Remarks During a Cabinet Meeting and an Exchange With Reporters

The President: Hello, thank you very much. Are you all set? You all ready? Nice group, big group. But I want to thank you all for being here as we prepare to celebrate Labor Day when we honor the incredible hardworking men and women of our country, which is doing very well, I have to tell you. Every policy of the Trump Administration is designed to lift up the American worker, promote great paying blue-collar jobs and to rebuild the industrial bedrock of our nation.

It's also obviously for great defense. We have the greatest military in the world. We relt—rebuilt it largely in my first term. Uh, some of it was stupidly given away to Afghanistan—for what reason, nobody can figure that one. But uh it was still a relatively small amount of what uh—if you compare the concept—. The concept of what they did, however, is just incredible.

But the country is doing well. We're respected all over the world like, uh, like never before probably.

We went to NATO, as you know, and they went from 2% to 5% of GDP. Nobody expected that. And the difference is they didn't pay the 2 and they paid the 5. So, and as you know, we are selling a tremendous amount of equipment to NATO. We're not spending any money. We're making money. But I don't want to talk about making. I want to talk about we're no longer uh involved with funding Ukraine, but we are involved with trying to stop the war and the killing in Ukraine.

So we're selling missiles and military equipment, millions and millions and ultimately billions of dollars to the uh NATO people where I'm very friendly and we have a great relationship. But that was an amazing trip. So, they're funding the entire war. We're not funding anything. I think it's an important point to make because a lot of people don't understand that.

And we will continue to do that. And we're trying to get as much as we can for them. They want the American product. The American military product is by far the best in the world, and that's what they wanna get. They have lots of options, but that's what they wanna get. So, we're—the factories are doubling up and tripling up where they make the Patriots and other, other, uh really, you could say, defense and offensive weapons.

The wages for blue-collar workers are now rising at the fastest rate in 60 years, which is so important to all of us around this table. The average American worker's already seen a $500 wage increase this year. And there's no inflation because there's been decreases, tremendous decreases with uh, thanks to [Secretary of the Interior] Doug [Burgum] and [Secretary of Energy] Chris [Wright] and some of the people, the great job they've done with energy. Thank you very much. And Chris, thank you very much.

I see you're down close to $60 a barrel, and you'll be, you'll be breaking that pretty soon and that has a huge impact. So, we have groceries are down, uh, energy is way down—energy is way down. It was $4 and $5 for a gallon of gas. Think of that for ga—for gasoline. And now it's probably 2.25. There are some places it's $2. It's even—it broke $2 at a couple of locations in the South.

Uh, in places like California, where they charge such high taxes, it's higher, but it's still much lower than it—what it was a year ago.

So, energy's way down. Groceries are way down. Eggs are way down, thank you very much, Madam Secretary. You've done a great job. Appreciate it. When we came in, the eggs were through the roof. They were four times higher than they've ever been. And my first question from you people, "What're you gonna do with eggs?" I said, "What's the problem with eggs?" That was caused by Biden or whoever was, whoever was operating the autopen actually caused it, I guess because I don't think he knew too much about eggs.

Factories are booming compared to before I took office. Uh, domestic auto production is gonna be—it's ahh, it's gonna be so thrilling in two years when you see the numbers because they're building plants all over the country. They're all coming in because of tariffs. They don't wanna build—they don't want to pay the tariffs. And if they build their plant here, they don't pay the tariffs. And they're pouring into our country. And you know about AI, and you know about other, but the auto plants, you know, that's the good old-fashioned stuff that I love. Uh, the auto plants are pouring into the United States of America.

They're coming from Mexico, they're coming from Canada, and they're coming from Europe, all over Europe. And, uh, it's been pretty amazing. So, factories are booming. And when they actually open—you know, right now, they're booming in terms of construction.

This is something given to me by Mark Zuckerberg, and you'll see this is AI now. These are—I never understood. I said, "Well, you know—" because I built shopping centers, and for $50 million you can build a very nice shopping center. So, I never understood when they said "50 billion for a plant—" I said, "What the hell kind of a plant is that?" But when you look at this, you understand why it's 50 bill—. So this is one he's building in Louisiana. That's Meta, Facebook as people understand it to be. But look at that. That's the size of Manhattan. So that's superimposed over the island of Manhattan. It takes up a big part of Manhattan. I think they say 81% of Manhattan. So these are big things and they're going up. A lot of 'em are going up now. I don't know that big. Actually, Mark is building four of 'em and others are building similar places.

And when these things open up, I'll tell you what, our country—We're leading China now in AI, substantially leading China. And the reason is because we're letting them build their own electrical facilities. We would need double the energy that we we—. If you take all of the electricity that we produce right now in this country, you'd have to multiply it times two or maybe three. Three times. So three times more than we have right now for everything to operate your toaster and everything else. Okay? Three times more. And the way we are able to succeed—because China goes out and builds these massive plants. They're right now building 58 coal, in this case, almost all coal-fired plants. And coal is back with this country too, by the way.

You know, there's a reason they use it— because it's good. It works for them. And we call it clean coal. We don't call it coal. We call it clean, even very clean coal. But we have coal going up. We have nuclear going up. Nuclear is very much in vogue now. It's safe and inexpensive and great.

We don't allow windmills. We're not allowing any windmills to go up. I mean, unless there's a legal situation where somebody committed to it a long time ago, we don't allow windmills and we don't want the solar panels that I was speaking with the secretary about, because they take up, you know, thousands of acres of our farmland.

You see these big ugly patches of black plastic that comes from China. And the solar is—you know, I like solar in some ways, but for firing up your big plants, it doesn't work. Ah, It's very uh unstable, but it really takes up your farm. The farmers are saying—you know, they're building these massive blotches in the middle of the fields all over the country. It's so crazy. It's so crazy.

So we're not heavy into that at all. And windmills, we're just not gonna allow 'em. They ruin our—they're ruining our country. They're ruining everyone – if, if you look at uh— I hate to mention countries, but you look at the UK, what's happened at UK, they have—energy costs have gone through the roof.

It's because of wind. They want to do everything. Close up the north uh—the northern parts of the country. They have oil. It's tremendous. And uh, they closed it up and they've bi, been building windmills all over the place. I tell them, "You're my friends, but man, you're gonna have a bad awakening very soon. You're gonna— it's gonna be very bad."

And, they're ugly, they don't work. They kill your birds. They're bad for the environment. And if you look at 'em from a house, your house is worth less than 50%. So I'm trying to have people learn about wind real fast and I think I've done a good job, but not good enough because some countries are still trying and they're, they're destroying themselves. Those are countries that are really destroying themselves. I hope they get back to fossil fuel because right now, Chris, whether we like it or not, fossil fuel is the thing that works. And then you can add nuclear with it and other things, but fossil fuel is, uh, what works if we're gonna fire up those big monster factories.

But the uh—if you look at comparing everything before I took office, domestic auto production is up 18,000 cars a month, and we haven't even started yet because a lot of these plants aren't built. It's up 18,000 because Ford, General Motors and a couple of others, Stellantis, they're taking their existing plants and they're—as quickly as they can, they're adding on to 'em. So when their plants open, 'cause they're building big, modern, beautiful auto plants.

But think of that, we're up 18,000 cars a month and essentially all they've done is try and utilize their space correctly as their big plants open up. It's uh, gonna be—I hope they remember that it was this way. I hope this table gets a lot of the credit for what's happening— gets all of the credit, because this would've never happened.

We were going out of business in every way. We were losing—all the car plants were leaving this country. Now they're all coming back in. And they are coming from Canada and they are coming from Mexico, but they're coming from Germany. They're coming from all over the world.

Domestic steel production is up by 100,000 tons of steels a week—steel a week.

We are—we have a 50% tariff on steel, aluminum and various other things. Copper just got brought into the picture. And that means people are gonna want to make steel here. We just made a deal with US Steel—as you know, we have an outside company come in, spend $17 billion on building new plants, new everything. It's great. And it stays right here in America. So we're doing amazingly well on steel.

And domestic oil production is up by more than 300,000 barrels a day. That's a lot of barrels, and you're gonna be talking about that in a second, I think, Chris and Doug. These two people have done a fantastic job, and we have, uh, we have the oil price down to about $62 a barrel.

So just so you understand, because a lotta you like to talk about costs and prices, but I watch so much fake information. Product costs are down, energy is way down. Energy brings things down. You know, with energy, that's what happened with Biden. He stopped our program and then he went back to it when he realized that, uh, it looked like you were gonna be paying uh, numbers that nobody's ever seen like $7 a gal—You're gonna pay $7 a, a gallon. They were up to 7, 7 and a half—So then he immediately went back to the Trump plan that they terminated, but it, ah, was too late for them. It was too late. They blew it. They had a great thing going. I gave them something great and they blew it.

Uh, Since the inauguration, we've created over half a million new private jobs. And if you notice, when the numbers come out, government jobs are going down and private jobs are coming up, and that's what really fuels the country. It's easy to hire people and pay 'em for doing something that maybe, ah, is not very productive. But government jobs are down, actually substantially down, and private jobs are way up. And these are the jobs that make money and create a better life.

Meanwhile, we've reduced the number of uh, federal bureaucrats by 84,000. So we got rid of 84,000. And I think the job numbers—you're gonna see, the new job numbers are gonna be through the roof because of all of the different businesses that are moving into our country. And not just production businesses, autos and AI, but, uh, any business you can think of. In the world of furniture, as an example, North Carolina, I went there many times when I built a lot of hotels and things. And I'd go to North Carolina, I'd buy the greatest – they, they were the greatest, most talented people. And then ah, China came along and took all of those jobs away. If they would've tariffed 'em, China wouldn't have taken any of the jobs. But we had presidents that, honestly, and I like some of 'em, but they didn't know what the hell they were doing from a business standpoint, from running the country.

And North Carolina—the most talented woodworkers that you've ever seen. I could – I, I'd be there and I'd watch them. I'd say, "I'd like to have a rail on that chair, maybe can you fancy it up a little bit?" "How about this, sir?" [making noise:] Shir, shir, shir. And they'd hand me a thing. It was like they were artists. They were unbelievable.

And, uh, that business was stolen from us by others. Not only China, but by others. All of a sudden, you're ordering your furniture from China. And, and, it was not even close to being as good, but they couldn't compete with it.

And, if we would've said it costs 100% or 200% tariff, you wouldn'ta lost one job. It's so sad. But we're gonna rebuild North Carolina furniture and other places, South Carolina too, to a lesser extent. Uhhh, they make furniture. But. Uh, furniture, we're gonna put a very substantial tariff on. We've already announced it. It'll be done pretty quickly.

And when that happens, everyone's gonna start—I'll just tell you, North Carolina, go out and start getting the grandchildren and the children, start teaching 'em. Because some of those incredible artists that I knew as young people, they're older people now, but they still have the talent, and they have time left, but they're gonna be teaching their sons and their daughters and their grandchildren, and it's gonna be a beautiful thing to see. It's gonna happen like magic. It's gonna happen without question. It's not like, "Gee, I hope it happens." It's gonna happen.

Uh, the results of Ford that just announced it's gonna create 4,000 new jobs, American jobs. Hyundai, 14,000 jobs. General Motors is moving production of the sheh [sic] Chevy Blazer and Equinox from Mexico back to the United States where it belongs. Don't forget, we lost 55% of our auto production over the last 35 years. Fifty five percent. We were the auto capital of the world. Uh, like there was nobody even thinking about challenging us. We lost 55% of it to Mexico, Canada, China, a lot to China and other countries.

Ahh, and it's all coming back. We will be bigger. A couple a years, we'll be bigger than we ever were. We'll be more dominant. We'll be bigger. We make great product too. We're starting to make really great product. We're gonna be bigger than we ever were. We're gonna be at the level that it was when we were the only one that really—we sold to the world and we're gonna be back, uh, selling to ourselves and other parts of the world. It's not gonna be the same, but it's gonna be equally as important as it was in the heyday 30 years ago.

But we lost more than 50% of the auto making capacity. In fact, the unions, the auto unions, as you know, the top guy didn't know me, didn't like me, and now he likes me. He says, "Man, I can't believe whats—what Trump has done." But the auto workers voted for me. They understood better than anybody else. The auto workers, the Teamsters voted for me. Teamsters are great. They all voted for me. They, we— no Republican has ever gotten the support of the Teamsters and the auto workers. And now the head of the auto workers, I mean, it's so amazing.

I watched them on television, there. They can't even believe what happened. And I told 'em all what was gonna happen. We uh secured new market access for American agricultural exports all over the world. Our Secretary is doing a great job. Thank you, {Secretary of Agriculture] Brooke [Rollins]. And we have negotiated historic trade deals with the United Kingdom, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, who was here yesterday, and the European Union.

Foreign nations are now paying hundreds of billions of dollars straight into our Treasury and uh numbers that nobody's ever seen before. As you know, we made trade deals with a lot of countries and many of those countries, uh, just to be able to sit at the table, are paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. We made trade deal with the European Union. They were rough on us for a long time. And now we have a very good deal. Made that with them. Uh, trillions of dollars is coming into our country. Trillions. Far beyond billions. Trillions of dollars, wouldn't you say, [Secretary of the Treasury] Scott [Bessent]?

Scott Bessent: Yes, sir.

The President: And in a short period of time. They have to buy $750 billion worth of our energy product. Energy is great. We have more than anybody else and we're using it. But uh the European Union is a done deal and Japan is done. And uh I heard there was a problem with South Korea, but we met yesterday and they're done. We didn't do any—we just kept the same deal. He honored the deal. They wanted to see if—Well, I don't even want to say it, but they wanted to see if they could do something. Uh, but they honored the deal, which is nice.

And uh we cut the previous record-setting trade sef [sic] uh deficit, uh, I hear just came out. We cut it in half already. We haven't even, we've only been here really for a few months because, you know, it takes you a little while to fix up the Oval Office and do those things—prepare for the—to prepare for the battle, right? [Laughter]. So we've really only been here for a very short period of time. And we cut the uh trade deficit in half, is that right [speaking to Treasury Secretary across the table]? That's so fantastic. I didn't think we—I didn't even think we were gonna do that.

And remember, these are things that are—being built. These things are—all these numbers up here, they're not open yet. When they open, you're gonna see things happen in the United States that nobody's ever seen before, including our country in its heyday.

And I had the greatest uh economy in the history of our country my first four years, despite COVID, which was very unfortunate situation for the whole world. We did a great job with it. Never got the credit for the job we did.

Operation Warp Speed, people say is that one of the greatest achievements ever in politics or in the military because it was almost a military procedure.

But uh everybody, including Putin, said that Operation Warp Speed, what you did with that, nobody can believe it. And uh we did a great job, but it was still—it was a horrible, a horrible pall over our country. We had a very dark cloud over the world. That was a very, very bad thing that came out of Wuhan, which I said it came out of Wuhan. That's where it came from. And China suffered greatly, but everybody did.

But we, uh, we did a good job with that, as good as you can possibly do. And we came back, and now we're stronger than ever before. Uh, if I didn't win this election, this country was gone. I'm telling you, economically, it was gone. None of the things that we're talking about would've happened. And the whole world was robbing us blind. Friend and foe, they were stealing our jobs, our money, our factories. They were stealing everything. We would've been a shell. We would've been a bankrupt broken shell. And that's the way it is. But we're doing just the opposite, stronger than we've ever been.

Last month in a landmark achievement, I also proudly signed the largest working-class tax cuts in American history. So, the bill that—I'm not gonna use the term Great Big, Beautiful—that was good for getting it approved, but, but it's not good for explaining to people what it's all about. It's a massive tax cut for the middle class. It's a massive tax cut for jobs. And uh, and, it's—I mean think of it, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security.

So seniors, I don't know how you can vote for anybody else, and uh, you know, just think of that. And no tax on overtime. So you work overtime, you don't have to pay tax on overtime. That's good. The Democrats don't know what they're gonna do. So, they have like this sound bite—you know, they have all these soundbites. They send it out. I don't know, some guy sends out a word and everybody uses it, including the fake news. Some of you are here right now, I'm looking at you.

And it's death. They use the word death. No, it's actually life. It's almost like a newborn life. It's not death. That's their soundbite. The bill is death. It's not.

We strengthened Social Security. We strengthened Medicare, Medicaid. The job we've done on Social Security is—if the Democrats got in, Social Security is over because the country's gonna fail. There won't be any Social Security. And, uh, I made that pledge to you. We're gonna take care of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and we're doing that in spades because the country is becoming so successful again, and it hasn't been this successful.

I think in the end, it will never have been this successful. I don't think it'll even be close with what's happening. Every American is seeing a tax cut as a result of the bill. The average police officer will keep an extra $1,000 a year at least in overtime, and the average waiter or waitress will keep nearly $2,000 extra in the fact that they would've had to pay that kind of money on tips.

And I never realized that the government was so strong on that. But, uh, waitresses, waiters would tell me that, uh, the government would go after them. It was, it was horrible. That's how it all started with me. It just was incredible.

And the biggest thing was, again, the $4 trillion that they found. They said, "Well, that was nice." They should've announced it. I coulda told them that. And I don't know, it should be simple, but a lot of people didn't understand it. Actually, a lot of good people didn't understand it. But now they're saying, you know, Trump was right. They've never seen anything like this. And I don't know what it is, Scott, they didn't understand, uh, what we were trying to explain to them was gonna happen.

Everybody's moving back to the United States because they don't want to pay a tax. If they don't—if they're not here, they have to pay a tax. And it didn't seem that complicated. But it's working at a level that nobody can imagine. You know, this is working $4 trillion. But that's a big number. It's a number that nobody ever heard of before, but— Four trillion's exciting, but that's nothing compared to what's happening because these places haven't even opened yet. Some of 'em haven't even started hiring yet. They're under construction.

So it's construction jobs, but it's not the big number, which—and the big numbers, when they open, they're gonna be very successful. It's a revolution.

We're also working on things to ensure that the awesome power of artificial intelligence is used to benefit all Americans, including American workers and also American children. In that spirit, our wonderful first lady has just announced a presidential AI challenge. It's gonna be a very good challenge, I can tell you—she's put her heart into it—which will inspire the next generation to stay on the cutting edge of this vital technology.

This is the new internet, uh, the new computer, the new television, the new everything all put together in one. This is why when I show you a picture like that [reaches for picture of proposed Meta building displayed before]—I mean, I show you this. This is a factory superimposed over the island of Manhattan. And you have many of them being built right now all over the country or soon to start, some of 'em. Some of 'em have started. This one has actually started. That's in the great state of Louisiana.

But the First Lady's [Melania Trump] working very hard on this, and it's an important initiative. And, uh, Melania, when she puts her mind to it, uh, nobody could do better. There's nobody. So, uh, every young person should go to AI.gov to learn more. AI.gov to learn more. And you'll see it's a great challenge. I think it's gonna be a very modern kind of a challenge. It involves AI, which is very exciting to people. So I want to thank her; raise a lot of money for children.

We're putting America first and we're gonna be putting the America worker first. And you know, the Republican Party has picked up four million new people. Four million. The Democrats have lost two and a half million. Other than that, they're extremely happy.

No, they're very depressed. They're very depressed. And, and their new box that they've fallen into is crime. Uh, there was a consultant on one of the shows this morning I was watching. I thought he was very good. He's a Democrat consultant and he was screaming, "No, no, don't let him do this to you. Don't let him—It's another trap. It's another trap." What he's talking about, like men playing in women's sports. They said, "That's an 80/20." No, it's a 97/3. It's 97/3. Like transgender for everybody. Uh, they fought for it. They're still fighting for it.

