Remarks Prior to a Cabinet Meeting and an Exchange With Reporters

The President. Thank you very much, everybody.

[At this point, a cellular phone rang.]

We've just completed what many are saying is the most successful—[laughter]—what was that noise I heard? [Laughter] That must have been Elon. Was that—who was that?

Vice President James D. "J.D." Vance. Bobby's phone was quacking. [Laughter]

The President. That was a strange—it was a—that was a very strange. That's all right.

We've just completed what many consider to be the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country, and we're just getting started. Things are happening that are amazing. And I would not say it if it weren't fact.

In a few short weeks, we've achieved the most secure border in American history, by far—99.9 percent, which is a number that nobody thought was doable. Biden thought you had to go back to the legislature to get legislation passed in order to create a secure border. You didn't. You just had to have the right President and the right people working it.

Congratulations, by the way.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi L. Noem. Thank you.

The President. And to Tom.

Secretary Noem. You too. You too.

The President. For 2 months in a row, we have set the alltime record for the lowest number of illegal border crossings ever recorded. The number of illegal border crossers released into the United States is down 99.999 percent. That is usually 100 percent.

So I think it's an amazing tribute. And, Kristi, congratulations, and Tom and everybody else.

Secretary Noem. Thank you.

The President. That's an amazing job, actually. And it was done very quickly.

We officially designated Tren de Aragua, MS–13, and the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and we're expelling these monsters from our country rapidly and working with the Department of Justice. Pam, you're doing fantastic. Your people are amazing.

We're having some judge problems that everybody's reading. We're having some—[laughter]—some judges that don't like, you know, killers, murderers being thrown out of the country. So I don't know what their problem is. But we have a little difficulty.

We won on the basis of a great border and of getting criminals out of our country. That was why we won every swing State. We won by millions of votes. We won everything. Every metric, we won by a lot. It was a massive victory.

And we won, I think, largely because of this issue. I put this issue as number-one issue. And they don't want us to do what we're supposed to do, and I don't think that can be. And I hope the Supreme Court is going to fully understand what's going on. We have to get the criminals out of our country, and that's the basis under which we won the election.

Core GDP—and this is—you know, you probably saw some numbers today, and I have to start off by saying: That's Biden. That's not Trump, because we came in on January. These are quarterly numbers. And we came in, and I was very against everything that Biden was doing in terms of the economy—destroying our country in so many ways. Not only at the border. The border was more obvious, but we took over his mess in so many different ways.

Core GDP, removing distortions from imports, inventories, and Government spending, was up plus 3 percent when you add it. We had numbers that despite what we were handed, we turned them around, and we were getting them really turned around.

Gross domestic investment was a whopping 22 percent. Now that is a number that—people are coming in at numbers. For instance, I just walked in—I heard Samsung is now—because of the tariffs, they're going to build massive facilities in the United States. If we didn't do the tariffs, they wouldn't be doing that. So it takes a little while to get those facilities built, but they're coming in with big, big numbers. They're all coming in with big numbers.

We have more money being spent than any—at any time in the history of our country. We're up to close to $8 trillion, I think I can say.

Secretary of Commerce Howard L. Lutnick. Yes.

The President. And really, it's going to be—a lot higher than that. Those are just the ones that we know about. Eight trillion. I'm not going to say, but I don't think—I'm not sure if Biden did a trillion for 4 years—$1 trillion. But we're at $8 trillion for 2 months, because let's give us a pass on the first month. We were sort of getting a little bit used to things, right? But after 2 months, we have $8 trillion. There's never been a number like that.

And that includes chip companies, car companies, every form of manufacturing, high-tech companies. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. So $8 trillion.

I can talk about gross domestic product, gross domestic investment. I can talk about a lot of things, but, to me, the biggest numbers, the kind of numbers that are—and these people are coming in.

Our Secretary of Commerce spent the weekend. He went down to Arizona to see what was happening with the chip—the biggest chip company in the world. And he said—Howard, you said you've never seen anything like it.

Secretary Lutnick. Amazing.

The President. Do you want to just describe what you saw?

Secretary Lutnick. So they're investing $165 billion in 1,100 acres in Arizona, and they're building the highest-tech chip manufacturing, semiconductors. And 4,000 employees. You know, American tradecraft, right? Technicians doing every kind of work. The classic foundation of America is building it. They had 14,000 people. They're expecting 40,000 people to build the rest of their plants and to employ 20,000 people for the rest of time.

The President. And you never——

Secretary Lutnick. And this is all driven——

The President. You never saw a site like that.

Secretary Lutnick. No. And this is all driven by your tariff policies. No chance this would be happening without you.

The President. It's going to be about 40 percent of the chip market from that one section, and this is the biggest chipmaker. They have 99 percent of the market. They come from Taiwan. And unlike the CHIP Act, which was done by Biden, where they hand everybody billions of dollars—the thing they don't need is money. They got plenty of money.

What they need is an incentive to come in, and the tariffs—they're building because of the tariffs. If—without the tariffs—and I'd like to say they're building because of November 5, the election, and the tariffs, but I'm going to be a little more blunt. [Laughter] They're building because of the tariffs, and November 5 gave them the tariffs.

So the—it's amazing when you look. And these are not companies that go out and say: "Well, we're going to build. We have to go get our financing. Let's go." Like, we would—in New York, everybody would look—you know, you get a building site, and then you'd look around for money. You'd look around for financing for 6 months. You get your financing. You'd build your building. The market would be good. You'd make money. The market would be bad. It wouldn't be so pretty. You'd have to negotiate. Bah, bah, bah.

This is different. These people have so much money, they don't know what to do. They are—I asked Howard, "Did they finance it?" "No, they do it through cash." [Laughter] And they say that site—and they just started. You know, they just announced it, like, a month ago, and they've already started. He said, "I've never seen a site like it. So big."

So, you know, you're talking about a 50—essentially, a $50 billion building. Now, if you build a warehouse for $50 million, that's a big warehouse, Scott. [Laughter] But a $50 billion building, that's a lot. They're building the electric. They're building—they've become a utility, and I'm giving them the right to become—they're going to build their own electric. They're going to build their own electricity, which they need tremendous amounts of electricity. They're going to build it themselves.

Anything they have look—you know, left over, they'll hook that into the grid. But the grid is old, and they're unreliable, and bad things can happen to grids. I said, "If you want, you can hook into the grid, but that's a little bit risky, or you can build your own electricity and become your own utility." And they, I think in all cases, are deciding to do that.

So it's very exciting. And we have a lot of things going. We took over on January 20. These are quarterly reports. We took over on January 20. The tariffs haven't kicked in yet. I know that—and I don't want this to happen, but I—know that China is doing very poorly right now. I just saw some reports coming out, and I don't want that to happen to China. I like the President a lot—President Xi. I don't want it to happen. I was actually saddened to hear it.

But they are getting absolutely hammered in China. And you know, they're sending boats, the biggest boats in the world, carrying cargo like nobody's ever seen before. These are the biggest boats in the world, biggest cargo ships in the world. And they're coming, and they're turning around in the Pacific Ocean. They're doing a big U-turn and going back because they don't want the goods, because 145-percent tariff.

But at a certain point, I hope we're going to make a deal with China. We're talking to China, but their factories are closing all over China because we're not taking their product. We don't want their product unless they're going to be fair with us.

And that includes intellectual property and other things. There are a lot of things far beyond just buy, sell.

So we'll see what happens. But you know, I was not—because somebody said, "Well, were you happy?" I said, "I am not happy." I want China to do well. I want every country to do well, but they have to treat us fairly also.

