Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters Aboard Air Force One En Route to Joint Base Andrews, Maryland

The President. Hello, everybody.

Q. Good evening, sir.

Q. Mr. President.

The President. Nice plane. Everyone having a good time?

Q. Yes.

The President. We'll be back in Washington soon.

Q. Yes, sir.

The President. I think we have a lot of good news to report, and you'll be hearing about it. Probably not now, but you'll be hearing about it.

We've had some good things coming out of the many war zones that were created by Biden and a group of incompetent people. But I think we have some pretty good news, so we'll talk about that later—or tomorrow.

Any questions?

China

Q. Any plans to speak with President Xi this week?

The President. No. No plans to speak to him, but China and our people are talking about different things.

Yes.

The President's Nomination of Michael G. Waltz To Be U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations

Q. Why did you decide to move Waltz out of his position as the National Security Adviser?

The President. I actually think it's a higher position, if you want to know the truth. I think it's an upgrade. I think moving him there is an upgrade.

Former National Security Adviser Michael G. Waltz

Q. Mr. President, during the NewsNation town hall, you said that you didn't make any mistakes in your first 100 days. Was appointing Mike Waltz as your National Security Adviser a mistake?

The President. No, it's irrelevant. It's not a mistake, or not a mistake. It's not a big deal.

Q. So what why did you lose——

The President. He was fine. And where he is, he'll do a good job. No, I don't consider that——

Q. What made you lose confidence——

The President. I didn't lose confidence in him. I just——

Q. So what was the——

The President. Why did I lose confidence? He's going to the United Nations represent—to me, I think it's—personally, if I had a choice for myself of doing, I'd rather have that job than the other.

Former National Security Adviser Michael G. Waltz

Q. Did he resign on his own, or did you want to remove him?

The President. He didn't resign. Didn't resign.

Q. So what was the——

The President. No, I just moved him. There was no resignation.

Q. Mr. President——

The President. You people are so bad.

[At this point, several reporters began asking questions at once.]

You know, you're trying to make a big deal out of something that's nothing. You are so bad.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

That's why nobody watches you anymore. Who are you with?

Q. Mr. President, I'm with——

The President. Who are you with?

Q. I'm with Hearst. I'm with Hearst.

The President. You're with who?

Q. Hearst TV.

The President. Hearst. I didn't know there was such a thing.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Trade Negotiations/Tariff Rates/China-U.S. Trade

Q. Sir, are any trade deals coming this week?

The President. It could very well be.

Q. Can you tell us more about it? [Inaudible.]

The President. Nobody understands. We're negotiating with many countries, but at the end of this, I'll set my own deals, because I set the deal. They don't set the deal. I set the deal. They've been ripping us off for years. I set the deal.

Q. Sir——

The President. Every country, almost without fail—friend and foe—has been ripping us off for years. So we're meeting with almost all of them, including China. And at the end, I'm setting the deal.

They keep saying, "When are you going to"—this is not like a big deal that's going to be signed. In some cases, we'll sign, but we don't have to have signing. I'm going to be setting the deal. I'll be setting a tariff. You keep asking the same question: "When will you agree?" It's up to me. It's not up to them. It's up to me.

Now, they don't have to deal with us, which is okay, because we lost—under Biden, we were losing $5 billion a day. Think of it: $5 billion a day. Now we're not dealing with China at all because the tariff is so high that they basically can't deal. And because of that, we're saving billions of dollars, you know?

But just—and I'm not saying this to be a wise guy with you or to be mean. I don't want to be mean to you. You're, you know, a good professional, but you do keep asking me that same question. It's not like we're going to sit down in an ivory room and we're going to just—he's going to sign. There'll be some of that. Very little. I don't see a lot of it.

At some point in the next 2 weeks or 3 weeks, I'm going to be setting the deal. I'm going to say that such and such a country has had a tremendous trade surplus—surplus their way—with us, and they've taken advantage of us in various ways, and we fully understand what they were doing. We were being led by people that were not very smart. They were able to be taken advantage of, but I can't be taken advantage of.

So, at a certain point, I'll be just setting a certain tariff number.

Global AIDS Treatment Programs/U.S. Foreign Aid

Q. President Trump, on—on PEPFAR, sir. On PEP——

The President. Say it.