I saw a guy today, a politician that you all know very well, fighting like hell for men playing in women's sports. "You don't understand. They're human beings also." Well, I agree, they're human beings, but you can't have a seven-foot guy playing basketball with the women. You know? Just one of those little problems in life. And, uh, we all have our place. That's okay. I've got my place too. But. Uh, this guy's screaming, "It's another trap." And this is the worst of all. He said, "Because this is crime. Trump is saying he's against crime." And they're for crime.

No. He's going—it was funny, "No, it's a trap. Don't do it." And then I saw this poor, stupid [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer, the guy, he looks like he's aged 100 years. And I don't like getting into looks. You know looks don't mean anything, right? When you're in politics, looks don't matter. I look at [Attorney General] Pam [Bondi], I would never say she's beautiful because that'd be the end of my political career. Lori Chavez-DeRemer], Secretary [of Labor] and—but I will tell you, this is the best of all. And they're gonna fight me.

Like the slob of a Governor you have in Illinois [J. B. Pritzker]. This poor guy got thrown out of his business by his family. I know the family. I was partners with the family, nice family. I like the family, but he wa—he was no good. They threw 'im out. He's Governor of Illinois and he goes, about Trump, "We don't need his help." Chicago is the worst. These places are really bad.

Crime in DC was the worst it ever was. They make up stories. Crime in DC was the worst ever in history. And now, over the last 13 days, we've worked so hard and we've taken so many—there are many left—but we've taken so many criminals, over 1,000. I watched a man, ah, from Maryland, who said to me, I mean "Sir, you're the greatest president. You're doing an unbelievable job. What a great job." [ Maryland] Governor [Wes] Moore, has anyone heard of him?

Audience: Mm-hmm.

The President: He's another hopeful for president. I don't think so. But I met him and I didn't realize it was on camera. He—did you see, they caught him on camera? I was at a game, I don't know, the Army-Navy game or something. And I met 'im in a hallway. And as usual, you do your job very well. One of these great cameramen had it on tape. But I met this gentleman, I never met him before. "Sir, you're doing a great job. You're doing an unbelievable job. Thank you very much."

But then he goes on television and says, "Oh, Trump is a dictator. He's a dictator." And a lot of people have heard—so the line is that I'm a dictator, but I stop crime.

So a lot of people say, you know, if that's the case, I'd rather have a dictator." But I'm not a dictator. I just know how to stop crime. And, uh, you would think that Illinois, where they have such a problem with crime, such a bad Governor. He should be calling me and he should be saying, "Could you send over the troops, please? It's out of control."

Audience: That's right.

The President: It's out of control. In New York, it's out of control. Not as bad as Illinois, by the way. Not even close. In California, you would've not had the Olympics had I not sent in the troops, sent in the National Guard. They did a fantastic job. We had the Olympics, we have the World Cup coming. I got them in my first term and I was really sad because I said, "Oh, boy, I got them and I won't be President."

And little things happen. Thank you, God. Thank you. [Twists as if to look upward to God.] [laughter] Little things happen. Think of it. I got—you could ask [FIFA President] Gianni [Infantino]. Gianni would tell you. He's the head of World Cup. He's a great guy, too great commissioner. But he's the head of the World Cup. He said, "Trump is the only reason we're doing this." And the sad part is that I was not gonna have it. I would have to be—probably, I wouldn't have even been invited to the game depending on who's President, right? And I got that.

I did not get 250, okay? The 250th anniversary, I did not get. I'd like to claim it, if I might. But I didn't get that. Whether I was president or not, it was still 250. I'd like to take credit for it. What I will take credit for is we're gonna have a better celebration under Trump than you would have had under some stiff. That I'll take care of. We're gonna have a safer place, [Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi [Noem], because of you and ["Border Czar"]Tom Homan and everybody.

So we have 250 coming up. We have the World Cup coming up, which is like having 45 Super Bowls, and uh, we have the Olympics coming up. So we're gonna have a very exciting three and a half years remaining. We're gonna have a very exciting—it's gonna, it's gonna be done properly.

So, I just want to tell you, our country's in incredible shape. Our military is strong and powerful and respected. Our—we had some fantastic uh decisions from the Supreme Court that let us put the people into the military and other businesses that are best for the job, as opposed to some woke reason that uh was killing our country. That was a very strong, very powerful – Uh, you, you can now go into a company based on your ability, as opposed to being forced in based on some factor that cannot make our country great. That was a big decision. Very, very big decision.

And we've had a lot of great decisions and we've all made some great decisions sitting around this table. I want to thank [Treasury Secretary] Scott [Bessent], unbelievable what's happening financially with you and [Secretary of Commerce] Howard [Lutnick]. And Vice President's [J. D. Vance] involved in everything, and he's been great. And [Secretary of State] Marco [Rubio] has been—really, I think you're born for this job. I don't think you should ever run for another office. [laughter] I don't think you should, really. You're so good at this. He is so good. And uh everybody likes him. You know, everybody likes him. But everybody, much more importantly than like, I think you would say, is respect. They respect Marco. They respect all the people around the table.

So what I'd like to do is uh, I'd like to uh go around the table. You seem to like it. Your audience seems to like it based on ratings. And I want to mention, uh, you know, about crime, because we have a young lady here, Iris of Epoch Times. You're Iris, aren't you, huh?

Iris Tao: Yes, I am.

The President: And I heard you were very savagely mugged in the city. And I'm not gonna let that happen under this Administration. That was last year.

Tao: It was two years.

The President: And would you like to mention what happened?

Tao: Of course. So first of all, thank you Mr. President—

The President: You want to listen to this [inaudible]?

Tao: —for having me here to share my story to the room and to the broader public. My name is Iris Tao. I'm a White House correspondent for NTD, the sister media of The Epoch Times. So more than two years ago, it was a Saturday morning in broad daylight. I was on my way to work and a young man with a black ski mask pointed a gun in my face and threatened me to hand over my phone, my wallet, my laptop and everything else.

And when I refused, he used the butt of his handgun to strike me across the face, in the cheek, or what some people called pistol whip me, before running away. And that has deeply traumatized myself and my family. Ever since, I've never dared to walk in the street of D.C. at night, ever. And my family was extremely worried.

So, Mr. President, thank you so much for what you're doing right now, because —

The President: You're being honest.

Tao: Such incidents involved not just me, but also my family. If he had shot me, I could have died right there in the middle of nowhere without my families or my friends knowing at the age of back then, I think 20, 23, just starting my career here in D.C. without even starting a family. But now I'm very blessed to have this opportunity to —

The President: So you had a gun pointed at your head and you probably figured that he's gonna pull the trigger, because these are animals that don't know what the hell—they couldn't care less. The pulling the trigger to him is a very minor event and I'm sure he's done it before. So, how did you—and you, you did refuse to give it, which would probably—maybe somebody would say that was not the right decision, right? [crosstalk]

But you refused, but I understand that. So, so, and then he hit you real hard.

Tao: Yes.

The President: It's really amazing that you weren't shot though, isn't it?

Tao: I'm very blessed, and that's why having this opportunity to stand here, to share my story today—one, I'm very grateful for God for allowing me to still survive to this day, but also to Mr. President. Thank you for now making D.C. safer—

The President: Thank you very much.

Tao: —for us, for our families, for my parents, on my behalf of my parents, and now my baby on the way. Thank you so much. [applause]

The President: And there are other reporters and journalists —and good people, and you don't have to say it—but that have also been attacked violently, and not violently too, pretty, pretty badly. But uh, and I'll bet you see a big difference in the streets right now. And this is only 12 days. But, uh, people are telling me they're going out to dinner now. They, they haven't—I told the story of my friend, but I have a lot of friends that are going out to dinner all the time now in D.C. and they weren't—they weren't doing it 12 days ago. They would never even think— One of my friends went out five times. It was four times the last time I'm told, now it's five times.

He said, "I love going out to dinner, and restaurants are starting to open again." A lot of 'em closed because, you know, they weren't—Nobody wanted to go into a restaurant, nobody wanted to get to a restaurant or even sit in the restaurant. But you see a big difference now, don't you?

Tao: I do, I do pass by Union Station every day on my way home. And I do feel a lot safer seeing the trucks right outside, seeing the National Guard troops uh, members right outside. It does make me feel like I'm hopeful about D.C. again. And one day hopefully we can raise our family here.

The President: Thank you very much. That's nice. And those are tough troops too. Those are not politically correct troops. We don't have politically correct anymore. We have tough guys, tough people, including some tough women. But we have tough people. And when you look at them, I'll tell you, they showed uh one scene where a bunch of Tren de Aragua guys or whatever, maybe MS-13, maybe MSDNC, OK, because to me they're worse. I think they're worse. MSNBC maybe is worse than Tren de Aragua, [laughter] real scum, real scum, real dishonest people.

But anyway, but uh they went into this gang, I think it was Tren de Aragua, Venezuela. And they weren't nice to this group of people. They were—the gang was calling them, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Get out of here. Get the hell out of here. You're no good. Get out of here. And yes sir, yes sir, yes. These are people that beat up people all day long and they're calling these uh, these soldiers, that's what they are. They're real soldiers. There's no games. I said, "You don't have to be politically correct." And you know the way they used to spit in the face of the soldiers where the soldier's standing like this [mimes standing at attention]. And you'd have some guy or some woman sometimes, screaming at them from one inch away. They're standing there and they're told you cannot do anything. And they start spitting, actually spitting in their face. And I said, "You spit, we hit." And they're totally authorized to do that, all of those things. But your story is great.

And there are other stories here, but they don't have to tell 'em. But some people are ashamed to tell 'em, they don't want to tell 'em. But it's ah, it was like a jungle and it's not a jungle anymore. And it's gonna get so good that, ah, this will be the safest, ah, capital there is. It will be one of the safest places in our nation anywhere. And right now, it's one of the most unsafe places, but not now – uh 12, 12 days ago, it was the most unsafe place in our nation.

And they have to stop issuing false crime numbers because, uh, I mean, I heard the mayor, and I like the mayor. You know, fine. I don't care if I like her or not, if she did her job. I wish you were a horrible person who did her job, but she's probably nice, I guess. I don't care. I want her to do her job.

But they issue false numbers. She said, "Crime is down." You know, before we got— Now they can say crime is down, crime is very much down. But, uh, what they, what they did is they issue numbers. "It's the best in 30 years." Not the best, it's the worst. It's the worst. It's much worse.

And they gave phony numbers and then they fired the man who didn't want to write the phony numbers.

He got fired. And I guess that whole situation is under investigation. Because it's a very important thing, Pam [Bondi}. I mean, if they're gonna give these phony numbers, it's a false, it's a false feeling that you, you get crime, you have to do something about it. And you can't go around saying, "Oh, Washington D.C. is safe," if it's not. It's gonna be very safe very soon. It's very safe right now. You're gonna go out, have dinner, people are going out all over the place. They're walking. People that—I have people that work in government, strong, tough cookies, they can take care of themselves. But, it doesn't help to—it doesn't help to have big, strong muscles and I work out, I this, if a guy's over there with a gun shooting you in your face.

You can be the strongest guy in the world. Guy has a gun, shoots you in the face. It doesn't matter how much you've worked out, how many weights you've lifted, how much—how hard you worked. And, uh, so we have the toughest guys, and we have the best guys. And I'm willing to go to Chicago, which is a big trouble. But we have a Governor that refuses to admit he has problems, huge problems.

Ah, Baltimore—Wes Moore was telling me he wants— "I wanna walk with the President." Well, I said, "I want to walk with you too someday. But first you gotta clean up your crime because I'm not walking—[Laughter]. I'm not walking in Baltimore right now. Baltimore is a hellhole." And this guy, I don't even think he knows it. He's another "candidate for president."

Between him and Newscum, you've got some real beauties, I'll tell you. But if we didn't go into Los Angeles, you wouldn't have the Olympics in my opinion. Uh, You wouldn't have the Olympics. We went in and the Sheriff, the boss, said, "Thank God they're here." You could see his tape. He said, "We were not able to control what was happening." That was the Sheriff. And he said it loud and clear. And, uh, you know they're suing us for going in and cleaning up crime. And yet their own sheriff said—on the first or second night, he said, "We coulda never handled…" That was gonna be—you were not gonna have the Olympics because —or the World Cup—because that would be uh—there wouldn't be anything left.

Uh, they shouldn't have lost 25,000 hours [sic] uh, houses. The water was turned off from the Pacific Northwest, and I was after them and my first Administration—turn on the water, turn it on! Nobody could have believed this coulda happened, but they had no water in the fire hydrants. They had no water in the sprinkler systems that people put up in their ceilings.

There was no water. And yet we have tremendous amounts of water. They send it all into the Pacific Ocean trying to protect a certain little fish. It's not doing well. Because it doesn't do well without water either. And it's not—shouldn't be protected because they have—it shouldn't be a protected species. But I think that's actually just an excuse. I actually think—these people are sick. There's something wrong. So we send hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day into the Pacific Ocean. They turn a valve, and the valve heads out, and we turn the valve back. I actually had to do it using force. We turned the valve back and now they have water, but not as much as they should have because they should—And I'm telling Gavin Newscum by this conversation right now, "Turn the rest of the water on, turn it on."

So things are done that are so sad in this country. A lack of common sense. I like to say the Republican Party is the party with common sense. We're smart, we're sharp, we're this, that. They're smart, but they're radical left people, and they can't help it. They're very smart, but they're radical left and they're destroying our country. But they're not—but they're not gonna destroy it anymore.

So, we picked up millions of people in the Republican Party. They lost millions of people. And I think we're gonna do very well in the midterms.

And I just want to say one other thing and that's medicine. The cost of medicine all over the world is much cheaper than the United States because for years the world pushed us around, including our friends. And, you go to Germany, you go to England, you go to different places and you go to a store and it's sometimes 10% of what we pay in the United States. Because they said, "Nope, we're not paying anymore. You charge the United States." This went on for 25, 30 years. And I invoked favored nations. I said, "I wanna pay the same as they're paying."

And Bobby Kennedy is doing a good job and Dr. Oz is doing a good job. And I, I asked them, I mean, other than the, the basics that they're doing on autism another thing, we've gotta solve that problem because it's crazy what's happening. It's out of hand. But this is their most important thing that can be done is favored nations, Bobby.

And we're not talking about a 25% cut or a 50. We're talking about a fifteen hundred percent cut. Because people go to Europe to buy drugs and they come back with drugs—prescription drugs, normal—I don't mean the bad, bad drugs, I mean prescription drugs, because you can buy them for 10%, 15%, 20% or what—so, they're gonna go up in price.

And I told the countries, and I get along good with all of 'em. I mean, you could ask uh any, any—I get along good with all of 'em. But I said, you know, I told 'em, I said, "You're gonna go up a little bit because it's the world. It's the world." So more people in the world that we have. We're gonna go down a lot and they're gonna go up a little, and it's called equalization. We're gonna have equalization. So we pay the same price as the lowest drug sold anywhere in the world. And I think, Bobby, that's gonna happen pretty soon.

The companies are ready for it. They had a go for years— I was with a very great gentleman from Eli Lilly, I think he's an incredible executive. I, you know, I'll mention the company and I'll mention him because we had this argument my first term and then we had it in my second term. And my second term, I wouldn't stop until I won the point. And he threw up his hands. He says, "You're right. I can no longer defend it. I can no longer defend that a pill that's made by Johnson & Johnson in a factory—in the same factory— in the United States versus a place in Europe or other places, including Canada—" by the way, you can buy it for 10% or 15% or 20% the cost of what we're paying, where we'd pay five, six, seven times more mon—.

He said, "It's the hardest part of my job defending that. I'm not gonna do it anymore." I'm saying than we have to get down to business. And that's a great company. He's done a great job, and I appreciated it. And it really broke the ice because they were sending, well, we have to do research and development.

Well, you have to do it for Germany and all these other countries too. Well, they think the United States should bear it. I mean, I heard this stuff for—and I finally said, "It's over. Now, you have to have somebody that can get these countries to do it." I told them, "If you don't do it, we're gonna charge you a 25% tariff on everything you send into our country."

That's much more money than what we're talking about. Then we have to get the drug companies to do it, and they'll do it because we have tremendous power over the drug companies too.

So we're gonna get it done. I just hope we get it done fast, Bobby, because this thing should go fast. But we're gonna get—the cost of medicine is gonna be a thousand percent. Think of that, not 2%.

And I'll just tell this last story. When I was in my first term, in my last year, I was so proud of myself because drug prices went down for the first time in 28 years under my Administration. You know how much it went down? One quarter of 1 percent and%. And I was so proud of that. And I held a news conference. I think you'll be able to find it, congratulating myself and my Administration because for the first time in 28 years, drug prices went down one quarter of 1%. That little tiny—but it still went down, and I thought it was great.

And then I realized, you know, it's a very complicated business and formula. You've got to be very smart. I said, "We're really getting ripped off by the whole world. The whole world is ripping us off." And what happened is I got on this kick, and I got the drug companies to agree, and I got countries to agree, countries to agree. And they're not agreeing because they think I'm a nice person. They're agreeing because I will put chargen [sic]—charges and costs and tariffs onto them that will be many times more than what they're going to be paying. So, the companies are there, and the countries are there, and we gotta get it done, Bobby. We gotta get it done. And we're gonna have the biggest, uh, price event –now, that's gonna lower Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, this is gonna lower everything because drugs go for everything.

It's gonna have the biggest impact, I think, of anything that can possibly be done. But you're gonna—but your costs are gonna be going down for medicine, for prescription drugs, will be going down at levels that nobody ever thought possible. And that's gonna happen in a matter of a very short period of time.

[Secretary of Health and Human Services] Robert F. Kennedy, Jr: Very short.

The President: And we're all set with the countries, and we're all set with the, uh, with the companies. It's all you need, the two. And the middle man gets cut out. Under this scenario the middle man doesn't exist anymore. That was the other thing. They always blamed the middle man. I said, "Who are the middle man?" Nobody knew who the middle man was.

Speaker: That's right.

The President: They had the most complex formula. It was genius, but they didn't get away with it. So, I'm counting on Bobby. Do you want to start, Bobby? Maybe we'll start with you. You can start with that and then go on to what we're talking about.

Kennedy: We are deep into MFN negotiations, most-favored-nation status negotiations, with uh 14 companies. Howard Lutnick is, uh, a breath of fresh air, and I think he's gonna help us get across the finish line with the leverage that we have from there.

[crosstalk]

The President: They're gonna—they're smart. Don't let them get away with it, Howard.

Howard Lutnick: Well, the combination of Bobby's MFN and the [Trade Expansion Act of 1962 Section] 232 pharmaceuticals, which we launched together, when you put those two together, it really gives Bobby the tools to go execute your plan. So, I'm supporting Bobby as he executes his plan.

The President: Good, right?

Kennedy: Yes, and we were—This Cabinet meeting is supposed to be about working Americans and bringing jobs back to this country and particularly rural America. And I'm, I want to mention the Big Beautiful Bill. Right now, we spend 7% of Medicaid dollars on rural hospitals. So, they're getting the short end of the stick.

It's about $19 billion a year. Under the Rural Transformation Program we give them an extra $10 billion a year. So, we're raising an infusion of cash for rural hospitals and rural communities by 50%. It's gonna be the biggest infusion in the history and it's gonna restore and revitalize these communities. [crosstalk]

And we can't survive as a nation if we don't honor our rural communities. They're the source of our values, our virtues, our character, our economy, our food, and you are bringing that back. You are bringing those communities back. Um,I wanted to talk, because you mentioned the wind farms. We now have an interdepartmental uh coalition, a team, which is [Secretary of the Interior] Doug Burgum and [Secretary of Commerce] Howard Lutnick and [Secretary of Energy] Chris Wright and [Secretary of Defense] Pete Hegseth. We're all working on this issue.

