Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion on the "Antifa" Organization and an Exchange With Reporters

The President. Thank you very much.

U.S. Cease-Fire Agreement Between Hamas and Israel

I was just dealing with people from the Middle East—our people and other people—on the potential peace deal for the Middle East. "Peace for the Middle East." That's a beautiful phrase, and we hope it's going to come true. But it's very close, and they're doing very well.

We have a great team over there, great negotiators. And they're, unfortunately, great negotiators on the other side also. But it's something I think that will happen. Got a good chance of happening. I may go there sometime toward the end of the week—maybe on Sunday, actually. And we'll see. But there's a very good chance.

The negotiations are going along very well. We're dealing with Hamas and many of the countries. As you know, we have Muslim—all of the Muslim countries are included. All of the Arab countries are included. Very rich countries and some that are not so rich, but just about everybody's included. It's never happened before. Nothing like that's happened before.

And our final negotiation, as you know, is with Hamas. And it seems to be going well. So we'll let you know. If that's the case, we'll be leaving probably on Sunday, maybe Saturday—maybe a little later than Saturday evening. But that's—seems to be our schedule.

"Antifa" Organization

It should be clear to all Americans that we have a very serious left-wing terror threat in our country. Radicals associated with the domestic terror group antifa that you've heard a lot about lately—and I've heard a lot about them for 10 years—and other far-left extremists have been carrying out a campaign of violence against ICE agents and other officials charged with enforcing Federal law.

In Chicago, anarchists have surveilled at least four local ICE facilities and posted diagrams of the buildings online—meaning nothing but bad—accompanied by photos of specific ICE agents that they're targeting. One in particular who's a top person and a great person, a great patriot.

In July, approximately a dozen antifa-aligned militants stormed the ICE facility in Texas and then lured officers out of the building before firing dozens of rounds at police—they were crazy, frankly—shooting one Texas officer in the neck.

And in Portland, Oregon, antifa thugs have repeatedly attacked our officers and laid siege to Federal property in an attempt to violently stop the execution of Federal law.

Everything we're doing is very lawful. What they're doing is not lawful. And what the Governor and the mayor of—as an example, you could say of Portland and you can say, certainly, of Chicago it's not lawful, what they're doing. They have to be very careful.

In addition, 2 weeks ago, a radical-left terrorist in Dallas conducted a sniper attack on a local ICE facility, killing two people and leaving behind a note that read, "Hopefully, this will give ICE agents some real terror." That's bad.

This attack came the very same month that Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a far-left extremist who inscribed the words: "Hey, fascist! Catch!"—meaning catch the bullet—onto the bullet shelf itself.

The epidemic of left-wing violence and antifa-inspired terror has been escalating for nearly a decade.

At universities, antifa has organized riotous mobs to attack campus speakers. I see it all the time. And these are agitators, anarchists, and they're paid. And you'll find that out. You'll be finding it out very soon.

We—you should see what we have on these people. These are bad people. These are people that want to destroy our country. We're not going to let it happen.

They've used armed gangs to assault local police in cities nationwide, and they have attacked journalists reporting on their crimes. So the journalists that report on their crimes.

Don't worry. You're very safe. I hope that's not going to turn you around.

But they have been very threatening to people. But we're going to be very threatening to them. Far more threatening to them than they ever were with us. And that includes the people that fund them—probably some of the people I know, some of the people I dine with. But if they do, they're in deep trouble.

So we're going to be looking very strongly at the people that are funding these operations.

When you see the signs and they're all made out of beautiful—beautiful paper—beautiful, nice, stiff, very expensive paper—with beautiful wood handles, all the same, all the same color, they come from very expensive printing machines—these are not people that write out their signs in a basement that believe in something; these are paid anarchists.

At least three of these courageous journalists have personally been victims of antifa attacks. Andy Ngo has been repeatedly beaten by antifa thugs for his work, and he—Andy is a very serious person too. I have to tell you. I've been watching him for a long time.

Is Andy here? That's what I thought. Hello, Andy. I thought that was you. You're looking better than you do out on those streets here. Huh? [Laughter] You look much better. It's nice to have you.

Social media influencer Andy Ngo. Thank you.

The President. You feel a little safer here, I think, maybe. Well, not that safe, because you have them.

[At this point, the President gestured toward the press.]

[Laughter] You have to worry about them. But thank you very much.

Andy Ngo has been repeatedly beaten by antifa and including one assault that left him with a brain hemorrhage.

Only days ago, Nick Sortor was assaulted in Portland by a flag-burning mob. And we've made it a 1-year penalty for inciting riots. We took the freedom of speech away because that's been through the courts and the court said you have freedom of speech. But what has happened is when they burn a flag, it agitates and irritates crowds—I've never seen anything like it—on both sides, and you end up with riots.

So we're going on that basis. We're looking at it from—not from the freedom of speech, which I always felt strongly about, but never passed the courts. This is what they do, is they incite—when you burn an American flag, you incite tremendous violence. We have many examples of it—many, many examples of it. And it's actually down on tape, and you see things happen that—that just don't happen unless it's a flag that's burning.

Very recently, Katie Daviscourt was hit in the face with a flagpole in Portland by an antifa radical, leaving her with a very blackened eye. So, Katie, thank you very much. And I—I'd like to also say that I watched Nick—where's Nick? Is Nick here?

Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi. Right there.

Social media influencer Nick Sortor. Right here.

The President. Nick. Hi, Nick. That was a rough time you went through. I watched—I hope I got my little note. I wrote you a note.

Mr. Sortor. Yes. I really appreciated that. It helped a lot, because it was a difficult situation. It was very stressful.

The President. Yes.

Mr. Sortor. And your note helped a lot. I truly appreciate it, sir.

The President. I thought it was terrible, actually. I thought it was terrible. So we'll talk about it a little bit.

Under the last administration, the Department of Justice targeted faithful Catholics, Christians, and patriotic parents as domestic extremists. They said: "Oh, they're extreme because they believe in God. They're extreme because they go to a Catholic church"—or evangelicals were—everybody was under the gun, unless you were a really bad, sick person, then they left you alone.

Under the Trump administration, we're going after antifa criminals. And all who fund and support their campaigns are in serious trouble, and we have a lot of records already, a lot of surprises—a lot of bad surprises. It's people that you would never think.

