Donald Trump (00:00):
… very much. We had a very good meeting. We're talking about a lot of different things. Consumer prices have actually dropped. There's very little inflation. Everybody predicted a lot of inflation. Very little inflation. Energy costs are down. Interest rates are probably down. They scattered, but they're probably down. Prescription drug prices are even to down. They're doing very well. It's been amazing. We had a big day yesterday. There'll always be transition difficulty, but we had a… It was the biggest day in history, the markets. So we're very, very happy with the way the country's running. We're trying to get the world to treat us fairly. This is something that should have been done 25 years ago and it wasn't. Should have been done 40 years ago and it wasn't. But no president was willing to take it on. You had to. It's not sustainable. It wasn't sustainable. And as you know, without a lot of money being added, this is a lot of money that we could add. the country's making approximately $2 billion a day. And when you think of it, we've never done that before. Never come close to it. And the number is probably three and a half billion dollars a day and that makes us a very strong country. But we have Scott here and Howard and some of the people that are working on deals and the biggest problem they have is they don't have enough time of the day. Everybody wants to come and make a deal. And we're working with a lot of different countries and it's all going to work out very well. I think it's going to work out really very well. But we're in good shape. There's no inflation. There's very little inflation.
(01:56)
And I went four years without inflation and I tariffed. I took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China and others, taxes in China. But we took in hundreds of billions of dollars a year from China and we had no inflation essentially. So we think we're in very good shape. We think we're doing very well. Again, there'll be a transition cost and transition problems, but in the end, it's going to be a beautiful thing. We're doing again what we should have done many years ago. We let it get out of control and we allowed some countries to get very big and very rich at our expense and not going to let that happen. It's not a sustainable formula. So I wanted to just thank everybody at the table and maybe I'll go around and ask some of you a little short couple of answers.
(02:54)
Pete just got back from Panama and he's been all over the place and you want to give us a little report on that and whatever else you might have to say? Everyone at this table is doing an incredible job, by the way, I have to say. Incredible. And the relationships are… It's like they're friends. The relationships are very strong, really good, really strong. And these meetings are very good. I don't believe there's any other president that allowed the press to come into a meeting such as this. These are very sacred meetings, these are very private meetings, but we have nothing to hide and I think it's good. I think it's a good… We want be, a word you like to use Jeff is transparent. So we want to be transparent and we'll do that by starting with Pete. Go ahead, Pete.
Peter Hegseth (03:44):
Yes. Mr. President, we just got back from Panama last night. We were at the Panama Canal with their SOUTHCOM commander ships, F18s' troops and signed a couple of historic deals, one which is with the Panama Canal Authority, a framework for US vessels first and free through the Panama Canal. And then also a memorandum of understanding with their security minister for the presence of US troops, Fort Sherman, it's an old US base there as well as their naval station and air station jointly with Panama to secure the Panama Canal from Chinese influence. That's something… You said, "We're taking back the canal." China's had too much influence. Obama and others let them creep in. We along with Panama are pushing them out, sir. And so we had a very successful trip there. President Mulino sends his regards, very complimentary of the US. He's a great ally and I think they want the Communist Chinese out and with our troops, they're partnering with their forces, we've got a chance to push them all the way out, sir.
Donald Trump (04:49):
We've moved a lot of troops to Panama and filled up some areas that we used to have and we didn't have any longer, but we have them now and I think it's in very good control, right?
Peter Hegseth (05:01):
Yes, sir.
Donald Trump (05:02):
Okay. Thank you, Pete. Very good. Howard?
Howard Lutnick (05:06):
So we've have so many countries to talk to, it is incredible. I think Scott and… I'm not sure we could ever have enough time in the day to talk to all these countries because they want to talk and they want to talk now and they have come with offers that they never, ever, ever would've come with but for the moves that the president has made, demanding that people treat the United States with respect. We're getting the respect we deserve now. And I think you're going to see historic deals one after the other. And then I'm very excited that within a week and a half we're going to start with the gold card and the Trump card is coming out and we're very excited about that and that's coming soon. So very excited.
Donald Trump (05:51):
Good. Thank you very much. Good job. Linda.
Linda McMahon (05:54):
Well, on a couple of fronts, we have been addressing the issue of anti-Semitism on campuses. There's been some grant funding and contract funding that we've reviewed and some canceled and some we've put on hold, waiting for that, while we do an investigation. On the other side of what my responsibilities are in having education go back to the states, we're meeting and talking with governors. I was with, this week, all 50 commissioners of education around the country. And because we also want to provide them with tools and best practices as education does move back to the states. Making great progress, great response from the states and very positive.
Donald Trump (06:38):
And what about colleges? You're holding back $400 million from Colombia.
Linda McMahon (06:44):
From Columbia.
Donald Trump (06:44):
$8 billion from Harvard. Can you imagine the money we pay Harvard? They have a $60 billion fund and we're giving them $8 billion and we're trying to figure that out. And then they hire de Blasio, the worst mayor of the history of New York, and they hire the woman from Chicago who was a disaster, total disaster. And they pay her massive salaries and they're supposed to be teaching you government. That's not Harvard. That's not Harvard the way it used to be. So do you have anything to say about that, the dollars you're holding back from quite a few universities that were not behaving?
Linda McMahon (07:19):
Yeah, and the other, there's Princeton, Cornell, others that are coming in, and actually getting calls now from the presidents of the universities who really do want to come in and sit down and have discussions. And so we're investigating them, but in the meantime, we're holding back the grant and the fund money.
Donald Trump (07:38):
Okay, great job. Thank you.
Scott Bessent (07:40):
Very thankful for the House voting for the president's budget resolution along with the Senate Bill. Made a ton of progress this week in working with members to ensure that a desire for flexibility in the Senate was not misconstrued as a desire not to slow and do spending reforms. And so we're very thankful for that. And now we can get after writing that bill, getting the president as big a package of his agenda to his desk. So very good week.
Donald Trump (08:09):
Good. That's right. We just got the House vote and now we're well on our way to getting, as we call it, the great big beautiful bill. It's a beauty. There's never been a bill like this one. We're trying to get it all into one beautiful bill. It's tax cuts, regulation cuts, and many other things. The border, a lot of money for the border. You're doing a fantastic job. But we just got a report that we, as you know… You knew before us. We are surprised we got the vote. We got the vote and we're happy to get the vote.
Peter Hegseth (08:45):
Our jobs and these are the cranes, the ports, opportunity zones that drive that investment back in. And we have under that executive order and also one to streamline foreign military sales for people that want to buy our equipment and of course, acquisition reform all just this week under your leadership, Mr. President.
Donald Trump (09:05):
So we're going to be rebuilding our ship-building business. We may order… We'd have to go to Congress for this, but we may buy some ships from other countries that we're close to and that do great jobs with ships. But we're going to start the process of rebuilding. We don't really essentially build ships anymore, which is ridiculous. It's going to be a very big business for us in the not too distant future. But in the meantime we have countries that do very well at building ships and we'll be dealing with those countries and we may be ordering top-of-the-line ships from those countries and within a fairly short period of time we'll be building our own ships. So we will probably have to go to Congress for that. We're not going to have a problem. Susie, thank you very much for the job you've done. Go ahead please.
Susie Wiles (09:59):
I just want to make sure you know that this Cabinet, I think pretty uniquely collaborates and cooperates and works together to accomplish all that you've asked them to do and I think they deserve a lot of credit for that.