So, with that, I think we're going to maybe go around, and we have some letters where the Secretaries and people around the table are making statements about how they're doing and what's happening. And I could start with Pete on the left, because he's my least controversial person in the Cabinet. [Laughter]

Secretary of Defense Peter B. Hegseth. Thank you, sir.

The President. No, they don't know how good he is.

So we'll go around the table, and you can hear it. And these are Cabinet meetings where they're very open and transparent. And I can guarantee you, Biden didn't do this. He didn't do this.

Go ahead, Pete.

Secretary Hegseth. Well, Mr. President, I—think we're controversial because we're over the target. And like so many things, Mr. President, you inherited a demoralized military. They couldn't recruit. It was perceived as weak after what happened in Afghanistan and elsewhere because of Joe Biden.

And what we have seen since your election and the inauguration was—has been nothing short of a recruiting renaissance.

The President. It's true.

Secretary Hegseth. Decades—it has been—been decades since we've seen this kind of recruiting in the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force. The men and women of America want to join the United States military, led by President Donald Trump.

The President. And the police, by the way.

Secretary Hegseth. Absolutely.

The President. And fire. I always mention the fire. But the police and fire—but the police and fire, likewise, are—I mean, they have waiting lists now. And 6 months ago, it was a disaster.

Go ahead.

Secretary Hegseth. Truly historic. We can barely absorb the volume. And retention as well: men and women in the military who don't want to get out now that they have a real Commander in Chief.

We're reinforcing standards. We're going to be fit, not fat, in our formations. We welcome back all the COVID—the folks who were forced out because of the COVID mandate. We've ripped wokeness out of the military, sir—DEI, trans.

And it's Fort Benning and Fort Bragg again——

The President. Yes.

Secretary Hegseth. ——at the DOD. We're rebuilding the military, sir. The Golden Dome is well underway; F–47; reassuring allies and deterring enemies.

We've found nearly $6 billion in DOGE savings that we're going to reinvest, including $50 billion from the Biden administration focused on things like climate that have nothing to do with lethality and war fighting. And we will have, as you said, sir, the first trillion-dollar budget that we plan to spend wisely on behalf of our war fighters.

From day one, sir, we've gotten 100—helped get 100-percent operational control of the border, coming alongside DHS and CBP.

The President. That's right.

Secretary Hegseth. We've got 11,000 troops on the border, who now, because of the new national defense area, sir, can help detain illegals at the border and hand them over to CBP. It used to be, if you saw camouflage on the border, they could hold binoculars, and that's it. Now we can detain and assist, and we are. We're going to get 100-percent operational control of that border.

Our NATO allies are—know they have to step up. The Houthis in the Middle East are feeling the weight of American power. And we're deterring Communist China.

So, because of your leadership, sir, I believe we're making the military great again.

The President. Good.

Secretary Hegseth. Thank you.

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, Pete.

Howard.

Secretary Lutnick. So I have the pleasure of running the investment accelerator, which gets to recruit these companies. And you've never seen anything like the companies committed to building in America.

[Secretary Lutnick continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And then, of course, you got rid of de minimis. And what happened is these foreign countries were sending in little packages for free and knocking out our mom-and-pop businesses across America. You put an end to it, and you're going to rebuild the mom-and-pop and the small business of America.

You're their President, and I'm proud to support you.

The President. It's very important. De minimis, it's very—it's a big deal. It's a big scam going on against our country—against, really, small businesses. And we've ended it. We put an end to it.

Secretary of Transportation Sean P. Duffy. Mr. President.

The President. Please.

Secretary Duffy. So CAFE standards—we have the fuel-economy standards on vehicles that are going to go to 50 miles per gallon. We are going to rewrite those standards, bring it down to something that's far more reasonable. Elon is fine with that, I hope. [Laughter] But it's going to drive down—it's going to drive down the price of a car in America, making cars more affordable for families.

[Secretary Duffy continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

We're cutting back funding. We sent research money, Mr. President, to—universities to do research on more equitable and sustainable transportation systems, projects that'll use data and public opinion to inform policy and infrastructure and technology benefiting diverse communities, including women and gender-nonconforming people. Just stupid wastes of money. We're pulling that money back from universities. We should do good research, if we-—if we're doing research in universities.

And then one last thing: air traffic control. We don't have enough air traffic controllers.

The President. Right.

Secretary Duffy. We're about 3,000 short. We're working on an agreement with the union. So, when controllers become retirement eligible, we're going to cut a deal to try to get them to stay longer, to stay in the tower.

And then we have a plan to put more butts in seats in Oklahoma City so we can get more students through the academy and into towers as well. It's going to take us a while to do that, to train them up, but we're in the process. Before our 4 years are done, well before that, we're going to be at full capacity.

The President. Sean, do you want to tell them about—I think we have to bring it up. We have very obsolete equipment for air traffic controllers. The equipment—the towers have horrible equipment. It's been renovated for years. But the money they spent over the last 4 years—this Buttigieg did a horrible job. They wasted billions and billions of dollars hooking up wire equipment to nonwire equipment to satellite equipment. And you're not—a third-grade student would know it doesn't work, you can't work. And they spent—they wasted tens of billions of dollars.

But we want to put a brandnew air traffic control system in, and you might want to describe that, please.

Secretary Duffy. Yes. So this—you and I have talked about this. It's a state-of-the-art system, envy of the world. And it's—I mean, the—I don't—our system is safe, but you would have hoped someone would have seen that there's a problem with fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters coming in at DCA. Someone should have seen that before we—lost almost 70 lives.

[Secretary Duffy continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

So there are great solutions we have available that—by the way, everyone's sick of their delayed flights or their canceled flights.

The President. It's a big factor.

Secretary Duffy. We have more capacity in the air space. And if we—if we rebuild—not rebuild—if we build this brandnew system, what you'll have is more efficiency in the air space, and it will be safer. So the economy will be stronger. We can have more flights and less delays.

So I appreciate your support on that, Mr. President.

The President. Rebuilding that is very important. You wouldn't have had the helicopter crashing into the plane at 400 feet up, when it's supposed to be 200 feet.

Secretary Duffy. That's right.

The President. That would have—bells and whistles would have been gone over, and you would have heard—you would have heard the screaming equipment saying: "There's a problem coming up in 15 seconds. You've got to do something about it right now." And it would have—it would have also sent the word right into the helicopter, because—I guess you'll be doing the full report on that, but it was pretty obvious what happened.

Secretary Duffy. That's right.

The President. And they were supposed to be at 200 feet. They were at 400 feet, and a terrible thing. And that wouldn't have happened if we had the right equipment. If we had the right equipment, you would have heard bells and whistles going off, and it would have alerted long before that would have happened——

Secretary Duffy. That's right.

The President. ——2 minutes before.

Secretary Duffy. That's right.

The President. They would have had a lot of time.

So we have to do this. We have no choice. And we're going to do it, and we're going to be very proud of it.

They did old equipment in new equipment, and you can't hook in old equipment to new equipment, because it's a different—some is satellite and some is ground. The satellite doesn't work—this man would know that better than anybody—but you can't hook up a satellite system to a ground-wired system, and if you do, you're wasting a lot of money.

They spent billions. This is Buttigieg. They spent billions and billions of dollars trying to patch a system together. They had hundreds of different contractors. And the contractors were all fighting with each other.