Doug Burgum: And [Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency] Lee [Zeldin].

Kennedy: And Lee—sorry, Lee. We're all working together on this issue. We're meeting together. There are right now 11 wind farms planned that were launched during the Biden Administration, between Maine and Virginia. It's eleven-hundred and thirty towers. These towers are twice the size of the Washington Monument. The blades on them are —

The President: They're massive. It's redicu—it's so crazy. Go ahead.

Kennedy: The blades are 350 feet long, one blade. One of these blades blew up on Nantucket last summer and the water was filled with shards of glass, of sharp glass, so it was dangerous to swim. They had to close the beaches. And, but they haven't indemnified themselves to the local communities—can't sue them. None of these projects are bonded.

If you build an oil derrick in the Gulf, you've got to put a bond down. There's no bond for dismantling them and that's one of the tools that Doug is now using to um, to challenge some of these projects. None of—the, the, the cost of energy from these projects is $0.39 a kilowatt hour. The average cost in this country is $0.17 per kilowatt hour.

The President: And natural gas is 3 cents.

Kennedy: Right. So, it is the most expensive energy. I've been uh, I've representing commercial fishermen for 40 years. They are so excited about what you're doing, Mr. President, because their fisheries are being wiped out. As soon as they begin construction the groundfish fisheries just disappear. The fish leave the area.

They've killed 160 whales in the last two years. They're wiping out the whale population, the Atlantic whale population, the big whales: the minkes, the gray whale, or the humpback whales, the right whales. And you are gonna save the whales on the East Coast because of this. And you're gonna save these economies that are based upon commercial fishing.

I'll say one other thing about fishing. We are now—the South Asian nations are now dumping shrimp on our country. Shrimp is heavily contaminated. We just stopped a shipment that was contaminated with Cesium-157, which is radioactive. They're, they're farming these shrimps, and they use bactericides and antibiotics and all kinds of chemicals. And the shrimp are so contaminated, the European nations won't take them. So, they're dumping them all here and they're putting out of business—we have the most sustainable, highly regulated fishery in the world. What our fishermen do is a good thing. And all the trawlers in the Gulf and Alaska are being shut down because we're getting shrimp dumped here. So we have now increased FDA inspections of shrimp to make sure that Americans are not —

The President: That's great.

Kennedy:—eating contaminated—buying and eating contaminated shrimp and putting our shrimpers out of business.

Um, I talked to some—very briefly, we have an historic agreement on pre-authorization. We brought together 80% of the insurance industry, which has agreed to, for 80% of diseases and injuries to give immediate pre-authorization.

So that when you go to your doctor's office, and he prescribes you a new knee or whatever it is, you will immediately know whether your insurance company's gonna pay for it. This is an historic agreement. People have been trying to do it for decades, and we, because of your leadership, brought the insurance industry together and got them to voluntarily agree to do this.

Similarly, we've made another historic agreement with personal health records. Of the 60 biggest tech companies in our country have all agreed to allow Americans for the first time access to their personal data, which they own, which these companies have been monetizing without permission. You're gonna be able to see, by next year, all of your health records on your cell phone.

It's gonna save lives. It is gonna fuel an infusion of technology into that space, where people can access those records. They can compare their diet to what they personally need, and we'll have personalized medicine.

Um, we are doing trice—price transparency. You passed this during your first term and then the Biden Administration refused to enforce it. We've now brought in HHS, under your leadership and my leadership, more enforcement actions than during the entire four years of the Biden Administration.

The President: Great.

Kennedy: So we're gonna have that kind of price transparency. I'm working with [Secretary of Education] Linda [McMahon] on forcing medical schools and the MCATs, the people who administer the MCATs, the people who do accreditations, to put nutrition into medical school education. Right now, 25% of the doctors in this country do not feel competent to give nutritional advice.

Seventy percent of diabetes cases can be reversed or ended if you just change people's diets, and the doctors don't know how to advise it. They only know how to prescribe the drugs. We are gonna change that. So if you come out of a medical school under the Trump Administration, you are gonna know about diet. And then finally, most importantly, the Pete and Bobby challenge.

I want to give an update. Pete got—or I got five minutes of 48. It's 100 push-ups, 50 pull-ups and you try to do it within 10 minutes. I got five minutes and 48 seconds. Pete beat me. I'm still bitter at that. Five minutes, 25. The cabinet leader is [HUD Secretary] Scott Turner—

[laughter, applause, crosstalk]

The President: That's great.

Kennedy:—he got five minutes and 15 seconds. I'm waiting for reports from the rest of the cabinet. The only exemptions currently existing is if you can hit a 50 at Bedminister [sic], which President Trump did with Bryson DeChambeau. So he's the only one exempt in this room. Everybody else [Inaudible]—[laughter]

The President: That's great, Bobby. Bobby, uh, autism, if I could, just—I don't want to go too long because we have a lot of people. But the autism is such a tremendous, uh, horror show, what's happening in our country and some other countries, but mostly in our country. How are you doing on that?

Kennedy: We are doing very well. We will have announcements, as promised, in September. We're finding, um, interventions, certain interventions now that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism, and we're gonna be able to address those in September.

The President: It's such a big day. I'm looking forward to that day because there's something wrong when you see the kind of numbers that you have today versus, uh, 20 years ago. And those numbers, what are those numbers, Bobby?

Kennedy: Uh, in 1970, the biggest epidemiological study in history was done in Wisconsin. They looked at 900,000 children and they were looking for autism. They knew what it looked like, and they were very, very precise about it. And they found an incident rate of .7—in other words, less than one for every 10,000 children.

Today, our most recent numbers are one in every 31 kids. It's probably actually much worse than that because California, which has the best collection system, is reporting 1 out of every 19 children, American children, has autism, one in every 12.5 boys. So it's gone from 1—less than 1 in 10,000 in 1970, to 1 in every 12.5 boys—

The President: Look at those numbers. So there has to be something artificially causing this, meaning a drug or something. And I know you're looking very strongly at different things, and I hope you can come out with that as soon as possible.

Kennedy: We will.

The President: So 1 in 10,000 and now it's 1 in 31 or 34, or 12, if it's a boy. Can you imagine that, 1 in 12? That's for a boy.

Kennedy: On average, 12.5 boys.

The President: It's not even believable that that could be. And that was 1 in 10,000 not so long ago. I've been hearing these numbers and they get worse and worse every year. There's gotta be something—I think there's nothing including favored nations and everything else, there's nothing that can be—if you can find out the reason that that's happening, and I know we're gonna, we're gonna do some things., I think it's-

Kennedy: We're gonna have that answer for you. [crosstalk]

The President: I think we—I think we maybe know the reason. And I look forward to that press conference, to be with you in that press conference. That's gonna be a great thing. Thank you, Bobby. You're doing a great job.

Kennedy: Thank you, Mr. President.

The President: Linda [McMahon], how about it? And we want nothing less than $500 million from Harvard. [laughter] Don't negotiate, Linda. They've been very bad. Don't negotiate. Go ahead.

Linda McMahon: All right.

The President: Go ahead.

McMahon: All of that's working well, Mr. President, thank you very much. Since we are focusing today on a Labor Day, and I know that Kelly [Loeffler] and Lori [Chavez-DeRemer] are both gonna echo some of the things that I'll say as well. We are really focusing in on our workforce, but what I'm finding with great joy around the country, is that states really are being innovative and working more with middle schools and with high schools to make sure that we are having hands-on learning.

There are pathways to jobs that are happening now. And if we see more and more of our community colleges working with our middle schools and our high schools, so that high school students are graduating not only with a diploma, but a certificate uh that they have worked with, perhaps with a Toyota or another uh company that is coming in, public-private partnerships and they're learning on the job so that when they graduate from high school, they're ready to go into the workforce.

Because we know with all of these wonderful jobs that are coming back into the country through AI, through just our normal jobs that we need, electricians, HVAC operators, et cetera, if we don't have this training, we're not gonna have the workforce we need for all these wonderful jobs. So governors are really excited about this prospect.

Uh, I've been now to several states and visited community colleges and tech schools with governors, and they're just all on board for getting this done. I think it's one of the best things that we're hearing, relative to uh, to the job market. So we're just kind of focusing on that for today.

The President: So we're bringing education back to the States. To put it in a more simple fashion. We're gonna let the states educate our children again. And you know, we're rated—out of 40 countries, we're 38, 39 or 40. So obviously, it's not working, what they've been doing for the last 30, uh 40 years. And if you go back, the best are, like, ah Norway, Denmark, Sweden, ah some of the other—Finland.

They're very highly rated. If you go back to uh—just take a look at anything you want to do, you just look at us, in the past. If we gave Iowa or gave Indiana or gave—and I don't say every one of 'em—

You know, a guy like Gavin Newscum [Sic] is not gonna do well. Uh, certain states won't do well. But even California, you cut it up into sections. You have Riverside, you have this, you have that. You cut it into five sections. And you know, if you had a good Governor, you'd be able to do well. But certain uh states will be able to compete with Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and everyone. It'll be just as good. So I figure you have close to 40 of those states. And then you'll have 10, you'll have five that won't be very good. You'll have five disasters and we'll have to work on those disasters.

But for the most part, we will have education that will go zooming up in those charts, just like we have in everything else we've done. And I think it's one of the most important things we're doing at this table. So bringing education back to the states where you have the parents running it, where you have the school boards, they're local —. We have people running from Washington that have never even been to the state that they're in charge of. They've never even been there, and I don't think they care about it. So we want to close up the Washington buildings, sell the buildings off, let somebody else get rich with the real estate, because ah it will be a crime-free city.

By the way, speaking of that, anybody murders something in the capitol, capital punishment. Capitol, capital punishment. If somebody kills somebody in the Capitol, Washington, D.C. we're going to be seeking the death penalty. And that's a very strong uh preventative. And everybody that's heard it agrees with it. I don't know if we're ready for it in this country, but we have it, it is—We have no choice. So in D.C. and Washington, states are gonna have to make their own decision. But if somebody kills somebody like you could have been killed, very lucky you didn't get killed, it's the death penalty. Okay?

Fantastic job you're doing. Thank you, Linda, very much. Apprecia—how are you doing with the colleges, by the way? You're doing some pretty good work, in terms of getting them to treat people fairly.

McMahon: Well, interestingly enough, since we've been negotiating with some of the Ivy League schools, I have presidents of universities calling every single week. They want to sit down and talk to us about all of the steps that they are taking because they would like to not come under the same ah investigative program and so it is having its desired effect.

The President: That's great.

McMahon: Thank you. Fire a shot across the bow and the big guys, you know, people kind of step in line and know you mean business. And we have teeth in these agreements, and I'm proud of the work that we're doing there.

The President: Well, they misbehaved and some of these schools are getting billions and billions of dollars, and they misbehave. So, that's it. And so, one way or the other, we're gonna win that whole thing. It's, gonna, gonna straighten them out, okay? Thank you for a great job.

Lee, please.

Lee Zeldin: Mr. President, the Trump EPA has a special Labor Day message to America's workforce, especially our auto workers, our coal miners, our steamfitters, our pipe fitters, uh, , and the list goes on. See what a difference a year makes. A year ago, the way that the Environmental Protection Agency was operating, the choice was made, to protect the environment we would have to strangulate the economy.

That's the way that the EPA operated for years. There, there is a binary choice. We had to choose one or the other. The Trump EPA completely rejects that. See, we choose to protect the environment and grow the economy. And a, a very special shout out to, to Russ Vought and his team at the Office of Management and Budget.

We give him a lot of work. He's happy to do it. Uh, dozens of different deregulatory actions. We just announced a proposed rescission of the 2009 Obama EPA Endangerment Finding all of the light, medium and heavy-duty vehicle regulations that followed. It is uh the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States government.

And when you add up the dozens of different actions uh that we have announced and that we're working through—in one agency in one year, we'll do more deregulation than entire federal governments have done across all agencies, across entire presidencies. And what we are accomplishing would not be possible if not for the support of uh the rest of this team you've assembled around this table.

The well-oiled, well-wired machine at the White House led by Susie Wiles and the DCOS-P, [Deputy Chief of Staff to the President] the Policy Shop led by Stephen Miller. Uh, they have been amazing to work with. I was just in Iowa uh with Administrator Loeffler, made an announcement with Secretary Rollins to reverse the deratement uh on diesel exhaust fluid systems.

Uh, Mr. President, you said you wanted water flowing faster. Uh, working with the Secretary of Energy, we've done our part to do that—to get gas cans flowing faster, to stop that annoying start-stop feature in vehicles.

See, people out there might say, "Well, why are you focused on all of these little things?" If it's little to you, it doesn't mean that it's not a very big deal for millions of other Americans. Uh, the charge was clear when you called me in November and you asked me to do this job, clean air, land and water for all Americans, unleash energy dominance, advance cooperative federalism, permitting reform, make America the AI capital of the world, bring back American auto jobs. Uh, what we are accomplishing now, again, wouldn't be possible if not for your leadership.

I'm grateful to the American people for electing you and our amazing vice president. Uh, I was just in Mexico City announcing a—and signing, on behalf of the Trump Administration, an agreement with Mexico uh for a permanent solution for the uh Tijuana River sewage crisis, which you have been so outspoken and passionate about in our conversations. It would not be possible if not for Secretary Rubio, deputy Secretary Landau, U.S Ambassador to Mexico Johnson. The team at the State Department has been incredible.

The work with the NEDC [National Energy Dominance Council] on permitting, ah, to be able to get new pipelines built, to get new factories started. Uh, I, and the list, it's, it's amazing. You know, somebody out there might not appreciate the relationship between the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Defense.

The amount of work with uh, Secretary Hegseth and the Army Corps, from responding to the LA wildfires to getting more water flowing in California, which is also something that Secretary Burgum is involved with, to helping the farmers, the ranchers and landowners to revise the waters of the United States definition, so they don't have to go hire an attorney or a consultant to tell 'em whether or not a water on their property is subject to federal regulation.

Thank you for putting this entire team together. It's an honor, uh, to be at the Trump EPA where we choose to both protect the environment and grow the economy. It's a very happy Labor Day for America's workforce.

The President: And Lee, in Los Angeles, if you could, because of the fires, Lee was there, and, as you know, we have very strict uh federal rules having to do with the rebuilding of those houses. And Lee was able to get the approvals done for everybody immediately. It was so fast, nobody could believe it. And the Mayor and the Governor still haven't gotten them their approvals and they're gonna have riots out there for that reason.

These are great homeowners. They wanna build a house. They can't get approved because you have the mayer [sic], Mayor, Bass, who has no idea what she's doing. And you have a Governor who is just such a bad Governor, and the people are unable to build their house. The toughest permit to get was the federal permit by far, and yet he got 'em all in a short period of time after the fire. How long did it take?

Zeldin: Well, Mr. President, you came in, signed an executive order and told the EPA that we had less than 30 days to complete our hazardous material removal, which uh the initial response, once all of our heart rates went down a bit, was just to figure out how to get it done. We got it done in just less than 30 days.

The Army Corps of Engineers then comes in for the debris removal. The federal government, in clearing over 13,000 properties that were destroyed because of these wildfires. We've got to the point today where property owners all across Los Angeles, they're grateful to the Trump Administration. They're happy that we did our part, but they are desperate to rebuild.

And there is not a single green light approval that they are waiting for from the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers proudly have done our work. It's important for those local officials to let these property owners build on their land. It's their property. It doesn't belong to the mayor of Los Angeles. And they need to represent their peeper [sic], people better. They're ready to build.

The President: When will they have their permits from Los Angeles?

Zeldin: Well, here's the problem, Mr. President, is that they have been ready since the moment we were done with the federal part. I mean, I was visiting a week after—actually, I thought my first trip was gonna be to Los Angeles. However, the moment I got confirmed, the Vice President said, "You're gonna East Palestine right away." [Laughter]

So, that actually ended up being the first visit because the Vice President is so passionate about that from the great state of Ohio. Then we went to Los Angeles from there. Uh, we're talking about the beginning of February where we were meeting with property owners already—they were already all set up. They had the contractors.

They, it was the beginning of February, and they were waiting for green lights from Los Angeles to be able to go onto their property and start rebuilding. Some of the same people who were waiting for a green light ready with the contractors at the beginning of February are still waiting now in the middle of August. Let these Californians rebuild.

The President: They're talking about also taking away some of the properties and building low-income housing on those properties. They're gonna have problems like they've never had before. These people don't know what they're doing. So, we have all, all our permits—everything the federal government has to do was done long ago.

They should've been—I went to a town hall with Lee, but we were there and the mayor was saying it would take two years, maybe three years to get this approved. I said, "No, no, not two years, two days. They should have it in two days." And I toured the site, and I met a hundred homeowners all standing in front of this site—a couple of days after the fire and they were ready to go right then. And they wanted to just build right then, and the city won't let 'em do it. I don't think it's that they won't. I think they're incompetent, okay, to be honest with you. I think they just don't know how to go about it.

It is so badly run by Newscum and by Mayor Bass. Mayor Bass, she was in Africa during the fire. She knew the fire was starting to rage, and she decided to take a trip to Africa. Uh, these people are just—they're just bad. You know, you talk about Make America Great Again, they can never make America great again, but we are doing that.

Uh, congratulations. You found some interesting things, [Director of National Intelligence] Tulsi [Gabbard]. She's becoming a bigger and bigger star every day. She found a lotta good things. Go ahead.

Tulsi Gabbard: Thank you, sir. As we approach Labor Day weekend here, this is just such a great opportunity, really, to recognize your leadership as a true champion for working people. And I know we'll hear, as we go around the table here, how your focus, singularly on putting the well-being and interests of the American people first, is that common thread that we're seeing in your policies being implemented across your Administration.

For ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence], number one, our focus is and must always be making sure that our intelligence community is focused on our mission, keeping the American people safe, secure, and free. Uh, we're doing great work on this front. I'll point out our National Counterterrorism Center led by Director Joe Kent; our working across different agencies with Homeland Security, DEA, FBI, and others to catch terrorists, both those who are trying to come into our country, those who may already be in our country.

They are finding the worst of the cartel bosses and making sure that they're not able to continue to wreak havoc and uh terror in our communities.

Uh, secondly, Mr. President, you have charged me with the mission of finding the truth and telling the truth to the American people and we've exposed some of the worst examples of the weaponization of intelligence in the last several weeks. Uh, I will continue down that mission and that path, wherever it leads. Transparency, telling the truth is what will drive true accountability for the American people, who deserve nothing less.

And lastly, Mr. President, all of us are charged with being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. Uh, I've gone through uh a reorganization for ODNI that we've announced in the—last week. We've cut nearly half of redundant, unnecessary functions within ODNI, saving taxpayers over $700 million a year. We will continue focusing on our core mission uh in keeping the American people safe and appreciate your leadership and your focus on this most critical task.

The President: And you've also found many uh bags of information. I think they call them burn bags. They're supposed to be burned and they didn't get burned, having to do with how corrupt the 2020 election was. And when will that all come out?

Gabbard: Mr. President, I will be the first to brief you once we have that information collected. But you're right, it's, it's—we are finding documents literally tucked away in the back of safes in random offices, in these bags and in other areas. Which, again, speaks to the intent of those who are trying to hide the truth from the American people and trying to cover up the politicization that was led by people like John Brennan and James Clapper and others, that have caused really immeasurable harm to the American people and to our country.

The President: Great job. Thank you. We look forward to hearing it. The public looks forward. Thank you very much.

Administrator?