Donald Trump (10:12):
It's true. You're doing a great job. The chief. Chief of staff, doing a great job. Lee, go ahead.
Lee Zeldin (10:21):
Mr. President, the Biden EPA was strangulating the economy. The Trump EPA understands it's not a binary choice. We can protect the environment and grow the economy. Working with DOGE and Elon Musk, we've now canceled $22 billion worth of grants and we have launched what is the largest deregulatory action in the history of the country just in one agency. That's how much of a mess the Biden EPA left us. It is going to end up reducing the cost of living. It's going to create jobs, it's going to make it easier to purchase a car, it'll be easier to heat your home. We're proud of this effort. The effort that we have is fulfilling the mandate that you earned from the American public, clean air, land, and water for all Americans, unleashing energy dominance, permitting reform, advancing cooperative federalism, making America the AI capital of the world, and bringing back American auto jobs. When you called me that day asking for me to take this position, I was honored and you were very specific and clear in what you wanted us to accomplish. We understand our mission and at the Trump EPA, we're going to make you proud.
Donald Trump (11:29):
Great job. You're doing a great job. And you have a lot of applications for approvals for power plants, which are going to really power the regular plants and they're going to be right next to each other because we can't rely on our grid. It's old and it's tired and it's subject to being attacked whether by rain or by bombs or by anything else. And we're letting people build their own power plants. A lot of them are being built with the AI and beyond the AI, chips and we're letting them build their own power and never been done before. We're going to get it done quickly and approved quickly as part of a plant. Sort of be their own power company and it's very exciting.
(12:16)
They couldn't believe it when I told them that. I said, "We're going to get the approvals very fast. As part of your regular plant, you're going to build electric producing plants." And it's very exciting and they're able to do it very quickly and very well. And you made it possible. Thank you. You have a lot of applications for some of the biggest plants that have ever been built in the world. These are serious plans, aren't they?
Lee Zeldin (12:43):
Approved. Approved, approved. Our agency is open for business. Working with Secretary Burgum, Secretary Wright, we are going to make you proud.
Donald Trump (12:52):
Good. Sean?
Sean Duffy (12:54):
First off, Mr. President, it is Brooke's birthday today, so she keeps just getting younger. So happy birthday to.
Brooke Rollins (13:00):
Brooke.
Sean Duffy (13:02):
Thank you. I want to thank you as well for the ship building at EO. Again to build ships, we also need Mariners to sail those ships. I was just up at King's Point for the Merchant Marine Academy a couple days ago, and we have some of the greatest young men and women who are learning how to be mechanical engineers, to rebuild and fix the engines on those ships, but also how to sail ships. I would tell you that over the past decades, this academy has become… It needs some love. It's been a little bit dilapidated. We have to invest in sailors and I appreciate you taking the initiative. To be a global power, we have to build ships and have sailors to sail those ships. These are the very people that help Pete should we come into points of crisis to support the military.
(13:44)
So thank you for that. Number two, the last administration announced 3,200 projects. Big beautiful roads and bridges. Most of them are good, but they announced them. They didn't sign a grant agreement, 3,200. So the money doesn't go out the door to build the infrastructure in the country. And it's fun to do an announcement. It's actually the harder work to put together these grant agreements. So we're doing the work right now at DOT to get these grant agreements done and build the projects. Most of them are good and they also put in all of this green and social justice requirements on roads and bridges. We're pulling all that out and putting the money toward the infrastructure, not the social movement from the last administration.
Donald Trump (14:27):
Good steal. It's supposed to green paper mache. Okay, thanks. Great job.
Brooke Rollins (14:39):
Sir, first, I would say more than friends, we've all become family and I think that what you have assembled in your vision is a turning point and an inflection point in American history. And so just being a part of that is the greatest honor. So thank you for that. And again, just the relationships here and the honor and respect we have for each other is a reflection of you and your leadership. So I just want to say that first. The second thing I want to say is that on behalf of the farmers and ranchers, food security is national security. We have to be able to feed ourselves and your idea of using tariffs along with deregulation and tax cuts… But your idea of using tariffs to ensure that we are putting forward and putting America first, no one understands that better than our farmers and our ranchers.
(15:27)
But having said that, emerging from four years of Biden with a 30% increase in inputs for our farmers and ranchers with an almost $50 billion trade deficit. When we left the first time, it was zero, meaning that they are hurting. So the period of uncertainty we're in, they know that your vision will move us into an age of prosperity for all Americans, but for my people, for the farmers and ranchers unlike any they have seen before. And I think they are really, really excited and so grateful for your leadership, but also you have never failed to say that you have the backs of our farmers and our ranchers. It was the first phone call that I had after I was voted with the Senate and that message just resonates with an almost 85% support of you in the last election. They're with you.
(16:18)
Interestingly, the biggest budget driver at the United States Department of Agriculture is not farming and ranching or agriculture, it's food stamps. And so as we emerge and embark, Secretary Kennedy and I on your vision of making America healthy again, a massive part of that is realigning and reworking our food stamp program so that it better serves those who need it. And yeah, to the point of getting the transgender, DEI, Green New Deal out of the USDA and realigning is really important.
Donald Trump (16:53):
It's out of the military, right?
Peter Hegseth (16:53):
Yes, sir.
Donald Trump (16:54):
Is it a hundred percent out would you say?
Peter Hegseth (16:55):
99.9, sir. We're going to get that last point.
Brooke Rollins (17:00):
But thank you, sir.
Donald Trump (17:01):
We've got a much different military, I will tell you. Thanks very much. Good job. And eggs are down? Eggs are down big, right?
Brooke Rollins (17:06):
Yes. Yes, sir. Wholesale prices. Retail will come. Easter is the Super Bowl for eggs, so there may be a little fluctuation, but no, we feel really good about it. Thank you.
Donald Trump (17:16):
That's what I hear. Thank you.
Brooke Rollins (17:17):
Thank you.
Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent (17:18):
Good. I echo what Howard said on the trade queue that we've got over 75 countries that want to come in. So it'll be Treasury, Commerce, Jamieson at USTR, and we're putting a process in place. And as you said, you're going to be part of the negotiations too because I've had these countries call me up and Secretary Bessant, we're happy you're going to be negotiating as well. President Trump's going to be involved too.
Brooke Rollins (17:51):
I hope so.
Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent (17:51):
Bring your best deal on the budget. It's moving quickly in the House and the Senate, thanks to your leadership. We're also going to have debt ceiling in there, so we are going to get an increase in the debt ceiling and that will be the done and dusted for-
Donald Trump (18:08):
Part of the bill that we just got a vote on today?
Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent (18:11):
Part of the bill. It'll be done and dusted for two years. We won't have to worry about that. And then I gave a speech yesterday to 1400 small and community bankers and they were so happy to hear from your administration. And I told them, "Wall Street's done great for the past four years, 10 years, 20 years. It can continue doing great, but it's main Street's turn now." And it's those small bankers through deregulation, through emphasis on Main Street, your Main Street agenda, bringing back jobs that is going to power the smaller communities. And then finally the bond auction went very well yesterday. We had a lot of foreigners show up their support, showing that the US is still the best place to invest. The
Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent (19:00):
The Inflation Report, as you said, was quite good. And energy prices are down more than 20% since January 20th.
