are—I’ve never seen anything like it. The level of love that they have. They want their children back. And you know, I see demonstrations—big demonstrations in Israel—about the hostages. Not about the war—about the hostages. Which puts Israel in a tough position because, you know, it’s tough to prosecute a war when you have people wanting—they want the 20 people back. They just want them back very badly. And everything that goes with it. So it’s very sad.
Thank you very much. We’re going to talk now about the G20. I figure we could wrap two or three up. The last time I took a day off, everybody said bad things happened to me. You know that, Seth? I took one day off. I didn’t take it off—I was working. In fact, I was here. But I didn’t do a news conference, and they said bad things happened to the President. Fake news. If you look—Biden—he had a press conference—he missed it for about a year, right? About a year. And I never saw any stories like that about him. And when he had one, they’d ask him, “What flavor ice cream do you like?” He’d say, “Vanilla.” How many times have they asked him that question? Every— “What’s your favorite ice cream, sir?” “Vanilla.” “Okay, that’s enough. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.” We all have a good time.
I only do it for one reason: I think it’s good for the country. And we are very transparent. There’s never been transparency like we have. There’s nothing to hide. So thank you very much. Great job—appreciate it.
So, we’re going to talk about Florida—the great State of Florida now—because it’s going to be a very exciting thing to host the G20. As we celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary next year, the United States will have the honor of hosting exactly that—the G20 summit—right here in America for the first time in nearly 20 years. This afternoon, I’m thrilled to announce that the 2026 G20 conference—which will be—I could read off the countries that we’re talking about, but you know who they are, I think. Does anybody want me to list them specifically? Jennifer, you’re okay? Okay—will be held in one of our country’s greatest cities—beautiful Miami, Florida—where we have the mayor with us—Mayor Suarez. And I want to thank Francis for being here. I thought he might be in this office. He almost got there. It’s not as easy as they think. It’s not that easy. But he’s amazing—very popular—very popular in Florida.
The agenda for next year’s summit is being organized by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who is right here. Hi, Scott. I saw him standing over there. Nice, tall, good-looking guy. But he moved very quickly. Carolyn, you did a good job. Does Caroline do a good job, would you say? How do you compare with the last administration’s person? You don’t want to get into that? I think we’re very happy with Caroline. But Scott Bessent is—talking about a good job—he’s done a fantastic job. We’re very proud of him. He’s very much involved with the G20—and the NEC Director—who’s truly a talented guy. He’s certainly being thought of to go to a different position, and we’ll find out about that pretty soon. I don’t know—would you like to be— I won’t ask you that. I think—who wouldn’t want— I think it’s the greatest position in the world, you know? You come out, you make a speech, and then you go away for 30 days or 40 days, and you come out, make another speech, and the market goes up or down depending on what you want to say. I’ve never seen an easier position than that. Unfortunately, you need good instincts—so we have somebody in there now that doesn’t have them—we call him “Too Late.” But it will focus on unleashing economic prosperity by eliminating the burdensome regulations, unlocking affordable energy, and pioneering new technologies. And it’s going to be very important.
The United States is already leading by example, and America is the hottest country anywhere on earth. We have more being built—under construction now—than I think anybody has ever seen. Literally, some of these places are just really unbelievable—what they’re building—the size. You know, if you spent $50 million on a shopping center someplace, that’s a big building—a pretty big building. But when you spend $50 billion on essentially a building—I have buildings going up for $50 billion—they’re going to be building their own electricity, and many of them have been given permits already to go—and they’re starting construction. Some have started that quite a while ago, and very early in the administration. We let them do that. You know we have a grid that’s obviously an old grid—it’s been around for a long time—could never handle the kind of numbers that you talk about in terms of electricity. And we’re letting them build their own plants. They build their own plants with their structures. So they build their structure, they build their buildings, and they build an electric-producing plant with it—like Tom Edison in New York that I grew up with. They make it for New York; these plants will make it for their building—for AI.
Then you have a lot of the car plants going up. Most of them won’t need that kind of electricity, but they have the right to do that also. So we’re allowing companies to build electric plants. They become essentially—they become a utility, right, if you think about it. And it’s very exciting. We’re going to end up with more electricity than China. And it’s going to be built at no cost to us. And I’m telling them, “Build more than you need, and you’ll sell it back into the grid.” So they’ll be able to sell it back into the grid, on top of everything else—at no cost to the American taxpayer. It’s very exciting. And frankly, if we didn’t do that, we wouldn’t be leading with AI. We probably wouldn’t be doing any AI. It would be 20 years to get any approval. So they’re getting massive amounts of electricity as we speak.