[Administrator of the Small Business Administration] Kelly Loeffler: Thank you, Mr. President. Well, everyone knows there's no stronger advocate for hardworking American families than you, sir. Thank you for the largest tax cut in American history for working families. The average family of four is gonna save about $10,000, take-home-pay more a year. And what we're seeing is an increase in the child tax credit, the increase in the standard deduction.

Hardworking families uh are gonna benefit from this bill, and small businesses. There's no bigger beneficiary than Main Street, because small business makes up 99% of all businesses in this country. I've traveled to nearly half of our states, 24 unique states. I've made 40 state visits. In fact, I was with our great Vice President at a small business manufacturer in Georgia last week.

I was with a trucking company in Ohio. I was in Michigan at a motorcycle manufacturer. The return of Made in America is gonna be driven by small businesses because 98% of all of our manufacturers in America are small and medium businesses. Six hundred thousand factories that employ five million people.

And as Secretary McMahon mentioned, this work-based learning that is going on in professional and trade schools is real. I've visited them from Utah to Maine to Georgia and seen this revolution in education happening. So small businesses need skilled labor. Now that you've solved for inflation, for the taxes—every Democrat voted for a $4 trillion tax increase on the backs of hardworking Americans. And so you prevented that, and now we've got fair trade.

And thanks to Administrator Zeldin, we're seeing deregulation. I mean, this uh diesel exhaust fluid crushed farmers and construction and other heavy industry. So rolling that back makes a real difference for small business. And your domestic economic agenda is amplified through small businesses, which is why small business optimism is above its 53-year average, finally.

And so Main Street appreciates it. What Main Street wants now is a rate cut. They feel burdened by high interest rates. They would grow higher and expand more if they could, but the interest rates are really hurting them.

And, uh, finally, I want to say thank you for your executive order on debanking. We're about to announce uh a major investigation on debanking. It happened to you and your family. It happened to me. It happened to thousands and thousands of Americans, and unfortunately, disproportionately on those that had conservative values, on Christians, on pro-life, on 2A [second amendment] businesses. And so we're gonna be talking to the banks about that. The SBA operates the largest government uh business loan program uh in the federal government. And, we have a network of 5,000 banks, so we're gonna be making sure that that never happens to anyone again.

The President: Good job. You're doing a great job. Thank you very much.

Kristi.

Kristi Noem: Mr. President, first of all, thank you for the opportunity to work for you. And, uh, you committed when you ran for president to make America safe again. And today, the average family and individual that lives in this country is safer than they've been in years because of what you've done. We've got three months in a row now with zero illegal aliens coming into this country.

And I want to thank Pete [Hegseth] and the Department of Defense for all of their help. They're down at the border with us still, helping us keep that border secure and make sure we know who's coming into this country. You've arrested and brought to justice hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, uh, criminals that have perpetuated violence against American people.

Sir, you've had 1.6 million people voluntarily go home to their home countries that were here in this country illegally. Because of your strong message and you enforcing the law, they decided to go home on their own so that they could come back the right way someday and be American citizens.

But what I think is one of the most remarkable statistics, is that under Joe Biden's Administration, 88% of new jobs went to foreign-born individuals.

Uh, under your Administration, 2.5 [sic] Americans have jobs today, that they didn't under the previous Administration, and they have those jobs because you created opportunities. Uh, you made this country safe. You opened up the economy. You enforced the law. Now people can get up and provide for their families and go to work every day and be confident in that.

And the last thing I would say is that it's incredibly important to know that every one of those illegal aliens that has gone home, uh they were costing us about eight-seven hundred to nine-thousand dollars apiece in what they were taking out of our social programs, out of Social Security. Ah, you've saved this country billions of dollars, about $15 billion just in what those illegal aliens were costing us in social programs.

Uh, I've cut over 450 different contracts at the Department of Homeland Security. Uh, we're getting rid of corrupt ones, ones that were not um, efficient for taxpayers, weren't focused on our mission of keeping us safe. Uh, and we've also renegotiated and brought in our biggest vendors and said you have to do better. And we've saved the taxpayers over $13 billion doing that as well.

So we're continuing to be accountable with taxpayer dollars, but, sir, focused on doing the mission of what you've committed and that's to keep us safe and to make sure we put Americans first.

The President: Great job and great job on the border. We had millions and millions of people coming in. To think three months in a row, zero.

Noem: Incredible.

The President: That's some job. Thank Tom [Homan] and everybody. And Pete, good job [slaps Hegseth's arm]. Not surprised. Thank you very much.

Chris, please.

Chris Wright: [Clearing his voice] Sorry about that, Mr. President. Like, uh, Secretary Noem, I'm thrilled to be here to work with you on the simple platform you were elected on, which was to bring back the American dream. To bring jobs and opportunity for families across the country and to lower their costs, so they can live their lives and expand, expand the choices they have.

You led off today talking about gasoline prices. I'll throw in diesel. If you correct for inflation, they're at multi-decade lows. This is a huge expense. This is a huge constraint on people's lives. We should celebrate that.

Natural gas has become our main industrial fuerl—fuel powering factories around the country. Natural gas prices are quite low in this country, and they're lower than in any country in the world. The reason for that is the United States produces two times more natural gas than the second largest natural gas producer in the world, and four times more natural gas than the number three and number four producers in the world.

So you've opened up American opportunity in energy. Together, with the work of Secretary Burgum, Administrator Zeldin, Secretary Lutnick, uh Secretary Rollins, you know, we've made it easy to produce energy in America again and those benefits are flowing.

I could go on about this stuff forever, but let me talk about one specific area of energy, electricity. Uh, that's in the front of people's minds. When the day you were inaugurated, we get hold of all the data and we can look at the resource plans of utilities across the country. What you inherited when you arrived, was a plan over the next five years to close a hundred gigawatts of reliable electric generation.

So that's a hundred large power plants. Now that was offset with the plan to build 22 gigawatts of reliable electricity generation. Their plan was to close more than four times as much electricity-generating capacity as they were gonna build in that five-year period. How do we lead the world in artificial intelligence if we're shrinking our supply of reliable electricity?

How do we reshore steel and aluminum and automobiles and semiconductors and all those jobs Americans want back in our country, when we're degrading and shrinking our energy system? We were gonna hand that leadership to China in artificial intelligence, not just to our economic loss, um, but to our huge national security loss.

Ah, your team around this table, and almost everyone around this table is involved in it, is just to completely pivot dramatically. Uh we're stopping the closure of all these plants way before their, their retirement date. Some plants get to their end of life. That's a small percent of the planned closures. Most of those were just political nonsense at the cost to American taxpayers.

So we have rapid uh new construction of power plants under in the United States. We're doing everything we can with suppliers who build the equipment for these power plants. They've got to build their factories bigger to build power plants in America. People thought those days were past; we weren't gonna build big things in America anymore.

We're just gonna keep sending it over to Asia and overseas and just, just buy other people's stuff. Totally nuts uh economically, totally nuts for national security and of course crushing for working Americans, particularly Americans that work with their hands. Uh, but we are seeing a reviita—revitalization of those people, of that optimism.

You showed that picture of that plant being built in Arkansas, dozens of those under constructions just in artificial intelligence. But the reshoring of steel, of aluminum, of plastics, of fertilizer, semiconductors. Like, this—America's the land of opportunity. How did we get to become this awesome nation? Because we believed in the American dream and we leaned-in on it. But the wealthy in our country and the coastal elites that live away from where stuff's actually made, they just lost their way and politicians just let 'em have it.

Your, uh, tireless campaign and your relentless messaging made people realize the American dream isn't dead, it's just been smothered. And we're un-smothering it and setting it loose. God bless your efforts. God bless your assembly of this team around this table. We're bringing the American dream back.

The President: Thank you, Chris. Great job you're doing. Appreciate it.

Lori, please.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer: Mr. President, everybody here who spoke works at the Department of Labor, clearly, which I love. They have all the correct talking points, but I think that's a testament, again, that we are all working together every single day. We talk to each other often and the workforce, uh the skilled workforce, the education factor, retirees, it's been so important because they all touch the Department of Labor, and I have the opportunity to work with every single one.

If you all haven't stopped by the Department of Labor, Mr. President, I invite you to see your big beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor because you are really the transformational president of the American worker along with the American flag and President Roosevelt because we're bringing business and labor together and I was so honored to unveil that yesterday and everybody is taking note of that.

You also mentioned crime, and I think it's been important for my colleagues to recognize that now American workers can return to work and feel safe; that business owners aren't shutting down their businesses because they're afraid they can't protect their workers; and now it's open for business again and it's starting right here in our nation's capital.

Many things have been mentioned about consumer confidence up; unemployment is holding steady; and more than two million net jobs for native-born Americans has been key. Under your leadership, 84% of the workforce in jobs has been produced by the private sector. I think that was the mission of this Administration and the Department of Labor.

And I will continue to say for a little bit longer, until I heard you today, the One Big, Beautiful Bill, because it equals one big beautiful workforce. And Congress passed this legislation—it probably will be the single most important bill that they did sign because it is protecting our American workforce by expanding Pell Grants and childcare and reduction in uh taxes, so that they can keep more of their hard-earned dollars.

I am, uh at the Department of Labor, announcing $30 million in grants for our skilled workforce, that I have an MOU with Secretary McMahon, I have an MOU with Administrator Loeffler. That's important to share the data points on how important this is. In June, we awarded nearly $84 million in grants for the capacity of what? Registered apprenticeships, an executive order to have one million active apprentices across this nation, where we've already registered 185,000 since, in the last few months.

One of the other things that we have done is the Biden Administration's guidance on cryptocurrency. And thanks to you and your leadership on that, we've rolled that back. And of course, we're gonna see the 401-K, uh the investors in our alternative assets. That's been key through the Department of Labor to work through.

Uh, partnering with our agencies, again, as I mentioned before, is important as we work together. I have visited uh— I'll be 31 states on my 50-state tour by the end of this month. I'm headed with Secretary Duffy, with the South Korean President Lee today as we move through the shipbuilding. We will do that in Philly and then I'm off to New England to talk to those states about how important the apprenticeship program is.

But while I visited Hexel in uh Salt Lake City, a hundred percent domestic carbon fiber for the Department of Defense, as they produce. They are announcing another billion-dollar investment per your executive order on advanced manufacturing. So it is working. Everything that you have been saying since you were elected and since we all can put into play, has been working. Ohio, McDonald's is investing 375,000 new jobs. The shrimpers, I visited as well and they need our help in protecting uh that industry for our American fishermen and shrimpers.

In Minnesota, I toured Cambria. Uh, when we're talking about quartz countertops, all made in America. And again in Oregon, where we are expecting a crackdown, thank you for what you are doing with your agents on ICE. And [to Pam Bondi] thank you for the prosecution that I hope you will come to Portland, Oregon and crack down.

But while there are still good people, I was able to visit Buckeye Pacific, really a trading floor for the timber industry. So we still want to focus on great, hardworking American businesses. Uh, Mr. President, I couldn't be more excited to ring in Labor Day in Erie, Pennsylvania for the Labor Day Parade. I will be there to welcome it.

It is an honor to serve this country. It is an honor to serve uh, under your Administration as the Labor Secretary. And we will kick off, and Republicans will own Labor Day again, not Democrats. We will own it because we are and you are the president of the American worker. So thank you for everything that you've done.

The President: Thank you very much, Lori.

Chavez-DeRemer: Absolutely.

The President: You're doing a fantastic job. And I will tell you that Lori was recommended by the Teamsters. And I said, "That doesn't really work, does it?" And it turned out to be one of our best choices. So I just want to thank you and Sean, who, as you know, recommended you very strongly. You've really turned out to be a gem.

Thank you.

DeRemer: I was able to talk to the president on the phone the other day. He called and we visited. And he said—but I know that you were a little bit middle of the road and not so sure. I said, "Mr. President, I have been a Republican." He's like, "What? I had no—wait—what?? Now I like you even more."

The President: You did a great job.

Chavez-DeRemer: I appreciate it. Thank you.

The President: Thank you, Lori. Thank you.

Pam.

Pam Bondi: President, I'm working with everyone around this table almost daily on legal issues that we're winning on. But today, because it's Labor Day, President Trump, if I could focus on public safety, uh not only domestic, but from our foreign adversaries.

And Secretary McMahon, I know you know kids are out of school this weekend. It's Labor Day. And Secretary Duffy, you know our highways are going to be packed with travelers coming to not only our nation's capital, but all over this country. We're also gonna have boaters, Secretary Duffy, right, on our waterways. It is illegal to be under the influence and on a boat, uh, so get a designated boater if you're out on our waterways, whether it's the Potomac or the Gulf of America or the Pacific. Wherever you're out this weekend, people need to be safe.

The President: Right.

Bondi: And on an international level, uh Secretary Rubio, thank you for all your help on everything we're doing, and everyone around this room. But yesterday, uh, there was a big, big win. El Mayo pled guilty, and he was the co-founder of Sinaloa Cartel with El Chapo. And there's even a Narcos Netflix series about these guys.

Well, now we know the ending. He's gonna die in an American prison.

They are one of the worst—El Chapo and El Mayo—some of the worst narco-traffickers in our world. And he will spend life in prison now. And that's so important because those guys, and others throughout this country, throughout this world, have brought into our country drugs, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamines that's killing our kids.

And we have to stop that. And that's what you've been doing, not only in D.C, but around the country at your leadership. And over the weekend, parents need to know, with kids out of school, with people out on our highways and on our waters, do not take a pill from anyone you know, don't know, do not buy anything on the street. It could be laced with something toxic.

We've seen so many fentanyl overdoses. And when you were here in D.C, we showed you pictures of some of the drugs that had been seized right here in D.C. President, they were packaged for children—packaged for children, and people are dying from these around our country. So, thank you, President Trump, for your leadership and for letting Americans know that it's now a safe place to go. But parents also have to know, college kids have to know to be vigilant and not take this trash. Because you could be thinking you're taking a Xanax, an Adderall, anything, and it could be laced with something very lethal.

So, thank you, President Trump.

The President: It's a great message.

Bondi: Thank you, President Trump.

The President: Great message. And you've been fantastic this last 12 days in D.C. Uh, the job you and your whole group has done – [crosstalk]

Bondi: All of us.

The President: Everyone's talking about it all over the world. I hate to have to talk about that, but we have to. Uh, it's becoming a very safe place again. And ah, the work—I've seen how hard you worked the last—well, from the beginning in all fairness. But this focus on DC is so important for the country. So, great job. And to everybody, great job.

Bondi: And President, it's the team around, we're all working hand in hand, side by side, all of our agencies together to make America safe and D.C safe. And Iris, congratulations on, on your baby and I'm so glad that you're safe now.

Tao: Thank you very much.

The President: Thank you. Thank you, Pam, very much.

Mr. VP, would you like to say something?

Vice President JD Vance: Yes, sir. I'll be brief, but uh, I want to congratulate you and the entire team on all the things that have been accomplished. You'll hear about a lot of it. You've already heard some of it. But I thought it would be helpful, Mr. President, just to take stock, not just of what we've accomplished, what we will accomplish, but of the mess that we inherited because I think it makes this first Labor Day a bigger and more special occasion.

You heard, I think, Kristi talk about this, that all of the net job growth under the Biden Administration had gone to the foreign-born. Now that net job growth is going to American citizens who deserve opportunity in their own country. That's a great accomplishment.

You'll hear, I'm sure, Scott talk about the success with tariffs. People forget that we inherited the largest peacetime deficit in the history of the United States of America. And now, because the President is not letting foreign countries take advantage of us, wer—wer—we're collecting hundreds of billions of dollars, trillions of dollars over 10 years, in tariffs from countries and companies that were formerly taking advantage of the American people.

You heard Pam talk about the public safety and the success that we've had there. I happen to believe that maybe the most sacred thing that we can deliver to American workers is the ability to live safely and comfortably in their own neighborhoods. Public safety is not just something that should belong to the wealthy, it should belong to every working man and woman in the United States of America. And because of the work of this Administration, that is happening.

And of course, Mr. President, you yourself talked about the inflation mess that we inherited under the Biden Administration. Maybe the most striking and even shocking statistic of the Biden Administration is that housing costs had gone up by a hundred percent over the four years of the Biden Administration. Literally doubled, making the American dream of home ownership unaffordable.

We've made great strides and great progress already, but to the American people who are listening, there's a lot more to do. We're gonna keep on working hard at it, but it's an honor to do this job under the President's leadership and with this very great team that you've assembled.

So, we've done a lot, but there's a lot more work to do and we're very cognizant of it. Thank you, sir.

The President: Thank you. Thank you, JD.

Scott?

Scott Bessent: Sir, as we've said very often, economic security is national security, and our country has never been so secure, thanks to you. Uh, you have brought us back from the edge. You have the overwhelming mandate from the American people. You're restoring confidence in government.

A topic that is on the front of everyone's mind, the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve's independence comes from a political arrangement uh between itself and the American public. Having the public's trust is the only thing that gives it credibility. And you, sir, are restoring trust to government. You are uh weeding out the waste, fraud, and abuse. And the old ways of doing things are not good enough.

Uh, we are seeing a blue-collar boom. In the first seven months of your Administration real blue-collar wages uh have taken off. And the only other time that they've done this in the past 70 years was in your previous term. Uh, your efforts on tax, trade and deregulation have boosted paychecks for American workers while slowing the pace of inflation and lowering the cost of energy.

Inflation has plummeted to just 1.9% since you took office. And the economy rebounded with real GDP surging 3% last quarter. Uh, the blue-collar boom coincides with a CapEx [Capital Expenditure] comeback. In anticipation of your One Big Beautiful Bill becoming law, CapEx increased by American businesses by nearly 14% in the first half of this year.

And as you and I talk about frequently, and as that chart or that photo attest, we are going to see, I believe, a bigger CapEx boom from here. This is just the beginning, just the beginning. Uh, you have saved this country by making it the best place in the world to do business again. Uh, Treasury is helping to implement uh these new provisions as well as no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security.

Uh, this weekend I will be meeting with workers from local restaurants uh to discuss the pol—positive impacts of the pro-labor reform, no tax on tips.

And I have to tell you, thanks to you, when I go into a restaurant or stop by a hotel doorman, I am the most popular person there. [Laughter] And since my first job at age nine was as a busboy getting tips, I am going to spend Labor Day going from restaurant to restaurant, talking to workers ah who receive substantial amount of ti—tip income.

So, we'll—I'll hear directly from them how your One Big Beautiful Bill is increasing their take-homing—take-home pay and making a big difference.

Now, we can also talk—that is domestic. On the international front, you have leveled the international trading system whereby countries took advantage of us. And that's over. It's over.

The Treasury Department isn't—is taking in record tariff revenues that I had been saying was running at a rate of 300 billion a year. You chastised me for saying that It's not—that that number is too low. And as usual, you're right, uh that we had a substantial uh jump from July to August and I think we're gonna see a bigger jump from August to September. So, I, I think we could be on our way uh well over half a trillion, maybe the—towards the trillion dollar number.

This Administration, your Administration, has made a meaningful dent in the budget deficit. Uh, the average budget deficit during this term is 26% less than the last 12 months under Biden. And even the CBO, and we don't agree with CBO on everything, as you said, last Friday, on a summer Friday, had to admit that they believe over the next 10 years the budget deficit will be four trillion lower than they had previously scored. Four trillion. Three point three trillion of tariff income, 700 billion of lower interest costs. And, ya know, I would expect that that number could go up from here.

So, uh, Mr. President, your return to the White House marked the return of the American worker. Thank you for reclaiming Labor Day for the American people. You're growing the economy for everyone, especially the middle- and lower-income households who suffered dispropor—proportionately under the last Administration. And it's an honor uh to do this under your leadership.