Q. On PEPFAR, AIDS treatment in Africa. There's a waiver in place, but people are saying to my colleagues that they're still not getting medicines. And UNAIDS says——

The President. Well, that shouldn't be happening. But the other thing, other countries should be helping us with that. And I'm a big fan of getting that solved, but you know, we're the only country. Where are the other—where is France? Where is Germany? Where are these other countries? Nobody does anything but the United States. And we spend, you know, billions and billions of dollars, so they should be helping also.

But, as you know, we did a waiver. You know that, right?

Q. Right, but they're still not——

The President. Well, I can't help that, because if we did a waiver, then you have to get your people to act properly in the waiver. But I do ask: Why are we the only country doing it?

Judicial Nominations/Immigration Courts/2024 Presidential Election

Q. Mr. President, what's your timeline on the rest of your judicial nominations? And what's your criteria when you're picking judges?

The President. Which nominations?

Q. The future judicial nominations for the Federal judge positions.

The President. Well, we're putting them in rapidly, and we're trying to get very good ones. I mean, we need judges that are not going to be demanding trials for every single illegal immigrant. We have millions of people that have come in here illegally, and we can't have a trial for every single person. That would be millions of trials.

The people elected me in a landslide, with every single—we won every swing State. We won everything there is to win by big numbers. Not only swing States, we won the popular vote by millions of votes. They elected me. This was the number one issue, and now we have judges that are radicalized and they're—they're crazy, because they want us to have—if you believe this, they want us to have a trial for every person that came in illegally into our country.

So they come into our country illegally, and then we're supposed to take weeks, I guess, and months to have a trial on every criminal, and we have murderers all over the country? I don't think the Supreme Court will stand for that. I can't believe it, because, you know what? If they do, we're not going to have a country.

Q. Yes, sir. How will you make sure that your judges——

Q. Mr. President——

The President. Go ahead.

Judicial Nominations/Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. How will you make sure that the judges that you appoint are different than that?

The President. All you can do is do the best you can. You know, you—try and appoint the best people to being judges or anything else that you appoint. But so far, you know, we've been very disappointed with the decisions that come out, and mostly from the people appointed by others than me.

But it's just so hard to believe that you have a murderer—many—you know, we have 11,888—or whatever the number is, but we have thousands of murderers in this country. We're getting them out, and they say: "We don't want them out. We want them to stay in our country until they have a trial." Trials take years. They take years. It's so crazy. We won't have a country left. We can't have that happen.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Wall Street Journal/Russia

Q. Is there any update on——

The President. Who are you with?

Q. The Wall Street Journal.

The President. That's what I——

Q. Is there any——

The President. Boy, you people treat us so badly. Wall Street Journal has truly gone to hell. Go ahead. You're a rotten newspaper.

Q. Are there any updates on——

The President. Did you hear me, what I said? It's a rotten newspaper.

Q. I heard. Are there any updates on talks with Vladimir Putin?

The President. I wouldn't tell the Wall Street Journal, because I'd be wasting my time. There are talks, but I don't want to talk to the Wall Street Journal about it.

Look, Wall Street Journal is China-oriented, and they're really bad for this country.

Go ahead.

Q. You say you want a fair deal——

Q. Just one on Mexico's President.

China-U.S. Trade

Q. You say you want a fair deal with China. What does a fair deal look like that you want them to agree to?

The President. Well, you know, I want a fair deal with China, but China has been ripping us off for many years. So maybe something should be thought about. You know, a little bit of retribution. China has been ripping us off for many years, ever since they started. To me, I think it was the worst thing that Richard Nixon ever did.

Q. Is there a number that you want to see from them?

The President. And it was Nixon. You know, he's the one that got it started. And they've taken advantage of——

Q. Is there a number you want to see?

The President. No.

Mexico/U.S. Counternarcotics Efforts

Q. Mexico's President is claiming that you offered to send U.S. troops into Mexico, and she said that she didn't want them in Mexico. Is that true? Can you tell us about those conversations?

The President. So Mexico is saying that I offered to send U.S. troops into Mexico to take care of the cartels. She wants to know: Is that true? Do you think I'm going to answer that question?

Q. That's why I'm asking. We'll see.

The President. I will answer it. It's true. Absolutely.