I want to thank Attorney General Pam Bondi, who, by the way, yesterday was incredible in Congress—who was amazing, and she just did it from the heart—and the brain, because she's very smart, in all fairness. But she did it from the heart and she did an incredible—everybody was talking about it.

She exposed some of these fake Senators, these terrible Senators—people like Blumenthal that had a phony war record. For 20 years, he talked about what a hero he was, and it turned out he never went to Vietnam. For 20 years, he talked about being a hero in Vietnam. Then it was exposed when he said what platoon he was with, and it was exposed that somebody was watching from that particular platoon. They said, "He was never with us." And then he went out, and he cried, and he was ready to drop out of the election and—disgraceful. And then he looks at people like Pam and he starts criticizing her, and she's a patriot. They ought to do something with that.

You know, we have a young Congressman that's right now in jail for lying about where he went to college and other things. It was, you know, frankly, not good. It was pretty bad. But it was nothing compared to Blumenthal. I mean, what Blumenthal did—he was, for 20 years, a hero—a great war hero. And then he sits back and, you know, sanctimonious kind of a guy, looks out, "How dare you do this to the American public?" You know? What a fake. But I thought Pam was incredible yesterday.

As well as Secretary Kristi Noem, who's really out there courageously. And I appreciate it, Kristi. Amazing, what you're doing.

FBI Director Kash Patel, who's really coming up with some great information, Kash. That's great. Keep it coming, because there's plenty of it.

Deputy Attorney General—one of the best lawyers you'll ever find—Todd Blanche, who I know personally is a good lawyer because I'm here. [Laughter] Thank you very much, Todd. Good job, Todd.

Let me ask Attorney General Bondi to say a few words, and then we'll follow it up with Secretary Noem and Director Patel. And we're going to have some of the people around the table—very courageous people—and they're going to be talking—journalists, almost all—and they're going to be talking, and we'll take some questions from the press at the end. Okay?

Pam, please.

Attorney General Bondi. Thank you, President Trump. And as you made clear, antifa is a domestic left-wing terrorist organization. We've seen them on video for years because they wanted to be seen and they got away with it.

They beat journalist. They attacked courthouses. They attacked police stations. They dox and assault our law enforcement officers. The Biden administration let them commit these crimes with total impunity for years. So did Democrat leaders like Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson.

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

Thanks to your bold leadership and the designation of antifa as a terrorist organization, which is exactly what they are, Americans will no longer tolerate their unhinged violence.

Thank you.

The President. Thank you very much, Pam.

Kristi.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi L. Noem. Well, thank you, Mr. President, and thank you for hosting today and focusing on antifa and the terrorists that they are.

Let's not make any mistake, these individuals do not just want to threaten our law enforcement officers, threaten our journalists and the citizens of this country, they want to kill them.

Their agenda is to destroy the American people and our way of life. And this president is standing in their way. He is stopping them from bringing their death and their destruction to the individual citizens in this country that just want to raise their kids and their grandkids in peace and in safety.

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

So thank you for being here, for being so bold, and for standing in the gap at such a time as this. It will matter. It will make a difference, and your life will be one of significance because of what you've done today.

So, with that, God bless you. And thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Kash, please.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kashyap P. "Kash" Patel. Thank you, Mr. President.

Mr. President, the American people gave you a sweeping mandate in your victory in this election cycle, and they demanded safety and security for our citizens. And your administration, with your leadership, has provided us with the resources that we need, which is a whole-of-Government approach to go after criminals absolutely everywhere—not just outside of this country, but within this country. And that takes a whole-of-Government approach.

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

We will arrest every single one of them, from whatever perch you sit in, private or public. No matter high your goal or your ambition is, it will be crushed by the Constitution because the American people deserve law and order. And that's what we're going to give you.

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

Maybe we'll start over here. Would any of you like to say something? Feel free. You can say it in front of a fine group of people, also journalists and reporters. Would—do you want to start?

Mr. Sortor. Sure.

The President. Go ahead.

Mr. Sortor. Absolutely. President Trump, members of the Cabinet, really appreciate you guys bringing this together. And the fact that we are here today, and on such short notice, shows how serious you guys are taking this issue of trans terrorists and the—frankly, the cities and police departments that are cooperating with antifa, such as Portland.

I mean the Portland politicians are literally willing to sacrifice their own citizens just to appease these antifa terrorists. It's sickening. I've seen it firsthand, obviously. I—when—when I went to jail that night, never expected it to happen. I thought that they were maybe removing me for my own safety. It never crossed my mind that I was the one that was being arrested for a crime after I was just thrown into a hole.

[Mr. Sortor continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

It's concerning to me that you're seeing the Portland Police Department as well as the Governor of Oregon and the mayor, of course, coming out and running defense for pedophiles that have entered the country illegally five times. It's crazy. I'm glad it's taking a front-row seat in the media and, you know, that they're being forced to talk about it, in reality. Because, you know, we are the ones that were on the ground. We are the ones that are actually reporting what's going on. And you know, much of the legacy media has been either ignoring it or covering for antifa for years now.

So thank you guys so much for taking this seriously. And, President Trump, you mentioned that flag. So, remember, you put out a Truth right after I——

The President. Yes. That's right. I saw that.

Mr. Sortor. ——took this flag from that man that was burning it in the street.

The President. Yes, I saw it. Do you know who he is?

Mr. Sortor. Oh, yes. I know exactly who it is. It's a——

The President. So why don't you give it to Pam? Give it to the Attorney General and let's start prosecutions.

Mr. Sortor. Yes. I actually have a second flag that he tried to burn as well. So I have two of them from the same guy.

The President. Well, you also saw what happened when that flag started burning. Everyone went crazy.

Secretary Noem. That's right.

The President. And that's when it started, when they started burning the flag.

So thank you. If you could give the information, it would be great.

Mr. Sortor. Absolutely. I'll talk to——

Attorney General Bondi. And——

The President. And at least that horrible night made you famous. [Laughter] Right? You got something out of it.

Attorney General Bondi. He was already famous.

Mr. Sortor. I got a text from the President of the United States, so I appreciate that.

Attorney General Bondi. And, President Trump, after that happened to Nick, I called Harmeet Dhillon——

The President. Good.

Attorney General Bondi. ——and we opened a pattern and practice investigation into the Portland police very publicly as to how they let this happen.

The President. Thank you very much.

Mr. Sortor. Thank you, sir.

The President. Thank you.