The President: Great job. You're doing great. Thank you very much, Scott.

Brooke?

Brooke Rollins: Sir, I uh dropped my second son off at college last week, and I wasn't planning to say this, but just listening to everybody, I wanted to put a little bit of a personal touch on this—on this work. Uh, he started his freshman year yesterday at Texas A&M for all my SEC friends in the room. Thank you for saving college football, by the way, we're all very grateful.

Uh, the country just feels different. It just feels different. There's such a optimism and uh, a love. Uh, there's a, there's a faith movement going through, especially with our younger Americans. Uh,and for those of us with kids in college, I know we feel it. And, uh, I experienced it first hand last week, moving, moving him and my other older son in as well.

As we move toward Labor Day, uh,you have made a lot of dreams come true for a lot of people. But one of my longtime dreams was for the right to recapture Labor Day. And I've been talking about this for almost 20 years, and writing about it, that why are we ceding the day that we are celebrating the American worker to the Democrats? Because this is our day.

Perhaps of any day of the entire year, this is our day. America was founded and fought for by fishermen and farmers, and workmen, and etc. The—Genesis, the first book of the Bible, talks about the righteousness of work and the art of creation. And so to be part of this effort to represent the farmers, the ranchers, the agriculture industry at this moment in time—which I do believe we're in a revolution—1776 was the first one, 1863 or so with Abraham Lincoln was the second. This is the third, with Donald Trump leading the way. And we are saving America. And the idea that we are putting the worker, the very central component of the American dream at the center of it is the reason that it is so.

So, at USDA [Department of Agriculture] it continues to be my greatest honor uh to fight for the original American worker, who I think the farmer is and what they represent. And as we are building new systems and new structures, as we have this year gonna have the best harvest on record uh for our row croppers and others. What this team has done and is doing to open up those markets to ensure that these farmers can continue to return prosperity to rural America.

I'll finish with this: This morning, we had a working group with six of our cabinet members. Uh, Bobby Kennedy representing health care; Linda McMahon, education; Lee Zeldin, deregulation; Kelly Loeffler, small business; Lori Chavez-DeRemer, labor; and Scotty Turner, housing. And how you leading the way in your vision, how that will return the golden age to rural America, to the very fabric of our country.

And whether it's better hospitals, better education, more opportunity, less government, better and bigger small businesses, better opportunities for our workers and better housing. And of course, the agriculture piece of that. Through the Big Beautiful Bill, the bill, what it did, the greatest investment in rural America in history. And now the opportunity to effectuate that is again a game-changer, a country-saver and what a joy to be able to do it under your leadership. So thank you, sir.

The President: Very good. Thank you. Beautifully stated. Thank you very much.

Scott.

Scott Turner [Secretary of Housing and Urban Development]: Yes, sir. Uh, thank you, Mr. President. Um, I'm so grateful to be uh here to celebrate Labor Day uh with the greatest team in America. And it is football season, so I'm happy about that. But Mr. President, I wanna say thank you for, as Brooke said, reclaiming Labor Day. And you've been a tremendious [sic] champion for the American worker.

I come from a hardworking family, as many people around this table do. And so, thank you for helping us to change the conversation. And I believe we are changing the conversation around the kitchen table.

And as everybody knows, you know, my job is to steward HUD[ Department of Housing and Urban Development]. And we have, at HUD, been very intentional about changing the conversation about the dignity of work, and the dignity and the honor of family formation through work, and how the younger generation, when they see their parents' work, how they're incentivized to work. And that, you know, America is not a welfare state, but America was built on small business. It was built on entrepreneurship. And so, as it pertains to housing, we're being very uh focused on that. And even some that receive HUD fundin' to make sure, like our Section 3, when you receive HUD funding, that you are givin' opportunities for the most vulnerable Americans that you serve, to have work, to have opportunities to work, to have work requirements. Work requirements are not a bad word. That's a great word. Time limits is a great word to incentivize people; able-bodied, able-minded people, to work.

And I believe that we are, under your leadership, Sir, changin' that conversation in America to where workin' is an honorable thing.

And uh Secretary Wright talked about revitalization. Revitalization means to bring new life. And I believe we're bringing new life to America, Mr. President, through work and through all the jobs that people are doing around this table. And with the One Big Beautiful Bill, the bill, the most extensive tax break in American history, opportunity zones are now made permanent.

And you know how passionate I am and you are too, sir, about opportunity zones. And ah, so, this will allow us to continue to build affordable housin' around our country. And Mr. Vice President, I'm coming your way. I'm coming to Columbus later this week—and to see how we can continue to build affordable housin' in our country with opportunity zones. And, you know, one million people, Mr. President, were lifted out of poverty because of opportunity zones.

Ninety billion dollars of private money was invested in opportunity zones, urban, tribal, and rural. And now that they've been made permanent, we're looking for millions more to be lifted out of poverty. A hundred billion dollars to be invested, hundreds of thousands of jobs to be created, hundreds of thousands of units of housin' to come online.

And so, Sir, I sit here very excited uh, about the future of this country. I'm very proud to be at this table, humble to do so. And HUD, we're on a good path. So thank you for all your support –uh in helping us, Sir.

The President: Thank you very much. A pleasure.

Scott Turner: God bless you.

The President: And I want to give credit to Tim Scott, great Senator from a place called South Carolina, that we love, right? And Tim uh really came up with opportunity zones and we did a good job of working with him. And together we created something that nobody speaks of very much, but it's probably the most successful thing that's ever been done of its kind. It's been amazing. So Tim Scott deserves a lot of credit for that. Thank you.

Scott Turner: Thank you.

The President: So, Russell, go ahead.

Russell Vought [Director of Office of Management and Budget]: Thank you, Mr. President, and I get the opportunity to go hand by hand with all of these people as they move their deregs to the Office of Management and Budget. And I wanted to zoom out for a second. In the first term, you gave us a goal of two for one. And then we outperformed it through your leadership.

We came in at around five and a half, six for one. And then, as you're running for your second term, uh you put out a goal that when you put it out, I was thinking to myself, "That's gonna be a pretty ambitious goal." You said ten for one. Well, where we are right now, uh in just one month—one year, basically eight months, we are at 245 deregulatory initiatives planned by these agencies.

That comes out to 30 for one. So we are making incredible strides. And you know, as you're focused on the details of each one—I mean, ending—these aren't small things. Endangerment finding is one of the most deregulatory things we've—in the history of this country. NEPA [National Environmental Policy Act] reform, incredibly deregulatory. WOTUS just came in, which is "Waters of the United States."

So every single one of these agencies is doing uh incredible work when it comes to deregulatory. And we add that to the work being done uh to get us going on energy, uh reduce spending, uh we're gonna lower costs for the American people. Uh, we're gonna be able to have innovative jobs uh and get them back to work. So thank you for your leadership, Mr. President.

The President: Thank you. Great job, Russell. Appreciate it.

John. Central casting, I call him. He's central casting.

[CIA director] John Ratcliffe: Well, Mr. President, I'm grateful to be with everyone today. And as we're talking about jobs and workforce. Uh, at CIA, uh consistent with your directives to all of us, uh we've embraced your mantra for a leaner, more effective, more efficient uh workforce. Um, but at CIA, Mr. President, we had an additional challenge, because us as you know, uh at times, our workforce had been misdirected, its focus uh put on political narratives, some that even worked against you and always worked against the American people.

The President: I heard about that. [laughter]

Ratcliffe: But under your leadership and your direction, we have been focused back on the core mission of what CIA is supposed to be doing, which is to provide you and this entire incredible team around the table with a decisive strategic advantage in accomplishing your goals. And your success in that regard, the examples are clear and many.

Uh, with regard to Iran, everyone knows that uh our DOD partners executed that mission flawlessly, but flawless military uh operations are subject to flawless intelligence. And as you know, Mr. President, CIA was the backbone in terms of its intelligence operations in providing that flawless uh execution that allowed you and your team to obliterate Iranian nuclear facilities and set back a nuclear program by years.

The President: Right.

Ratcliffe: Likewise, with regard to your ability to prevent and to prev—preempt wars between India and Pakistan, between Armenia and Azerbaijan, between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, in all those cases, CIA intelligence supported you and your entire team in making that possible. It's not just you—it's folks around this table, Secretary Bessent, Secretary Lutnick, Trade Representative Greer, and their great successful negotiations on trade and tariffs.

Again, it was a CIA workforce working to enable them to accomplish your goals. So, as we roll into Labor Day, I tell you that the C—the CIA workforce at the Trump CIA is grateful to be focused on what it's supposed to be, which is helping you prevent and end wars, uh and to make America safer.

The President: Okay, thank you very much. You've been really fantastic, but I'm not surprised. I've known John a long time. I'm not surprised at all. Thank you very much.

Steve, please.

Steve Witkoff [U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East]: Mr. President, um, working for this government, for you, is the greatest honor of my life. I tell it to everybody, and I really do feel that way. And I thank you, because it's a privilege uh to go out there and uh represent you in your humanitarian effort, in your uh, in your uh goals of uh solving conflicts all over the world. I think there were actually more than seven conflicts that you've put to bed uh in, in the last eight months.

And I hear these—I travel all over the world. In Hostage Square, they talk about you reverentially. It's really quite amazing. I sometimes wish that I had a cam recorder with me, and I could, I could put you right there as I listen to it. I was in Gaza, the first American diplomat—on your behalf. And as we delivered food and aid pursuant to your new aid initiative, uh pushed forth by your uh great Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, who it is a privilege for me to work alongside, the people were um applauding you, the signs were up.

I mean, these are people who –I, I just don't think you get the proper credit for it all. We are negotiating multiple entries into the Abraham Peace Accords because of your uh vision.

Azerbaijan, uh, all these different conflicts that we're out there on your behalf on, they're all—these are people who have never really seen the world change in this way.

Peace through strength really, really works. Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Israel, Hamas, we're having meetings all this week on all three of those conflicts. And we hope to settle them before the end of this year. Your team is nothing short of incredible.

And there's only one thing I wish for, that that that Noble [sic] Committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since the Noble Peace – this Noble Award was ever talked about, to receive that reward.

Beyond—your success is game changing out in the world today and I hope everybody one day wakes up and realizes that. Thank you, sir. [applause]

Unidentified: Well said.

The President: Thank you, Steve.

Jameson, please.

Jamieson Greer [U.S. Trade Representative]: Mr. President, I like to think of Labor Day as the Trump Trade Policy Day, because everyone around this table and everyone listening knows that one of the major reasons why American workers and organized labor voted for you is because of your trade policy, and the policy you—you've had and advocated for, for for, for 40 years or more. You have reset global trade policy, in the past few months uh and, and it shows that it's been working for, for American workers.

When you look at President Biden in the last quarter of 2024, median weekly earnings fell 2.1%. In the first quarter of your term, they went up 3.3%. And that's why we're doing the trade policy we're doing. It's to help the workers of the United States of America, and they're the best in the world, but they can't do it without a level playing field.

And you have flipped the script. For many years, the other countries had high tariffs and high non-tariff barriers while we were open to—right? To, to, to, to all of their labor and services, and goods and capital. You flipped it. Now, we have the tariffs, and they have lowered their non-tariff barriers. We couldn't have done it without you and the leverage you've created.

So, between the tariffs and the deals, the hot streak continues for the workers of America. So, thank you.

The President: Thank you very much. Really good job, by the way. He's a good negotiator. Good negotiator. Thank you.

Please [nodding at next speaker].

[Secretary of Veterans Affairs] Doug Collins: Well, Mr. President, you've—I feel like, as everybody here has talked about how great uh working with this team is and all, but I, I do feel a special need that I—you've given me the privilege of working with the best of America. I get to take care of the veterans. I get to take care of the veterans who Labor Day really finds its roots in, if you think about it. We wouldn't have Labor Day if it wasn't for men and women who would leave their jobs and go fight this nation's battles to keep us free and independent, so that they would have jobs to come home to. And over the past few years, they've been coming home to many times, a government that was keeping 'em back, holding them back, taxing them, regulating them.

And now we have veterans who represent the bill, the Big Beautiful Bill, they're the beneficiaries of it. And I get to see them all the time. Because they're receiving the benefit, because they see the jobs, they see the care that they're being given.

And these veterans can look at their country with pride, knowing that we're taking care of 'em just like you told me to do. When, your only statements, you said to me when I asked you what to do, you said, "Go take care of my veterans." Well, that's what we're doin'.

One of the other things that we're doing right now is—for many of you, I, I love to hear how you're deregulating everything. And I've worked from Congress and worked with many of you before. I get to do the same thing with the largest bureaucratic organization in the government. We're deregulating from the inside. And it's amazing to me, because we have such a powerful workforce at the VA who really wanna do good, but yet they kept trippin' themselves up. They kept making their own – Uh, we'd take one step forward and put a regulation in, and it'd put them three steps back and it always hurt our veterans at the end.

We're taking that away. We're making community care again, Mr. President, we talked about this yesterday. We're making community care a part of our direct care system. And, so, if a veteran wants to get into the community, they have our direct care and they also have the ability to go into the community. Something that the previous Administration decided. They wanted to keep everybody inside, because they thought it was a fiefdom they were building.

I'm telling you, we're not building a fiefdom at the VA. We're trying to take care of a service organization that takes care of veterans. So, how do we do that? We made best medical interest, where a doctor can send a veteran to the community a lot quicker without having to worry about miles and uh time logged and wait times. Just get 'em he—the help they need.

We've actually expanded out and it's made a difference in this de—this regulation, and also unleashed a workforce that is now free of the uh collective bargaining agreements and other things that have kept them from being able to do the job of national security that they've been intended to.

I'm actually giving them the benefit of the doubt to actually go be the workers that they're called to be. And that's what Labor Day is about. The VA is gonna have the best workers. But just to let you know how that's working out, wait times at our hospital are going down because we're getting them into our hospitals or into community care.

And then one for you, Mr. President, you heard about this a lot, and that was backlogs. At the—backlog when I first came in, and I've said this before, in February, we had over 260,000 backlog. That means over 125 days of not getting an answer. In just a little over four and a half months, we've dropped that over a hundred thousand. We're under 150 and heading down to historic lows. We'll be within the next month lower than any time under the previous Administration at all. That means our veterans are getting the help they need.

So, when you look at it this way, we've opened new facilities, we've put new facilities in places where workers can get to. We've expanded out hours, over a million extra hours, so veterans, younger veterans in particular, can get off of work and bring their selves, and get their appointments in after hours or on Saturdays.

That's what it means to be in the Trump Administration. That's what it means to take care of veterans. That's what it means for Labor Day. Because you can't forget the ones who fought for us to be on this table today. And it's all because of what you've done and the progress that we've made.

The President: Well, you've done a, a tremendous job. And I hear it all the time. We have a 93% approval rating at the VA now. And you know what it was before, it was, like, horrible. So, thank you very much.

[President nods to next speaker.]

[Secretary of Transportation] Sean Duffy: Mr. President, there's been some conversation about the Pete and Bobby challenge. I would just note that I don't think Pete or Bobby could hold these sticks [gestures to video assistants holding microphones on booms above the cabinet table] for two and a half hours. [laughter] They want that to be the challenge, so be it. But I think 50 pull-ups and a hundred push-ups might be easy in comparison.

Unidentified: Exactly.

The President: [inaudible] We didn't have this problem with Biden. He's in and out very quickly.

Duffy: So, kudos on Labor Day to the audio team that's uh holding the sticks. But Mr. President, um, it's pretty great to celebrate Labor Day with a builder who loves labor, uh who loves the men and women who've built this country, the people that, that, that sweat, uh that have great skills, uh they have grit. They do the dirty jobs of America that have made this country great, and you know them very well, because you have worked with them.

The great Trump projects have come from the very men and women we're going into this weekend to celebrate. We all want to claim Labor Day in our departments, but I'm gonna claim this at DOT [Department of Transportation], because, you know, roads, bridges, uh pipelines, shipbuilding, rail, passenger, and uh, and freight um all fall under the great men and women who wear boots and make this country wonderful. Uh, and at DOT, we, we don't want to have the Congress spend money. Uh, we want to take the money that Congress gives us and actually deploy it, and put these men and women to work building the great projects of this country—that you said the big beautiful projects that connect this country. Uh, and that's why we have, have got rid of the DEI. We've got rid of the green.

Uh, we've done what we can to streamline the regulation to move these projects faster. Time is money um, and time has been money. Even Democrats agree now that ah it takes too long to go through the regulatory process. So, we're gonna move these projects ah faster, putting the great American worker back to work.

Uh, I want to make a quick comment. We've all probably talked about this horrific accident in, in Florida. And I appreciate the, the help of Kristi and Marco on this very issue. But, uh, in May, we said, "Listen, it's a safety issue if you can't uh proficiently speak the English language." And we gave states a little over a month to comply. And Washington, California and New Mexico have refused to comply. And by way—the way, this individual in Florida received a CDL [Commercial Driver's License] from Washington, from California and received a speeding ticket after our rule went into place, and they didn't stop him. And had they taken him out of service, he wouldn't have been in Florida and we would have three beautiful people alive today.

Uh, and I just—I make that point because it's, it's the work that maybe no one sees that then, you know, shines a, a light when horrific things happen. But also, that your cabinet works together, uh, uh, and teams up to make a difference uh for the American people.

Real quickly. So we have a safety mission at DOT. I don't know that you'd think of the transit unions in the greatest cities of the, of the country, New York maybe being one of them, that support us. But they do, because the violence in the subways uh and on our buses across the country, the transit workers are the ones who, who take the most abuse.

And they're grateful for for the mission of everybody around this table fighting to make their communities safer. So I appreciate um, everyone's help on that. But again, the transit unions love uh the effort that all of us have put in together. One quick – FAA—

The President: Go ahead.

Duffy: We are uh we are about to put out a request for proposals for a big beautiful build. We got—build, not bill. Build. We got 12.5 billion in the Big Beautiful Bill. We need more, but this is a great start. Uh, I expect the middle to the later part of July, we will be through the process to bring the proposed integrators to you for selection. So we're looking for—forward to that.

We will have the most—I'm learning from you. This is gonna be the greatest contract ever crafted in the federal government uh for this build for air traffic control. Really we're do—it's innovative. And, we have unique tools at FAA. It's gonna be a great—a great contract.

Uh, Bobby left me out of the windmill conversation, Bobby, but I—So there was a study done in the last Administration that said if you build windmills 1.2 miles—within 1.2 miles from a roadway, uh it can mess up um the automation and technology on a car. Same thing 1.2 miles from rail. The last Administration buried that report, Mr. President. And so, now what we've said is, what we're gonna do is say, "Listen, I'm sorry. It, it is a safety risk to build windmills this close to roads."

By the way, they want to build them by roads and by rail. We're gonna say, "No more. It is a safety risk and we have a report to show that."

The President: Great. You hear that, Bobby?

Duffy: And just real quick —

The President: That's a good idea. That's great.

Duffy: It's a good team effort. I wasn't invited to the party, but you know, I'm still gonna throw the party.

Unidentified: Maybe next time.

Duffy: Maybe next time, Bobby. Uh, one last thing. We have this Mars to moon mission at NASA. No, moon to Mars mission. Sorry about that. But if you—sometimes people think that space doesn't matter to them. But if you look at every rocket that's launched, the—the machinists, uh the truck drivers, the electricians, the welders that build these rockets in the—in the industry that that has developed over the course of the last 10 years in space.

It's truly remarkable. It's not just, you know, rich guys sending up rockets in partnership with NASA. There's a whole industry of working men and women who we celebrate this weekend that build, refurbish, design the rockets that are making America the leader in space. So, thank you for your leadership and happy to celebrate this weekend with you, Mr. President.