We’ve eliminated $5 trillion worth of federal regulations—another big thing—since I took office. If you remember the first term, you could add the top four, and they wouldn’t come anywhere close to what we were. That’s one of the reasons we had such economic— The most successful four years of any President economically. And this is blowing it away. I think this will blow it away when these plants start even getting close to opening. I think you’re going to see numbers that we’ve not seen before.
And we’ve increased oil production by more than 300,000 barrels a day—that’s a lot. Blue-collar wages are rising at the fastest rate in 60 years, and trillions of dollars of investment is pouring into the USA. It’s going to be over $17 trillion very shortly. Nobody ever thought a thing like that was possible. What made it possible were—number one—they were happy with November 5th. They were happy with the election. And number two—the tariffs are bringing countries in. It’s so vital to our country. Before—it’s before the courts now, and I hope we’re going to do very well. We had four great opinions just come out—as you know—from judges. A couple of cases—there were Obama-appointed judges that felt they had to do what’s great for the country. I respect them for doing it. But we have very strong opinions, and it will end up going to the Supreme Court, and it’s just vital for the country. Vital. Absolutely.
We’re at a level that we’ve never thought we’d be at, and it’s because of the tariffs. Countries are pouring into our country because of the— You avoid tariffs if you build here. If you don’t build here, you pay a lot of money. But if you build here— So what people are doing—they’re building it. No different than what other countries have done to us. But we have a big advantage over other countries. We have a market that we built up during our four years that was amazing. We took a commanding lead during that four-year period.
So it’s a very exciting thing, but I look forward to showing our incredible success to the world when we visit Miami next year. And I’d like to ask Mayor Suarez—truly a highly respected gentleman who’s loved in his city—and we’re going to do a great job. We’re going to work together and do a fantastic job. Mayor, would you say a few words, please?
Of course. Thank you, Mr. President. It’s a tremendous honor to be with you here today in the Oval Office to make this historic announcement—just looking at the sign, which is beautiful.
Great job.
Yeah, it’s a great job. As you know, Mr. President, you were elected by double digits—the first Republican to win in Miami-Dade County. You follow up on your promises. What we are doing is following through on promises as well. We’ve kept taxes low, kept people safe, leaned into innovation. We’ve grown 150% in the last 10 years. We’ve created one of the most intriguing ecosystems in the world. This decision—not only generationally important for the city—but it puts the city on the map as one of the truly great global cities. So on behalf of all of the workers of Miami—those that work in the hospitality industry (I know you own many hospitality assets and property), all of the small business owners who are going to benefit economically from having the G20 in Miami—
And that is tremendous benefit. It’s going to bring in millions and millions of dollars.
—we just say thank you. We thank you for believing in us. We thank you for highlighting our city at a time where we have the lowest homeless rate in 11 years—in history—and the lowest taxes. So we’re following your America First agenda, and we’re creating success in Miami—the greatest city in the world.
Thank you, Mayor. We’ll see you before then, but we’ll see you.
Scott, would you like to say a few words?
Yes, sir. So we’re excited to have the G20, and what’s important about the G20—President Trump’s America First initiative does not mean America alone. It means America leads. So, we will be holding the G20 in the capital of the world—in Miami—next year, to showcase the beginning of President Trump’s second term. We will be a year and a half into it. We will have done peace deals, tax deals, trade deals. We’ve made the U.S. the best place to come start a business—regulatory certainty—and it’s going to be an exciting event. And the U.S., just as the President was saying earlier about the Defense—Department of War—the U.S. is back on the international stage as a leader. We have whittled down the G20 back to basics. We are making it work for the American people better than ever. We have—the G20 has become basically the G100 this past year. So it will be a concentrated group in Miami, seeing the best America has to offer with American leadership, thanks to President Trump.
Thank you very much. Great job—and a great job you’re doing.
Kevin, would you like to say a few words?