Political commentator Brandi Kruse. Mr. President, you're going to—Brandi Kruse—you're going to hear us be very fired up today, and you can tell, and it's because some of us have been covering antifa for 15 years and have never had anyone in a position of authority even acknowledge their existence. And I'll also tell you that I think that had you not done—the single most powerful thing you've done to deal with this scourge has been acknowledging that antifa is a real thing. I genuinely believe there would be people at these tables who would be dead today and would've been killed in Portland had you not called them a terror organization and said, "We're going to bring the full weight of the Federal Government to bear."

I talked to Katie Daviscourt in Portland the other day. She'd been assaulted all summer. And she said the same thing: They didn't seem quick to violence as soon as you made that designation. So they're thinking in their heads. They're worried. There's been two dozen or so arrested in Portland. They don't want to go to Federal prison. There's this video of them—one of them who was in the face of an ICE agent, and then he's in custody, shaking.

Once you take the mask off, they're nothing.

The President. Right. Right.

Ms. Kruse. And I was told by probably a dozen people not to tell you this. I'm going to tell it to you anyway because it's relevant to what we're talking about. I'm living proof that you can recover from TDS. I had strong Trump derangement syndrome—[laughter]—for probably 8 years. It's the—one—this is one of the reasons I recovered from it.

And by the way, it's much better to not have TDS. I'm happier. I'm healthier. [Laughter] More successful. I even think I got a little more attractive after I got rid of my Trump derangement syndrome. [Laughter]

The President. Very attractive.

Ms. Kruse. Yes. You know, I watched—I'm a reporter in Seattle, and, frankly, I could not care any less what any of you have to say about this meeting. Could not care any less. We're not here for you. I'm not here to convince any of you that antifa is a real thing, because if you have not come to that conclusion by now, you are never going to come to that conclusion because you don't want to see it, and you're going to go and you're going to say, "It's a bunch of right-wing conservative influencers who are here spinning a tale."

[Ms. Kruse continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

I know, Andy, we talked before this about some ideas. That's really what we want to—I don't care what the media says. I don't care what Democrats say. They will never wake up to this fact. So we want the Federal Government to take as many of these cases as possible, look at the interstate travel between Portland and Seattle when it comes to these people who are committing violent acts. And hopefully, in 3½ years, they will be a shell of their former selves.

The President. We'll have it very close to done. And it's antifa and many others, unfortunately.

Ms. Kruse. Yes.

The President. There are many others—bad ones. Most have been named terrorist organizations. There are a couple that we're going to. But I think we've got it pretty well covered. But there are many others. But, very specifically, today is antifa, and it's really bad. And we're going to get it cleaned up.

Andy, do you have some—thank you very much. I'm glad you no longer have TDS. I feel very good about that. [Laughter]

Ms. Kruse. Fully recovered. Fully recovered.

The President. Thank you.

Mr. Ngo. Thank you, Mr. President, and members of the Cabinet. I have a lot of gratitude.

And a little bit about my background. I'm born in Portland, Oregon—from there. And growing up, it's always been left-wing, very progressive, and I liked it. It had cafes and artists and those who lived a bohemian lifestyle.

And in 2016, I was a graduate student at Portland State studying political science. I was an editor at the student paper there—a very progressive paper. And I was assigned to cover the election night demonstrations.

Well, the elections night protest turned to riot—3 days of violent rioting in Portland. And it was the first time that I saw groups dressed in black with their faces covered. This was 4 years before COVID. Some of them were waving the black flag of anarchism, some the red flag of Marxism. And within seconds, they would ravage one street to another, to another, to another.

[Mr. Ngo continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

I think the DOJ could look at Federal conspiracy charges. The State of California and San Diego County last year broke up an antifa cell in San Diego. And I think maybe perhaps the State Department should designate antifa—its international arm as a foreign terrorist organization, FTO.

So thank you so much for this invitation, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you. Thank you very much, Andy. Great. That's a rough time you had, huh? So the choke out was almost the end, you thought—you felt?

Mr. Ngo. Yes. That was my only near-death experience in my life, and I'm quite shaken when I think about it now. It's—it really feels unbelievable to me that—on the streets of America, that this type of violence against citizens could become so routine and accepted and cheered on by people.

Although, you know, in the immediate aftermath of Mr. Kirk's assassination, we saw again that type of depravity play out on quite large swaths of the left. So there's a deep sickness that's in this country right now, and it pains me a lot——

The President. The amazing thing—

Mr. Ngo. ——to acknowledge it.

The President. Yes. The amazing thing is you look at Portland, and you see fires all over the place. You see fights and, I mean, just violence. It's just so crazy. And then you talk to the Governor and she's—acts like everything is totally normal, there's nothing wrong. What's—it's almost like, "Are you waking up from a dream or something?" You see it on your network. You see it all over the place. And it's so bad. It's so crazy.

It's like the movies you see for the kids—I guess not only the kids; adults also—where you have these bombed out cities and these bombed out people. It's like worse than that. I don't think they could make a movie as bad.

And then the Governor will get up and say: "I don't know why they're coming here. It's such a wonderful place." And the amazing thing is the people want us to be there. The people—when they get the real people that live there—many of them have left—but the real people want us to be there. Same thing in Chicago.

So they've had 60, 70 murders over a short period of time. Murders. People that got shot. They've had hundreds of people shot. And then a guy like Pritzker or this low-IQ mayor gets up—I mean, he got up—he's got a 5-percent approval rating and the people are all against him. They want people to come.

Beautiful Black women are wearing a MAGA hat last night on television. Beautiful people. And they—once they said: "We don't care who comes. Just stop the crime." They don't care. Frankly, they don't care if it's National Guard, military—"Send in anybody you want. Stop the crime."

And they're afraid to go out. They can't even go out. And then a guy like Pritzker—think of that: 50, 60, 70 people over a short period are murdered—actually murdered. Mostly gun violence, but knives. But gun violence, they're murdered. And hundreds of people shot.

They had one weekend where they had like 18 murdered and 71 shot. But they said—you know what their excuse was? "Yes, but it was a long weekend." In other words, it was a long weekend, so that was okay.

And then Pritzker gets up and he says, like, "I don't know what they're talking about. We don't have crime here." He—they're crazy. I think, actually, they're petrified. You know their families live there, everything else. I actually think they're scared.

Pritzker was a failure in his family. They threw them out of the family business. Guy's a loser. But you know what? They actually—I believe they're scared. They're actually frightened for their lives.

Jack, please, say a few words.