We're going to have one great, big contractor, like the great, big, beautiful bill—[laughter]—which is going along very well. I guess I like "great, big, beautiful." But we're going to have one great, big, beautiful contractor, whether it's maybe Raytheon, maybe IBM, maybe—it could be any one of four or five different groups. But you put one in charge—they're very big, very powerful, monetarily—and they give you a guarantee, and they hook up everything. They do every single thing. So they're responsible for the digging of the ditches and the fiber and every single element. And it's one system that's hooked in. It's not all these hodgepodge systems that don't work together.

And it's just a shame. I mean, it was—it's basic construction. But it's complex stuff, and there are a few companies that do it unbelievably well, and we're going to have that.

So good job, Sean.

Secretary Duffy. Mr. President——

The President. I know that's your big project.

Secretary Duffy. And, Mr. President, no one has done it because it's—it is complex. It's hard to do, because as you're—as you're building a brandnew system, you have planes taking off and landing. And so, because it's complex, no one has done it. And you've given the directive and the support to make this happen, so thank you.

The President. Well, ours is going to be an all-new system. It's going to all hook up. It's going to be the same—the same tower. It's going to have the same equipment. And all towers all over the country—all over the world, actually, mostly—are going to be hooked in together. And when there's a problem, when planes are too close, you will hear a sound that's very ear-shattering. [Laughter] And I've heard it, and it's amazing. I mean, honestly, it's amazing. It's real genius stuff.

And we didn't do that. What we did was just waste money. Threw—you could have just thrown it right out the window. What they did in this last 4 years was disgraceful, whether it was the border or this—you could name a hundred different things. The worst administration ever.

Okay.

Secretary Duffy. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Douglas A. Collins. And Mr. President——

The President. Secretary, thank you.

Secretary Collins. Thank you. And I think one of the things that I want to—people understand about the VA is we're part of the national security interest you have, and you've laid the groundwork for that with leadership and making sure that, with the Secretary of Defense and myself, we take care of veterans on two ends: one when they come in, and one when they serve and they've earned the benefits that we have.

[Secretary Collins continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

The biggest thing though, Mr. President, I wanted to state, is you told me—when you said for me to take this job, you said, "Take care of my veterans." Well, we've done something in taking that step forward. The veteran is back first at the VA. The VA is not about the self anymore. We're not a self-feeding animal. It's about a service organization that takes care of one of the best that we have, and that's our veterans.

And that one, Mr. President, we're just getting started.

The President. Thank you, Doug. How are you doing with the suicide rates?

Secretary Collins. We're getting—it's—tough, Mr. President. That's something that we're looking at. We've—this is something that for—that we've had $588 million have been spent over the last, especially, 4 or 5 years to bring prevention, and yet the numbers stayed at 17 or 21—wherever you want to have it.

[Secretary Collins continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

It's also going to take some transition stuff that your Secretary of Defense has been very helpful on. We've got to transfer them out of the military so they come to us better, but we're working on that.

The President. Good. Very good. Great. Thank you.

Jamieson.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson L. Greer. Mr. President, it—it may come as a surprise, but this has been the busiest 100 days—[laughter]—in the history of the——

The President. By the way, in history.

Ambassador Greer. In history.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins. For sure.

The President. You know, this is the biggest deal ever done. If you sold IBM, ExxonMobil, and five other companies together, it's peanuts compared to what we're doing. This is the biggest deal ever done financially in the history of the world. And we're doing—I think we're doing great. You're going to see some big, big results.

Go ahead.

Ambassador Greer. And I'll just say something that Secretary Duffy said in his context: because it's complex, no one has done it. So, this is something—a reordering of global trade that hasn't happened since the end of World War II. And it's long overdue, because we've seen manufacturing offshore under the old global trading system with—with a net result of the global trading system that all the manufacturing goes to Asia and other places. That's a system you have to replace——

The President. Right.

Ambassador Greer. ——and that's what you're doing. They said you wouldn't be able to do global tariffs. We did it. They said everyone would retaliate. No one retaliated outside of China. They said no one would come to negotiate. We're talking to dozens of countries. They said no one would have offers. We have dozens of written offers. We have lots of countries in this week.

This is like a break for me to come and not—[inaudible]—[laughter]——

The President. Do you have the list—do you have the list that you showed me with all the——

Ambassador Greer. Sure.

The President. ——with all of the countries that want to negotiate?

Ambassador Greer. Sure. So this is——

The President. They all want to negotiate. They want to make a deal.

Ambassador Greer. Don't—don't zoom in on this. [Laughter] Yes, this is just a—this is like a tracker, right? We have all these columns of which countries have come in, when we started negotiations, who gave us an offer, are we in technical talks, and when do we expect to have deals done.

The President. Yes.

Ambassador Greer. Those are some weeks out, but we're working——

The President. Pretty amazing.

Ambassador Greer. ——very quickly on those thanks to you.

The President. Thank you. Thank you, Jamieson.

Ambassador Greer. Yes.

The President. You're going to have a lot of fun for the next 3 weeks. [Laughter]

Ambassador Greer. Fun. It will be fun.

The President. All right. Michael, do you have anything?

National Security Adviser Michael G. Waltz. Yes. Mr. President, the last 4 years, the world experienced a total lack of zero leadership under—under Biden, and then we've had a hundred days of your leadership with respect, with strength, starting with, "There will be all hell to pay" if you don't let our people go. Dozens—over 40 Americans have come home under your leadership.

Far more terrorists are no longer threatening the homeland under your leadership, pulling all of these agencies together, including the person—the evil individual responsible for the Abbey Gate bombing, and to sit with the 13 Gold Star families, and you showing that follow up and that—and that justice has been incredible.

But pulling this great team together, Mr. President—everything from revitalizing shipyards to cyber to space—that takes this entire team working together. It—it's an honor to serve you in this administration. And I think the world is far better, far safer for it.

Participant. Amen.

The President. Yes. Thank you very much.

National Security Adviser Waltz. Thank you, sir.

The President. The Abbey Gate is really important. This was a horrible thing. It destroyed the image, frankly, of the Biden administration. What happened there was a disgrace. It should have never happened. And Pam is working very much on prosecuting that person.

Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi. That's right.

The President. We have the person, and you'll do well. I have no doubt about it. Thank you very much, Michael.

So the CIA—I don't know, Ratcliffe, he's—I don't know if he's going to say anything, you know? [Laughter]

The President. He's probably the one person here that's not allowed to talk about the great job he's done. But go ahead anyway.

Central Intelligence Agency Director John L. Ratcliffe. Mr. President, as you know, at your direction, the CIA has deployed our unique covert action authorities in various places and continents to successfully advance your national security and foreign policy priorities to advance peace, to end wars, to take terrorists off the battlefield, and to keep illicit drugs from coming into this country and harming Americans.

[Director Ratcliffe continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And finally, Mr. President, the CIA is being restructured at your direction to focus on our core mission and to eliminate the well-documented politicization that has taken place in the intelligence community from bad actors in the past, to focus on our core mission and to make America safe again.

The President. Good.

Director Ratcliffe. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you, John. Very good. Good job. You're doing a great job. Thank you very much.

Russell.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell T. Vought. We're obviously involved in a number of budget bills that are moving, trying to make sure all of your priorities are reflected in the reconciliation; working on our upcoming budget, a wonderful job by the entire Cabinet on that front—details soon on that front; sending up rescissions bills to Congress for things that Elon has found.

[Director Vought continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

I don't think they're actually that hard, but no one's done it to this point, and we have. We were able to go forward and do that because of the backing that you've given us.