Sure. You know, Mr. President, I think this G20 meeting—where the world leaders will come to the great City of Miami—is going to be viewed as one of the most important meetings in global history, because what’s going to happen is the Golden Age is going to be documented so well by next summer that you’re going to have one of the best speeches written for you that you’ve ever seen—because we’re just going to be talking about the accomplishments in the next year.
I think so. A lot of these plants are going to be open by then. And a lot of jobs are coming in like I think we’ve never seen before. It’s going to be great.
Monica, would you like to say something?
Thank you, Mr. President. We’re so looking forward to having the United States of America host the G20 in Miami in December of next year. And we’re also looking forward to having this showcase of American strength, vision, innovation, and power under your bold leadership, Mr. President. It is going to be the G20 in the Trump—and Golden—Age.
Thank you very much. Any questions on the G20? G20.
You said a moment ago that you were very complimentary of Kevin’s work—
Of Kevin? Oh, I am very complimentary. I think he’s fantastic.
—that he’s your man?
I didn’t say that. I said he’s fantastic. I sort of know who I’m going to pick, but I didn’t say anybody in particular. But Kevin is certainly one of the three—they say four, but probably three—that— He’s a highly respected person. He’s great. He’s great. He believes in low interest rates, and we all do. But sometimes you have to raise them to stop inflation. We had the worst inflation, I guess essentially, that we’ve ever had in the Biden administration, and it really hurt people. You know, costs are way down. Our energy costs are way down. And you know, when energy comes down, everything comes down. And we brought down the price of groceries—and specifically the price of eggs. You remember that first week when you were screaming about eggs? I said—I know nothing about them. I just got here. That’s Biden’s problem. But we got the cost of eggs down to really low numbers. So we brought costs down for people. And, you know, it’s something I said—and the Democrats have this false narrative. They say, “Oh, costs went up!” They just say things that—it’s just like incredible. If you look at energy, I think you’re going to be at $2 a gallon—with cars—very shortly. Two dollars. It was $4, $5 under the Democrats. That’s a huge—it’s like a massive tax cut.
And speaking of tax cuts, we gave you the largest tax cut in history in the bill that we just approved. The largest tax cut in history. And there will be no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. One of the big things—you get—you buy a car and you borrow money to buy the car, you’re allowed to deduct your interest, which, Scott, has never happened before. You know, rich people like to talk about deductions. Middle income—they never gave them deductions. I got them one of the best deductions—an interest deduction. So it’s great.
Jennifer, please.
Yes—couple questions on the G20, sir. Is there any update on your plans to attend this year’s G20, and then—are you saying for next year—
I won’t be going this year. It’s in South Africa. J.D. will be going—great Vice President. And he looks forward to it. But no, I won’t be going to it.
For 2026, you are saying it will just be exclusively the 19 countries that—
No, we’re going to invite other countries—as observers, they call them. Observers. But they’ll have something to say. But we’re going to invite Poland—already, I’ve issued them an invitation. They’re great. They were just here, as you know. Great leader. Great new leader. One of the big surprises—I was so happy I endorsed him, actually, and he won. And he’s going to be a great leader of Poland. But I’ve invited Poland already.
Mr. President—
That’s interesting. I haven’t thought of that. No, I haven’t thought of that. That’s an interesting question. I’m going to think about that for a little while.
Mr. President, you just mentioned the tax-cut bill. Why the rebrand for “the one big beautiful bill”?
I just say words. I said “the bill.” I actually call it “the great big beautiful bill,” but there’s a lot of words, you know?
—to kind of talk about it—
You know, I just want them to say what’s in it. It’s an incredible bill for the middle class—for the working person. You know, we are a party of the working— It used to be—the Democrats were for the working people, and the Republicans were supposedly for the rich. The Republican Party has taken in millions of people, and the Democrats have lost millions of people. They’ve gone crazy. Honestly, I think they’re crazy. What’s happened to them—I don’t know. They suffer major Trump Derangement Syndrome. It’s turned out to be a disease—a disease of weak and stupid people. All we do is—we cut taxes, we create great policy. Their policy is so terrible. They refuse to acknowledge—as an example, today it’s a big debate again—the women: they don’t want men playing in their sports. They don’t want it. The Democrats want men to play in women’s sports. I saw the great Governor—we have Governor Yankit—talking about it today. The woman who’s running against our Republican candidate—who’s excellent—is so much into the men being able to use women’s bathrooms— What’s that all about? Men playing in women’s sports—
We think 25 million people came in from prisons, from mental institutions, drug dealers, drug addicts. They’re pouring in— They poured in. Now we have none coming in. The border has been sealed for a long time—actually, almost since I got into office. Remember when the Democrats said, “We need legislation”? I didn’t have any legislation. I said, “Close the borders.” And now, the borders—for the last four months—not one person has been allowed to come into this country illegally. Not one. Done by people that would normally like to see you look bad. Those are the numbers. So it’s been an amazing job. Please.