Attorney General Pam Bondi (19:09):
Amazing. That's great.
Donald Trump (19:09):
That's really good, good numbers.
Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent (19:11):
Great number.
Donald Trump (19:12):
Thank you. Ma'am.
Attorney General Pam Bondi (19:14):
President, we've had some great wins in the last few days that you were overwhelmingly elected by the biggest majority. The US Americans want you to be President because of your agenda. And the courts are ruling that you have the authority to determine how the money of this country will be spent. That's what the American citizens wanted, and that's what they're getting. An example of that Friday was the Department of Education, that you can determine how the money will be spent. No more DEI. And that impacts every agency across the board.
(19:49)
And on the civil side, again, NLRB, we had a big win in the Supreme Court there. OPM, a big win there, but also 16,000 workers there. But also on the criminal side, the Alien Enemies Act, we are winning there. And your directive to me was to keep America safe. And that's what we're doing. Whether it's the Alien Enemies, all of these gangs, and they are enemies of our country. They are terrorists, they are organized crime. They have come here. They are extremely organized. They are spread throughout our country, and they are creating terror. And no more, under your directive.
(20:24)
And that has stopped. Yesterday in South Florida, we charged the 11 defendants with half a billion dollars of pure cocaine coming into our country to kill our kids. They were caught. They will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. These gang members are going back to where they came or they're going to an El Salvador prison at your directive.
(20:47)
And you also gave us a directive to prosecute the people who are going after Tesla to the fullest extent of the law. Some of the greatest police work I've seen, we've made four arrests. There will be no negotiations at your directive. They're all looking at 20 years in prison. And within the next 24 hours, you're going to be seeing another huge arrest on a Tesla dealership, President. And that person will be looking at at least 20 years in prison with no negotiations.
Donald Trump (21:15):
That's great. That's great. That will stop it cold.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Domestic terrorism.
Donald Trump (21:21):
Thanks. You're doing a great job too. Thank you very much. Go ahead, please.
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (21:26):
Mr. President, accountability matters. That's what we're recognizing. With our partners at the Department of Labor for Government Efficiency, just a few weeks ago, we realized there's about $4.4 billion in Covid funds that were not used that the state coffers were just holding onto. Out of that, we've returned $1.4 billion back to the State Treasury, so essentially to the American people. And we'll go back and claw the rest of those billions of dollars back.
(21:54)
And on the heels of that last night, late last night we're understanding, unemployment insurance fraud. That trust needs to be whole for the American people. When we need it, we need it for who deserves it. That's not what we're seeing. And the numbers that we saw last night, again exposed by our partners at DOGE, at the Department of Labor, since 2020, over $400 million of payments have gone out already. And when you hear these numbers, apparently in the United States, we have almost 25,000 people who are over 115 years old who are collecting $59 million that we have sent out to people. Talk about fraudulent behavior. Mr. President, 28,000 people between one and five years old have collected fraudulent payments at the tune of $254 million has gone out. And lastly, 10,000 people who have not been born yet, 15 years into the future.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
That's my favorite.
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (22:52):
$69 million, and they haven't even been born yet. In one case, they will be born 129 years from now. The United States government sent them $41,000, and they're not born yet. So under the Department of Labor, those are the things that we're uncovering. I couldn't be more honored to tell the American people that we're bringing back their dollars, and we're returning them to the United States Treasury.
(23:17)
Also jobs numbers, last Friday, 228,000 new jobs were reported. That is good for the American people. That is my primary job, is to grow that workforce under your leadership. So we've kicked off the America at Work Tour and we'll be visiting all 50 states. And I'll be working with my colleagues here to do just that. So thank you, Mr. President.
Donald Trump (23:38):
Thank you, Lori.
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (23:39):
We're going to grow this economy. We're going to keep our focus on the American worker.
Donald Trump (23:43):
So you're finding tremendous fraud, though. Those numbers are really bad. When you-
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (23:46):
Unheard of.
Donald Trump (23:47):
Over 115 years old. And I think you had mentioned the oldest person in our country is 114 years old.
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (23:55):
Reported.
Donald Trump (23:55):
That's pretty good.
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (23:57):
A woman living in Pennsylvania, but apparently there's 24,000 more of them that are 115 or older that we're seeing payments to.
Donald Trump (24:03):
I hope you hear that. So we have 24,000 older than the oldest person.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Definitely did.
Donald Trump (24:11):
And what are we doing about that? How do we get that money back?
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (24:15):
Yeah, so we're working with our IGs to do that further investigation. The House and Senate, we had a five-year statute of limitations. We've got an extension on that another five years. And so, the goal, in my opinion, we should never have a statute of limitations to return the American dollars back to the Treasury when there's fraud. But at this point, we will continue to work hard and double down and return those dollars to the Treasury.
Donald Trump (24:37):
Right. Thank you, Lori.
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (24:38):
Thank you.
Donald Trump (24:38):
Great job. Kristi.
Secretary of Homeland Security Krisit Noem (24:40):
Mr. President, thank you for your leadership at the border. For the second month in a row, you have broken the record in the history of the nation for the lowest number of encounters at the border, which is absolutely remarkable. You have said that America's laws matter and that they'll be enforced. And we're hard at work now to get people to go back home that are here illegally.
(25:03)
So the Alien Registration Act has been in place long enough now that those individuals that are here illegally, if they haven't registered, then they can be charged criminally. And they can face fines up to a thousand dollars a day and face deportation if they don't go home, and they'll never get the chance to come back to America. So we're encouraging people to use the CBP home app to register, and we're working on the resources and funding to buy them a plane ticket to send them home. I went to El Salvador, Colombia, and Mexico, and those countries and others are thinking about setting up programs to support these individuals when they get back to their countries, so when they get there, they'll have housing and food assistance. So making sure that these folks have the opportunity to go home so that they can get the chance to come back to America is important.
Donald Trump (25:51):
So it's a very big self-deport operation that we're starting.
Secretary of Homeland Security Krisit Noem (25:58):
Thousands of people have already self-deported. We're just going to… When you have 20, 21 million people that need to go home because they're here breaking our laws, then we need to facilitate that. And I've been working with the governors a lot lately on several different issues. One of them has been on FEMA for recommendations on how to do exactly what you've directed us to do. And then, also I sent a letter and communicated with them that they need to be setting up a SCIF. Some of our governors don't have secure facilities to have national security issues. I think one of the jobs Homeland Security has is to give communication down to states, to local cities, and communities. And so, recommending they get a SCIF, they have secure comms with them at all times or nearby so that they can have national security conversations, and then to have somebody in their office designated that is their communications person.
(26:51)
A lot of them have emergency management officers, but they don't necessarily have somebody designated when it comes to a national security issue that we may need to communicate with them on. And I think American people need to know that REAL ID will be required to travel on May 7th. So those governors have been notified to communicate that at home. We don't want anybody to get delayed and not be able to travel when they get to an airport. And this will also help us bring integrity back to all of our IDs and how they're used, how they're used for issuing driver's licenses. And governors know how I feel about making sure their driver's licensing system has integrity, because a lot of people use their driver's license to vote. And the backbone of our country and the foundation is election integrity.
Donald Trump (27:36):
Good.
Secretary of Homeland Security Krisit Noem (27:36):
So we're giving all those directions to our governors and communicating that so they can lead on it as well.