One America News Network program host Jack Posobiec. Mr. President, thank you so much for having us here today and holding this—this roundtable. Antifa is real. Antifa has been around in various iterations for almost a hundred years, in some instances, going back to the Weimar Republic in Germany.

And it's now been just under one month since we saw a far leftist murder Charlie Kirk and we saw thousands upon thousands of people—other far leftists and people in positions of authority, people like nurses and pilots and doctors and HR departments—celebrating the death and the murder of Charlie Kirk.

[Mr. Posobiec continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

But, Mr. President, we need to do something about this, because I fear that the next one who could be killed could be sitting at this table right now. And we're not going to stop. But they need to stop, and they will not stop until they are stopped.

Thank you.

The President. Right. Thank you, Jack. I appreciate it very much.

One thing I have to say is that Washington, DC, was almost as bad—I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows. But most of the retailers have left.

But Washington, DC, was so bad. And, Pam, I'd say it took 12 days to really make it pretty good and a month to make it great. And now people are going out to dinner. The restaurants are booming. They don't have enough seats. They're opening up new restaurants, because many of them closed. And people are walking down the street totally safe.

Reporter—a reporter—I'm not sure if she's there. I can't see. There's so many reporter-—there she is. She was violently assaulted. And, I don't know, she tends to be somewhat liberal, but she wasn't liberal on this one. I appreciated your honesty. But you won't—that won't happen again. It won't happen again. You're lucky you're alive, frankly, with what happened. I know exactly what took place.

So Washington, DC, our Capital—we thought we'd start there, appropriately. And it's safe. And people are so happy. They're so happy. And now it's a couple of months. I went to dinner there. I felt totally safe. I gave a press conference right in the middle of the street, which I'm—don't think Secret Service were thrilled about. But you know, I'll tell you what, I wouldn't have wanted to do it 6 months ago. It's incredible what happened.

Now we're in Memphis, as you know. We're having a great impact in Memphis. It's been only a week, but it's—Kash, I hear it's been amazing what's happening there, just very early.

But you take a look at DC and you take a look at some of the others—we've had a big impact there. What we haven't said—because Pritzker said, "Well, crime is going down in Chicago." Well, 5 months ago, Kash went to Chicago with a lot of FBI agents just to prepare it so that we went in with—I guess you could call it a surge, call it whatever you want, but we'd be even more effective. And we're going to be doing that—and very, very strongly doing that—because Chicago is a very unsafe city. It's a great city. The head of the Union Pacific Railroad said: "Sir, please, save Chicago. It's a great city. It can be saved."

Other cities are gone. I mean, they're lost. They can get better, but they're just—really, they've been so decimated.

But I'm so proud of what they've done so quickly in DC, and it's taking place quickly in Memphis, where we were asked to go by the mayor and by the Governor. And it's really incredible what we can do and how fast we can do it.

Let's go for two more. Would you like to go? And then, Katie, you'll go. Okay? Please.

Blaze Media national correspondent Julio Rosas. Yes. Thank you, Mr. President, for having us here. And you know, not to sound like a broken record, but it needs to be said that antifa is real.

The President. Yes.

Mr. Rosas. It's real. It's a threat. I just saw them last weekend over in Portland while they were causing mayhem over there. And the reason why there's such a big problem is because we have Democrats and a lot of people in the mainstream media refusing to acknowledge that they even exist. Right? So how can we as a country begin to address it if we have large swaths of, you know, these people who are supposedly decision-makers and, you know, people who are supposed to inform, they don't want to say that it exists.

You know, because the common argument is like, "Well, they're not a real organization because there's no national leadership. They don't have a national headquarters. So, how can law enforcement go after a group that doesn't exist like that?" Well, you know, law enforcement goes after criminal groups that organize to rob banks or do smash-and-grabs. They don't have a registered LLC. They don't have official membership cards. They don't have, you know, a business address. But they—but law enforcement still goes after them because they're working as a group.

[Mr. Rosas continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And—but we'll continue to do it because it's an important topic, it's an important issue. The American people deserve to know what's happening in these chaotic situations, and you know, we're more than happy to do it.

So thank you, sir.

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

Katie, please.

Post Millennial reporter Katie Daviscourt. Hi, Mr. President. It is an honor being here today. And I first wanted to start by thanking you guys for designating antifa a terrorist group. It's exactly what this group is. It's a long time coming. I'm an investigative journalist from Seattle. I work for the Post Millennial alongside Andy Ngo and Jack Posobiec.

I have been infiltrating antifa cells in Seattle and Portland for the past decade. I know their inner workings. And antifa uses extreme political violence to crush the civil rights of their political enemies and believes that violence is justified by any means necessary. But today I want to focus on what is happening in Portland at the ICE facility.

[Ms. Daviscourt continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

I want to stress the importance of taking the situation seriously, because when I first started reporting on this occupation, I went undercover in black bloc. I talked to these antifa militants. I lasted for about a month. They believe that ICE agents are the Nazi Gestapo, who need to be killed. They told me that directly.

And I think that if the situation is not taken as seriously as it is, it's just a matter of time before someone gets killed. And thank you for having me.

The President. Thank you, Katie. That's pretty incredible.

The only question nobody can answer is, "Why?" Why are they doing this? They're like insurrectionists. They're terrible people. But you really wonder why. Why are they doing it? What are they—what are they gaining, other than they're obviously paid. They're paid a lot of money.

Go ahead, please.

Independent journalist Savanah Hernandez. Mr. President, if I could answer that question, the reason why they're doing it is because the same media that's sitting in this room with us has declared all of us at this table Nazis and fascists, and they've been doing this for years. This is why antifa feels emboldened to attack us.

Now, almost every single person at this table has been threatened with a steel bat. We've been assaulted. We've been harassed. We've been threatened. And that is in huge part due to the media.

[Ms. Hernandez continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

And to the media over here, please report on the truth. Please do your jobs. I'm an American citizen. Everybody at this table simply views ourselves as American citizens who have an iPhone and the will to actually tell the truth. So please take your job seriously and tell the truth to the American people.

And thank you for letting me be here on behalf of Charlie to continue his legacy of cleaning up the country. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Wow. You feel very strongly, I can see.

Ms. Hernandez. I'm mad. I got beat up so many times, Mr. President. My friends have gotten beaten up. And I want to cry right now from happiness because we have been completely ignored for so long.