Mr. President—major meeting next year in Miami, but—
First—like to complete— We have already started doing that. So thanks to the President’s—
He started a long time ago. If you knew him, he was—he was working on this long before this press conference.
Yes, sir.
It’s in good shape. It’s going to be great.
Mr. President, we learned this morning that we lost 78,000 manufacturing jobs this year. How do you explain it?
Well, one thing we have is we have interest rates that are too high. That was, you know, a matter of the Fed. But the other thing is—so many different elements aren’t included yet. And one of the things we’ve learned—we learned that the hard way, watching over the last few months—are the corrections that people have been making. They’ll say you’re losing jobs, and then they’ll say, “By the way, we have a correction”—a month later—of, you know, 100,000 jobs. They actually had a correction once of 850,000 jobs. But I’ll let Kevin just speak about that a little bit, because I heard him speaking about it this morning. I thought he did very well.
Thank you very much, sir. Well, I think if you look at the indicators—there’s a capital-spending boom, industrial production at an all-time high. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow is north of 3%. So all the indicators are saying that things are really strong. What we’ve also seen is that Goldman Sachs put out a study yesterday that said that the August number tends to be really messed up because of seasonal adjustments. So I think if they were revised up—which has happened on average by about 60,000—then everything else would make sense. But right now we’re puzzled about those numbers and looking for new leadership there so the numbers are more reliable.
And again, we’re building—they’ve started building all of these factories and plants, including car factories. We lost more than 50% of our car production over the years, and I think we’re going to get all of it back. It’s coming back in really rapidly. We’re building a lot of car plants. Indiana—places that you don’t think of so much—are taking—but also Detroit—lots of places—it’s coming in where I think we’re going to get everything— We’ve lost it over a period of 40 years, and I think we’re going to get it all back in a very short period of time. And big ones. Big plants. Incredible plants that were never going to come back. Without the tariffs, they wouldn’t have come back. And I think without the election on November 5th, they wouldn’t have come back. The election was very important also.
—Having been here—New York mayoral race—can you—
I mean, he has to do what— Yeah, I mean, he’s afraid to do what he wants. It would seem to me—and everybody in this room, including you—that the only way you’re going to beat the communist—because you have a communist running, which is fine; I’ll have to deal with a communist in New York City. I never thought that was going to happen. This is something I didn’t think was going to happen, Scott. You’re going to have to explain this one, because we’re going to have a communist mayor, it seems to me, if he stays in. If you have more than one candidate running against him, it can’t be won. If you have one candidate—if he’s the right candidate—I would say that Cuomo might have a chance of winning if it was one-on-one. If it’s not one-on-one, it’s going to be a hard race. We’ll get used to a communist. He’s going to have to go through the White House and get approvals for everything. We’re going to make sure that New York is not hurt. We want to make sure that New York is cherished and taken care of. So I didn’t know he was running or not running. No, I didn’t do that. There’s nothing wrong with doing it, but I didn’t do that.
Yes, it’s going to be— Well, I think that everybody wants it there because it’s right next to the airport. It’s the best location. It’s a beautiful—beautiful everything. They actually requested that it be there because the location is the best. We’re not making any money—there’s no money in it. I just want it to go well, and it’s going to be—each country will have its own building. I think it will be really a beautiful thing. One of the most successful properties in the country. And, you know, frankly, the problem is—in December—that’s the biggest month in Florida. So, you know, using it for— You can’t get a room in Florida in December or January, et cetera—that area. And that’s the time we’re talking about. So from that standpoint, it’s not good. But we want to make sure it’s good. I think it would be the best location. And again, they’ll have their own buildings. It will be incredible for them. And being like 10 minutes—less than 10 minutes—from the airport. And it’s a big airport—international. All of the planes will be able to land—go right into their quarters. So I think it will work out nice.