Donald Trump (27:42):
And we're going to work with people so that if they go out in a nice way and go back to their country, we're going to work with them right from the beginning on trying to get them back in legally. Is that right?
Secretary of Homeland Security Krisit Noem (27:53):
That's right. They'll get the chance to come back.
Donald Trump (27:54):
So it gives you real incentive. Otherwise, they never come back. They'll never be allowed once a certain period of time goes by, which is probably going to be 60 days. We're also going to work with farmers, that if they have strong recommendations for their farms for certain people, we're going to let them stay in for a while and work with the farmers and then come back and go through a process, a legal process. But we have to take care of our farmers and hotels and various places where they need the people. And we're going to be working with you very carefully on that. So a farmer will come in with a letter concerning certain people saying, "They're great. They're working hard." We're going to slow it down a little bit for them, and then we're going to ultimately bring them back. They'll go out. They're going to come back as legal workers. Okay?
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (28:45):
Yes, sir. Thank you.
Donald Trump (28:45):
Which I think will be… I think it's very important to do.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
That's right.
Donald Trump (28:48):
Okay. Thank you very much. Great job. Jamieson, I watched you testify for the last-
Secretary of Homeland Security Krisit Noem (28:53):
Yeah, he did great.
Donald Trump (28:53):
… couple of days. You were on every night at 3:00 in the morning. You did great. You were fantastic. Thank you very much.
Elon Musk (29:01):
It's just what I like to do for fun, sir. You've been keeping us very busy. Last week you started a reordering of international trade, something that hasn't happened for 80 years, something that should have happened decades ago. And you know that. You've known that for a long time. That's why you have us all working on this. You came into an emergency situation where President Biden left us with a $1.2 trillion trade deficit. It's the largest of any country in human history, the largest. So you declared an emergency. You took action.
Donald Trump (29:30):
You say the largest in history. Right?
Elon Musk (29:32):
In history. That's right.
Donald Trump (29:33):
There's never been anything like what he left us. He left us a mess. His whole administration was a mess. So go ahead.
Elon Musk (29:41):
So you declared an emergency, you imposed a trade action. So now you have a tariff on the world. It promotes US manufacturing, it protects US workers. And you've also given room for negotiation during this time so we can open export markets for our farmers and other producers and American workers. And this is why the unions vote for you. This is why the workers vote for you. This is why the families want you to be the President, because you're standing up for American workers and American communities. We've had countries come in over the past couple of weeks that represent more than half of global domestic GDP, more than half. That's who's coming in to talk to you and to your advisors about how to have reciprocal trade, how to have fair trade. It would've happened without you.
Donald Trump (30:22):
Thank you very much. Great job. Lovely line.
Elon Musk (30:28):
Clever. Well, thanks to your fantastic leadership, this amazing cabinet and the very talented DOGE Team, I'm excited to announce that we anticipate savings in FY '26 from reduction of waste and fraud by $150 billion.
Donald Trump (30:42):
That's a lot.
Elon Musk (30:45):
And some of it is just absurd, like people getting unemployment insurance who haven't been born yet. I think anyone can appreciate whether… Come on, that is just crazy. So some of these things, if people ask me like, " Well, how are you going to find waste and fraud in the government?" I'm like, "Well actually, just go in any direction. That's how you find it. It's very common." As the military would say, "Target-rich environment." So I think we're doing a lot of good, and excellent collaboration with the Cabinet to achieve these savings. And it'll actually result in better services for the American people. And we're going to be spending their tax dollars in a way that is sensible and fair and good.
Donald Trump (31:33):
And your people are fantastic. In fact, hopefully they'll stay around for the long haul. I'd like to keep as many as we can. They're great, smart, sharp, right?
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (31:43):
Yes. A hundred percent.
Donald Trump (31:43):
Finding things that nobody would've thought of, very computer savvy.
Elon Musk (31:47):
Yes. We're working with the card, to get that the Trump Gold card operational hopefully in the next week or so.
Donald Trump (31:57):
That'll be very exciting.
Secretary of Labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer (31:58):
Incredible.
Administrator of SBA, Kelly Loeffler (31:58):
Really exciting.
Donald Trump (31:59):
That's a pathway to citizenship into the United States.
Elon Musk (32:04):
It's a big deal.
Donald Trump (32:05):
Yep. It's a big deal. Thank you very much. Great job your doing.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (32:08):
Thank you, sir. Thanks to your leadership and setting the mandate of transparency and accountability across the US government, I'm bringing that transparency and accountability to the intelligence community first and foremost, to make sure that you and your Cabinet have that real-time, relevant, apolitical objective intelligence to best inform, whether it's negotiations for peace, negotiations around tariffs, the great work that you are leading around the Cabinet today.
(32:38)
Secondly, working with Department of Homeland Security and the FBI to increase our information sharing to achieve your goal of countering the narcotic trafficking and our ability to go after cartels now designated as foreign terrorists. I met with the National Sheriffs Association this week, being able to work to make sure that the information that they are getting on the ground, that local law enforcement is getting on the ground, is being fed back up through to our National Counterterrorism Center, and that we have all of the federal agencies, state, and local law enforcement all on the same page as we are working to make our country safe again.
(33:16)
And lastly, sir, as you know, declassification and rooting out weaponization, politicization of the intelligence community is a huge priority. You know more than anyone else the very dangerous and negative consequences of that. I've got a long list of things that we're investigating. We have the best of the best going after this, election integrity being one of them. We have evidence of how these electronic voting systems have been vulnerable to hackers for a very long time and vulnerable to exploitation, to manipulate the results of the votes being cast, which further drives forward your mandate to bring about paper ballots across the country so that voters can have faith in the integrity of our elections.
(34:02)
And lastly, we've been scanning, I've had over a hundred people working around the clock to scan the paper around Senator Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. These have been sitting in boxes in storage for decades. They have never been scanned or seen before. We'll have those ready to release here within the next few days.
Donald Trump (34:25):
That' great. Bobby, how do you feel about that?
Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (34:28):
I'm very gratified to you.
Donald Trump (34:31):
That's hitting close to home, isn't it?
Secretary of Homeland Security Krisit Noem (34:32):
Yeah, no kidding. Yeah.
Donald Trump (34:34):
I'm thinking about Bobby when that statement's made.
Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (34:37):
I'm very grateful to you, Mr. President.
Donald Trump (34:40):
Good. And you'll let Bobby see some of this because it's very personal stuff, but it's time.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (34:51):
I've asked him. I've asked him, and his responses, "Put it out. The world needs to know the truth."
Donald Trump (34:58):
And his uncle, that's been out. And anything that hasn't been out, they can go to your office offices and see. Right?
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (35:06):
Everything that we have within our possession, it's either online or it's physically at the National Archives and Records Agency. We also have hunters going out, Mr. President, and looking in the storage lockers at FBI and CIA and other agencies, specifically to find if there is anything else that has not been reported. We're actively going out and trying to search out the truth.
Donald Trump (35:30):
Okay. Yep, we want to get it all out.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard (35:33):
Yes.
Donald Trump (35:33):
A hundred percent. Good. Thank you very much. Good job, Tulsi.