The President. So maybe the biggest thing we're working on, maybe bigger than tariffs in a certain sense, is the—we call it the one big, beautiful bill, and that's wielding its way right now through the Senate. And John Thune has been actually amazing, and the Speaker has been so great—Congress. Mike Johnson has—has been really—two guys that—they get along great, and it's just been a beautiful, unified attack, really. Because we have to attack, because the Democrats are trying to stop it at every—every turn.

It would mean a 58-percent tax hike if they were successful, and lots of other bad things beyond the tax hike. But with us, it will be the biggest tax cut in American history. How are we doing with the bill?

Director Vought. We're doing great. We're—day in, day out, hour-by-hour negotiations to make sure your stuff is in there and to make sure we have the border resources, the defense resources, and to save the American people some tax money and make sure all those tax cuts that you ran on are in there that help get people back into the workforce. And I think we're making a ton of progress.

The President. All right. Good. I think we're doing well. Like I said, the biggest tax cut in the history of our country, and it would be the biggest tax increase if the Democrats are successful. They're the only people I've ever seen running for office where they want to increase taxes, but this would be a 58-, maybe a 60-percent tax increase. Unsustainable for the American people.

Thank you very much. Great job.

Susie, the most powerful woman in the world, I'd say. [Laughter]

Secretary Rollins. In the world. In the world.

The President. I agree with that. I agree.

White House Chief of Staff Susan Wiles. I'll be brief so you can hear from these amazing people.

Congratulations to everyone on a hundred days that's been—it's unparalleled in my memory and, as best I can tell, ever.

But it hasn't been busy for busy's sake. The President's promises made to the American people have been kept time and time and time again. You all have been out there spreading the word with community groups and states and the media. It hasn't gone unnoticed. And let's work hard through the next hundred and have equally as much success then.

Thank you.

The President. And you've done a great job, Susie.

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development E. Scott Turner. Yes, you have.

Secretary Rollins. Yes.

The President. I think everybody agrees, right?

Do we have anybody that disagrees, please—[laughter]—in front of the media.

Chief of Staff Wiles. Some days I do.

The President. In front of the media. [Laughter] Please raise your hand if you have the courage to do so.

Secretary Rollins. She's the best.

The President. Anyway, go ahead.

Secretary Turner. Yes, sir, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you, Scott.

Secretary Turner. Thank you. And you made it very clear that you wanted to put America first. And also, from day one, you wanted to make housing affordable again, because we do have a housing affordability crisis in our country.

And so, at HUD, we've been cutting all the redtape and bureaucracy as it pertains to housing affordability and unleashing creativity of our builders and developers around our country and restoring local control.

We took down the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, as you know——

The President. Yes. Big thing.

Secretary Turner. ——which was a zoning tax from Washington. So, no longer will Washington be picking winners or losers, but localities and elected officials in different States and cities will have that flexibility.

[Secretary Turner continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And so, Mr. President, thank you for your leadership in this. And we have a tremendous team at HUD, and I'm so grateful to be part of this team around this table to take care of the American people. And I consider it——

The President. Thank you, Scott.

Secretary Turner. ——a great honor and am humbled to do so.

The President. Good job.

Secretary Turner. Yes, sir.

The President. Good job. Thank you, Scott.

Secretary Turner. Yes, sir.

The President. Appreciate it.

Brooke.

Secretary Rollins. Well, I'm not sure if anyone's heard, but the price of eggs is down. [Laughter] I know it's news. I know it's news.

Listen, sir, today, on—as we celebrate the 100th day, I think that it's just such a joy and an honor to—to continue to do this work. So thank you for that.

We have been, obviously, very focused on the cost of groceries. Specifically, eggs led the way, as you have so eloquently discussed over the last few months, and we're holding tight on a very significant decrease, which is great, and investing where we need to there.

As I mentioned before the press came in, we have had a massive issue with Mexico on water—getting water to our farmers along the border for decades. When I worked in Texas 25 years ago, we were fighting with the Mexican government over the water then.

You got involved about 2 weeks ago. That evening, I started conversations, and as of just a few days ago, thanks to Secretary Rubio's great Deputy Secretary and I have been negotiating, and we hit the best deal, I believe, in history on behalf of our farmers. And thanks to your leadership and your strength on that.

The President. Good. Good.

Secretary Rollins. And that's a really big deal long-term for those farmers in south—in the southern part of the country.

[Secretary Rollins continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

It was a really big day as we sent the signal that the overcriminalization and using government—and you know this better than anyone, because you were in the crosshairs for so long—that those days are over and the regulation through prosecution is no more.

Participant. Good.

Secretary Rollins. And so, this family is one of many that we'll now be talking to to ensure that never happens again.

The President. Good. Thank you very much.

Secretary Rollins. Thank you.

The President. Great job.

Please, Scott.

Secretary of the Treasury Scott K.H. Bessent. Sir, it's been a momentous hundred days with you at the helm. And I view this hundred days as setting the table—for peace deals, trade deals, tax deals—so the next hundred days we'll be harvesting.

[Secretary Bessent continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And I'll just close by saying, economic security is national security. National security is economic security. And it's never been better. We're rebuilding it.

And as I said, last week at the IMF and World Bank conferences, America first does not mean America alone. Under President Trump, it means leadership.

Secretary Rollins. Yes. Well said.

The President. Thank you. Are you busy enough? [Laughter]

He's doing a great job. Thank you very much.

J.D.

Vice President Vance. Mr. President, thank you. And thanks to the Cabinet. So, at the risk of insulting everybody else at the table, I believe that I am the youngest member sitting at the table. [Laughter]

[Vice President Vance continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

I think that we—what we've shown, sir, is that you can do a lot. You can do a lot in a hundred days, but you've also, unfortunately, revealed that too much of the American media hasn't learned the lessons of the past 40 years.

Thank you, sir.

The President. Thank you. That's good. Thank you.

Pam, please.

Attorney General Bondi. President, your first 100 days has far exceeded that of any other Presidency in this country ever. Ever. Never seen anything like it. Thank you.

[Attorney General Bondi continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

We're unleashing everything you told us. No more DEI. No more weaponization. We have rescinded, as I said, 200 policies, and I could go on all day long. But we are doing everything in our power to keep America safe at your direction.

The President. Thank you, Pam. Great job.

Attorney General Bondi. Thank you, President.

The President. You're really doing a great job.

Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.

The President. Thank you very much.

Okay. Let's go.

Secretary of Labor Lori L. Chavez-DeRemer. Nice to see you, Mr. President.

Well, first of all, I think what you've heard amongst this team is the leadership, because it's given us the latitude, really, to collaborate amongst each other, not only in this room—as Jamieson mentioned, we kind of get a break for a couple of hours here—[laughter]—but we stay in contact, actually, every other day that—we're working for you.

[Secretary Chavez-DeRemer continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

So, with your leadership, Mr. President, I couldn't be more honored to serve. I know we were probably the last to know each other, but we're getting to know each other well. And the team that you have assembled is really an honor to serve with. So——

The President. Great job.

Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. ——thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you. You're doing great. Thank you very much.

Chris, please.

Secretary of Energy Christopher A. Wright. Mr. President, you ran on unleashing American energy, and a hundred days have shown the tremendous impacts that can arise from the unleashing you have enabled.

[Secretary Wright continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And back to Elon, that extra thing, we're going to deliver all of this with less people, less money, less burden on the U.S. taxpayers. Not smaller departments and smaller services. Better, more thoughtful services done more efficiently and smarter, the way you'd have to run a business. We've got to get our fiscal house in order, and you and the people around this table are making it happen.

Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you.

Secretary Wright. I'm honored to be here.

The President. Great job. Thank you very much.

Please.

Secretary Noem. Yes, Mr. President. You are 100-percent correct. The border is 99.99 percent safe, under control. You have completely reversed the entire situation.

[Secretary Noem continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

Mexico has finally come to the table and now is going to take a lot more people that we're able to send back to that country. And the President of Mexico told me, sir, she turned around over a half a million people in Mexico before they ever reached our border. We should be counting those as deportations, because they never even made it to the border because she turned them around, because you forced her to.

The President. Yes, that's right.

Secretary Noem. So those are all people that never even came here because they got the message, because you were so aggressive.

So thank you for what you're doing.

The President. Thank you, Kristi. Great job.

Secretary Noem. And every day we get to get up and do jobs that matter, and we appreciate that.

The President. And Tom Homan is doing a great job.

Secretary Noem. Oh, yes. Tom is a great messenger for us. He just——

The President. That's great.

Secretary Noem. Yes. He's hardcore. [Laughter]

The President. Thank you.

Secretary Noem. Yes.

The President. Great job.

Secretary Noem. Thank you.

The President. Thank you very much. He is hardcore.

Secretary Noem. Yes, he is.

The President. There's no question about it.

Kelly.

Administrator of the Small Business Administration Kelly L. Loeffler. Mr. President, it's such an honor to serve in this administration on behalf of Main Street America—for our 34 million small businesses that make up 99 percent of all businesses in this great nation. I have to tell you, under your leadership, Main Street is open for business again. They're thriving, and they're investing.

[Administrator Loeffler continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

And to that end, I'm working with Congress. We'll be announcing tomorrow an upsizing of our manufacturing loans to make sure that that——

The President. Great.

Administrator Loeffler. ——economic engine—because 98 percent of all manufacturers are small businesses. It's incredible to walk through these factories that are really creating—what you had in your first administration, the blue-collar boom, it's now a new-collar boom, because it's the intersection of technology and manufacturing. And what they can create for our war fighters, for our aerospace, for pharmaceuticals, with less than 3- to 500 employees, sometimes 100 employees.

[Administrator Loeffler continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

So thank you, Mr. President. It is such an honor. And congratulations on an epic hundred days.

I do have to thank Elon. I do want to note: We just cut $3 billion in contracts because of DOGE's work. That's $3 billion that hard-working families that won't have to work until April 15th to pay for the waste, fraud, and abuse that we continue to find in this Government on behalf of taxpayers. So, again, thank you, Elon, as well.

White House Senior Adviser Elon R. Musk. Thanks, Kelly.

Administrator Loeffler. Thank you.

The President. Great job, Kelly. Thank you very much.

Elon, I love the double hat, by the way. [Laughter]

Senior Adviser Musk. Yes. Thank you.

The President. He's the only one that can do that——

Senior Adviser Musk. Yes.

The President. ——and get away with it. [Laughter]

Senior Adviser Musk. Well, Mr. President, you know they say I wear a lot of hats. [Laughter] As you can see, it's true. Even my hat has a hat. [Laughter]

So, you know, the American people voted for secure borders, safe cities, and sensible spending, and that's what they've gotten. A tremendous amount has been accomplished in the first 100 days. As everyone has said, it's more than has been accomplished in any administration before ever, period.

So this portends very well for what will happen for the rest of the administration. I think this could be the greatest administration since the founding of the country.

The President. Well, we all want to thank you for your help too. You've—you really have sacrificed a lot. You've been treated very unfairly. And that——

Senior Adviser Musk. Well, this—they do like to burn my cars, which is not great. You know? [Laughter] Could be better.

Secretary Rollins. It's not ideal.

The President. And it's a great car.

But you have been treated unfairly. But the vast majority of people in this country really respect and appreciate you.

Senior Adviser Musk. Thank you.

The President. And this whole room can say that very strongly.

Secretary Rollins. That's right.

The President. You've really been a tremendous help. You opened up a lot of eyes as to what can be done. And we just want to thank you very much.

And you know, you're invited to stay as long as you want. [Laughter]

Senior Adviser Musk. Thank you.

The President. At some point, I guess he wants to get back home to his cars and his—but we—want him to—[inaudible].

Senior Adviser Musk. Thanks. Thank you.

The President. Done a really great job. You've done an incredible job.

A hundred and fifty billion dollars. Think of this.

Senior Adviser Musk. Yes. It's 160 now.

The President. A hundred——

Senior Adviser Musk. Yes.

The President. Yes, 160.

Senior Adviser Musk. Yes, who's counting? [Laughter]

The President. They said, "Oh, it could have been more." "Could have been more." [Laughter]

And a lot of—you know, a lot of stuff is being worked on. That number could be doubled and even tripled. A lot of things are being worked on that we don't count yet because it's not quite there.

Senior Adviser Musk. Yes.

The President. But you've done a fantastic job, and we appreciate it very much, Elon. You know that.

Senior Adviser Musk. Thank you. And it's an honor to work with your incredible Cabinet. I'd just like to say thank you, everyone, for—you know, it's great to work with you.

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Tulsi.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Mr. President, congratulations on this truly historic first hundred days of your administration, really only made possible by your focused leadership on delivering the mandate the American people gave you. You have empowered all of us to—deliver that mandate.

[Director Gabbard continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

Mr. President, under your leadership, we are working every day to bring about that transparency and accountability that the American people deserve. So thank you for the opportunity.

The President. Thank you, Tulsi. Great job. Thank you very much.

Director Gabbard. Thank you.

The President. Lee.

Environment Protection Agency Administrator Lee M. Zeldin. Mr. President, at the Biden EPA, the Green New Deal was raging. At the Biden EPA, we saw billions of tax dollars burning. At the Biden EPA, we saw industries suffocating.

[Administrator Zeldin continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And from our Secretary of Defense to our Secretary of State, our Vice President, and more, I just want to say thank you, as a veteran of our military, for assembling what is the greatest national security team that I have ever seen in my 27 years associated with the United States Army.

Vice President Vance. Has Pete signed off on his retirement, Lee? Or is that—[laughter].

Secretary Hegseth. Maybe.

Secretary Collins. Welcome to the VA, Lee. [Laughter]

The President. Thank you, Lee.

Vice President Vance. Thank you for your service, Lee.

Participant. Yes, thank you, Lee.

Participant. Absolutely.

The President. Really—you're doing a fantastic job. We appreciate it very much.

Administrator Zeldin. Thank you.

The President. So?

Secretary of Education Linda E. McMahon. Well, Mr. President, I don't think I have ever worked so hard to try to fire myself. [Laughter] We're certainly making great strides in that. We've reduced the folks over at the Department of Education by about 50 percent now through our RIF program, and so we've closed a lot of the district offices, consolidated them. So there are a lot fewer people working a lot more efficiently in the Department of Education.

[Secretary McMahon continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

And so a lot's going on at the department. And what I would really like—as I'm firing myself, I'd like for you to be known as the education president, because of the best-in-practice systems that we want to put in every state to incorporate AI so that we are training these new entrepreneurs and business leaders in our country. We can't do it with the infrastructure we have in place today, so we have to be working on that at the same time.

The President. Right.

Secretary McMahon. So we're going to be doing that. So thank you for your charge to elevate education so that we are providing, for every student, access to excellent education.

Thank you, sir.

The President. Thank you very much, Linda.