The President: Thank you very much, Sean. Really great. And he is doing a good job at NASA too. And we are uh—I think we'll have some pretty exciting announcements.

Duffy: Yes, we do.

The President: And you enjoy it.

Duffy: It's been fun.

The President: I said, "How about temporary?" He said, "Well, can I go a little bit longer?" He loves it. He loves it. And he's doing a really good job. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Howard, please.

Howard Lutnick: So, Making America Great Again is one of the key statements and people don't always understand what you mean. So, we always talk about 1870 to 1913, but in the mid 1980s, America owned more of the rest of the world than they owned of us. We owned $140 billion of the rest of the world net of what they owned of us. And when you came into office this time, the rest of the world owned $24 trillion more of our assets than we owned of theirs.

And so, when people argue —

The President: That's interesting.

Lutnick:—with you about, you know, the trade deficit is nothing, the trade deficit sends 1.2 trillion of our dollars to them. And what do they do with it? They buy the Great America. cause when we learned in college, what we learned was that if you keep printing these dollars, they're supposed to devalue. But the problem is we're too smart.

We invented the light bulb, the transistor, the GPU, so they keep buying us. And the only president ever to understand it, and you understood it in the '80s and the '90s. And I used to, you know, see you on TV and you'd say, "God, what are these people doing?"

And finally, we've changed it. So let's go over what we've changed.

So, Japan and Korea, they're never gonna open their markets to us. So we've negotiated 900 billion dollars that they're giving you to invest in national and economic security in America. The European Union, the second-largest economy, $20 trillion. And all the experts said you'd never get a deal done with them.

And watching you in Scotland was my favorite thing, right? Fifteen percent. They'll pay us 15% and we will pay zero. So, we—we can export to their $20 trillion economy and they can pay to come to the great American consumer, right?

So a couple of other things. Four days before you took office, four days before you took office, the Commerce Department which had the CHIPS [CHIPS and Science Act] money, they set up this thing called Natcast, which was a make-believe not-for-profit and they signed contracts to wire them $7.4 billion.

This was just nonsense. So we stopped the payment. We've got the money. It's an illegal thing to try to set up a department that's not the Department of Commerce, that kinda acts like the Department of Commerce. And what was it filled with? All these people who worked for the Biden Administration. I mean, it's exact corruption that you talk about. Seven point four billion dollars now clawed back.

Last week was the most fun.

The President: That's amazing.

Lutnick: In one week, Intel came in—right, the Biden Administration had given $11 billion to Intel, given it to them, done, corporate just gift. And you turned that into really, you know, it was like less than five minutes of conversation [laughing]. And Intel agreed to give us 10% of their company, which of course was worth $11 billion.

So it's not socialism. This is capitalism. If you give someone $11 billion who's just building in America, they're not doing something special, they're building in America. And their CEO told the President he didn't need the grant. And you said, "Well then, why don't we get something for it?"

So it's amazing. You going to watch semiconductors come home, right? We don't produce semiconductors. We've got 165 billion for TSMC. But you are gonna watch the whole ecosystem come home, because Donald Trump is the only president who understands the magnet to make 'em come home is one word, which used to be your favorite word. Now it's dropped to number four, which is tariffs. Right, tariffs are gonna bring semiconductors home. They are going to empower Bobby to execute MFN. Tariffs are gonna be one of those tools that he's gonna use to do that. We're gonna do it for furniture. We're getting autos. We got steel, aluminum.

I mean, it has been a blast. A blast.

So two more things. The Department of Commerce is going to start issuing its statistics on the blockchain, because you are the crypto president and we are going to put our GDP on the blockchain, so people can use the blockchain for data, distribution, and then we're going to make that available to the entire government, so all of you can do it. We're just ironing out all the details so we can do it.

Patents. We have given tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars to universities for them to do research. And they invent things and you know who owns those patents? The universities.

Unidentified: They do.

Lutnick: So we are gonna make a deal with them all, which is if we give them the money, don't you think it's fair that the United States of America and the taxpayers who funded it, get a piece of that, right? So we wrote a letter to Harvard. So Linda and I are working together. I mean, it's so much fun to work with everybody here.

I mean, we just have a blast. You know, because Linda's hitting Harvard. And she says, "What can we do?" And now we send them a patent letter and we'll hit them again. So we're having fun together.

This is the greatest Cabinet working for the greatest President. And I just want to say thank you. I'm havin' the time of my life workin' for you, Mr. President.

The President: Thank you. That was—that was very well-stated, wasn't it? Some things people don't think of too much. Thank you very much. Great job.

Pete.

Pete Hegseth: Sir, well, "amen" to what Howard said. And I would just say, uh heading into Labor Day from the American military, sir—we happen to be the largest employer in America. We like to think we have a different form of employees who need to be the toughest and the strongest and the most well-trained and the most lethal. And under the previous Administration, and for decades, frankly, uh it was social justice, it was political correctness, it was divisive ideologies seeping into the ranks and changing how well we do our job.

No more. Now it is only merit-based, gender-neutral, colorblind. The best of the best from the top to the bottom. That's our expectation. And sir, you've enabled that. So, from the troops directly, which they ask me to say all the time, thank you for your leadership, for your boldness, for your clarity, for common sense, for profiding—providing a shield for the rest of us to put America first and to apply peace through strength. We're in the strength business. That's our job, is to stand behind everybody here, uh and alongside John [Ratcliffe], uh in everything they do to keep the country safe.

Uh, and the world is noticing. And I wish everybody could— There were two meetings yesterday that I think tell the story. One was—because today happens to be the four-year anniversary of what happened in Abbey Gate in Afghanistan.

Uh, Mr. President, you had the families in, who you've met with multiple times, who when the cameras were on and not on acknowledged, sir, you were the only one that gave them a proper greeting, that recognized what they gave, their sons and daughters in the debacle that was the withdrawal in Afghanistan, that we uh will bring accountability for the Defense Department through our investigation.

The President: Good. That's good.

Hegseth: But at the same time, the world, sadly, took notice. Whether it was Israel, whether it was Ukraine. Those wars never would've started if you were President. Instead, they looked at the foolishness of Joe Biden. Under your uh military, your Pentagon, we are restoring deterrence. Whether it's Midnight Hammer and those beautiful B-2s, 37 hours straight, whether it's counter-drug operations in our own hemisphere, whether it's the border, working with Kristi and the national security team, whether it's LA, whether it's Washington, DC, you name it. Whether it's Europe. Our allies paying 5 percent, now our allies in the Indo-Pacific are stepping up to do the same. That's a recognition that American leadership is here.

And then in the second meeting, we were talking about what we're doing in DC. And Pam's taking the lead. I, I have to say, just pause for a second. When I look around this table, yes, there's a national security team of Steve Witkoff and John and Scott and Howard and the Vice President and Suzy and and Kristi and and Tulsi. But to every person here, we work together on a daily basis. And if you call me and I call you, the answer is, "Yes. How do we do it together?" I think that's exceptional. It's what the American people deserve. And you've demanded that, sir. Uh, so I very much appreciate it.

In that meeting on DC, I started my sentence by saying, "The Department of Defense," to which you said, "That just doesn't sound right."

So, maybe next time we're here, my card'll read Department of War. [laughter] We'll see. But it's not—here's the thing. Here's what people miss. It's not just about words. It's about the warrior ethos. It's about what the department is supposed to do. George Washington started the Department of War because he wanted us to win our wars. They didn't—Our founders didn't want endless foreign entanglements. They didn't want endless contingencies and deployments. They wanted an empowered military that was—the handcuffs were taken off to fight to win. And then bring those troops home. So my, my platoon in Guantánamo Bay, our motto was, "Those who long for peace must declare for war—must prepare for war. We don't want war. We don't seek it. You are the peace President, sir. Because we are strong, our enemies know what we will do.

And so, whether it's Secretary of War or Secretary of Defense, that warrior ethos is changing. We're going back to basics. Our drill instructors can be drill instructors again, sir.

So from the minute of the tactical of standards to the strategic of B-2 bombers, uh we're focused on what matters. Had a meeting yesterday on Golden Dome for America, which is on track to deliver strategically for the American people. Munitions and the Deputy Secretary making sure we're—our stockpiles are overflowing. That's our job. I'm honored to be a part of it, sir. Thank you for your leadership.

The President: That's great. I think I like Department of War better, but we'll make that decision, right? But uh you've been great. Thank you very much.

Hegseth: Thank you, sir.

The President: So, Marco, go ahead.

Marco Rubio: Well, Mr. President, first of all, everyone's made this comment already, it needs to be echoed again. You were elected as the President of working Americans. And that's why this Labor Day is so meaningful. For me personally, this is the most meaningful Labor Day of my life as someone with four jobs, and so uh—[Laughter]

The President: It's true. It's true.

Rubio: But on the point of —you made it very clear from the outset. Even in foreign policy, everything we did has to be pro-American. It has to make America stronger or safer or more prosperous. And uh there's just a few things I want to touch through because it involves your team under your leadership making it happen.

The first is, for the first time in the modern era, we are truly on offense against organized cartels that are pumping poison, killer poison into our cities. And that's a team effort. It's Kristi's team, it's, it's Pete's team, it's, it's Pam's team. And ob—obviously, it's under your leadership.

And by the way, we're getting incredible economic—international cooperation. Countries just in the last week, Ecuador, Paraguay, Guyana, Trinidad, today Argentina, all joining us or trying to be helpful in advancing this. And this just—one thing is there, we're gonna stop drugs from coming in and we're having record seizures. But another thing is to build an international coalition against the scourge on the international stage.

The second is mass migration, illegal mass migration, which is dangerous for the country, but harmful for American workers. What's happening on the border is essential, but it's not just what's happening on the border. And again, Kristi and her team have been essential in this. We have countries all over the world that are actually helping us, whether it's through safe third country agreements, whether through it's stopping the migration flow from coming here in the first place. Incredible international cooperation.

You're not—you've, we've redefined our border. It's no longer just our physical border. We are doing things ahead of time to prevent this from happening and getting cooperations from countries that we've never seen before. And last, I would say—and Steve touched upon this, who, by the way, is doing a phenomenal job. Steve is both a great negotiator and he's also a nice guy, which are two tough things to pull off together. [Laughter] But it's incredible. But we both work for the Peacemaker-in-Chief. Think about it, how, how fortunate we are as Americans to have a President who's made peace a priority. And just since the last time we've met, there was a war going on in Cambodia and Thailand—between Cambodia and Thailand. The President just picks up the phone and tells them to stop fighting. And within 72 hours, the fighting had stopped. You know, there's no other leader in the world that could have done it.

And the fact that you were willing to spend time to do that, and, and to make it happen is, of course, essential. And then the war that didn't happen because of Azerbaijan and Armenia coming here to sign that peace deal, which is historic in so many countries. You know how many countries set out—it's never gonna happen, it isn't possible. And it occurred, Mr. President, because of your leadership.

And then on a point of personal privilege, I wasn't even gonna raise it. I haven't even talked to you about this. It's a little controversial. But I think I need to bring it up at this time of year.

This thing about people getting married on Saturdays during college football season is a scourge, Mr. President. [Laughter] It's dividing families. And I don't know if we can have an executive order on this. I'm just saying, but it's really difficult. You know, there's seven other months of the year that people could get married. So I just wanted to say that because it's very, very difficult. Thank you.

The President: Fantastic, Marco. Thank you very much.

Doug, please.

Doug Burgum: Well, Mr. President, uh you've heard from round the table uh how people are grateful to have an opportunity to be part of this team, have an opportunity to work for you, and have an opportunity to serve the American people. And I would say as we head into this Labor Day, the thing that really differentiates you and your leadership uh and everybody around this table is one word. And that's respect.

Because this is a, this is a group of people that respect our farmers and ranchers. We respect the people that are in law enforcement. That's a huge change. Uh respecting the people that are in uniform, respecting our veterans, uh respecting our shrimp fishermen. I mean, whoever it is in this country, people that are building our roads. Uh this em—this whole group embodies that sense of respect. And when we start with that, uh then, and then who benefits? We come up with policies that help those people.

And what have you done? You've led an opportunity for us to have the lower taxes, way lower deregulation, record amounts of investment that's coming into this country. We're gonna be seeing lower interest rates.

All of those things coming together is a gift to the working people. Uh the policies are lifting everybody up. There's 140 million Americans that get up and go every day and drive to work. They commute. And one of the most uh obscene things of the prior Administration was their energy policies was creating a hidden tax on those people.

The poorer you were, usually the further you had to drive because you couldn't afford the housing if you were working at a hotel, if you're working in a service industry. We were taxing them. A hidden tax on them was the high cost of energy. You're the only—perhaps one of the only leaders in the world that understood the connection between peace abroad and prosperity at home was directly connected to energy policy.

You came in and said, "We're gonna sell energy to our friends and allies. We're gonna uh bring prosperity at home through policies here by having lower energy prices. And we're gonna stop funding wars abroad with energy policies that help our adversaries and hurt us." You said, "We're gonna sell energy to our friends and allies." And with the work that Jamieson and Howard and Scott and everyone has done on these trade deals, we're gonna have an opportunity to have a renaissance in American energy, selling energy to the world, which is gonna help bring uh peace abroad.

But the real key thing, uh in closing, I want to say is uh two things. One has to do with the US Park Police. That's the group here in Washington, DC. They're the oldest uniform, oldest uniform law enforcement group in the nation. You coming out and visiting with them in person before they went out on the surge, uh not only uh not only are carjackings down, muggings down, uh homicides down, everything down, morale is through the roof.

Just like, just like Pete saw, we've got record uh people signing up to want to be part of our military. You have breathed life back into the profession of law enforcement. Your respect for law enforcement uh is so incredible. It's making a difference. And then us giving them the tools.

On a lighter note for everybody here, one of the rules that under President Trump we were able to change for the US Park Police was they could do a pursuit. I was shocked to find out when we were talking to 'em, like, "Oh, you pull somebody over and they just drive away and you can't pursue 'em? I mean, like—?" And they said, "No, we can't." They said, "Old rules." We got that rule changed in 24 hours because of President Trump's uh leadership. The next night, they had so much fun. [laughter] They pulled people over. They started to take off. They chased 'em. They stopped 'em. And then, and then the bad guys, some of these guys were in cars that had stolen plates. They'd take the plate off. They steal 'em off somebody else's car. They know the plate doesn't match. They know they're doing this thing. The bad guys in the car said, "What? You're not supposed to chase us." Like you're breaking the rules. The bad guys are telling us we're breaking —. No, no, we're back, back— So it's like, like, uh—and so the uh the morale is high.

They all wanted to say thank you to you. Uh yesterday, you announced increasing the number of uh US Park Police that we're gonna hire. This is the group that protects not only our, our sacred monuments of democracy here, but also the Statue of Liberty and the Golden Gate. These, this is a great group. But on behalf of all law enforcement, we say thank you.

And uh and as uh Chris Wright was talking about electricity, I wanna close with that. We've solved amazing things in seven months, but the big challenge we have against uh —the remaining is, I mean, solving Iran's uh nuclear thing. That was an existential threat. China beating us in the AI arms race, that's an external threat.

We finally have a President who talks about it. You talked about it in your opening remarks. You've signed executive orders. You understand that, that essentially, we used to say—hundreds of years ago, people started saying that, that knowledge is power, but now for the first time in history, we can take a electricity and we can convert it into intelligence. So it's flipped. It's no longer knowledge is power. Power is also knowledge.

And while we're ahead on the technology, we're way behind China on the amount of electricity they're bringing online. And your strong position to support afforable, relidable [sic] energy using our nation's resources, including those across the Department of Interior, bringing back coal mining, bringing back mining, uh bringing back uh timber. All the industries that have been killed in this country are coming back to life because of you. And with your leadership, we, we have a chance to not only win the AI arms race, but actually dominate it the way we're dominating in other things. So thank you, Mr. President.

The President: Thank you very much. And we're leading that race right now by a lot. And we're uh gonna keep the uh electricity coming. You know, in China, they do it very quickly. Uh they have one person that says, "Do it," and that's it. Uh but essentially, we have one person that says, uh "Do it." And uh we, we've given that order. And the job they've done has been amazing.

And I want to thank, again, Lee. What you're doing in that regard is so important. And the rapidity, just as fast as them, because it's a question of uh a week versus a day. And that's not gonna make the difference. But you've done fantastically. And Doug and Chris, uh amazing job. Uh so we've done this for a little while now.

I don't think you've ever seen anything like it. And uh you know uh I think Sean was right. These guys that are holding these [microphone poles] up, if you ever try holding your hand out for two hours, that's a long time. These are pretty strong characters. You've been doing that a long time, I guess. Congratulations.

Speaker: Too long.

The President: Are you getting tired? Are you getting tired?

Speaker: We're good for another 2 hours.

The President: I'm looking at these guys. They look like they have no problem. It's amazing, actually. They—uh I think they would've beaten you guys in the—in the test. [laughter] So uh I want to thank you. If you want, you know, it's —It's been a long time. If you want—if you want, we could go in and we can call it a day.

Many: No. No. [Inaudible] We're-

The President: No? And feel free then to uh ask some of the questions here. Look, I believe in very open—you know, we wanna be open, above board. We want to be honest with the media. I wish the media was totally honest with us, but I think they're getting better, to be honest with you. And so we'll see. But if you want to take a few questions, you [Inaudible]

Multiple Reporters: Mr. President. Mr. President—

Question: On a serious note, when it comes to Fed Governor Lisa Cook, her lawyer has said that they're going to be filing a lawsuit challenging this legal action. What is your response? And are you prepared for a legal fight? And then a little bit more – [crosstalk]

The President: Oh, sure, always. Always. You always have legal fights. Look, I had a legal fight that went on for years with uh crooked people, with very horrible people, people that have been found out now between John Ratcliffe and Tulsi and Pam, and—And the things that we found out, of course, it's a very, very sad group of people.

But no, uh she seems to have had an infraction and she can't have an infraction, and especially that infraction because she's in charge of, if you think about it, mortgages. And we need people that are 100 percent above board and it doesn't seem like she was. Yeah, please.

Question: Mr. President. First, I would love to ask you a serious question, but I have to tell you, the biggest pop culture news of the year broke while we were in this Cabinet meeting. Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are engaged. And the world wants your reaction, sir.

The President: Well, I wish 'em a lot of luck. [laughter] No, I think it's—I think he's a great player. I think he's a great guy. And I think that she's a terrific person. So I wish them a lot of luck.

Question: On a serious note, Mr. President, in May, Secretary Rubio said that they were aggressively removing uh visas of Chinese students. Yesterday, you said you wanted to allow 600,000 Chinese students to study in the United States. Could you and the Secretary clarify what is the policy on Chinese students in the United States of America?

The President: Well, we think we're—you know, look, we're getting along very well with China. Uh, and I'm getting along very well with President Xi. I think it's very insulting to say your students can't come here, because they'll go out and, they'll start building schools, and they'll be able to survive it. But I like that their students come here.

I like that other countries' students come here. And you know what would happen if they didn't? Our college system would go to hell very quickly. You'd have—and it wouldn't be the top colleges. It would be colleges that struggle on the bottom. And you take out 300,000 or 600,000 students out of the system.

I like having—and I told this to President Xi, that we're honored to have their students here. Now, with that, we check and we're careful and we see who's there and Marco wants that. We spoke. We're in the same position. But we have a tremendous college system. The best in the world. Nobody even close. That's why China sends 'em here.