Administrator of SBA, Kelly Loeffler (35:38):
On behalf of America's manufacturers, I want to thank you for standing up to the Chinese Communist Party and fighting for our main streets, for our workers, and for those that make things in America. I'm out on a Made in America manufacturing tour, and as I go across the country, people are grateful to have a president who's not just fighting on the tariffs fronts, but to get inflation down, to create jobs. After Biden destroyed 110,000 manufacturing jobs in just his last year, you've already brought back thousands and thousands of manufacturing jobs. So the American worker is grateful. Main Street is grateful for you.
(36:15)
And at the agency level, we're making sure that manufacturers have access to the capital they need, but we can't do that if we're not fighting fraud. So we've modified our loan applications to have citizenship verification to make sure we have birth dates, common sense principles around lending that the Biden administration had waived. They waived $450 million of fees in one year. We're restoring that for the American taxpayer. And the American taxpayer, as Tax Day approaches. April 15, they need to know that this Cabinet, this administration, and thank you Elon Musk and DOGE for fighting for the American taxpayer to make sure that their hard-earned dollars are well spent, that they have a return on investment for this country, and that we're fighting for them just as you are every single day. So thank you, Mr. President.
Donald Trump (37:03):
Thank you very much.
Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (37:04):
Mr. President, we are working at HHS to advance your agenda to make America healthy again. I'm working with Lee Zeldin to reassess the fluoride rules based upon the August release by the National Toxicity Program of new science that shows a direct inverse correlation between exposure to fluoride and IQ loss, particularly in children. Lee and I were in Utah this week, to announce that Utah became the first state in the country to ban supplemental fluoride. I'm working with Brooke, and governors now in 24 states who are advancing MAHA legislation to get soda pops off of the food stamp program, off the SNAP program. We've launched
Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (38:00):
Operation Stork Speed to get the bad chemicals out of baby formula. We're working with governors across the country to get good food into the school lunch programs and to get rid of food chemical dyes and other bad chemicals in our food. We've shown now that this directly affects academic performance, violence in the schools and mental health as well as physical health. We are working with governors across the country to get cell-to-cell… Or bell-to-bell legislation to restrict the use of cell phones in schools, which again, dramatically impacts academic performance. Today we announced a dramatic reduction in animal testing at NIH and the FDA. And we're going to switch over to AI, which we've now found is much more precise in identifying the impacts of toxics in various products. We're working with Elon who's done an incredible job to eliminate the redundancies and to streamline operations at all the health agencies. And to recalibrate our trajectory to your agenda of making America healthy again.
(39:24)
And finally on… The CDC has done an amazing job at getting the measles outbreak under control. We have about 680 cases now in 22 states compared to the same outbreak in Europe, which is 127,000 cases and 37 deaths. Our numbers in this country have now plateaued. And I want to thank CDC for that. And we're trying to refocus the press. We've had three measles deaths in this country over 20 years. And we're trying to refocus the press to get them to pay attention to the chronic disease epidemic as you've asked us to.
(40:06)
We have now… 38% of American youth are pre-diabetic. This was unknown 30 years ago. Every child that becomes diabetic, there should be a headline about them. We have a hundred million adults who are pre-diabetic or diabetic. And we have, as you… We have now, the autism rates have gone from… Now, the most recent numbers we think are going to be about one in 31 from one in [inaudible 00:40:36]. So they're going up again from one in 10,000 when I was a kid. And we are going, at your direction, we are going to know by September. We've launched a massive testing and research effort that's going to involve hundreds of scientists from around the world. By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we'll be able to eliminate those exposures.
Donald Trump (41:04):
[inaudible 00:41:05] so big. Think of that. So it was one in 10,000 children had autism and now it's one in 31. Not 31,000, 31. That is a… That's a horrible statistic, isn't it? And there's got to be something artificial out there that's doing this. So you think you're going to have a pretty good idea, huh?
Secretary of HHS, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (41:27):
We will know by September.
Donald Trump (41:29):
There will be no bigger news conference than that. So that's a… If you can come up with that answer where you stop taking something, you stop eating something, or maybe it's a shot. But something's causing it. It can't be from 10,000 to… Can you imagine that, Marco? That's a big number. Thank you very much. You're doing great. Thank you, Bobby. Please [inaudible 00:41:55].
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Well, Mr. president, one of your primary administration goals is to make sure that we unleash American energy. And of course the strategy behind that is when we do that, it helps make it more affordable for all Americans. Energy isn't just a industry, it is the foundation of every other industry, whether it's food, manufacturing, clothing, transportation. And then also when we've got the ability to generate and not just be energy independent, but energy dominant, then we have the opportunity to sell energy to our friends and allies versus them buy it from our adversaries. And our adversaries were funding terrorism and conflicts against our allies by their oil and gas sales that were going through a Swiss chief set of sanctions. So with your creation of the National Energy Dominance Council, over half the people at this table serve on that. Everyone has been engaged, whether it's interactions with negotiations with other countries, with putting sanctions in place that actually work, with cutting deregulation, working on biofuels, building infrastructure for transportation. There's a whole range of things that are being tackled.
(43:06)
But when in… The outcome of all that is is that you're… The Biden administration was restricting supply. You're increasing supply. When you increase supply, then prices start to come down. And we have huge opportunity to do this. Just in interior alone, there's 500 million acres of surface, 700 million acres of subsurface and 2.5 billion acres of offshore. And the Biden administration was trying to restrict this so that you couldn't get the timber lease. You couldn't cut a tree, you couldn't graze a cow, you couldn't develop oil and gas minerals, and you couldn't develop the critical minerals we need for our technology, for our defense industries and to be able to help us win the AI arms race against China. So we're opening up this.
(43:50)
And with your executive orders and your work we've… On Tuesday, historic day, you ended the war on beautiful clean coal, which has been going on since Obama took office. China gets 60% of their electricity from coal. They've opened up 94 gigawatts of coal in the last year as part of this AI arms race. 94 gigawatts. That's enough for 94 Denvers to be able to… One gigawatt per metro area like that, it's unheard of. So we have an opportunity under your leadership to come back. The Gulf of America had its first offshore lease sale, which is scheduled for later this year. But that was… The industry loved that because we're now… The Gulf of America is now open for business again. And there's as much as 7 billion barrels of oil accessible now. They've increased the upside of what they think that is.
(44:46)
On the coal front, the estimate is the financial value of the coal in America is $8 trillion. That was an asset on the balance sheet that we've now being put back on again. And of course in Alaska with your separate executive orders to unleash Alaska energy between ANWR, the North Slope, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Alaska, all of those, we've reversed Biden's decision. Those are all open for business again. And all of this is leading to the investment coming to America. The smart money is coming to the U.S. That's why we've got trillions of dollars of investment that are showing up at the door because they know if they're going to do manufacturing here, there's going to be energy to power their plants. And so again, thank you for your leadership and thank you for everything you're doing.
Donald Trump (45:34):
Very good. Thank you. Marco.
Marco Rubio (45:35):
Well, Mr. President, one of the most important things I believe you'll achieve in your presidency is reordering the world in a proper way. For 31 years, more than 31 years now, multiple administrations have allowed the Chinese to de-industrialize this country, to take away jobs and factories and pillars of our national strength. And what you're doing now, I think is a great service to our country, but ultimately to the world. And I want to congratulate you and your team that's working on that because it has extraordinary geopolitical implications as you see from all of these other countries that are now coming here and wanting to join something that actually… It's just crazy to allow these… I mean, basically we lived in a world where Chinese companies can do whatever they want in America, but our companies cannot do anything over there unless they allow it. And even then they steal our stuff and reverse engineer it. So just reordering all of that has dramatic implications on peace and security of the world. So we thank you.