And what's going on with Harvard and some of these colleges that are taking vast amounts of money, who also have vast amounts—they've got $52 billion—and really scamming the public and hiring people like de Blasio and Lori Lightfoot, who are certainly two of the worst mayors in the history of our country, paying them a fortune of salary, and having them teach our children how to manage cities and how to manage Government.

What's the word, as of this morning, on—let's say—Harvard?

Secretary McMahon. Well, we're negotiating with them. When we went back to them to say we'd welcome them back to the negotiating table, their response was a lawsuit. So Pam and her team are helping—

Attorney General Bondi. We're ready.

Secretary McMahon. ——helping work with that. And I am, you know, enjoying the fact, not only am I firing myself, but I am now being sued fairly regularly by—[laughter]—by different departments of education. But we are—we're staying tough with them.

The other thing that we're looking at also are the—are the [Section; White House correction] 117 violations of these big universities, like Harvard and others, who are not reporting, as they are required to do by law, foreign money that comes in and how much that is——

The President. Yes.

Secretary McMahon. ——and where it comes from. And so that is a very—

The President. And students.

Secretary McMahon. Yes, and it's very serious.

The President. Where are these people coming from.

Secretary McMahon. Yes, exactly.

Secretary Noem. Yes, sir, we pulled back their grants because Harvard isn't responding to us—criminal activity by their students. And until they give us that list, they're not getting any more grants from Homeland Security. So——

The President. Good. I think you should pull it back.

Secretary Noem. Yes, we did.

Secretary McMahon. Yes.

The President. The students they have, the professors they have—

Secretary Noem. Mm-hmm. That's right.

The President. ——with the attitude they have is not American.

Secretary Noem. That's right.

The President. And I think you should. A grant is a grant.

Secretary Noem. Mm-hmm. That's right.

The President. We don't have to give grants.

Secretary Noem. That's exactly right.

The President. So, we'll pull back the grant. All right. Very good.

Secretary Noem. Yes.

The President. Thank you very much, Linda.

Secretary McMahon. Thank you.

The President. Bobby.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Mr. President, thank you for your extraordinary leadership over the past a hundred days. We are already making America healthy again.

We announced last week the ban on the nine petroleum-based synthetic dyes, food dyes, within two years. Within two months, we're going to ban the worst two of them.

[Secretary Kennedy continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

Mr. President, I want to thank you for your vision, for your leadership, for giving me the hundred busiest days of my life—[laughter]—and most exciting and most rewarding. And there's—over the next hundred days, we're going to do much, much more.

The President. That's great. Thank you very much, Bobby. Very good. Very important. Thank you.

Doug, please.

Secretary of the Interior Douglas J. Burgum. Well, President Trump, on your first day in office, you wisely declared a national energy emergency. And this was essential, because it was the signal that we're going to go 180 degrees from the disastrous and dangerous Biden policies that were based on a climate—ideology that was the root cause of the inflation in this country. It was the root cause of wars abroad. It was the root cause of—our manufacturing disappearing from our country.

[Secretary Burgum continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And so, in this, we're focused deeply on critical minerals. The Biden administration put us in a real predicament right now—the whole trade team, the whole Cabinet, Susie is jumping in, leadership across—everybody in the National Energy Dominance Council. But of the top 20 critical and rare earth minerals that we need for defense, that we need for industry, China is controlling 85 percent of the refining for that. So we are running at warp speed——

The President. Right.

Secretary Burgum. ——7 days a week to try to put ourselves back in business in that way. So—and I want to just close out by saying a couple other things. One is the border. Few people realize that 41 percent of the southern border is in Department of Interior. Then we've got a few more percent that come with Brooke and with the Forest Service. But that's—that's been a risk area. Part of the reason everyone was pouring into our country, Biden wasn't enforcing the border laws. They definitely weren't enforcing it on public lands.

[Secretary Burgum continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And it's your fearlessness to take on the issues that other Presidents would not touch—whether it's the work that we're doing with successfully streamlining and rightsizing government, or whether it's taking on the issues at the border, or whether it's embracing the power we need to win the AI arms race, you're fearlessly doing that. And that creates—and just all of us can sprint because you're running ahead.

So thank you.

The President. Well, thank you, Doug. And you're doing a great job. And with Chris, that's a pretty much unbeatable combination, I have to tell you. [Laughter] So thank you both very much. Thank you, Doug. That's great.

Marco.

Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio. Well, it's not easy to go last after all these reports that have come here. [Laughter]

First of all, Mr. President——

The President. That's true.

Secretary Rubio. So I'd better be good. And I'll be short as well.

A couple things, Mr. President. I think you deserve a lot of credit for two things.

The first is assembling this great team of people, some of whom I've known for a long time, others who I've gotten to know during this period of time. But putting together a team not just of talented individuals but that work well together is something never going to be reported on in the media or fully seen, but it happens every single day.

[Secretary Rubio continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

Something else we got out of the business—it wasn't widely reported, or maybe it was—we had a—we had an office in the Department of State whose job it was to censor Americans. And by the way, they're—I'm not going to say who it is. I'll leave it up to them. There's at least one person at this table today who had a dossier in that building of social media posts to identify them as purveyors of disinformation. We have these dossiers. We are going to be turning those over to these individuals.

Vice President Vance. Was it me or Elon? [Laughter] We can follow up when the media isn't here. [Laughter]

Secretary Rubio. Well, we are going to turn over these dossiers to the individuals——

Senior Adviser Musk. I think it might have been—[inaudible].

Secretary Rubio. ——and they'll decide whether they want to disclose it or not.

But just think about that. The Department of State of the United States had set up an office to monitor the social media posts and commentary of American citizens to identify them as vectors of disinformation, when we know that the best way to combat disinformation is freedom of speech and transparency.

[Secretary Rubio continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

Mike Waltz alluded to this earlier—and this is the last point. In the first 100 days of the 47th Presidency, 47 wrongfully detained Americans have been returned to the United States thanks to your leadership and the diplomacy that was exercised to make that happen. Forty-seven for the 47th President in the first 100 days, and that's all credit to you, Mr. President.

Thank you for the honor to be able to serve alongside you, for you, and alongside all these excellent people.

Secretary Rollins. Amen.

The President. Well, thank you very much, Marco.

Secretary Rollins. Well said.

The President. Really great job.

So, you know, I've been involved in a lot of groups of people over the years—good groups, bad groups, all types of groups—[laughter]—but I have been involved in some incredible groups. But I've never been more proud and impressed, frankly. Impressed is maybe even more important. But I've never been more proud or impressed than I am with this group. This is an amazing group of people.

And I hope some of those television cameras were blazing and it was on so people could watch this, because, frankly, you know, no matter who you are, no matter where you come from, this is an impressive group of people.

I sat around being somewhat competitive. I said: "Well, let's see. Who did the best job? Who did the worst job?" [Laughter] And I determined that everybody is, like, the same, and there was no worst job. Everybody was outstanding. Everybody did a job. You couldn't pick a winner. The only thing you can say is nobody did a bad job or even a fair job. You're outstanding.

And so I want to just congratulate you all. This is really something.

And you know, we have a job to do. We've done a lot of work in this hundred—this hundred days. We've established things that are going to start taking place in the next hundred days. I want to see what it's going to be like. I think we're going to have to do this in a hundred days, Susie, and we're going to see some very big results from the things that we've done.

But I just want to thank everybody. This is really very impressive, and I hope the people at home got to see some of it. Nobody has ever done public Cabinet meetings. They were quiet for a reason, because they weren't impressive—[laughter]—and especially in the last administration—[laughter]—they were not impressive.

