Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa of Bahrain and an Exchange With Reporters

President Trump. Well, it's a great honor to have the Prime Minister and the Crown Prince of Bahrain. That's a fancy two titles, I want to tell you. [Laughter] I don't know if I'd rather be the Prime Minister or the Crown Prince. I think I'd take the Crown Prince. [Laughter]

And very importantly, your son—your beautiful son, who has a great reputation. You know that.

Crown Prince Salman. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. Great reputation as a smart, hard-working guy, so it's good to say hello to you. Congratulations.

We've had a tremendous relationship—I have, personally—with Bahrain over the years and has been a fantastic ally. And anything they needed, we helped them. And anything we needed, they helped us.

And we're going to be talking about a lot of different things, including the most perfect military maneuver that anybody has seen, probably, in 50 years, which took place a few weeks ago in Iran. Knocked out their entire potential nuclear capacity, and it was obliterated. You know, they—I used that term. They said, "Well, maybe that's too much." I said, "No." Turned out it was more than obliterated. They can't go back.

And we're just really going to talk about some things, including trade.

Crown Prince Salman. That's right.

President Trump. We're going to be discussing trade. We do a lot of trading with Bahrain. And we're going to have lunch after this, but we'll take some questions.

First, I'd like to ask the Crown Prince to say a couple of words. And he's—he also has a father who's living and well and doing fantastically, as I understand it.

Crown Prince Salman. He is.

President Trump. And somebody—he's respected all over the Middle East and all over the world. And thank you very much for being here.

Crown Prince Salman. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, one and all.

It is indeed a great honor to be here on this fine morning to put into action the relationship that exists between our two countries. We will be discussing security issues. We will be discussing trade and investment, which is very important.

President Trump. Mm-hmm.

Crown Prince Salman. We are very happy to be announcing 17 billion dollars' worth of deals that are coming to the United States, and this is real. This isn't——

President Trump. It's real money.

Crown Prince Salman. These aren't fake deals. These are real deals.

President Trump. Yes. They don't have to borrow the money. [Laughter]

Crown Prince Salman. We don't have to borrow it. It's coming in, and it only builds upon a legacy that we're very proud of.

We have had a relationship in the civil side of—between our two countries since 1893 and formally since 1948. So may it long continue, and we look forward to many, many more years of productive partnership.

President Trump. Yes.

Crown Prince Salman. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. We will have that.

Crown Prince Salman. You honor us.

President Trump. We will have that indeed. We'll have many good years. And I'd say right now is your top year. And I—we appreciate the investment. It's a great—we left, as you know, Saudi Arabia. We were just there in Saudi Arabia, and we—Qatar was so great.

Crown Prince Salman. Fantastic.

President Trump. Leaders—great. We had U.A.E., and we had a couple of other visits, but all great places. And we left with $5.1 trillion of investment, and they all want to be investing in the United States.

Crown Prince Salman. Of course.

President Trump. We have, I think we have over $16 trillion of investment coming in, which is a record, and we're only a little bit into the year. And let's say the first 2 months, I sort of took it easy because we had to fix up the Oval Office. I had to devote my time to fixing it up.

But no, we had to fix up our country. So we have—I think everyone would say we have the hottest country now anywhere in the world. We were dead a year ago. We were a dead country, and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. And it's a great honor to have you here.

Crown Prince Salman. Thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump. Any questions?

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

Syria

Q. Any comments on the developments in Syria at the moment?

President Trump. Well, I can comment. I think I'll ask Marco to say a few words on Syria.

Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio. Yes, it's complicated, obviously. These are historic, long-time rivalries between different groups in the southwest of Syria—Bedouins, the Druze community—and it led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding, it looks like, between the Israeli side and the Syrian side.

So we've been engaged with them all morning long and all night long, with both sides. And we think we're on our way towards a real deescalation, and then, hopefully, get back on track in helping Syria build a country and arriving at a situation there in the Middle East that's far more stable.

So, in the next few hours, we hope to see some—some real progress to end what you've been seeing over the last couple hours.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Chairman of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Jerome H. Powell/Interest Rates

Q. Mr. President, on Jerome—Mr. President, Jerome Powell. Do you have plans—or if you're back considering firing Jerome Powell? And what's your justification, if—if you're thinking about this, to do this?

President Trump. Well, he's too late. He's always been too late, hence his nickname "Too Late." [Laughter] He should have cut interest rates a long time ago. Europe has cut them 10 times in the short period of time, and we cut them none.