Three candidates. Well, I like him, too, but I had him as a fourth. I had four. You were talking about four—now I’m talking about three. He told me, “I’m not leaving.” He wants to be doing— If he was leaving, I mean, he would certainly be one of the people I’d want. But I asked him specifically—I could ask him right now—“Would you rather stay where you are as Treasurer, or would you rather—”
Sir, I’m the only person on the planet that does not want the job.
He really told me—he said, “I love what I’m doing.” I wouldn’t want to really take him, because he is doing a great job.
Is the offer—
I am looking at Kevin also, and I’m looking at— Yeah, I would say—you could say those are the top three. Good job. [Laughter.] You’re very good.
You’re saying you think Andrew Cuomo would be the best one-on-one candidate—
Well, I think—I’m only going by the polls. It’s not an endorsement or anything. It just seems that he’s second. And what you do to win is you take the guy who’s second, and you hopefully add one and two. But maybe if the one isn’t getting up, and he’s not getting out—and that’s okay. I think the mayor is a very nice person. I helped him. He was— He got caught up in a scam by the Biden administration—what they did—so I helped him out a little bit. But I would understand why he doesn’t do it. I do think this: I think if you have more than one candidate, we’ve got ourselves a communist mayor in New York. And I don’t like communist mayors. I don’t like them. Yeah.
—the year 2026—how much do you think is reasonable—
Well, I heard—and, you know, we were on a very downward path with Biden—and I heard that the most we could do is 1% GDP. Now I’m hearing 3.2% and 3½%. And our big year won’t be really next year; I think it will be the year after, because when these plants start opening up—it takes a period of time to build them—we’re going to have tremendous job growth. Unprecedented. We have—unprecedented in history—there’s never been anything like it, because we’re going to have more than $17 trillion invested. There’s never been anything like that. If we did a trillion dollars in one year—and this is six months, seven months, because we really focused on it over the last six months. But we’re going to be doing—nobody’s ever seen numbers like this. When this stuff starts opening up, our country is being rebuilt. By the way, Washington, D.C., is being rebuilt. In addition to the fact that we have a safe city now—and our National Guard was fantastic and worked with the mayor, worked with everybody—we’re also doing a refurbishing of Washington. We’re going to redo some of the roads, the surfaces. We’re going to redo the medians. We’re going to take the broken tiles off the tunnels and put brand-new tiles up. And we’re going to re-grass all the parks. We’re going to—the people that build world-class golf courses—not necessarily that worked for me, because I don’t care about that. I’m very good at— Grass has a life, just like you have a life. So this grass has been up longer than— It’s like four lives, okay? That’s why there’s a lot of areas where there’s just no grass. But we’re going to re-grass all of the parks. We’re going to— In a year from now, you won’t even recognize it. Graffiti is gone. The tents are gone. The medians falling into the roads are gone. Potholes are gone. The marble is going to be polished and beautiful. It’s all going to be beautiful. We’re working with Clark Construction—definitely the biggest here; one of the biggest in the country—and they’ve been great. We’re going to do about a 10-mile radius from the White House, from the Capitol—looking at, sort of, both of them—go right in the middle of both of them, start drawing circles, and everything is going to be— You know, when the head of Poland came here last week—when other leaders came in—they came— A lot of them have been here over the last eight months. I say, “What do you think?” And they said, “We’re a little surprised at the look—the filth on the road.” Now it’s much better. We’ve got it much better. But we have to do some construction things. You have medians that are all broken and rotted and rusty and disgusting. And it’s going to—they’re all going to be changed. You’re going to have a very different look. You’re going to have the look of prosperity, not the look of poverty.
But the big thing right now initially is—we have no crime in Washington. We literally have no crime. They said it’s down 87%. It’s not down 87; it’s down like 100%. We have, like, no crime. People are going to restaurants that wouldn’t have even thought about it. I know families that have gone four, five, six times to restaurants over the last few weeks, and you people are in the same category.
Yes?
Thank you!
It’s a whole different place, right? That’s very nice. And you’re so tough—usually. I like her now! Because she was truthful. Is that a correct statement?
Yes, sir, it is.
I heard you were actually mugged. You’re a big, strong guy.
No, you can’t. You know what you say? “Thank you very much.”
Just for the White House—there’s a blue tent that originally was put there for anti-nuclear—nuclear arms—more of an anti-America—
Where is this blue tent?