And you can call it an industry, if you want, but you're talking about millions of people. And I'm honored to have the students from China come here and uh they're— We're just getting along very well with China. It's a different relationship than we had for years, where they took hundreds of billions of dollars, just sucked it right out of our country. They respect us again. I respect them. Uh the relationship is very good. I think it's important that—these are two very major powers, nuclear powers at that, but two very important powers.

You know, when I get along with Putin, when I get along with President Xi, when I get along with these people, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

We're tough and we're smart and we're strong. We get along. It's a lot better than not getting along. You had somebody in here before—the war should have never started with Ukraine and Russia. It would've never started. And Putin said that himself. President Putin said that himself. So uh we want to see college students come in from countries.

There are some countries where—that we can't necessarily say, that. These are places that have ideologies that we can't live with. So there are some areas, some countries that we can't say that. But we're honored to have the students come here.

Please. Yeah, please.

Many: Mr. President! [crosstalk] Mr. President.

The President: Yeah, please.

Question: Mr. President, yesterday, you said that within two to three weeks, we would have a conclusive—pretty good, conclusive end to the war in Gaza. What did you mean by that? And could you —[inaudible]-

The President: On what?

Question: In the war in Gaza. You said —

The President: Yeah. What about it?

Question: You said in two to three weeks, we would have a conclusive end [Inaudible] and a pretty good conclusive [inaudible]—

The President: There's no conclusive. It's been going on for a long time, but you're talking about—I guess, if you really add it up, Steve, you're talking about thousands of years, okay? It's been going on for—there's nothing conclusive, but hopefully we're gonna have things solved very quickly with regard to Gaza and also with regard to Ukraine and Russia.

Many: Mr. President!

Question: Who are you considering for the replacement to nominate for Lisa Cook? And what economic background or history are you – [crosstalk]

The President: Well, we have some very good people for that position. And uh I think we have some very good people. We're down to—I mean, I think—I, maybe in my own mind have somebody that I like, but I deal with Scott and I deal with Howard and. And we're dealing with a lot of people actually that are gonna be involved in that decision, ultimately. It's a very important decision. As we see, I mean, I got a bad recommendation when I went with uh Jerome Too Late. You know, he's just, too late. His nickname is too late, costing us a lot of money, hurting the housing. I mean, our housing industry is good, but it could be phenomenal. Most, most of this country, in terms—economic terms, has been phenomenal.

We've never seen anything like it. Because of him and his uh high interest rates, uh the housing is less than it could be. Uh we're gonna get that straightened out very quickly. He gets out very quickly, fortunately. He's been the wrong guy. Not a bad person, I don't think. But you know, I do think he has motives, by the way, but I don't consider him—I've dealt with worse, but uh he hasn't done the job.

The recommendation from a certain person was not a great recommendation. That person uh vouched for him. But we're doing a very careful study. We'll see what happens. Look, we have—we just put a very good man in that—in one position. We might switch him to the other. It's a longer term, and pick somebody else.

But we're very happy with the person we have in there. And uh we'll have a majority very shortly. So that'll be great. Once we have a majority, uh housing is gonna swing and it's gonna be great. People are paying too high an interest rate.

That's the only problem with housing. Uh we have to get the rates down a little bit. And when we do, it's gonna be a tremendous difference. The country—

Many: Mr. President! [crosstalk]

The President: But the country, the country is doing so well. It sort of uh it sort of blows through the fact that we have a, a man who's too late and not doing a very good job. Please, in blue.

Question: Mr. President, regarding crime in D.C., something that might help, especially ladies, is being able to carry. I know you've talked about reciprocal carry. Would you like for that to apply here in Washington D.C.?

The President: When you say carry, I assume you're talking about carry—what we're talking about, right?

Question: Concealed or carry… Yeah.

The President: In other words, carry a gun. Is that right? Would you like to carry a gun?

Question: I would like to. Yes, sir.

The President: You'd feel a hell of a lot better, right?

Question: I absolutely would.

The President: I agree with you, 100%. Okay?

Question: Okay. Great.

The President: But I'll tell you, within another couple of weeks—it's hard to believe what's been accomplished in 12 days. But within another couple of weeks, you won't have to carry.

Question: Why not?

The President: You're not gonna have to carry. You're gonna be safe. People are safe now. This, this—the turn has gone fast—I knew it was gonna go fast, but this turn has gone really fast. And within a month or two, this is gonna be one of the safest places in the country. I have no doubt about it. And uh we'll do an extension.

We'll work with Congress, or I could declare an emergency, but I don't think that's gonna be necessary. We'll work with Congress.

Question: And to that, we've got—

The President: We're gonna be working with Congress. I spoke with a, our great Speaker. And I, I will be speaking to John Thune. And we're getting tremendous support from Congress, especially maybe here. Everybody wants to see our capital be great. You could say be great again. You know, it's such a beautiful place. But if you have crime, nothing looks beautiful. So, but you won't need to carry a gun. But if you do, gonna be your choice.

Question: Well, I would like to have the option. Just in case.

The President: Well, a lot of people feel that.

Question: Sir, also, in other blue cities, you've got Karen Bass in Los Angeles, Brandon Johnson in Chicago, it seems to be very popular here, the fact that people can walk around, go to restaurants, shop [crosstalk] without having to worry about their safety. If blue city Mayors oppose those efforts in their cities, do you anticipate that Democrat voters are gonna take it all and them at the— [crosstalk]?

The President: I think so. I think that crime is gonna be a big thing. And we are the party—the Republicans are the party that wants to stop crime. We're against crime. The Democrats like crime. I don't know why. I mean, we talk about common sense. I think I got elected on talking about common sense. The border. We have to have a wall. We have—we don't want transgender for everybody. We don't—as I said before, we don't want to have men playing in women's sports. I mean, you see the difference. Weightlifting. Take a look at weightlifting. Take a look at long-distance running, where a runner came in five hours and 14 minutes ahead of another runner. Both champions, one male, one—it's, it's not fair. It's demeaning to women. It's so bad.

But they have another one. And I think this is the beauty of them all. Crime. They're against crime prevention. You can't do that. You can't do that. And uh it's, it's—I think to myself, I say, "Is there some game? You know, they're smart people.

Is there—anybody that could cheat like that in elections is smart. Okay? And there's never been in history anybody that could cheat like that. They're smart. They're brilliant in many ways. I say, "Is there some trick to this?" When they say, "Trump is in Washington D.C. stopping crime. He's a dictator." And people are being mugged, like your brilliant associate here. [points to reporter show spoke earlier.] I don't know how you're alive. I mean, based on that story. You got very lucky he didn't just go [points to head as if holding a gun]—all he had to do is this, right?

Speaker: Exactly.

The President: And it's pretty amazing.

Question: Was it intentional, though?

The President: So, so, we have something—I think we have two things. I think what uh Bobby was talking about with respect to drug prices is unbeatable. Nobody else coulda done it but us. And I think that crime. I think crime will be the big subject of the midterms and will be the big subject of the next election. Uh think of it. They are, instead of saying, "Trump's right about crime," it's really bad in Chicago. You have a guy in Illinois, the Governor of Illinois, saying that crime has been much better in Chicago recently, and Trump is a dictator. And wha—and most people say, "If you call him a dictator, then—if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants." I'm not a dictator, by the way. But he can be whatever he wants. I think it's gonna be a big, a big, big subject for the midterms. And I think the Republicans are gonna do really well. They are—they called it a trap. This Democrat consultant, they said, "He's put 'em in a trap again," because these are all traps. You know, 80/20, but they're not 80/20. They're almost 100 to nothing. All these issues.

But I would say that crime is stronger than men playing in women's sports. I think it's stronger than transgender for everybody. It's transgender for everybody, according to them. It's stronger, of course, it's—this is the cause of it. Open borders. Open borders gave us a lot of this crime. So you know, so they're sort of on an equal footing, I guess.

But crime is gonna be a very big subject. And you know what he should do if he was smart? Illinois or New York, if they want, or Gavin Newscum, they should call me and they should say, you know, we've got a—we've got a problem.

You know, we could solve, with this team, different players, but work the same way, because you'd leave them here. You don't want to take 'em out and let it go to hell. Uh everybody's so happy, and wal, and I bet you walked over here today and you had no fear. Nobody has any fear anymore, the last 12 days.

But what a, a —if they, if they—it would be so smart. Gavin Newsom call me up and say, "You know what, we have a big problem." We have the Olympics coming up. We want to do well. We have tremendous problems on crime and other things and we'd love some help." Chicago, in particular, maybe right now. I mean, it's, uh it's a disaster. It's a disaster. We could solve their problem in—it's bigger than this. Let's say two months, okay, working with their police. I know their police very well. I have a big project in Chicago I built—I was so proud of it. It's the best site in Chicago. I got it. Nobody else got it. I was happy as hell—that was when I was a real estate guy. And I got it. The Sun Time Site, they call it. And I built a building. It's a great building.

And I'm so embarrassed when I see the kind of crime stats coming out there, so so embarrassed. And if I were a Governor, a Democrat Governor, or mayor or anybody having to do, I'd call up President Trump. I'd say, "President Trump, we need your help. We saw what you've done in D.C. in a period of 12 days." This is 12 days. We haven't even started. This is gonna be so safe. It'll be the safest place on earth. And we'll do the same thing in Chicago. But I'd like to be asked as opposed to just going in and doing it. Because when you go in and do it, then they start screaming, "Oh, he shouldn't be here. We don't need him. We're doing so well." And then the better we do, they take credit for it. So it's really pretty unfair.

Reporters: Mr. President. Mr. President.

The President: Yes, go ahead.

Question: On crime, for a lot of victims like myself, a big concern is long-term sustainability.

The President: Yeah.

Question: Can you share with more—with the American public about your plan in ensuring that D.C. is safe in the long term [crosstalk]?

The President: Longer term, yeah. Well, it's a great question. Number one, we want to stay there for longer than 30 days. As you know, we have an absolute mandate. And I can extend it, but I'd rather not have to declare a national emergency because by that time—I mean, right now, there's not an emergency. We've done—as you sort of said yourself, it feels like a different world.

We've uh got under arrest and uh prosecution, and we've thrown out—taken some, and we're in the process of taking hundreds out of our country that shouldn't be here. And these are hardcore professional criminals. They were born to be criminals, in my opinion, but they're seriously bad people. Murderers, drug dealers, you know 'em all. You see them all as you walk beautifully to work. And every once in a while, somebody puts a gun to your head because that's what happened in your case.

Uh we're getting a lot of 'em out of the country. We're putting a lot of 'em in prison because we're afraid to bring 'em out of the country. They could come back. You know, as good as we're doing, they could come back. We don't want 'em back. Uh and that's gonna solve a lot of it. We also think there should be a presence here for long enough. We should also work with our police department, because you have very good police here. Very good. We're working very well with them, by the way.

And we have to work together for a while. We have some people that are very tough and very strong working with the police. They're gonna be able to handle it. And you know what? If it gets a little bit bad, a little bit, just a little bit, I'll bring 'em back in and we'll straighten it out.We'll make it perfect. You're gonna be so safe in this city. And uh you're gonna have the city beautified.

We're gonna be giving out—we're working with Clark, as you know, Construction. They're the biggest. They're working with me. Also, we're building a beautiful ballroom for the White House. They've been after it for 150 years. Employs a lot of people. It's gonna be as beautiful a ballroom as has ever been built. And Clark is the big—the big – uh builder in this city. They've done, I guess, a majority of the good work, the big work. And we're working with them on the beautification, the fixing up the roads, the fixing up of the medians, the, you know, between the uh roads so cars don't wrap into each other. They wrap into—I have one piece sitting on the ground for weeks. This was a year ago when I hadda come in, unfortunately, for fake court cases. And I looked at the condition. We have it fixed up a lot right now. You know, the tents are removed and a lot of things have taken place. But I'd come into this city and I'd say, "Boy, does it look bad?" The, the filth on the roads. The medians were broken and always laying down and nobody would fix 'em and all of that.

Well, we're gonna have new medians. We're gonna have a nice topping put on the road. We're not gonna rip the roads apart and start a construction project that lasts for two and a half years as they rebuild the road, which they don't have to do. And we're gonna have this place so beautiful. It's gonna be a part of it. Now, the biggest part is crime, but it's also a part—you know, when you see a dirty city, it's like I told—I don't know. It became the number one thing viral.

I said, "My father, he's a smart guy. He's a great guy. He's a loving, wonderful father." But he could be a little on the tough side. He told me that uh, "Son, when you walk into a restaurant and you see a dirty, filthy door going into the restaurant, don't go there because the kitchen's dirty also." When they see a dirty capital, the rest of the world, they lose a lot of respect for our country.

This capital is gonna be so beautiful. We're gonna have new poles, new lights, new fences. It's stuff that when you add it up, it's money, but it's peanuts compared to what we're talking about. And we're also gonna have great safety.

Many voices: Mr. President!

Question: Mr. President, I wanted to ask you on crime and also a question on foreign policy that maybe other officials can weigh in, too. And on crime, Iris shared her story, and you mentioned, you know, uh people going to dinner—[crosstalk]

The President: It was a terrible story. I'm just amazed she's here. When the gun is—Pam, when the gun is put to the head—did they ever capture these people by the way?

Iris: I kept calling but haven't heard back about this [crosstalk]—

The President: It'd be really great if you could maybe give the information. She's very good at capturing people. [Pointing at Pam Bondi. Laughter.] She's very good. If you could give that information to Pam would be great. Would you do that?

Tao: Yes, I would. Thank you so much.

The President: All right. I would assume you'd like to see them captured.

Tao: For sure.

The President: You just can't, you just can't—[crosstalk]

Tao: It's over three years.

The President: Yeah. Take a good look at that. Go ahead. So go ahead.

Question: Just a few weeks ago, I was out to dinner with my husband and then we're taking the metro back and then we get attacked on the metro. They're throwing things, some teenagers, you know, throwing liquid at us.

The President: Oh, they're throwing things. They throw—how about where they chop down the granite curbs and the concrete curbs—but the granite curbs so expensive. You know, those granite curbs, nobody uses them because they're so expensive. And you see a guy chopping them and handing out big chunks of 'em like a brick because they couldn't get in because people were stopping 'em from walking out. A little bit unusual when you're walking with a bag of bricks. Generally speaking, Sean, that's not a good sign, right? [laughter] It's not a good sign. But they now come in with hammers. They can disguise a hammer and they start pounding the concrete and the granite and they hand out chunks. And those people take those chunks and start throwing 'em at cops. Or they stand on the top of bridges and they drop 'em down into the windshield of your car and you get killed running into a light pole. It's uh – it's, those days are over.

Question: I wanted to ask you uh Governor Hochul, Kathy Hochul, said that she spoke to you on the phone and you said you might send National Guard troops to New York. You've mentioned that. So, will you be [crosstalk] sending?

The President: I'd love to do it if she'd like—I get along with Kathy. If she'd like to do that, I would do it. See, look, New York has difficulty like—and uh I don't want to make this bite, I want to make this like friendly. But the places we're talking about happen to be virtually all Democrat-run. Now, take a look at your 25 places that are most troubled. Every one, except maybe one and it's way back in number 24 or 25, but essentially 25 out of 25 are run by Democrats. And cashless bail was a disaster. When they did that—and I believe it was instituted first in New York, but when they did cashless bail, that was a tragedy for this because that's when it really started. It really started getting bad.

When somebody kills somebody, you don't say, "You can come out, you don't have to put up anything." You put that person in jail and you, you find out whether or not it's true. But you don't give cashless bail with a promise to come back in a couple of months, we'll start talking to you." Because they go out and they kill other people and you can't do that.

The cashless bail has been—you know, it's, it's, it's just a woke thing. It's, its gotta stop. You see that, Kristi, better than anybody. It's gotta stop. It causes unbelievable—and we're doing that. We're stopping it in D.C. I would love to have the Governor of Illinois call me and say, "Look, we have a problem in Chicago." We will stop that problem in Chicago in two months, maybe less—two months, we'll stop it. These are tough cookies we have working for us. These are tough cookies. These are not politically correct soldiers, that—I won't go into definitions of what that means, but these are not politically correct soldiers. These are rough guys.

I watched it last night. I see it. I saw them the other day when we went down and we spent some time together with them. These are tough cookies. These are not people that you're gonna laugh at and spit in their face and they're not gonna do anything about it. And these people, they're afraid. These, these gang members, who are bad people too. These are bad, are just bad people. Ours are bad, but they're bad in a good sense, right? You understand that, Scott. Uh and we can solve Chicago in two months.

Now, then as per your statement before, we have to keep it going and we'll be able to keep it going. The first thing you have to do is get it down. We are very close to being in that position in D.C., and within a month we will be—within a month from when we started, which is quicker than I thought, we're gonna have—you're gonna feel very, very safe. I think you feel very safe right now.

Many voices: Mr. President!

The President: But, but I would love it to have these Governors, mayors, call me and say, "We'd like to invite you into our community because we have a problem and you can handle the problem and we can't."

One other thing, sanctuary cities, they should be terminated. They're sanctuary for criminals. They're safety and security for criminals. They are very, very bad and all of these places have big sanctuary cities and all they're doing is protecting criminals. Okay.

Many voices: Mr. President—[Crosstalk]

The President: Go.

Question: About Lisa Cook, uh you have spoken out very strongly for a long time about what you see as the weaponization of government. Is your Administration weaponizing government—

The President: No.

Question:— by digging into the mortgage records of officials you don't like?

The President: No. They're public. I mean, you can find out those records. You can go check out the records yourself and you should be doing that job actually. You wouldn't do that because that's not the kind of reporter you are. But you should be doing that job. I shouldn't have to be doing it. Uh if you did your job properly, we wouldn't have problems like Lisa Cook.

[Addresses a different reporter:} Go ahead. You were gonna say something? [crosstalk]. Uh huh. Blue?

Question: So [crosstalk] —you will be trying to fire —if she had voted to lower interest rates?

Question: [crosstalk] –on national security?

The President: I think we have to have lower interest rates, yes.

Question: A follow-up question for you and Madam Attorney General on national security. We've heard from Stephen Miller yesterday in the Oval Office that there are street criminals here in D.C., who are actually found to be doing business with transnational criminal uh cartels overseas.

The President: That's right. And we know who they are, and we know who they're doing business with. And we're arresting the people, very strongly arresting, and we're keeping them there because your laws here make it very difficult. And one of the other laws we're trying to get done, because you have 14-year-old kids that are just as tough as a 25-year-old kid, just as dangerous and they carry the same gun.

And we have to make a provision where they're treated like older people because these are seriously tough, bad—they're children, but they're criminals and they're really bad criminals. And they're used by older people because they never get charged because you can't do anything to 'em. But we are getting that changed, Pam, I hope. Because you have 14-year-old kids that are evil, they're sick, and they have to be put away. Something has to be done because you can't have a society where they're allowed to walk the street. You know that better than anybody.

[Crosstalk]

Question: Mr. President, on your way to Alaska—

The President: I can't believe —it, you're not tired holding that? Look at this, how strong are you?

Question: —I have a few more questions.

The President: How strong are you? Look at him. He's been holding that thing for three hours. You good—you're a good fisherman.

Boom-holder: Thanks a lot [crosstalk].

The President: Go ahead.

Question: On Alaska, you had mentioned that there would be severe consequences if Vladimir Putin did not agree to a ceasefire.

The President: Yeah.

Question: After that summit, that was rolled back given the negotiations. Is he back on the clock now?

The President: uh I want to see that deal end. It's very, uh very serious what I have in mind if I have to do it, but I want to see it end. I think that in many ways he's there. Sometimes he'll be there, and Zelenskyy won't be there. You know, it's like [makes balancing motions with hands] who do we have today? I gotta get 'em both at the same time. But I wanna have it end. We have economic sanctions. I'm talking about economic, because we're not gonna get into a uh World War.