The only time he cut them was just before the election to try and help Kamala or Biden, whoever the hell it was, because nobody really knew. Obviously, that didn't work. But he tried to cut them for the Democrats, Kamala. And how did that work out? You'll tell me. It didn't work out too well, did it?

But he's—I think he does a terrible job. He's costing us a lot of money, and we fight through it. It's almost—the country has become so successful that it doesn't have a big impact, but it does hurt people wanting to get a mortgage. People want to buy a house.

He's a terrible Fed Chair. I was surprised he was appointed. I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him. But they did.

So no, we're not planning on doing anything. We're very concerned. He's doing a little renovation for $2.5 billion of the Fed, building—building a renovation, and they have a close to $900 million cost overrun. And it's a shame.

But the biggest cost overrun is the cost overrun for interest rates, because we should be paying three points lower. And we would save a trillion dollars a year in interest if that were the case, and all it is is the stroke of a pen.

And that goes for his Board, too, because his Board is not doing the job, because they should try and rein this guy in.

So he's doing a lousy job. But no, I'm not talking about that. We get—fortunately, we get to make a change in the next—what?—8 months or so, and we'll pick somebody that's good, and we'll pick somebody—I just want a fair job.

We want to see lower interest rates. Our country deserves it. We're making a lot of money. We're doing great as a country. We have no inflation, record stock market, record business, record everything. Everything is a record now. We had the worst inflation in history under Biden, and now we have almost no inflation. We've done a great job, and we should have the interest rates cut.

Secretary of the Treasury Scott K.H. Bessent/National Economic Council Director Kevin A. Hassett/Federal Reserve System/Interest Rates

Q. So you were saying the other today that Scott Bessent—you're so happy with him at Treasury that, you know, he's not your top option to replace Jerome Powell, whenever that may be, whenever you decide what you want to do with him. Is——

President Trump. No, Scott is doing a very good job. No, I'm very happy with Scott, which——

Q. Is Kevin Hassett right on top of your list?

President Trump. ——I'd rather he—Kevin is somebody we'd consider, sure. Kevin is fantastic too.

We have a lot of good people for that job. It's not a tough job, to be honest. Assuming you're smart, it's not a tough job. If you're a dummy, then I guess it's a tough job. But it might be one of the easiest jobs I've ever seen. And now, on top of it, he's building a close to $3 billion little nest egg for himself.

He's not doing the right job. We should be saving a trillion dollars a year on interest. You know, when he talks about costs, we should be saving—think of it—a trillion dollars a year. Add that with the tariffs and everything else. But he just doesn't want—he's a knucklehead.

But we'll see how that—we'll see he's listening to this and probably—"Eh, that's a strange conversation." But you know, we like to say it like it is.

But we have a lot of people that want that job very badly, and I'm only interested in low-interest people, frankly.

Q. Sure.

President Trump. Because you don't need—I know—so they had a—you know, the 71 different economists and people that they—experts that they picked about a month ago. I was the only one, along with one person from maybe the Wharton School of Finance—the two of us got it right. Sixty-nine people, including Powell, got it wrong.

And he wants to hire thousands of new people to help him decide where we're going in the future. It only takes one good mind. It doesn't take 5,000 good minds. So they're expanding the Fed. It's the dumbest thing I've heard of. But you know, it's very autonomous.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Federal Reserve System

Q. Just to follow up on that, sir. Is there—are you completely ruling out the idea of firing Jerome Powell?

President Trump. I don't rule out anything, but I think it's highly unlikely, unless he has to leave for fraud. I mean, it's possible there's fraud involved with the $2.5, 2.7 billion renovation. This is a renovation. How do you spend $2.7 billion? And he didn't have proper clearance, et cetera, et cetera.

So you know, that's going on. So, you know, there could be something to that. But I think he's not doing a good job. He's got a very easy job to do. You know what he has to do? Lower interest rates.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Chairman of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Jerome H. Powell

Q. Mr. President, have you drafted a letter to send to Jay Powell if you decide that you are going to fire him? Have you drafted a letter?

President Trump. No, I haven't drafted a letter.

Q. So you didn't show a letter to Republican lawmakers last night?

President Trump. No, I talked about the concept of firing him. I said, "What do you think?" Almost every one of them said I should, but I'm more conservative than they are. [Laughter]

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Are you concerned about the potential market impact of firing him——

President Trump. No, no, we did—we talked about it.