But I just want to say that we're very proud of you, and—and I am, in particular. Thank you all very much. Great job. And I think we're going to have some tremendous success for our country.

And I don't know. It doesn't seem like a time to be asking questions. That was so impressive that to be taking questions—"Why did you do this?" "Why did you do that?" [Laughter] You know, it's just—doesn't seem to be appropriate.

I guess we probably have to take a couple, because that was the purpose. But if you'd like to ask some. I think they should be very respectful questions at this point. This was an amazing meeting.

And so, if you'd like to ask a couple. If you'd like to pinpoint them to some of the Secretaries, et cetera——

Q. Yes.

The President. ——would be fine. Yes, please.

Q. Mr. President, can I ask—Secretary Rubio——

The President. Please.

Q. ——can I ask you a question? You brought up El Salvador in your remarks. Have you been in touch with El Salvador about returning Abrego Garcia? Has a formal request from this administration been made?

Secretary Rubio. Well, I would never tell you that. And you know who else I'll never tell? A judge, because the conduct of our foreign policy belongs to the President of the United States and the executive branch, not some judge. So we will conduct foreign policy appropriately, if we need to, but I'll never discuss it, and no one will ever make us discuss it, because that's how foreign policy works.

[Several reporters began asking questions at once.]

Deportation of Baltimore, MD, Resident Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador

Q. Mr. President, yesterday you told ABC News—Mr. President, you told ABC News yesterday that you could get Abrego Garcia back if you wanted to. Do you think President Bukele would turn you down if you made that request?

The President. I really don't know. I know that he's been a great friend of our country. He's gotten a lot less money than this would take from us if we were to build these jails and do what he's doing. And they run a very professional operation.

I don't know. I haven't spoken to him. I really leave that to the lawyers, and I take my advice from Pam and everybody that is very much involved. They know the laws, and we follow the laws exactly.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Yes, please.

Stock Market Volatility/Inflation/Former President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Q. Mr. President, during the campaign and the transition, sir, you frequently took credit for the stock market highs. You said it was a reflection of how well you were doing in the polls. And then, after you were elected, you said the stock market highs were a reflection of how well the transition is going and the American people's confidence in—your incoming administration. Now the stock market is not doing so well, and you're saying that's the Biden stock market; yet you are the president. Can you explain that?

The President. Yes, I'm not taking credit or discredit for the stock market. I'm just saying that we inherited a mess, both at the borders—you could look at every single one of the people here, and no matter who it is, they're doing better, and they are far superior to what took place for 4 years before us. When you look at prisoners being allowed to come into our country at will—just at will—people from mental institutions, gang members, drug dealers. When you look at that—what they've done to our country.

And also having to do with finance. Look at what happened with inflation. We had the worst inflation, probably, in the history of our country. They say 48 years, but I would say in the history of our country. It ate away at people, and even though you saw a stock market going up somewhat—because, in my case, I had the biggest stock market increase: 88 percent in the last term—in my last term.

But I don't view the stock market as the end-all. It's an indicator.

But what the stock market really tells you, and what you—when you look at the stock market, in this case, is it says how bad a situation we inherited. I took place—this is a quarter that we looked at today, and I took—we took—all of us together, we came in on January 20. So this is Biden. And you can even say the next quarter is sort of Biden, because it doesn't just happen on a daily or an hourly basis.

But we're turning it around. It's a big ship to turn around, and we're going to have the greatest country financially in the history of the world, I believe. I think we're going to do things that—and we had to do it. We reset the table.

We were being ripped off by every single country with just about—without exception. I can—I'd have to really think hard for who hasn't taken advantage.

And I don't even blame those countries. I blame the person that was sitting right here, where I am, for allowing it to happen, where our country was ripped off on trade. Hundreds of billions of dollars.

And now we're doing better than we've done in a long time. You know, we were losing $4- to $5- to even $6 billion a day on trade with Biden, and now we have it down to a very manageable number, and the tariffs, for the most part, haven't even kicked in yet.

So that's the way—stock markets, to me, are an indication. But the big indication is what's happening, and the people around the table know what's happening.

Yes.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Ukraine/Critical Minerals Supply

Q. Mr. President, is it true that the Ukraine minerals deal is set to be signed in 24 hours or so?

The President. What? Say it.

Q. Is it true that the Ukraine minerals deal is about to be signed in the next 24 hours or so? There are some reports saying that. And if it's true, has the deal changed at all from the last time we've heard about it?

The President. Well, I'll ask Scott to answer the question, because he is responsible for it.

Secretary Bessent. Yes, our side is ready to sign. The Ukrainians decided last night to make some last-minute changes. We'll—we're sure that they will reconsider that. And we are ready to sign this afternoon, if they are.

Ukraine/U.S. Security Assistance/President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia

Q. Can you talk about those last-minute changes? What was removed or put in its place?

Secretary Bessent. Nothing has been removed. It's the same agreement that we agreed to on the weekend. No changes on our side.

The President. Just to put that into perspective though, when I came here, I said, "How much money have we given to Ukraine?" The real number is about $350 billion. That's—it's unthinkable.

And we had no security. We had no nothing. We were just pouring money there—unsecured money—putting it in banks, and anybody could have taken it out. You know, anybody over there. It was their decision. I've never seen anything like it.

Europe, on the other hand, which it's—obviously, that whole situation is much more important to Europe, because we have an ocean in between—but Europe gave about $100 billion. It's a lot of money. It's a big sacrifice they made also, but they gave much less than we did. And their money is secured, totally secured, by deposits in banks. The deposits are largely Russian deposits. That's what Europe did, but their money is secured.

So they gave $100 billion, totally secure. We gave money like it's throwing it out the window, and it was done by Biden. And this is Biden's war. This isn't Trump's war. I'm trying to get out.

And I—more than the money. They're losing about 5,000 young Russian and Ukrainian soldiers a week, mostly. There's some people also being killed in towns where missiles should not have been shot—small cities and towns. But we are trying to save the lives of about 5,000 young—mostly soldiers, that are losing their lives a week.

I see satellite photos—probably off one of his satellites, come to think of it—but I see satellite photos every week of fields with arms and heads and legs scattered all over the—it's a violent, violent, horrible situation.

And more important than the money, I want to save the lives of people from other countries that are dying so stupidly, so needlessly. And they're dying.

But I said, "What are we doing? How did we get into this war?" It would have never happened if I were President. Everybody knows. And it didn't happen for 4 years. Wasn't even thought of.

I discussed it with President Putin a lot—Ukraine. It was the apple of his eye, but there was no way he was going to do anything. Zero chance.

And I said, "You know, we feel foolish." The Europeans are putting up money. It's totally secure. They get their money back. We're putting up much more money. We have absolutely nothing.

And I didn't want to make a complicated deal. I didn't want to make a deal that couldn't be made, because Ukraine doesn't have very much money. They're going through a very bad period of time. It's been brutal.

But I felt very foolish, being in charge. So I said, "Well, we want something for our efforts beyond what you would think would be acceptable." And we said, "Rare earth." They have very good rare earth. As you know, we're looking for rare earth all the time. It's—rare earth is called "rare" for a reason, and they have a lot.

And we made a deal where our money is secure, where we can start digging and doing what we have to do. It's also good for them, because you'll have an American presence at the site, Chris, and the American presence will, I think, keep a lot of bad actors out of the country or certainly out of the area where we're doing the digging.

So we made a deal, and I assume they're going to honor the deal. And I put Scott in charge, and Scott said it beautifully. But we haven't really seen the fruits of that deal yet. I suspect we will. I suspect we will.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Yes, please. Please.