(46:26)
An important meeting, thanks to you, is going to happen on Saturday. For the first time in a long time, there'll be direct talks between Ambassador Witkoff and a top-level leader in Iran. We hope that'll lead to peace. You've been very clear what Iran is never going to have is a nuclear weapon. And I think that's what led to this meeting and we'll wait for him to come back from it. And we're hopeful about that.
(46:43)
I would also say that we are receiving, and I think the Department of Homeland Security can confirm this, historic cooperation from countries all over the world. Number one, in taking back their citizens. Every country in the world has to take back people that are illegally in another country. And we have countries that refuse to do it or kind of ignore our calls. All of them are doing it. The ones that are not are paying a price. And we've also found cooperation in other countries that are willing to take some of these people, some very dangerous criminals. I know the president in El Salvador will be here next week, has really been a good friend of the United States in that regard. These are some of the worst people you'll ever encounter. And Pam knows this, and Christie knows this from the work they're doing.
(47:22)
And one last point I want to make, Mr. President, and again, it's under your leadership. It's actually under your executive order. If you come to this country as a student, we expect you to go to class and study and get a degree. If you come here to vandalize a library, take over a campus and do all kinds of crazy things, we're going to get rid of these people. And we're going to continue to do it. So when we identify lunatics like these, we take away their student visa. No one's entitled to a student visa. The press cover student visas like there's some sort of birthright. No, A student visa is like me inviting you into my home. If you come into my home and put all kinds of crap on my couch, I'm going to kick you out of my house. And so that's what we're doing with our country, thanks to the president.
(47:58)
And last but not least, very important development this week, but both Pam and I are very excited, the finest higher education institution in the United States, The University of Florida, is also now the National Champions in basketball. And we hope you'll host them here soon Mr. President. Go Gators.
Donald Trump (48:12):
They're coming. They're coming.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
Good for the SEC.
Donald Trump (48:14):
[inaudible 00:48:16].
Speaker 4 (48:14):
Congratulations.
Donald Trump (48:17):
Well, thank you very much. You're really doing a great job. We appreciate it. Any question?
Speaker 5 (48:21):
Mr. President, can you give us a reaction to today's stock market drop and also give us a sense of the next steps with China?
Donald Trump (48:29):
Well, I haven't seen it because I've been here for two and a half hours, so I'll be seeing it. I think Scott wanted [inaudible 00:48:36]… Scott, do you want to have a statement on that?
Scott (48:40):
Sure. Look, the up two, down one is not a bad ratio or up 10, down five. And I think as we have talked about, as we go through the queue and settle with these countries who are going to bring us their best offers, we will end up in a place of great certainty over the next 90 days on tariffs. But we had very good inflation numbers today. Oil's down. We had a successful bond market. So I don't see anything unusual today.
Speaker 5 (49:11):
And next steps for China, sir?
Donald Trump (49:13):
Well, we'll see what happens with China. We would love to be able to work a deal. They've really taken advantage of our country for a long period of time. They've ripped us off beyond anybody. Nobody… How people stood for it sitting in my position is not even believable. And we're talking about many presidents, not just a couple. But they did and all we're doing is putting it back in shape. We're resetting the table and I'm sure that we'll be able to get along very well. I have great respect for President Xi. In a true sense, he's been a friend of mine for a long period of time. And I think that we'll end up working out something that's very good for both countries. I look forward to it.
Speaker 6 (50:02):
Mr. President, China retaliated today by reducing the number of American films that can be shown there. What's your reaction to them now targeting cultural exports from the United States?
Donald Trump (50:13):
I think I've heard of worse things than that. Yes, [inaudible 00:50:23].
Speaker 7 (50:24):
Mr. President, also on China, the Ukrainians say they have evidence that Chinese soldiers are being found fighting for the Russians in Ukraine. Can the U.S. verify this? And if so, what does the U.S. plan on doing to China to combat that?
Donald Trump (50:37):
We'll look into it, but I think beyond that, we're really looking to get that war stopped. They're losing 2,500, and even more than that, young people a week. They're Russian and they're Ukrainian. They're not American, but they're people. And we're seeing if we can get it stopped. And I think we're making progress. I appreciate the ballerina who was released that was at the request of a very good friend of all of ours actually. Dana White called me and he said, "It's the friend or the relationship of one of the fighters for UFC or one of the fighters." And Dana is an incredible guy. And we spoke to President Putin about it, and they made a deal. They released the young ballerina and she is now out. And that was good. So we appreciate that.
(51:28)
We hope that we're going to be able to make a deal relatively soon with Russia and Ukraine to stop the fighting. It's so senseless. It's such a horrible thing. It would've never happened if I were president, but it did happen. And we were given that card. And I think we're going to get it stopped. Got to get going. We got to get it… We have to move it faster. Likewise with the hostages, we're making progress. There's 59 hostages, but only 24 of them are living. And that's the way it's been presented to me by the mothers and fathers of some of the dead hostages. And they want the bodies of their baby, as they say, their baby, their young boys. They want them back as much as if they were alive.
(52:19)
It's amazing because when I met the hostages two weeks ago here… I couldn't believe what they had to go through, by the way. But when I met them, they said, "Yeah, there's 59, but 24 are living." And they actually consider, I guess if you're a parent, you do consider it this way, that the remainder who are dead, the 24 that are alive, the remainder that are dead, they want them back just as much as they would want them back if they were alive. It's really pretty amazing and pretty sad. So we're getting close to getting them back. We have… A lot came back. A lot of people are very grateful. And some came back in pretty bad shape. Some came back, they're okay. I think they're going to be scarred mentally for a long time because if you sit down and talk to them as I have, what they went through is incredible. But we're making progress. We're dealing with Israel, we're dealing with Hamas, and it's a nasty grip.
Speaker 5 (53:21):
Mr. President. So how close are you to the first country coming to actually make a deal with the United States over terrorists? Is it days, months, [inaudible 00:53:31]?
Donald Trump (53:30):
Well, I think it's very close, but we have to have a deal that we like. We don't want a deal that's going to be a bad deal or I could make every deal in one day if I wanted to. I could do this all in one day. I could just say, "Here's what we'll do." And I was saying to the people before, to Scott, mostly to Scott and Howard and some of the other people that work with us on the negotiations, we have a lot of law firms that have paid me a lot of money in the form of legal fees. We're going to probably use those firms to, if we can… I think we can. I'll make a contribution to the country.
(54:06)
But they're great firms. They're the best firms, the biggest and really the most prestigious. And we may be using them to help you guys out because you're going to need a lot of lawyers. And I'm not sure if Pam's going to be happy if I say, "Can you send over about 200 lawyers that work on trade?" She's working on criminal stuff, and I think that's going to be her focus more than anything else. So we'll find out if we can do that.
(54:29)
But we have a lot of lawyers that you've been reading about where they paid a hundred million dollars a firm on average. Now we have the final four or five are at 125 million [inaudible 00:54:42]. So I have a lot of legal fees. I can give it to you people. But, and we might as well use them. Hopefully, I won't need that many legal fees or that much. I may, who knows? After it ends, after we leave, maybe I'll need it. But if I do, it's not going to be very pleasant. So I think we're going to try to use these very prestigious firms to help us out with the trade because we have a lot of countries. But we want to make deals that are proper for the United States, not just… We can make deals easily. We want to make them proper.