Q. ——and the concern of an independent Fed?

President Trump. In fact, we had 11 of the 12 people here yesterday. You know, looking for a very big bill having to do with crypto, et cetera, and—and other things. And we—all of the votes are going with us, every single vote.

But during the conversation, when we were talking about it, I asked, "What would you do about that?" They all said, "We'd fire him."

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Yes, please.

Domestic Energy Production

Q. Thank you for taking my question, sir. You were in Pennsylvania yesterday, and you——

President Trump. Yes.

Q. ——unveiled 92 billion dollars' worth of investments. One of those jumped out, though: $15 billion in Homer City to build the largest natural gas——

President Trump. Right. Good.

Q. ——power plant ever. I was at the rally where you told Homer City residents that you would not forget them when the biggest coal plant in——

President Trump. Right.

Q. ——Pennsylvania closed down. You delivered for them yesterday. What message do you have to those residents?

President Trump. Well, I'm happy. Homer City—I was there, and I said, "I'm going to produce something; I don't know what." Because they had shut down this massive coal plant, one of the biggest in the country, and it was just purchased by the gentleman that you met yesterday—a very substantial man.

I don't know if he is as—maybe not as substantial as you. I'm not sure, but he's pretty substantial.

Crown Prince Salman. [Laughter] He's pretty substantial.

President Trump. You know who I'm talking about.

And they're going to spend billions of dollars on rebuilding it, and it's going to be the largest plant of its kind in the—in the world, I believe—actually, in the world. And it's going to be great. So we really fulfilled that promise to Homer City, but it's to Pennsylvania, basically.

We—I won Pennsylvania, and very conclusively won Pennsylvania, so we—I owe them a big debt of gratitude.

But thank you for bringing that up.

We raised $92-—it's actually going over 100—so it will be over $100 billion to be invested in Pennsylvania. It was Pennsylvania energy project. So we had—everybody was there. Larry Fink was there and—I mean, everybody was there and done—done a great job. The Senator did a great job, and we were very proud. That was a great meeting yesterday.

Thank you very much.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

U.S. Military Exports

Q. Mr. President—Mr.—actually, for each of you. So, for the Crown Prince, you—are you planning on taking any of the Patriot missiles that you're going to receive from the United States and divert those to help Ukraine?

Crown Prince Salman. We have no current plans, as we have an operational requirement inside Bahrain to keep them there——

Q. Okay.

Crown Prince Salman. ——for the present time at least.

President Trump. He's got plenty of them too.

Q. And, Mr. President, on the fentanyl bill.

President Trump. And they are good.

Crown Prince Salman. They're wonderful.

President Trump. They are.

Crown Prince Salman. They're wonderful pieces of kit.

President Trump. They work very well.

Crown Prince Salman. American technology is the best.

President Trump. Yes. It is.

Q. And on the fentanyl bill that you're signing.

President Trump. And that's the—maybe the most important part of this. He has his choice of everything, and we make the best military equipment, by far, in the world.

Crown Prince Salman. Bar none.

President Trump. There's nothing close, right?

Participant. Absolutely.

Crown Prince Salman. Bar none.

President Trump. Yes. Thank you.

Fentanyl Supply Chain

Q. And on the fentanyl bill that you're signing today, do you hope that that's going to restart law enforcement cooperation with China on getting the fentanyl out of the country?

President Trump. Yes, I think China has been helping out. I mean, it's been—it's been a terrible situation for many years with fentanyl.

But since I came here, we're talking to them, and they're making big steps. They're also, as you know, being penalized. You know that, right? They're being penalized with tariffs because of the fentanyl. But they want to do something. We'll see what happens.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Go ahead. Please.

Violence in the West Bank, Palestinian Territories

Q. Thank you, Mr. President. An American from Tampa was beaten to death. He was killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. His family has been calling on you to help prosecute his killers. Are you going to do that? An American from Tampa.

President Trump. Yes, your first sentence is really—go ahead.

Q. Oh, an American citizen from——

President Trump. Yes.

Q. ——Tampa, Florida, has been killed in the West Bank. His family has been asking on you to prosecute them. Are you going to help finding his killers?

President Trump. Do you know about this?

Secretary Rubio. Yes, well—so, first of all, have you seen yesterday, Ambassador Huckabee has asked the Israelis to conduct an investigation. We want to get all the information about who was involved. We protect all American citizens anywhere in the world, especially if they're unjustly murdered or killed. So we'll—we're gathering more information.

But I hope you saw yesterday, Ambassador Huckabee in Israel asked the Israelis' authorities to produce an investigation and concrete information about who was responsible for his murder.