Right in front of the White House on the North Lawn, on the other side—
I haven’t noticed.
All of them—it is an eyesore—
Oh, I didn’t know that. Take it down. Take it down today. Right now. Nobody told me that. So you’re saying there’s a blue tent—
It’s been there for 30-plus years. It was originally a peace tent—kind of—
It morphed into radical left. Okay. Is it in the Ellipse? Where is it? Lafayette Park? Take it down. Okay?
People tell me it’s a public-health hazard because people sleep in there, they eat— It’s also a national-security risk because of—
We’re going to look into it right now. We have— We moved over 50 tent sites—not 50 tents. Hundreds and hundreds—maybe a thousand—I think it’s over a thousand—but 50 sites. So I’m surprised to look at—
On the National Guard—the Attorney General had said that he’s suing you for—
Can you imagine—we have an Attorney General who’s not related to the mayor at all, by the way. We’ve got so many separate departments. The district attorney has nothing to do with the mayor—the whole thing is crazy. But how about this: we just set a record on low crime in Washington, D.C., and we have a man suing us to let us go back to high crime. We’d have to be here for a little while to make this really work long-term—after we’re gone. And so we’re going to meet that head-on, and I suspect we’ll be very successful. And I can always declare a national emergency—because this was a national emergency. But right now, we have the safest city. We have now one of the safest cities in the country. We had almost the worst—a city that was as bad as some of the horror shows you’ve heard about for years. We’re going to fix some of those horror shows, too.
—Truth Social out—European—
So Google is a great—can be— Yeah, Google is a great—can be—American company. Apple is a great American company, and so many others. And the European Union—I don’t know why they do it—but they have been fining them numbers that have been astronomical. More so before I got here. But Apple paid $17 billion of fine in the last year—Apple—$17 billion—on a case that a lot of people think they weren’t guilty. And now I’m going to be speaking to the European Union, and it’s not fair. Google just got fined—they’re up to $16.5 billion—and people say there was nothing wrong with what they did. It’s almost a source of income to run Europe. It’s become a source of income. And many other companies, too—mostly tech companies. But we can’t let that happen.
—
No, I can just say, “You can’t do that.” I mean, you know, they respect us now. They didn’t respect us a year ago. European Union respects us—they’re paying $950 billion. You’ve got to respect us. They were very disrespectful of our country. I have great respect for Ursula. I’ve gotten to know her very well, and I just don’t think it’s fair that they’re taxing—and really it’s almost become like a tax. It’s become so regular. And I’ve gone to lawyers and I’ve asked them, “What do you think?” They said, “They didn’t do anything wrong.” We can’t do that. It’s not fair. It’s interesting—I don’t hear that about China, and I don’t hear that about other places. I hear it about the European Union. We were talking about it last night. I think we had a gathering that was the highest-IQ group of people I think any room has ever had last night, you know? It was about as high as you can have—all the tech geniuses. They love their computer. They would tell me more about chips than I want to know. Yeah, it did come up. A couple of companies said that they were—they were taxed by the European Union. Interesting. They weren’t complaining about—in that regard—China. They weren’t complaining about other places. It’s the European Union. And they have. Apple again was forced to pay $17 billion last year. So I think we’re going to change that around. It’s just not fair. We don’t want that to happen to our companies. And, you know, if somebody does that, we should be doing it to them. They’ve got to pay—let them pay us. But you just can’t do that to our companies.
—to the dinner last night—G20—very well—
It wasn’t a hard—really, I mean, look—it’s got the weather. We’re in December, so it’s, you know—in some places—and that’s beautiful, too. Cold weather is nice. It’s all nice—depending on the city. But, no—Miami really wanted it. The mayor really wanted it. The people down there really wanted it. You might just address that for a second, Mr. Mayor.
Yeah. As I said, a conference of this kind does two things. Number one: it puts us on the global map with the great global— I think that’s something we’ve been trying to achieve for a generation. And I think, number two: it’s a tremendous boon for the economy. As the President knows—he has multiple hospitality— The working people of Miami, the small business owners are going to benefit tremendously from the economic impact of a conference like this in our city. So it’s an image thing, but it’s also benefiting working people in our community.