For almost 10 years, we've been getting assaulted on the streets. I have watched children cry as their parents have been attacked on the streets. That should not be happening at our nation's capital.

So, please—again, the DOJ—please utilize the full force and go after each and every single one of these people.

The President. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Great, great job. Impassioned.

Ms. Hernandez. Thank you.

The President. That's important, because you should feel like that.

Please, go ahead.

Government Accountability Institute Director of Research Seamus Bruner. Mr. President, thank you for having us here and bringing——

The President. Thank you.

Mr. Bruner. ——together this panel of brave, brave journalists—everybody on this side of the room. And no one can speak to the violence better than these people here. So I think we know that this is not just a story about violence and chaos, as you alluded to, Mr. President. This is a money story.

And at the Government Accountability Institute, my colleague and I—Peter Schweizer and my—I and our team—we followed the money, and we followed it to the top of what we call the "protest industrial complex," Riot Inc. And we found a network of NGOs. It's not just the Soros network, the Open Society network. It's other funding networks—the Arabella funding network, the Tides funding network, Neville Roy Singham and his network, foreign cash. And it's also big left-wing funders. Some of them are not citizens of this country—Mr. Hansjörg Wyss of Switzerland.

[Mr. Bruner continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

So, again, I want to thank you for your leadership, for the whole Cabinet's leadership on this. We're going to keep following the money. And appreciate everything you're doing, sir.

The President. Do you know the name of any of the funders? Do you know the names? Because if you do, I'd like you to give them to Kash or Pam.

Mr. Bruner. Absolutely. We can do.

The President. Or Kristi.

Mr. Bruner. Yes. We'll do that.

The President. As soon as you can. That's all of you. Because you probably know the names after a certain period of time. You tend to find out.

But these are people that do not have good intention for the country, and that's treasonous, probably. So, if you could, if you—very important. If you could do that, that would be great. Nobody would know better than you. You'll figure it out. Thank you.

Please go ahead.

Independent journalist Nick Shirley. Yes, my name is Nick Shirley. I'm 23 years old. I'm a 100 percent independent YouTube journalist. And over the past year or so, I've been able to go to 15 countries. I've hung out with people in the gangs of Brazil in the favelas, in the prisons of CECOT. But yet the most dangerous places I have been have been here in the United States, unfortunately.

And I've had the opportunity to show people about the protest antifa here in the United States, and there's nothing organic about what they are doing here in the United States. I've watched people be bused in from States. I've watched the same lady at a protest in Atlanta be bused to protest in DC and then in New York City.

[Mr. Shirley continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And the truth about what's happening here in America with these groups is very dangerous. And I thank you, Mr. President, and your administration as well for acknowledging that.

The President. Thank you very much. It's too bad you have to go through it.

Mr. Shirley. I know.

The President. But we thank you very much. Yeah.

Mr. Shirley. It's a little crazy. Right, Mr. President?

The President. Well, you're going to get to the bottom of it. So, it's a very important thing you're doing. Thank you very much.

Please, Cam.

Political commentator Cam Higby. Yes. I've just got something very short. I'm attacked every time I do my job. When I leave my house to go to work, I'm violently assaulted. I've had guns pulled on me. I've been bear sprayed. I've been beaten down. I've been almost killed. So, my question for all of you is, how would you feel if every time you showed up to work masked militants tried to kill you? Because that's how we feel. That's our lived reality. And you guys go and tell us that we're liars, the riots aren't that bad. Right? I've never seen any of you guys on the ground.

In fact, I've never seen anybody representing the companies you work for on the ground. You guys come to us for interviews that never get published. Stop saying we're lying. We're not. We risk our lives every day to do the job that you guys are too afraid to do.

The President. What network would you say is the worst, if I could ask? [Laughter]

Mr. Higby. Oh, man. Yes, that's a real tight spot.

The President. I mean, you know, it's a sign—honestly, it's a simple question, and it's——

Mr. Higby. Well, there's a lot of people in this pool, and I would say I'm not talking about Fox. I'm not talking about Newsmax or any outlet that resembles them. So I'll let you guys put the pieces together on who I'm exactly talking about.

The President. Who would you say—which network?

Mr. Higby. MSNBC, for sure.

The President. Oh, they're terrible. I agree.

Mr. Higby. CNN, probably close. Yes.

The President. Yes, I'd rate it that way. Yes.

Mr. Higby. Yes.

The President. MSNBC. That's Brian Roberts.

Mr. Higby. Yes.

The President. That he allows that to happen is a disgrace.

Mr. Higby. Absolutely.

The President. And CNN is second.

Mr. Higby. Yes. Second.

The President. I would say CNN is not quite as bad as MS——

Mr. Higby. MSNBC is not really——

The President. What about others?

Mr. Higby. ——a news site anymore.

The President. Oh, MSNBC is sick.

Mr. Higby. Yes.

The President. They're sick.

Who else?

Mr. Rosas. Well, sir, it's also just the stories that they publish about what's—the ICE enforcement operations that are so heavily slanted that it's no longer—as I was saying, no longer just antifa, but Americans that are becoming radicalized. So they've been very irresponsible with how they've been reporting on it.

The President. Who's that?

Mr. Rosas. MSNBC. For example, they're——

The President. Would you rate them the worst?

Mr. Rosas. Probably.

The President. And who—and who——

Mr. Rosas. They ran a story——

The President. ——would you rate second?

Mr. Rosas. Well, they ran a story about an operation in Southern California about how a father of three marines was arrested. And they made it seem like they just did it because he's brown. But he—there's video of that same man charging at the agents with a weed whacker. Now, I've worked with weed whackers back in the day, and I—you don't want to be on the receiving end of one of those. So that's why he was arrested. But the story was presented as if it's a brown guy just simply being arrested.

And I've been around ICE agents and, you know, I'm a citizen, so, you know—[laughter]—I feel fine. But it's just—that's why. The—it's not just antifa. It's not happening in a vacuum. It's multiple factors.

The President. No, it's working in conjunction. I think they work in conjunction with some of the media. I think ABC is very bad. I think NBC is very bad. And CBS has a new owner, so we have hope for CBS. CBS has a great new owner. My opinion.

But as—I will tell you, ABC is terrible. NBC is terrible. NBC is MSNBC two. You know, they changed it. They moved it over legally so they couldn't be tainted by the words "MSNBC." But they are absolutely terrible. They're—a lot of them.

What about independents?