Q. So can I ask the Crown Prince——

President Trump. They're reporting that tomorrow. We're going to have a meeting on it. They're going to be reporting that to me.

Q. Great. And can I ask the Crown Prince a question, please?

President Trump. Yes.

Iran/Middle East Security

Q. Do you think that the Gulf area now is more secure? And do you believe that a negotiation with Iran is necessary at this stage?

Crown Prince Salman. Well, I definitely believe that the volatility of the situation has been reduced, and we didn't know where it was going to go on the Sunday. We were very glad when we found out on the Monday. Let me put it that way.

And should the Iranians want to negotiate, I believe the ball is in their court. That is the true reality of where we stand today. They are the ones that stand to benefit from a negotiation.

President Trump. And they do. They want to negotiate. They want to negotiate badly. We're in no rush because, you know, we said—we could have made a deal, they should have made a deal, and then we bombed the hell out of their various places. We're in no rush, but if they want to negotiate, we're here.

Yes.

Department of Justice Files Concerning Deceased Convicted Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein/Federal Bureau of Investigation/Democratic Party

Q. Mr. President—Mr. President, I know you want to move past all this intrigue over the Epstein files, but I do want to ask you to clarify something you said this morning. You said this was all a "hoax." Has your Attorney General——

President Trump. It's a big hoax.

Q. ——told you this was a hoax? What evidence have you seen of that?

President Trump. No, it's not the Attorney General. No, I know it's a hoax. It's started by Democrats. It's been run by the Democrats for 4 years.

You had Christopher Wray and these characters, and Comey before him, and it's a bad group. It started—actually, look at the Steele dossier. That turned out to be a total hoax. The 51 agents—the intelligence—so-called intelligence agents, that was a hoax.

It's all been a big hoax. It's perpetrated by the Democrats, and some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net. And so they try and do the Democrats' work. The Democrats are good for nothing other than these hoaxes.

They're bad for policy. They're bad for picking candidates that can get elected. Like in New York, we have a Communist running. He may get elected, too, actually, but he's going to—he'll destroy the city.

No, no, it's—I call it the Epstein hoax. Takes a lot of time and effort, instead of talking about the great achievements we've had. A great gentleman yesterday, as you know, went on CNBC, and he made the statement that "Trump may go down as the greatest President of all in the United States." And instead of talking about the things we've achieved—we've had tremendous achievement—they're wasting their time with a guy who obviously had some very serious problems, who died 3, 4 years ago.

I'd rather talk about the success we have with the economy, the best we've ever had, and all of the things we've done, including in the Middle East. I mean, you see it.

Instead, they want to talk about the Epstein hoax. And the sad part is, it's people that are really doing the Democrats' work. They're stupid people.

Yes. Go ahead.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Go ahead.

Federal Reserve System

Q. Mr. President, there's lots of reports coming into this meeting that you planned on firing Fed Chair Jay Powell. Markets reacting——

President Trump. Is that right? Those are reports, but they're not true.

Q. So what would be useful to know: Are you committed to picking someone from the outside? Are you going to interview individuals——

President Trump. I have so many——

Q. ——that are on the board right now?

President Trump. ——people that want that job. I have people that I've known a long time, they're calling me begging for the job. You know what you need there? A smart person with common sense, but you need a very smart person for that job.

I think it's one of the easiest jobs in Government. You show up once a month and you make a statement about where the economy is going, and we're going to raise or lower interest rates. It's——

Q. It is a deliberative body though.

President Trump. It's probably the easiest job I've ever seen. That's why I'm trying to figure, why does he want to expand and add more people? He's going to add more economists to tell him what to do. But the economists—I was right. All the economists were wrong.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

They admitted it this—they admitted it this morning.

Q. Mr. President——

Q. Mr. President——

President Trump. Quiet. Quiet. Quiet.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Go ahead.

Q. Mr. President——

Chairman of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Jerome H. Powell

Q. Mr. President, on Jerome Powell, though, you mentioned fraud in an earlier answer. Are you saying you want to investigate the Fed Chair for fraud related to this renovation?

President Trump. Well, I think he's already under investigation. He spent far more money than he was supposed to on rebuilding. I didn't see him as being the kind of guy that would want to have parks—rooftop parks and everything else on top of buildings. But who wants to spend that money for the Fed?

The Fed is supposed to sit there and say where interest rates are going and a couple of other very easy things to do, and he spent 2½ billion dollars. I think he's—you know, I think he's got some problems, frankly.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Yes, please.