—
That’s an interesting question. I’d love them to if they want to. I mean—as observers. They’d be observers. I’m not sure they want to be an observer. If they want to, we can certainly talk.
The vaccine mandates that were rolled back—what do you think about that?
Well, I think we have to be very careful. Look, you have some vaccines that are so amazing—the polio vaccine, I happen to think, is amazing. A lot of people think that COVID is amazing. You know, there are many people that believe strongly in that. But you have some vaccines that are so incredible. And I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated. It’s a very—it’s a very tough position. So I’d give you an answer—I’ll give you a feeling—but just initially, I heard about it yesterday, and a tough— You have vaccines that work—just pure and simple—work. They’re not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used. Otherwise, some people are going to catch it, and they endanger other people. And when you don’t have controversy at all, I think people should take it.
One last follow-up on your comments on the taxes. On the upcoming tax bill, are you— You want that new tax bill to eliminate—from—
When you say “the upcoming tax bill”— Because when you have an “upcoming”— We just passed the biggest tax cut in the history of our country. So there’s nothing upcoming. There’s something that we just passed. So we passed the biggest tax cut in the history of our country—for the middle class. For the worker. And that’s the only bill that we’re really talking about. We did a good job. It’s very comprehensive. And I will say, the Democrats—if you gave them every point that they wanted—every point that they’ve dreamt up all their lives—you wouldn’t get one Democrat vote. They really are—they’ve become deranged—sick. It’s crazy. If you gave them a list of the top 10 things the Democrats wanted, and you put them in a bill to get passed, you wouldn’t get one vote. It’s the only thing they have—they stick together. But they’re dying. I mean, they’re down to 16% approval rating—the lowest rating in history for either party. And we have the highest rate that we’ve ever had. The Republicans have the highest rating we’ve ever had.
—
Yeah, I have. I have. I’m not going to say it now, but yeah, I have. We’re going to go into another place and straighten it out. And I will say this—I watched today. I didn’t know that was continuing to go on, but Portland is unbelievable—what’s going on in Portland. The destruction of the city. Well, I’m going to look at it now because I didn’t know that was still going on. This has been going on for years. So we’ll be able to stop that very easily. We’ll be able to stop it. But, you know, that was not on my list—Portland. But when I watched television last night— This has been going on— You wouldn’t be standing if you were the mayor. Can you imagine what they’re doing? They’re walking in, throwing smoke bombs into stores. These are paid terrorists—paid agitators. I watched that last night. I’m very good at this stuff. These are paid agitators. They get paid money by radical-left groups. Not radical-right groups—radical-left groups. And they get paid a lot of money. And you see it with the signs. They all have perfect signs that are printed. They look as good as that sign. Those signs are not made in basements. They’re made in professional printing offices, and they cost a lot of money. These are paid agitators, and they’re very dangerous for our country. And when we go there—if we go to Portland—we’re going to wipe them out. They’re going to be gone, and they’re going to be— They won’t even stand to fight. They will not stay there. They’ve ruined that city. I have— But what they’ve done to that place is just— It’s like living in hell.
Go ahead. Thank you for your statement before.
—is reporting that you would be— including the bill—your reaction on that.
Who’s banning them? We are talking about things. We’re very upset with Brazil. We’ve tariffed them very high because of the fact that they’re doing something that’s, you know, very unfortunate. I love the people of Brazil. We have a great relationship with the people of Brazil. But the government of Brazil has changed radically. It’s gone very left. It’s gone very radical left, and it’s hurting Brazil very badly. And they’re doing very poorly—very, very poorly. So we’ll see.
—with India at this point?
I always will. I’ll always be friends with Modi. He’s great—the prime minister—he’s great. I’ll always be friends. But I just don’t like what he’s doing at this particular moment. But India and the United States have a special relationship. There’s nothing to worry about. We just have moments on occasion.
—India and other countries—trade deal—
They’re going great. Other countries are doing great. We’re doing great with all of them. We’re upset with the European Union because of what’s happening with not just Google but with all of our big companies. They’re just—you know—they hit them with these unbelievable $17 billion and $14 billion— It’s almost become common. It’s almost become a yearly occurrence—like it’s a tax. So it’s very unfair.
I want to thank you all very much. And we’ll see you around. We’ll see you in Florida. But we’ll see you a little bit before that, I suspect. I’ll be having something good here. I’ll be at the White House.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you very much.