I'll tell you what, in my opinion, if I didn't win this race, Ukraine could have ended up in a World War. We're not gonna end up in a World War anymore, but it would've ended up, possibly, in a World War. That wouldda been, that wouldda been—they were ready to trot. But uh just like India and Pakistan were gonna end up in a nuclear war if I didn't stop 'em. You know, it was sort of strange. I saw they were fighting, then I saw seven jets were shot down. I said, that's not good. That's a lotta jets. You know, $150 million planes were shot down. A lot of them. Seven, maybe more than that. They didn't even report the real number. And I'm talking to a very terrific man, Modi of India, and I say, "What's going on with you and Pakistan?" Then I'm talking to Pakistan on trade. I said, "What's going on with you and India?" And the hatred was tremendous.

Now, this has been going on for a hell of a long time, like uh with—sometimes with different names, for hundreds of years. But uh I said, "What's going on?" I said, "I don't want to make a trade deal." "No, no, no, we want to make trade deal." I said, "No, no, I don't want to make a trade deal with you. You're gonna have a nuclear war. You guys are gonna end up in a nuclear war." And that was very important to them. I said, "Call me back tomorrow, but we're not gonna do any deals with you. Or we're gonna put tariffs on you that are so high —." You were there, Howard, right?

Lutnick: Yep.

The President: We're gonna put tariffs on you that was so high, I don't give a damn, your head's gonna spin. You're not gonna end up in a war. Within about five hours, it was done. It was done. Now, maybe it starts again. I don't know. I don't think so, but I'll stop it if it does. Uh we can't let these things happen.

The Russia-Ukraine situation. Last week, 7,012 soldiers, 7,000, 0-12 soldiers died. They were Russian, they were Ukrainian, they weren't American. So a lot of people would say, what do you care? They're not American. I care. They're, they're 12,000—over the last couple of weeks, over 12,000 people died in the last—in like two weeks. You know, we're talking about crime where somebody's killed here, or somebody—think of it, you have your son leaving Russia, leaving Ukraine, their little house, wherever they live with their parents, they're waving goodbye, just like our parents would wave goodbye and they're waving good—"Goodbye son." And then a week later, his head's blown off in a stupid war by a drone. A whole new form of military problem.

So uh, no, I'd like it to stop. I want to get it to stop. And uh it will not be a World War, but it'll be an economic war. And an economic war is gonna be bad and it's gonna be bad for Russia. And I don't want that. Now, I have to also see, because not everybody—you know, Zelenskyy is not exactly innocent either, OK? You know?

It takes two people to tango and I say it all the time, you gotta get 'em together. I get along with Zelenskyy now, but we have a much different relationship because now we're not paying any money to Ukraine. You know, I stopped that. We're paying money to ourselves. What's happening is uh NATO is buying all of the equipment and paying in full.

But even with that, forget about that. I want to get it stopped because it's a lot of lives that are being lost. Every week it's 7,000, 5,000, six. I get the reports and I see battlefields. I'd rather not see 'em. And you [crosstalk] know, you read about—you read about Gettysburg. You read about Gettysburg and you see, you know, those thousand—600,000 people, but in that war in particular was really bad. Like 150,000 or something. Just dead body—I'm seeing the same—I see pictures. I see satellite pictures of heads over here, arms over here, legs over here. And this is like a modern age. It's no different than the worst wars that I've ever seen. And if I can stop it, because I have a certain power or a certain relationship, I had a very good relationship with President Putin. Very, very good.

That's a positive thing again. And I think I'm probably the only—Steve Witkoff would tell you I'm the only one that can solve it. I don't know. You've told me that a few times. Unless he was saying that just to build up my ego, but it's not really—I have no ego when it comes to this stuff. I just want to see it stop.

Thousands of young people, mostly young people are dying every single week. If I can save that by doing sanctions or by, by just being me, or by using a very strong tariff system that's very costly to Russia or Ukraine or whoever we have—you know. But I stopped seven wars and three of those wars were going on for more than 30 years.

You know, if you look at Congo, if you look at – uh just look at any of them, almost all of them were going on for extended period of time. Now uh, interestingly, one had just started. It was two days old and you know that one. That we did that one when we were in Scotland negotiating—it was two days—but there were 2000 dead bodies laying on the border, and I got that one stopped too.

And I'm very honored by that, but I still—the one that I thought would be the easiest is turning out to be the hardest. That's uh President Putin and President Zelenskyy, but I think I'll get it done.

[crosstalk]

Question: Why do you think [Inaudible] why is it harder than you thought it would be?

The President: You never know. It's war.

[crosstalk] Question: Can you stop —the-

The President: With war, you never know, right? War's very tricky, very horrible. But with war, you never know. Things change. People go into war, think they're gonna win the war, and then they get their asses kicked and they lose their country, and they lose millions of lives. Nobody goes into a war thinking they're gonna lose.

They go in, I'm sure that Ukraine thought they were gonna win. There's gonna be—you know, we're, "We're gonna win." You're gonna beat somebody that's 15 times your size. Biden shouldn't have let that happen. Biden shouldn't have—I mean, the man was grossly incompetent. He shoulda never been there. That would've never happened. But you don't go into a war that's 15 times your size.

Question: Do you think—— [crosstalk]

The President: Say it?

Question: The Fed just put out a statement saying that uh Lisa Cook has indicated through a personal atturn—attorney that she'll promptly challenge this action in court, seek a judicial decision that would confirm her ability to continue.

The President: That's all right. Whatever it is.

Question: It said, the Fed will abide by any court decision.

The President: Thank you very much for reading it.

Question: Will you abide by a court decision?

The President: I abide by the court. Yeah, I abide by the court.

Question: [multiple speakers, crosstalk]

The President: Yes, please. [to previous questioner:] That's enough. That's enough.

Question: Mr. President-

The President: Go ahead.

Question: [crosstalk] What other companies—or what other companies are you thinking about taking stake in?

The President: Well, you know, we didn't take a stake in the sense that it was reported. Everyone said I bought a stake in Intel. No, I got it for free. I said—I was with the—is that a correct statement? Howard was there.

Lutnick: Absolutely correct.

The President: Scott knew all about it. Uh they came in, a man was uh charged with something by a very good person—Senator Cotton—made some statements about the gentleman that was running Intel. When he came in – and, and I said some rough things about him. I said, "I'm not happy with it." And they called and he was very devastated at what I said.

I said, he should immediately resign. And he came to see me, and I was very impressed by him, actually. And he made a mistake, or things—factors happened where something like this could have taken place. In the meantime, his board was staying by him. And I said to him and took about—I would say less than 45 seconds, I said, "You know what you should do if you're smart, give the United States of America 10% of your company." And he looked at me and he said, "I'll do that." I said, "I just made $11 billion for the United States." And we made the deal. Like I took—I didn't pay, we didn't write a check.

Now, I guess, Biden with his stupid CHIPS Act, handed money to all these people that didn't need any money.

It didn't do anything. You know, the CHIP—they're giving billions of dollars to everybody. They all have so much money and they have more money. But there's no commitment that you had to build. They just took all this money. I don't know. It's the stupidest thing I've ever seen. See, with tariffs, they have to come in because if they don't come in, they can't sell into our country. So it's power. And you don't have to give up any money. But I said to him very simply… I mean, I'm glad we're straightening this out because everyone thinks I bought in. No. I said, "It would be great. We'd be a great partner for you company."

And I want to see Intel do well. You know, Intel was a great company and uh it can be a great company again, but I said, "I think it would be good if we owned 10% of your company." He said, "I'll make that deal." And it happens to be worth $11 billion. So we made 11 billion for the country. And then I was criticized by some of the fake news media. "uh that's not the American way." Actually, it is the American way. Now, if I can help other countries, or do those deals with other, I would do that.

I think it's great. It's good.

Question: Do you have other plans?

The President: It builds up our balance sheet. Let me tell you, our country is becoming very rich again. You don't see it. When the CBO came out on Friday and said, we just found 11—we just found $4 trillion and that goes to reduce our deficit." Four trillion, and it was from the tariffs. Our country's becoming very, very rich again, and I hope you get used to it, Jenna. You're gonna have to get used to it.

Question: [crosstalk] —Congress, requesting [?] the deficit. Any update on your previous talking about potentially giving Americans a tariff rebate check in—?

The President: Well, we have a lot of money coming in, rebate check for the Americans, and it's coming in at tremendous numbers. Don't forget, uh I would say, Scott, we probably are talking about right now, 50%, maybe even less than that. With all the money you're hearing is coming in, uh you're talking about, you know, a lot of it hasn't kicked in yet. And when it really kicks in, is in two years when these plants are built and opened and the money starts pouring in, right. But uh I mean, there's a concept of making a—you could call it a dividend, as we would say, making a dividend to the people in this country who have had to suffer through stupid leadership. And they paid a lot of taxes and they got nothing for it, or they got attacked like you were, okay, for it. Uh now, there's a, there's a possibility. Primarily we want to pay down debt, but there's a possibility that we take a piece of it and pay some—make a dividend to the people.

[Crosstalk]

Question: Mr. President, I have a question for Steve Witkoff if I may.

The President: Yeah.

Question: This, just this past weekend, Sergey Lavrov was saying that Putin will not sign a peace deal with Zelenskyy because Russia views him as illegitimate. I'm just wondering if the Russians had been relaying this to your team, if they view Zelenskyy, you know, as a leader worth signing a peace deal with, if they will go take a—[crosstalk]

The President: Doesn't matter what they say. Steve can answer, but I can answer it too. Doesn't matter what they say. Everybody's posturing. It's all bullshit, okay? Everybody's posturing. Steve, do you have a different answer?

Witkoff: I agree with you, sir. [Laughter]

[Crosstalk] Question: Here in the city, there are—

Question: President Trump, what is your Administration here—

Question: In this city, we're 500 people short on the Metropolitan pop—Metropolitan Police. In New York City, it's 3000. In Chicago, it's 1300. Would they have had to bring in troops from the National Guard, if the police departments in this country were fully staffed? Defund the police. How bad did that turn out for America?

The President: It's an interesting question. I found—I was surprised when I heard how many police were here. It's not a really big area, and I think they said they're down to 3,200 police or something like that. I said, "That's a lot of police." And I was a little bit surprised because to me that's a big force and it's not a big area, but it is what it is. There's a lotta crime. You have a lot of—don't forget, you have a lot of police that weren't allowed to do their job.

Question: Sure.

The President: When I came in, as you remember, we made tremendous strides in a little conflict that we had going at the time, because I allowed our military to make the decision. Uh I said, "You can make any decision you want." I gave it to the Colonels in the field.

I gave it to the Captains in the field. You remember that? Where everything went through Biden, meaning one of the people. And everything went through Obama before 'im. Everything went through—they had to make the decision as to whether or not— to attack uh the Taliban.

So, they'd find 30 people together. They'd call up Washington and they'd go to a political hack who knew nothing about it. My first night, I got that same call. Like, they called me, and uh they said, we have a fie—I got a call at 3:00 in the morning because I listen to their system, and they were calling me and they were asking me whether or not they could attack a group of people having to do with you know what war I'm talking about. And I said, "I know nothing about this. Wait a minute." And then I said, "Who is he? Let me speak to the people calling." They're calling from Afghanistan. And I said, "Let me speak to the people. I wanna to speak to them." And it was a Colonel. I said, "Where'd you go to school, Colonel?" "I went to West Point, Sir." "Were you a good student?" "I was, Sir. I was a very good student."

"So, you're calling the White House to ask for permission to attack. And by the time you get the answer,— how long does it take?" "Sometimes two or three weeks." "So, by the time you get the answer, the people that you want to attack have already left, right?"

He said, "How did you know that, Sir?" I said, "Let me ask you. So you're a good student. You, went to West Point, and you love the military, right?" "Yeah." "You make the decision." And I gave all those guys that went to all these great schools, and they're all military people—I gave them the right to make their own decision. And we kicked ISIS's ass.

Don't forget, ISIS was supposed to be – uh it was supposed to take five years to terminate 'em, and we had a man named [Dan] Razin Caine, who happens to have done the whole thing in Iran. Great general, and uh he's a wonderful guy, too, believe it or not, but he's a great soldier. We, we let them do their work, and we defeated ISIS. We defeated everybody.

Everybody – every, every fight that we had militarily that I had, I won. And I let these great soldiers – do— do some make a mistake? I guess. But like this Colonel—I'll never forget it, "Where did you go to school?" "I went to West Point, Sir." I did ask him a question. I like good students as opposed to bad students.

He said, "I was a good student, Sir." And I said, "You do what's necessary." And you know, I don't want to sound overly vicious, but he wiped out the entire group of very bad people that want to kill us. So, you have to let them do their job. In Washington, they're not allowed to do their job, okay? They're not allowed. You have,, you have great police. You have great police, but they're not allowed—hello.

[pointing at reporter] Go ahead.

Question: On Congress, Mr. President, would you be open to a year-long continuing resolution?

The President: uh I'm always open to whatever is necessary. But here's the problem in Congress, you have Democrats that will never vote for anything. I could say that we're gonna lower your taxes by 50%. We're gonna guarantee you free cities, safe cities. Nobody will ever get touched, molested, beat up, shot in the head. We're gonna give you the greatest country ever. We need your vote. And they won't vote. And they do it in unison. The only thing they do good is cheat on elections and unite. You know why they unite? Not because they're good or they're loyal people. They unite because they're afraid. They're afraid of the radical left and you can't get their vote.

So, we have a vote coming up at the end of September. And I think we're gonna pass it because we have the majority. And I think almost every Republican will vote for an extension, because no matter what deal you make with these people—look at Schumer. He made a deal a year and a half ago. And after making the deal, he's been almost run out of the party. He's not the same man. He's not the same man. He's finished. He aged 20 years. He's become a Palestinian, by the way. We call him our great Palestinian Senator. But Chuck Schumer—and I wrote him a letter. I said, "Chuck, that was really great. Thank you very much." And somebody gave the letter to the press, not me. And he was destroyed because they thought I was being sarcastic and I wasn't. He made a great decision. It kept our country open. That was a positive. But you can count on almost no vote.

I mean, I see things—I'll give you an example, crime. So, we're gonna pass a bill so—to stop crime. We may not get one Democrat vote, okay? We may not get one. So when you say continuing resolution, I guess so—and it's gonna be passed exclusively by Republicans.

[Crosstalk]

Question: Mr. President, why do you use —

Question: On farm Visas you mentioned in Iowa that you wanted to see some changes to the H-2A visa program for farm workers.

The President: Yeah, Right.

Question: You mentioned in Iowa that you want to see changes. Do you want to see that before the fall harvest?

The President: Well, I love both groups and we take care of our farmers, and we also take care of the people that want bad people out of our country. And we're working on something that's gonna work really well. We take care of our farmers, but we also have to take care of those people that voted for me because they don't want criminals in our country and we're working on something where we can take care of both.

[Crosstalk]

Question: Mr. President, you were talking about the CBO report that two of your Cabinet members were talking about. I remember back on Liberation Day, many of us reporters covered your detractors. People saying that it was gonna explode the deficit and therefore explode the debt. Who all has called you to say I was wrong? [laughter]

The President: That's very good. You know the answer to that. Okay.

Yeah, please go ahead.

[Crosstalk]

Question: Governor Pritzker said yesterday at a press conference that he would encourage nonviolent resistance —

Lutnick: Jesus.

Question: —to the National Guard if they were sent to Chicago. What's your response to that?

The President: He said what?

Question: That he would encourage nonviolent resistance if the National Guard is sent to Chicago.

The President: Look, this guy doesn't know what resistance is or nonviolent resistance is. He's a bad politician. Uh it's amazing. I mean, if he didn't have the money, he wouldn't get any votes because there's no compelling reason to vote for him. Guy's a major loser. But it would be nice if he would call me. I would change my mind immediately. Because everybody knows Chicago is a hellhole right now. Everybody knows it. It's not like—he's saying, "Chicago has much better numbers" right? Well, what's much better? You mean 100 people are gonna be murdered? It's gonna be much more than that. So I would have much more respect for Pritzker if he'd call me up and say, "I have a problem. Can you help me fix it?" I would be so happy to do it.

I don't love—not that I don't have—I would—have the right to do anything I want to do. I'm the President of the United States. If I think our country's in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it. Uh no problem going in and solving, you know, his difficulties. But it would be nice if they'd call and they'd say, "Would you do it?" And we do it in conjunction.

Now, we work very well with the police because we naturally get along with the police. So the police and us work really well together. Whether the mayor is opposed—I mean, you have a really rotten mayor there too. He's got a 6% approval rating in Chicago. And I see Black women wearing a red MAGA hat last night on television. " Please let the President come in. My son was attacked. My this—" You have a force of Black women, Black women, they—they're like only Trump. They want Trump to come in. And you see 'em, they're all over the place in Chicago because they're afraid to go out and they don't want their son or their daughter killed. Just like your parents didn't want you killed.

And we have a tremendous—look, it's not about winning elections because we wanna have nice, fair elections. It's not politics. We wanna see a safe country. You have people that wanna see a safe country and they're great people. You have great people in Chicago. The mayor is at 6% approval. He's an incompetent man. He should have never been put in a position like that. He can't handle it. You have an incompetent Governor there.

You have an incompetent Governor in, uh, California, Gavin. He's an—I know him very well. He's incompetent. He's a nice guy. Looks good. "Hi everybody. How are you doing?" He's got some strange hand action going. I don't know what the hell his problem is. It's a—it's a little weird, to be honest. A little something shaky going on there.

But you know, all he has to do is call me and say, "We have the Olympics coming up. We want to make it really good and safe." And I'll put some really good, great American patriots in there and you won't have any problems. Don't forget, it's loaded up with some stone-cold killers, some really bad people. Some people that were just born to be bad. They're criminals. Bad criminals. Dangerous. And we can solve the problem for 'em very quickly.

[Crosstalk]

You know what I think? I think this. You have not had this happen for four years. You sat and you'd ask one question to Biden, and it was always the ice cream question, right? What flavor ice cream do you like best? " Uh I like, uh, vanilla." And that was the end of the conference.

I think now we've done enough. These people are very busy. I want to just thank—this is the greatest—this has never been done before. First of all, a cabinet meeting was sacred. You'd never let the fake news media in. But the fake news media isn't all fake. It's a—a lot of it is, but it's not all. I think it's a great thing. I think it, maybe it's gonna be done in the future. I hope it's gonna be done. But you really get the word out. I mean, we had uh each one of these people spoke. I think each one, if, if I thought one of them did badly, I would call that person out. I would say, "Kristi, what the heck are you doing?" [laughter]

Noem: Don't say that.

The President: No, but no, seriously. You have a very talented group of people. They get along. They work along together. And there's something really nice about just, you know, the openness of what we're doing. It's government. It's an open government. That's what we are.

Unidentified: It's incredible.

The President: And, uh we haven't made too many mistakes. We maybe will, but we haven't made too many mistakes. We've called it right. And, uh I think you can be very proud of your country. We are a respected country again. We are really, right now, respected at the highest level, and we're doing great. And we're a very rich country again. Very rich.

And that's a good thing because when we're rich, we can take care of poor. And that's what we're doing. And we're taking care of crime. And I hope—just in finishing, I hope that Illinois, I hope that New York, I hope that California, I hope they call me and they say, "I'd love to have you come in and help us out." I will be a totally different person with them. I will respect them for doing it.

Thank you all very much. Thank you everybody.