Tariffs/Trade Negotiations/U.S. Manufacturing Strength/Inflation

Q. Thank you, sir. You also reported a surplus—a monthly surplus in the month of June, $27 billion.

President Trump. Yes, $25 billion.

Q. A ton of money.

President Trump. Yes.

Q. With these new tariff rates coming into effect on August 1, we're going to be bringing in even more tariff revenue, specifically. How much revenue do you think we can consistently bring in from these tariffs? And how big of a game changer is this, not only for the economy but also fiscal responsibility?

President Trump. Well, we're going to be bringing in—already we've brought in over $100 billion. We'll be bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars, and the tariffs really haven't kicked in that much other than automobiles and steel. August 1 is a big day. August 1 is when very substantial money comes into our country.

We've made deals with a lot of great places, but—we had one yesterday, you know, that was announced. We have another one coming up, maybe, with India. I don't know. We're in negotiation.

When I send out a letter, that's a deal. In other words, that's a deal. They don't want to ever say that. "Oh, how many deals have you made?" The best deal we can make is to send out a letter, and the letter says that you'll pay 30 percent, 35 percent, 25 percent, 20 percent.

In one case, 50 percent—Brazil—and—because they—what they're doing to their former President is disgraceful. I know the former President. He fought like hell for the people of Brazil. That, I can tell you. And the—I believe he's an honest man. I think what they're doing to him is terrible.

So yes, we have some pretty good deals to announce. But every time we send out a letter, that's the deal.

The big one, really, is going to be on the 150 countries that we're really not negotiating with, and they're smaller. We don't do much business with them, because you have a lot of countries. You have over 200 countries——

Crown Prince Salman. Absolutely.

President Trump. ——and a lot of people don't know this.

But we'll have a—you know, well over 150 countries that we're just going to send a notice of payment out, and the notice of payment is going to say what the tariff—and we're—it's all going to be the same for everyone, for that group. They don't—you know, it's not—they're not big countries, and they don't do that much business. It's not like the ones that we've agreed with, like China—like Japan, where we're negotiating with them. But I think probably we'll live by the letter with Japan.

We're very close to a deal with India, where they open it up. Indonesia, yesterday, was—it wasn't an open country. Now it is. We—and they tremendous copper. Quality copper and probably the most copper. And we made a deal with Indonesia. We pay no tariff—zero—and we have total access to trade. That's a phenomenal deal for our companies.

And we've agreed with them, as you know, on 19 percent. They pay 19 percent. And it's a good deal for them. It's a good deal for us, so—in that case.

But we have a number of them coming up. But overall, we're doing well, and we're taking in a lot of money. A lot of money.

We have the number one—you know, we have the most oil of any country in the world, even more than them, which is hard to believe. [Laughter] But we have a little larger piece of land, right?

Crown Prince Salman. You do, sir. May it long be so.

President Trump. But we have—we're number one in the world in oil, and we're drilling. And today it hit $64 a barrel, which is great. And that will help stop wars, actually. You want to know the truth, it's going to help stop wars. And we hope to get it down a little bit more, but we have oil down to $2, $2.25, $2.50 in numerous States. We hit one at $1.98 a gallon, and that's a great thing.

That's one of the reasons that inflation is in check.

Crown Prince Salman. Mm-hmm.

President Trump. When you can do that, you stop inflation.

What Biden did is he ended our policies, went to his policies with—he didn't have a policy. Some lunatic around the desk had a policy. Whoever operated the autopen had a policy, which is, by the way, I think, the biggest scandal. That's the scandal they should be talking about, not Jeffrey Epstein. The scandal you should be talking about is the autopen, because I think it's the biggest scandal—one of them—in American history.

So the economy——

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

So the economy is doing really well, and people are seeing it.

Yes.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

You. Go ahead.

Department of Justice Files Concerning Deceased Convicted Sex Offender Jeffrey Epstein

Q. Will you ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to release more documents to finally put this controversy to bed?

President Trump. Yes, whatever is credible she can release. If the—if a document is credible—if a document is there that is credible, she can release. I think it's—I think it's good, but——

Q. Have you talked to her about it?

President Trump. But it's just really—it's just a subject. He's dead. He's gone. And all it is is the Republicans—certain Republicans got duped by the Democrats, and they're following a Democrat playbook, and no different when—than Russia, Russia, Russia and all the other hoaxes. They're started by the Democrats. And some Republicans—in this case, I was surprised, but they got duped.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Have you talked about it—have you talked about it with her in the last few days?