Border Security/Illegal Immigration

Q. You had set a—you had set a 90-day deadline through an Executive order for Secretaries Hegseth and Noem to review whether to—recommend to you whether to invoke the Insurrection Act to send troops to the southern border. Is that something you're still considering?

The President. Well, I'm talking to them. And it's not hard and fast, but I'm talking to them. And I will tell you that the border is the most secure it's ever been. We have never had anything like it.

And when—well, you said, Kristi, before, it's 99.999, and I guess that means one person, maybe, or two people.

Secretary Noem. Yes. A couple.

The President. It's actually turned out to be three people——

Secretary Noem. Yes.

The President. ——came across the border, versus hundreds of thousands of people under Biden.

And we're talking about people coming—look, people—they have—they have souls, they have hearts. Many of them are good. But we have a country that's under siege. We have a country that really is under—I think it's under attack. In many ways, worse than under attack, because there are no uniforms. You don't know who the attacker is, so you really don't—it's not like you're fighting an army. You're fighting people you don't even know who they are.

But 11,888 murderers—many of them murdered far more than one person—are roaming. Now, some of them have already been caught. A lot of them have already been caught and taken out, but we're being impeded by judges from doing our job. And hopefully, that situation is going to be solved, because I think nobody wants to have murderers and people from jail and, —I mean, for serious, serious crime.

I remember the Biden people used to say, "No, these are aliens that came into our country, and they don't commit crime." I said: "They don't commit crime? They commit worse crime." They make our criminals—some of these people that they've allowed in through open-border policies—the dumbest thing I've ever seen—you can look at some of these people and you'd say, "This is not going to end well." But the people that they've allowed into our country are making our criminals look like the nicest people on Earth, I will tell you.

These are serious criminals. These are violent criminals. These are people that would kill you and wouldn't lose an ounce of sleep, and they wake up the next morning and they don't even remember it. This is a rough, rough, tough group of people, and we've got to get them out of our country.

And the law says—I believe, I hope, and I think Pam will be very successful in proving it—but we've run into, I would call them, "rogue judges." Somebody could criticize me for that. These are rogue judges. These are radical-left—generally, radical-left, horrible judges.

And we didn't lose all of these people—you know, we've lost a lot of people to death and to rape. All sorts of crimes committed by the people that poured into our—our country, and they came in totally unimpeded. "Just come on in."

And you see it. Every night, you'd see thousands and tens of thousands of people pouring into our country. We have no idea who they are. And to this day, we're looking for people. We have no idea. We hear that we have terrorists in our country that are so bad they couldn't stay in any other country.

But we're getting them out. And the group—between Pete and Kristi and Tom Homan and everybody working together—people that you would least suspect are reporting them, getting-—and the public is reporting them. The public is saying—the public is calling, and they're saying, "You know, I live in a house and next to me moved in a group of people, and they are very violent." And we'd go, and we'd find out, and we'd say: "Yes, you're right. They were really violent." And we have information on most of them.

So I just think it's incredible what's taken place. But we right now have a very, very secure border. Right now we have the most secure border in the history of our country. So I don't think we have to worry about your question too much.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Yes, please.

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada

Q. Mr. President, the Prime Minister of Canada ran against—not only against the conservatives, but also against you. Yesterday——

The President. Well, they both parties did.

Q. ——the Prime—yes. And yesterday he spoke about American betrayal. Are you interested in rebuilding relations with Canada? And, if so, how?

The President. No, well, I think we're going to have a great relationship. He called me up yesterday. He said, "Let's make a deal." You know, he had—he was running for office. They were both—they both hated Trump, and it was the one that hated Trump, I think, the least that won. I actually think the conservative hated me much more than the—than the so-called liberal. He's a pretty liberal guy.

Q. Why do you think so?

The President. But no, I spoke to him yesterday. He couldn't have been nicer. And I congratulated him.

You know, they—it was a very mixed signal, because it's almost even, which makes it very complicated for the country. It was a pretty tight race.

But he's a very nice gentleman, and we—he's going to come to the White House very shortly, within the next week or less.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

China-U.S. Trade/Product Availability

Q. Mr. President, when will you speak to President Xi of China? When will you speak to him next?

The President. It will happen. I mean, look, right now—and I told you before—they're having tremendous difficulty because their factories are not doing business. They made a trillion dollars when—with Biden—a trillion dollars—even a trillion one, with Biden, selling us stuff. Much of it we don't need.

You know, somebody said, "Oh, the shelves are going to be open." Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know? [Laughter] And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. But we're not talking about something that we have to go out of our way. They have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which—not all it, but much of which we don't need.

And we have to make a fair deal. We've been ripped off by every country in the world. But China, I would say, is the leading—the leading one—the leading candidate for the chief ripper-offer. [Laughter]

There has been a country that's been ripped off more than the United States of America under some of the dumbest leadership, and it usually starts with the President. And you can go back—and I'm not just talking about Biden. That's been the worst. I mean, the trade deficits and everything else, he's been the worst. But he had no idea what he was doing. And I think somebody ought to look at the autopen to find out who was really running this country because it wasn't Biden—

Q. Sir, what——

The President. ——because nobody could agree to what he agreed to.

I mean, he put—he put our country——

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Sir, what's your—what's your message for the girl who doesn't get the doll?

The President. He put our country at risk, at tremendous risk—and fiscal risk, financial risk.

So I think we have it very much—I really believe that the next hundred days is going to be even better than this.

Look, I read an editorial yesterday from a group that normally wouldn't write a good—that this is the most consequential Presidency in history—in the history of our country. This is not a particular group that would write that kind of an editorial, but they see what we're doing and—and what we had to do.

And I believe if this group—not just me—if this group wasn't here, I think our country was going to be in, if it was lucky, just serious trouble—but a lot worse than that. I think our country could have been a total disaster.

Bad things were happening with our country, and we've—we've stemmed the tide, we've turned it around, but we're going to really turn it around over the next—over the next 3 years, 3½ years, we're going to turn it around. And then, hopefully, it will be in such great shape. That's my goal: to put it in such great condition that it can't be destroyed.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Wait, no. Please.

Presidential Power

Q. Mr. President, thank you very much, sir. You mentioned this last night in your speech in Macomb, but we're facing an unprecedented situation where there's a lot of abuses of nationwide injunctions, sort of seemingly designed to curtail your power, specifically when it comes to deporting these illegal, violent aliens that came in under the previous administration.

The President. Yes.

Q. Have you spoken to your team about ways to mitigate this and continue to deliver for the American people on that aspect?

The President. Yes. Well, there are ways to mitigate it, and there's some very strong ways. There's one way that's been used by three very highly respected Presidents, but we hope we don't have to go that route. But there is one way that has been used very successfully by three Presidents, all highly respected. And hopefully, we don't have to go that way, but there are ways of mitigating that.

I want to thank you all very much. I thought this was an incredible Cabinet meeting. I think there's—probably there's never been a Cabinet meeting like this. And you've never seen it on tape, that I can tell you. [Laughter] And I want to just congratulate everybody at the table, but we have a lot of work to do.

But we're off to a great start. Thank you very much, everybody.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

The President's View of the Presidency

Q. Do you enjoy, Mr. President, living in the White House, back a second time? How is your life here?

The President. I'm working hard. I like my life. I'm working hard. But I like it because we're doing a lot of good for a lot of people.

Thank you very much.

White House aide. Thank you, press.

Q. Thank you.

The President. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much.