Mr. Rosas. Independents?

The President. Independent networks.

Mr. Rosas. They're a little bit better. But I would say that we're an example of how you don't need to be part of a superlarge company to be able to do just basic journalism. All you got to do is sit and record, and you'll let the story play out. And that's why they hate us. That's why antifa targets us.

The President. Well, I watched a level of dishonesty that's incredible, where answers are changed of—like, just before the election, an answer was changed by Kamala. She gave a horrible, death-defying, election-defying answer, and they took the answer out, and they replaced it with another answer that she gave 5 minutes later having to do with a different subject. But at least it wasn't election-defying.

No, the level of dishonesty with the media is incredible, whether it's on antifa or many of the other groups. You know, you're talking about antifa, and I know that's close to your heart because that's the one that's most affecting you, but there are others that are as bad or almost as bad as antifa having to do with different people, different sections of the world. But it's terrible. We're not going to let it go on in this country. We can't—not going to let it go on.

And a big problem is not all of them, but some of the networks out there, and you do wonder why. You really do.

Okay. Please. Go ahead. Yes.

Independent journalist Jonathan Choe. Mr. President, thank you again.

The President. Thank you.

Mr. Choe. My name is—my name is Jonathan Choe. I am an investigative reporter for Frontlines, Turning Point U.S.A. I'm also a senior fellow at Discovery Institute in Seattle. And I cover far-left extremism as well as the homeless drug crisis in America. And I find it, oftentimes, those worlds intersect.

And hot off the presses, what I wanted to bring to your attention today is a report from Capital Research Center here in DC in conjunction with Discovery Institute.

They just put out this study right now, and what it shows is that antifa is heavily embedded in the homeless and housing nonprofit sector. In many cases, the homeless industrial complex is running cover for antifa. Antifa is benefiting from American tax dollars, and they're essentially being used as the muscle.

[Mr. Choe continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And finally, I just wanted to say that all of our resources at Turning Point U.S.A. and Discovery Institute are at your disposal, and we will continue, again, to carry on the legacy of Charlie Kirk. He would have wanted us to pursue and chase this story.

The President. Yes. Well, he was a good friend of mine, as you know, and he helped us get elected—us. It really is us. It's even some of them, but not too many of them. Not enough of them.

And did you notice, when we mentioned CNN and MSDNC, the cameras went off. Two of the cameras immediately went off. But they're not going to cover it anyway.

The problem we have is that this is a very important meeting, but you'll see very little press about it. These are major statements being made by major people, including the people right here. And you're not going to see too much about it. They don't like to cover this kind of thing. So it's very dishonest what's going on there. I think the press is a big—a big factor.

Please, go ahead. Thank you, James.

Social media influencer James Klüg. Mr. President, thank you so much for having us all here to bring attention to this matter. You know, you did mention MSDNC, CNN, a handful of those other outlets that have been lying about, I mean, various things, but especially what ICE—the brave men and women over at ICE have been doing.

I was talking to antifa members in Portland the other day, and you know, a lot of these people genuinely believe—they buy these lies and they genuinely believe that they're fighting against literal Nazis and not brave men and women that are sacrificing—you know, putting their lives on the line to basically, you know, enforce basic immigration law—right?—that everyone seemed to agree with up until maybe a few years ago, a handful of years ago.

[Mr. Klüg continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]

And I have personally witnessed legacy media vans showing up at a riot 300 yards away, getting out of the vehicle, filming for 30 seconds, saying something like, you know, "fiery but mostly peaceful," packing up. And to add insult to injury, you have Democrat politicians that are saying: "It's just an idea, right? That's all this is." So it's just an idea. After all of this chaos, it's just an idea.

Well, that idea has threatened to kill me and many of my friends that are here today. So, Mr. President, thank you so much for bringing this to the forefront. And it's definitely making a big change. Really appreciate you.

The President. One question. So why is it—there are numerous groups. I mean, antifa is terrible, but you have other groups that I guess probably are almost as bad or just as bad. Not one other group was mentioned. I'm sort of surprised at that. You just come into contact with antifa? It seems to be that you mostly come into contact with antifa.

Please.

Ms. Kruse. There's a lot of overlap. And I would say that, for instance, Jonathan brought up the Democratic Socialists of America. We're—they're basically the same thing.

The President. Right.

Ms. Kruse. I mean, there's a lot of Democratic Socialists of America—[laughter]——

The President. That's right.

Ms. Kruse. ——who are out there in black bloc, you know, hiding their faces. And so I think we use—and I do understand, for the record—I do understand the challenge, as Andy pointed out, with antifa as a graspable entity. I do. But at the end of the day, when you look at behavior, you prosecute behavior. Right? We're not prosecuting ideas or ideology. You're prosecuting behavior.

So whether you can prove that this amorphous thing is antifa or someone has a patch that says antifa, it doesn't matter. You know, did they assault someone? Did they assault a Federal agent? Were they engaged in rioting? What is it? And so it's—they're always using that, "Oh, well, they don't call themselves antifa," even though some of them literally do. It's called "Rose City Antifa."

How long has it been around in Portland, Andy?

Mr. Ngo. Since twenty—2007.

Ms. Kruse. They call themselves antifa. In Seattle, I was outside the Federal building, and they were yelling: "There's no police here. This is antifa land." And then at the same time, Democrats, like our Governor, are—"Oh, antifa is an idea."

But yes, I think antifa can overlap with a lot of other entities and organizations.

The President. Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Mr. Sortor. You know, President Trump, I just wanted to add this real quick because you were asking which mainstream media outlet is the worst. The—what I think: It's any of them that decided to call Kilmar Ábrego García "Maryland dad."

Because when I'm out there on the street talking to these people, you know, they call him—"Maryland dad" is this human—he's actually a human-trafficking, MS–13 gang member that's illegally in the country. [Laughter]

The President. It's true.

Mr. Sortor. But the amount of people on the street that I spoke with that thought that he was a U.S. citizen that was being deported to Uganda is dangerous. These people genuinely believe, based on what comes out of the—the garbage standing over here, that you guys are deporting U.S. citizens. So that's what's causing all of these problems.

The President. So, when you have a Governor like Pritzker in Chicago, where you have—Illinois, which is in a lot of trouble, Chicago is there. You know, potentially a great city again. It's not great now, but it's—it could be great again. That's why we have to get there soon, because eventually you can't do that. What makes a man like that say that things are wonderful? Why doesn't he say, "We love that President Trump is going to come and help us clean up Chicago and make it safe again," as opposed to fighting us and pretending that there weren't 50 murders and 200 shootings and all of that? Why is that?