Q. And why would you do that?

The President. Because they should be—they are horrible people that have been killing people left and right, that have been—they've made a fortune on selling drugs and destroying our people. We've lost 300,000 people last year to fentanyl and drugs. They're bad news.

Yes, that's true.

If Mexico wanted help with the cartels, we would be honored to go in and do it. I told her that I would be honored to go in and do it. The cartels are trying to destroy our country. They're evil. And you know, we had 300,000 people die last year from fentanyl and all of that. We had hundreds—we had millions of people brought into this country that shouldn't be here. The cartels brought them in.

So, if she said that I offered to do that, she's a hundred-percent right.

President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo of Mexico

Q. And are you disappointed that she denied that request, that she doesn't want U.S. troops?

The President. Well, she's so afraid of the cartels she can't walk. So, you know, that's the reason. And I think she's a lovely woman, but—the President of Mexico is a lovely woman, but she is so afraid of the cartels that she can't even think straight.

Product Availability

Q. Sir, on Friday, you told Kristen Welker that maybe a little girl this Christmas doesn't need 35 dolls, maybe they just get along with 3.

The President. Oh, you—let's—not get into this. What a—all I'm saying is that a—that you don't—that a young lady, a 10-year-old girl, 9-year-old girl, a 15-year-old girl doesn't need 37 dolls. She could be very happy with two or three or four or five.

I would—I wouldn't—let's not waste a lot of time on a stupid question.

What else?

Q. Mr. President, what do you tell this girl whose parents can't afford any?

Florida

Q. A Florida—bill looking—is looking to rename part of a Palm Beach roadway after you. It's now heading to Governor DeSantis's desk. What do you make of that?

The President. Well, if that—I don't know about it, but I'm honored if that's the case—if they're going to name a road after me. If that's the case, I'm honored. Thank you very much.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Go ahead.

National Security Adviser Appointment

Q. Who are you considering to be your next—who are you considering to be your more permanent National Security Adviser?

The President. Well, I have a lot of people that want the job, I can tell you. It's—I mean, a lot of people say it really works in with what Marco is doing. But we have a lot of people. I'm going to be naming somebody, but we'll make a——

Q. What's the timeline on that?

The President. I would say within 6 months.

Q. Would you like Rubio to be permanent in that position?

The President. He would do the job permanently, but I don't—I think it's—you know, it's an appropriate job.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller

Q. Are you considering Stephen Miller——

Q. India and Pakistan—India——

Q. Are you considering Stephen Miller for that position?

The President. Stephen Miller is at the top of the totem pole. I mean, I think he sort of, indirectly, already has that job, you understand, because he has a lot to say about a lot of things.

Q. India and Pakistan——

The President. He's a very valued person in the administration, Stephen Miller.

The President's First 100 Days/Inflation/Interest Rates/News Media

Q. As we've reached a hundred days, what do you see as your main agenda items for the next hundred days?

The President. I think we had the greatest hundred days in the history of our country for an administration. I think we've done more. We've gotten rid of woke. We're strengthening up our military.

Think of it, 6 months ago, we had the worst numbers in the history of our military for joining up—joining our military and police. Now we have the best numbers we've ever had. Just think of that. It's not even possible.

Inflation is down. All costs are down. Everything is down, other than, as Tristen [Kristen; White House correction] said, the thing that you carry the babies around in, but that's up 3 percent.

Q. You mean a stroller?

The President. Energy is down. Gasoline is down. Nobody has ever seen anything—far ahead of schedule.

So people that were paying a lot for groceries, they're paying a lot less.

And interest rates are even down. You know, we have a very stubborn Fed, but interest—I mean, the Fed should lower them, but you know, that's okay. But interest rates are down. Mortgage rates are down. Been pretty amazing.

So we've done, I think—I don't think there's ever been a better opening hundred days. We have a lot of fake polls, where they interview Democrats, not Republicans, but—meaning more Democrats.

I had a pollster that's said to me—a legitimate pollster, John McLaughlin—top person—he said he's never seen polls that were so fake before, where they overweight the Democrats. And I only bring that up because I think it's something that should be said.

It's a shame how dishonest the media is. The media is corrupt, and they're dishonest, and they're so bad for our country.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you. Thank you.