Speaker 6 (55:13):
Mr. President, if you aren't able to reach the deals that you want to see at the end of the 90 days, will you put those higher tariffs in place or will you extend the pause?
Donald Trump (55:21):
Well, that's what would happen. I mean, if we can't make the deal that we want to make or we have to make or that's good for both parties… It's got to be good for both parties.
Speaker 6 (55:30):
You wouldn't [inaudible 00:55:31]?
Donald Trump (55:31):
And then we'd go back to where we were.
Speaker 6 (55:33):
You'd go back to the numbers that you announced last week?
Donald Trump (55:34):
Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 6 (55:35):
You wouldn't extend the pause?
Donald Trump (55:36):
Yeah. We'll have to see what happens at that time.
Speaker 6 (55:40):
Thank you, Mr. President.
Speaker 8 (55:41):
Mr. President, you said yesterday you were considering some exceptions for companies. Can you talk about what you're considering? And then also on [inaudible 00:55:48] of the tariffs going to be substantially lower, is the same math formula going to be used or is that tossed out?
Donald Trump (55:55):
I'm not considering now for any country or company, but it's possible that I would. But I'm not… We don't have that situation right now. People understand where we are, what we're going to do. But it could happen. It's called flexibility. You have to have a certain flexibility.
Speaker 5 (56:13):
Mr. President, what are you planning on using the money to [inaudible 00:56:18] the tariffs on?
Donald Trump (56:20):
Paying down national debt, reducing taxes, creating good budgets, helping Christie with the border and all of the other things we built. I built hundreds of miles of wall as people now understand, 571 miles of border wall in the first administration. But we're going to beef it up and we're going to add more. And the numbers are incredible. Really, the numbers are… What's taken place. We had great numbers, but these numbers are topping my last administration. And Christie and Tom Homan have done an amazing job, but it's an expensive process. This weekend
Donald Trump (57:00):
Where they used to have hundreds of thousands of people standing there pouring through the border in Tijuana, Mexico, this weekend they had nobody. You had a man sweeping this massive piece of concrete, which is the area where they said massive. And I've looked at that, during the Biden administration, you couldn't see a piece of that concrete, there were so many people on it. If you had helicopter shots, you couldn't see concrete. Now, this weekend, you had nobody there but a man with a broom sweeping it and cleaning it up, pretty amazing. It's really an amazing job. But it will be used for that, it'll be used for a lot of things. It'll be used by the Department of Justice for doing a great job. Pam is doing a fantastic job. So it's going to be used for a lot of different things.
Speaker 10 (57:53):
Mr. President, on the 10% tariff, is that the-
Donald Trump (57:57):
It's a baseline.
Speaker 10 (57:58):
Can countries negotiate that to bring that down?
Donald Trump (58:01):
It depends on what they're adding. Some countries we have massive deficits with, or they have big surpluses with us, and others it's not that way, so it depends. They're all different, every country is different. Some have certain advantages that others don't have and certain things. China has a surplus of $1 trillion dollars. The numbers are crazy, and others have basically no surpluses. We have some that are pretty even, but they hurt us in other ways and we just want to get that taken care of. So everyone is a little bit different.
Speaker 9 (58:42):
Will you negotiate with the EU as one bloc or individual nations for the tariffs?
Donald Trump (58:49):
We're looking at it as one bloc. They've been very tough, but they were very smart. They were ready to announce retaliation, and then they heard about what we did with respect to China and others, but China, and they said, "You know, we're going to hold back a little bit." Decided they decided to hold back. I thought they were very smart. Look, the EU is very smart, but they really have taken advantage of the United States. They were formed for the purpose of taking advantage of the United States. And I don't blame them and I don't blame China. I don't blame anybody. I blame the people that were sitting at that desk in that other beautiful Oval Office for allowing it to happen. Many presidents I blame. They should have never allowed it to happen. And I'm doing something that a lot of them wouldn't want to do, but I'm here. I do those things and we're going to make this country great again.
(59:43)
We were taken advantage of by almost everybody. I sat back… in the last administration, I would actually read. I don't have to read them now, I know them so well. I would read some of these documents that were signed deals and I said, "Who would do a deal like this? Who would do it?" You've seen it, Elon.
Elon (01:00:02):
I did.
Donald Trump (01:00:02):
I'd look at deals where it's so one-sided. Even we have a deal with Japan and we get along great with Japan and we had the prime minister here. He was fantastic. As you know, Abe was great, Shinzo was great. He was a good friend of mine, unfortunately no longer with us, but we defend them, but they don't have to defend us. I said, "That doesn't sound too good," but we have a deal where… a defense deal. We pay hundreds of billions of dollars to defend them, but if for any… in other words, we pay all the money, they don't pay anything. But if we're ever attacked, they don't have to do a thing to protect us. I said, "Oh, that sounds like a wonderful deal." So that's just one out of thousands and I just wonder who did this? And it's people that either hate our country or didn't care. An expression that you use, I think it's really, a lot of them didn't care.
(01:01:08)
It's just hard to believe how bad they are. Now that's a little bit of a defensive deal, but I'm talking about trade deals. It's the same thing. They're so bad, you would say, "How come?" And even when I'd renegotiate, I'd go to a country, they'd give me everything I asked for. I said, "Why didn't somebody ask for it originally?" They give me everything. I think when they were negotiating, they didn't care or they didn't ask or they were shy or they were very stupid or they hate our country. Yeah, go ahead Jeff.
Jeff (01:01:41):
You were speaking about Japan. Can you clarify what your vision is for U.S. Steel? You referenced it yesterday.
Donald Trump (01:01:45):
Yeah.
Jeff (01:01:45):
There were some questions about what you actually want.
Donald Trump (01:01:50):
Sure. Look, U.S. Steel is going to do very well now because of tariffs and I don't know why they even need a deal. But the only thing is U.S. Steel, if you go back 80 or 90 years, that was a behemoth in this. That was our biggest, most… if we were around, we would've been very proud of it. Today we have different types of companies that are big. Google, it's not the same as U.S. Steel. And I love Google and I got to like the people that run it, very capable people. They didn't like me so much in the first administration, but they like me a lot now. I don't know what happened, but I like them. But I think they would be the first to admit, when I envisioned… you look at some of those steel factories from 90 years ago, we were… it was a different kind of a country. But they were miles long. Today you see just empty hulks. Those hulks are going to be filled up very soon because of what I'm doing With tariffs. It was a different kind of a thing.
(01:02:47)
But if I didn't do that in the first term, my first term, if I didn't put tariffs on, we would have… because China and others were dumping steel, billions of dollars of steel. Our steel companies were all closing every factory. We wouldn't have one steel plant open. And now we have a steel industry there that's doing very well, but soon it's going to be thriving, really thriving, and those factories are going to be filled up. But more importantly, they're going to build brand new ones. Nucor and so many other companies call me, Nucor being a big steel company. They're building massive new steel plants and it's great.