Go ahead, Nick.

Mr. Sortor. To spite you. To spite you. To spite the administration. That's simply what it's about at this point.

Because, you know, if you go and talk to some of these citizens, like I'll use Portland as an example again, because I've been there for so long now. You talk to the neighbors that live in the apartments next door to the ICE facility. They are—they—there are veterans with PTSD that live there, and they're hearing, all night long, screaming; fireworks being lit off by these rioters; children crying because they, you know, can't sleep at night and they're scared of all the noise outside. And they can't leave. They can't—I mean, they got a lease. You can't just—just leave. These people aren't wealthy individuals.

And that's one of the major problems. You know, these people are afraid to come out and speak out. And they're getting no help from their government at all. They've been begging for the noise ordinance to be enforced outside of their apartment complex for months now. And the city of Portland has ignored them every single time.

The victims are—as I said, they're afraid, but the governments aren't doing anything because they want to spite the administration. It's all political.

The President. And the politicians make you feel like—like you're foolish, like there's something wrong or "How could President Trump be saying that about Chicago?" And yet, the night before you see that, you know, 11 people were shot, 5 people died. And you have him talking about, like, it's a wonderful situation.

It's—they make you feel guilty. And a lot of people don't get over that. They just don't get over it. They—I think they convince the people.

Do wealthy people leave too or not? Places like Portland, are the wealthy people leaving? People that can leave, are they leaving?

Ms. Kruse. I think that they're moving to the areas that have been gentrified. I mean, the Oregon Governor, when she was saying, "We don't need Trump here," she's walking around—it's a very tight shot, if you notice that—and she said, "Portland is just fine." You know, "Look at me." And they'll focus on the area—couple areas of Portland that are very nice.

The President. Well, she was saying that and there were explosions in the background.

Ms. Kruse. Yes. I mean, there was a reason they cropped it in.

The President. "We don't need this"—there's explosions in the background.

Anybody have anything else to say over here?

Mr. Shirley. [Inaudible] Yes, well, just the protesters that you—oh, sorry.

[Mr. Shirley adjusted his microphone; his remarks were inaudible.]

The President. And then we'll get you. Will you we be taking questions, or is it just a waste of time? Because they can ask questions, but—well, there's Brian [Brian Glenn, Real America's Voice]. He's good. But you know what, in a way, it's a waste of time. Because if you give a great answer, they don't put it on. If you give a horrendous answer—or even if you get a—give a great answer, they make it sound like it's not a great answer. They're very dishonest.

Go ahead, Nick.

Mr. Shirley. Yes, and I think part of that dishonesty comes from what they see. For instance, I've never been asked to go on any other show besides Fox News. My clips go viral everywhere. But they've never even asked. Like CNN has never asked. MSNBC has never asked. And a lot of times when I go to hotels, I'll stay and I'll watch, like, MSNBC.

The President. Fortunately, their ratings are terrible.

Mr. Shirley. They are terrible.

The President. MSNBC is dying. And CNN is dying like a dog.

Mr. Shirley. And——

The President. Poor CNN. They're so pathetic.

Mr. Shirley. It is very pathetic.

The President. You ever see their anchors in the evening that—nobody ever heard of them. Where do these people come—you could—I could take anybody off the street in Washington, DC. They'd do a better job. It's amazing.

Mr. Shirley. Yes, it's not hard to show what's going on these days. You literally have an iPhone—[laughter]——

The President. Yes.

Mr. Shirley. ——and you can post it on X.

The President. They don't believe in the star system. You know, it's just one of those things, right?

Okay, Nick. Are you finished, Nick?

Mr. Shirley. Yes. Thank you very much.

The President. Are you finished, Nick? [Laughter] Good job.

Mr. Shirley. Can I——

The President. Thank you very much.

Well, you've been through hell, I tell you that. But you're really incredible patriots, incredible people.

Go ahead, please. Brian. Brian, go ahead.

2024 Presidential Election/Border Security/Political Protests

Q. I'm so thankful for each and every one of you here right now. And I'm very grateful that my network, Real America's Voice, has partnered up with many of you. Jack Posobiec, you have a show on our network. Many of you—Savanah—have appeared on our network as well. So thank you for being here.

My question is this: In terms of following the money, I would just notify that the city of Austin is clear to vote tomorrow to basically waive $120,000 fee so that a "No Kings"—basically an anti-Trump rally—can occur in their city. They're bypassing the fees, rolling it to the taxpayers.

So my question is to you: What can the people of Austin, Texas, do right now to make sure that their tax dollars don't fund a "No Kings" anti-Trump rally coming up?

The President. Well, you just tell me. That—I would love to do something about that. We'll bring a lawsuit, do something.

You know, the best thing you can do is have honest elections, because the elections are totally rigged in so many of these places. You know, you take a look, the people, they're all loving you. They—they can't breathe they love so much. Every one of them. You don't see one negative—then all of a sudden, you lose the election by 20 points.

The elections are so rigged, and we proved that in 2020, more than any other time. But even the last election, there were areas that I won by much more; we won in a landslide. But I actually wanted more of a landslide than we thought. I said: "You've got to get out. Make it too big to rig." And the—fortunately, the people made it too big to rig. They tried. They tried.

But the biggest thing you can do is have honest elections. You know, if you don't have—and you need great media. You need great—you need borders——

[Several reporters began asking questions at once.]

——you need borders—you need—wait, wait, wait. You need borders, you need honest media, you need honest elections, and you have a great country. And you need—and you need all three of them.

Yes, go ahead.

Q. I was told that blue tent had ties to a lot of these radical groups that you talked about inside here. So thank you for removing the blue tent.

The President. I would like you to make a big deal, though, if they're waiving a fee. But I guarantee they wouldn't waive it if it was a—it's not Trump.

Q. If it said "Trump," they would, yes.

The President. If it were a conservative rally, they wouldn't be waiving it. So maybe you can look into that, Pam. Todd.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

That sounds like—that sounds like one for Todd, Pam. [Laughter]

Go ahead, Todd. Good luck.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Thank you.

The President's Travel to the Middle East/Immigration Enforcement Actions in Chicago, Illinois

Q. Thank you, Mr. President. Since the——

The President. Who are you with? Who are you?