President Trump. Go ahead.

Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi/Illegal Immigration

Q. Mr. President, first off, a number of your high-ranking officials, whether it's been your FBI Director or Pam Bondi, they have made some inconsistent statements in the past. You've had Speaker——

President Trump. Well, I don't know. I can't speak about him, but I can say that Pam Bondi—I really think that she's done very good. She says, "I gave you all the credible information," and if she finds any more credible information, she'll give that too. What more can she do than that? I mean, honestly, what more can she do?

Q. Have you talked about it with her in the last few days?

President Trump. And we do have bigger problems. You know, we have problems with millions of illegal people that came in here, and they're killers and murderers. We have 11,888 murderers that were allowed into our country by Biden. Sleepy Joe Biden. Stupid Joe Biden. He allowed them into our country. And you know what? We've got to do something about it.

She's got a lot of things she's working on. And you know, it's very sad that somebody can be waylaid. They just get waylaid. But she's—she's doing—I think she's doing a great job, personally.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Go ahead.

U.S. National Economy/Tax Code Reform/Border Security/Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. On your Truth Social this morning, you mentioned past supporters when you were talking about the Epstein issue. Does that mean that you're effectively disowning any supporters who are now calling on the White House——

President Trump. No, but I lost a lot of faith in certain people, yes. I lost—because they got duped by the Democrats. The Democrats are good for nothing. They've done a terrible job. They almost destroyed our country.

If I didn't get elected—all these numbers you're hearing about: They found $25 billion, and another 25 is coming in, and hundreds of billions of dollars is pouring into our country, and we just got the biggest tax cut in history. We just got the biggest regulation cuts in history. There'll be no tax on tips. There'll be no tax on Social Security. There'll be no tax on overtime. There'll be no tax on so many other things.

You're allowed to deduct your interest from a car payment. That's never happened before. You borrow interest—you borrow money to buy a car, if you—if the car is made in America—and, by the way, factories are being built all over America—car factories, AI factories—but you get a deduction on your interest. Nobody ever thought of that before. Never happened before. And you know, these are the things that they should be talking about.

The "Big Beautiful Bill" is one of the greatest pieces of legislation ever in this country, and the Democrats have nothing to combat it. So they say: "Oh, it's death. Death." Oh, that's good. And then they give it to the fake news, which is you and a few others, and the fake news talks about "the bill is death." The bill is actually life. The bill is life, and it saves our country. This bill is incredible.

Look at the results already. So we have $16 trillion being invested in our country, and this great gentleman and his family just came in with another billions of dollars.

Crown Prince Salman. It's true.

President Trump. And if he didn't like the country, if he didn't like where we were going—he's very smart—he wouldn't—he'd come—maybe he'd come. Maybe he wouldn't even come. I think maybe you wouldn't even come. You'd save your time. [Laughter]

Crown Prince Salman. [Inaudible]

President Trump. But you know, it's one of those things. But if he didn't like where this country was, he wouldn't be investing billions of dollars in this country.

But think of it: $16 trillion, more than has ever been even contemplated before, and we haven't even started yet. So that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the success, and the Democrats have nothing to show for what they do.

They almost destroyed—they allowed 25 million people to come into our country—gang members, jail birds—from all over the world, not South America. From all over the world. They allowed them to come into our country from mental institutions, insane asylums. Just walk right through. They couldn't come into your country. They couldn't come into any country in the world, except our country.

And they came in from the worst places. Gang members, drug dealers—they all came in.

[Some audio could be heard playing from a cellular phone.]

Turn it off, please.

They all came in, and I'm doing something about it. We have it under check right now. We got rid of a lot of the murderers already. Some of them, we put in our prisons, because they're so bad, we don't want to take a chance in putting them in a foreign prison and have them come back.

But we've done a great job. Our country is in great shape. We literally have the hottest country anywhere in the world right now.

And it's true what the King said, what a lot of people said: We were a dead country one year ago. One year ago, we were a dead country. We were laughed at all over the world. We had Afghanistan, with that horrible embarrassment. Most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. Look what happened with Russia and Ukraine. That should have never happened. Look what happened with Israel. That would have never happened. Hamas had no money. Iran had no money. There was no money to do an attack like that.

All these things that happened that wouldn't have happened if you had good leadership, and that's what you should be talking about.

Thank you very much, everybody.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Thank you. Thank you.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Thank you very much.