(01:03:25)
And, likewise, car companies. We have many, many car companies. Three of them… I'm not looking to hurt Mexico and I like Mexico. And by the way, I think the new president is a terrific person, a fantastic woman. We've had many conversations. She's a very elegant, just a fantastic person. And she's been very nice, very, very nice. But I'm not looking to hurt them. But we have three car plants that were under construction in Mexico. They stopped constructing and now they're going to build in the United States because of tariffs. See, we should have never let this happen because whoever it was that was president at the time, we lost 90,000 plants and factories since NAFTA. 90,000. It's not believable. How about that, Lori, you're in that sort of world of factories and plants.
Lori (01:04:20):
We're going to build back manufacturing, construction jobs and bring those workers back home.
Donald Trump (01:04:23):
That's right. We're going to bring them all back. But think of it from that period of time, which isn't so long ago. We lost… I said the other day, if you had a map on a big wall like this, and if you had pins, 90,000, I don't know if you'd have enough… I don't think you'd have enough room on the map to put the pins. 90,000 factories that we've lost since NAFTA, and it's not even… and about 6 million jobs, really. I think probably a lot more than that, but they say 6 million jobs. We're going to bring many of that back, many. I think we're going to bring more than all of it back. We're going to be better and stronger than ever before.
(01:05:03)
But if a president, when they were leaving said, "Look, you can leave, but if you're going to build a factory someplace else and you think you're going to come and sell your steel or your car or any product that you make, your pharmaceuticals," which we're going to do, we're going to get them all back. But if you think you're going to just… All they had to do is say this and they wouldn't have left. I said it the other day, I said it with respect to… I made a speech a year ago and I told them, "If I win, we're going to charge a big, big tariff at the border," and people were thinking about building in Mexico, a car plant, and I said, "We're going to have a big tariff, so if you want to build a car, you're going to have to pay 25% more than the cost of that car. You're going to have to pay 25% tariff at the border." They would've never left. They could have kept everybody.
(01:05:53)
If a president said, "If you leave this country, you leave Michigan, you live Detroit, you leave any of the… anybody, any of our states, because to me, they're all the same. I love them all. I love them all, and I probably won them all, but… They say I won most of them, but I think I won them all, but that's okay. But all you had to say if you were the president is, "If you leave and you think you're going to now fire all those workers, leave all that, everything behind, and you're going to build in another country and sell it any… No, you're not going to. You're going to pay 50% or a hundred percent tariff," they would've never left. And Marco is rooting… All you had to say very simply is… you don't have to write it down. All you have to do is say it verbally.
(01:06:40)
"If you leave, you're going to pay a hundred percent tariff. Therefore, don't leave." They would've never left, but they left 90,000 plants. I mean, it's hard to believe that many. You can't envision it. So just getting back to your… because I'm the great weaver of all time, you know. To weave, you have to be a genius, too. Go on tangents. Anybody can do that. But we'll get back to your original U.S. Steel. U.S. Steel is a big name in this country. Babe Ruth is a big name. We have a lot of big names, but not too many. U.S. Steel is one of the great names in the history of our country. And normally I wouldn't mind so much, I wouldn't be thrilled with it, but to buy for a foreign country, and we love Japan, but for a foreign country to buy that cherished U.S. Steel brand, that's hard for me to do.
(01:07:37)
I mean, somebody else may want it. The company Nippon that's involved with it is a big powerful company who do a good job, but why can't they just build a plant themselves? I mean, why do they have to take U.S. Steel? So as you know, I rejected the deal. Now they've come back in a different form. They're coming back as an investor. And I feel better about that, I guess, but I know them very well know. I know the thinking. It's the investor. They'll invest and somebody else may be sitting in this chair and they will no longer have an investment. They'll have the whole thing. And that's the way it works. Very smart. They're very, very smart people. We're dealing with very smart people throughout the world. Great geniuses, actually. Look what they've done to our country.
(01:08:25)
And again, I don't blame China, I don't blame anybody. If I could have done it, if I were in that position, I'd have great respect. I have great respect for the people. They ripped off the United States and all we had to do, have a president that knew what the hell was going on, and none of those countries would've left those companies. None of them would've left. So, that's a little lesson in basic business and it's really basic business. It's not complicated business. It's very basic business. And we'd have every one of those car plants going just the way they were 30 years ago. None of them would've left, but now they're coming back.
Speaker 11 (01:09:05):
Mr. President, the Labor Department has confirmed that $400 million went to fake people for unemployment benefits.
Donald Trump (01:09:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 11 (01:09:12):
What's your sort of your initial reaction?
Donald Trump (01:09:13):
I think it's terrible. I just heard it from Lori and I appreciate it. And you heard it from Elon's people, right?
Lori (01:09:21):
That's right.
Donald Trump (01:09:23):
Elon's done a fantastic job. Look, he's sitting here and I don't care. I don't need Elon for anything other than I happen to like him. But I'm telling you, this guy did a fantastic job. I don't need his car. I actually bought one because… and they said, "Oh, did you get a bargain?" No. I said, "Give me the top price." I paid a lot of money for that car, but honestly, he makes a great car. You know what I do with it? I let the people in the office drive around in it. Margot, Natalie, they're all… Chamberlain, they're all driving around the most beautiful car. It's gorgeous. But I did that as a sign of just a show of support. Numerous people have done that. Just a show of support. Because, you know, he's done a fantastic job, but he hasn't been treated properly. Hasn't been treated properly.
Speaker 12 (01:10:16):
Mr. President, can you talk to us about your communications with China? Has President Xi reached out at all since the tariffs?
Donald Trump (01:10:22):
Well, I don't want to say who's reached out. I just say that I think it's going to work out, hopefully well. They're very big. It's hard to get over. If you're me, what they've done to our country. They've destroyed our economic base to a large extent. The good news is we're very vibrant and we're going to get it back fast. We already have. Look, we're making $2 billion dollars a day now. And during Biden, we were losing $3 billion dollars a day. Biden was a disaster. He was the worst President in the history of our country. And to me, worse than that, because the money you can make if you have the right guy in this position… worse than that was what they did on the border by allowing the jails of the world, not South America, all over the world, to be opened up so that we take everybody from Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, the bad ones.
(01:11:26)
They opened up their jails and they dumped them in the United States. And now this beautiful young woman who seems to be… boy, she loves what she does, though. I think she loves what she does because she's a patriot. She hates to see it and Tom and all the people. But for us to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to… this is just, I don't know. Either… again, they either hated the country or… Who would do this? Who would want millions of people to pour through an open border. We have no idea who the hell they are and just walk right through. And half of them, whether you like it or not, you could look at them and you could say, "They are not going to help us." These are some rough people.
(01:12:07)
But they'd empty out their jails and they'd empty out their mental institutions, insane asylums, and they let them into the United States of America. And inflation we can fix, and all of the other things we can fix, we'll get it going. But this is something… it's such a horrible thing and it's really hard. We have to do deportations now. We're doing self-deportation. We're coming up with all sorts of ideas, and they must have known it's not going to work out well. And, you know, we want people to come into our country, by the way. We need them badly for the jobs, but we want them to come in legally. They have to come in legally. They have to show that they can love our country.
(01:12:53)
Thank you very much everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Speaker 13 (01:12:55):
Mr. President, Democrats are making allegations about market manipulation.
Donald Trump (01:12:55):
Thank you. Thank you very much, yeah. Nobody's ever done this [inaudible 01:13:25].
Speaker 14 (01:12:55):
We just had a 3-hour [inaudible 01:13:32].