Q. I am with Al——

The President. What network?

Q. I'm with Al Arabiya. It's an Arabic network based in Riyadh, in Saudi Arabia. But I am the foreign pooler today.

Mr. President, you said that you might go to the Middle East on Sunday. Do you mean Egypt and Israel? And would you consider going to Gaza to see what things are on the ground?

The President. I would, yes. I would. I might do that. I may do that. We haven't decided exactly. I'll be going to Egypt, most likely. That's where everybody is gathered right now, and we appreciate that very much. But I'll be making the rounds, as the expression goes. I probably will.

Go ahead. Go ahead.

The President's Travel to the Middle East

Q. Just to clarify, you said you might go to Gaza. You're saying on—that's first off.

The President. Who you with?

Q. I'm with—I'm representing the TV pool, but I'm with NBC, sir.

The President. That's too bad. [Laughter]

Go ahead.

Q. Well, just to clarify, you said you might go to Gaza?

And then the second question I have: Earlier today you said the mayor of Chicago and the Governor of Illinois should be jailed. Have you asked the Justice Department to look at possible charges and——

The President. No, I've seen the law. And when you have a group of people where the police call off the safety for ICE officials—I've understood that, and I've read it today in numerous journals that that's illegal. What they did is the—I guess it was ICE, Kristi, right? They were under threat——

Secretary Noem. That's right.

The President. ——and the police were helping beautifully, and it was fine. And then all of a sudden, a woman who was on the line saying: "Everybody move back. Move back. Get out. Get out." And they were given an order by the second person in the police department. And the Governor knew about it, the mayor knew about it. I understand that's a criminal offense.

Do you want to comment on that, Kristi?

Secretary Noem. Yes. Sir, we're seeing that kind of pattern happen with local law enforcement and state law enforcement, not just in Illinois but also out in Oregon too. In fact, in Portland—I was there yesterday—but some of the ICE officers were telling me that, as they drove by, the rioters that were saying "Kill ICE agents," "Molotov cocktails melt ICE," that the Portland police were cheering them on and had their fists in the air cheering on the rioters that were threatening their lives.

So, in Chicago, we had a 10-car caravan trail our ICE officials and pin them down. And those ICE officials, to get out of their vehicles—a woman tried to ram them and run them over, and they—shots were fired to get them to safety. So, it's happening on a regular basis. And any elected official that allows this to happen and gives cover to those kind of individuals——

The President. It's criminal.

Secretary Noem. ——individuals who are perpetuating murder should absolutely be prosecuted, in my opinion.

The President. Daniel [Daniel Baldwin, One America News Network].

Q. Mr. President, thank you. Thank you.

The President. And by the way, we have Marco Rubio.

Marco, come on up here please.

He's going to bring a little stability to this group.

Come on up. Does everybody know Marco Rubio? Is there anybody that doesn't? Some of the reporters don't. [Laughter] That's why they shouldn't be reporters.

Participant. Which job is he here for today, sir?

The President. Come on up here, Marco.

Anything we should know about the Middle East?

Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio. That's what I'm hoping to talk to you about here, Mr. President, once they leave. [Laughter]

The President. He's doing a good job. He was born for this job, I can tell you.

Daniel, please.

Political Protests/"Antifa" Organization

Q. Mr. President, thank you very much. I have two questions for you, if that's okay.

Seamus talked a little bit about the money aspect of this. Do you believe if you go after where the money come—is coming from with antifa—in regards to antifa—do you believe that would be similar to cutting the head off the snake, so to speak?

And I have a question on—[inaudible].

The President. It would help. You know, I don't know that it would be totally complete, but it would certainly—you'd knock out 75 percent, 80 percent, 85 percent. These people, a lot of them don't believe it. You know, when they—I watch them, and I say—I can almost tell a pro by—they're—they're like professionals. That's all they do. And they get paid by somebody. I think it would knock out a lot of it, yes. Not all of it, maybe, but a lot of it.

Q. And then a follow-up to that is: A lot of the people who we've listened to over the last hour, they've emphasized that antifa, it's not necessarily this big organized thing. It's a bit ambiguous. It's deorganized; I think that's one of the words that Andy used. What is the challenges of going after a group that makes it intentionally difficult to go after and find? That could be for you, the attorney general, anyone up there.

The President. Well, they're smart people and they deceive. A lot of them are crooked people. A lot of them have been staying out of trouble their whole lives and they've been bad from the day they were born, frankly. But these are sick people.

Pam, go ahead, please.

[Secretary Rubio passed the President a note.]

Attorney General Bondi. Well, they're smart, but they're not smart enough. They—oh, my microphone is broken.

They're smart, but they're not smart enough. They have been covered by these liberal cities for so many years, and that's why we're all working with Treasury, with all these different departments to find the criminal conspiracy.

[Secretary Rubio whispered to the President.]

The President. Okay.

I'm just given——

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Yes, I was just given a note by the Secretary of State saying that we're very close to a deal in the Middle East and they're going to need me pretty quickly.

So I will take a couple of more questions.

Please.

Political Protests

Q. Thank you, sir. I also have two questions for you, if I may. Have you given any more thought to possibly suspending habeas corpus to not only deal with these insurrectionists across the Nation, but also to continue rapidly deporting illegal aliens?

The President. Yes, suspending who?

Q. Habeas corpus, sir.

The President. Oh, I don't know. I'd rather leave that to Kristi. What do you think?

Secretary Noem. No, sir, I haven't been a part of any discussions on that.

The President. All right. Go ahead.

Q. Mr. President, are you personally participating in the ceasefire negotiations?

The President. This is CNN speaking, by the way, so——

Q. Are you personally participating—

The President. You know, this is one of the worst reporters that you'll ever—I don't even want to take her question. It's a waste of time.

Go ahead.

Backpay for Furloughed Federal Employees

Q. Mr. President. On the shutdown, Mr. President. How will you decide which workers get back pay and which workers do not?

The President. Well, we're going to see. Most of them are going to get back pay, and we're going to try and make sure of that. But some of them are being hurt very badly by the Democrats and they, therefore, won't qualify.

Go ahead, please.

Q. What will the administration do to foreign antifa organizers and funders who are located overseas?

The President. Oh—it's—go ahead. In the yellow, please.

Nobel Prize for Peace/The President's Foreign Policy/Ukraine/Russia

Q. Thank you, Mr. President. So the Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday. You've been nominated by many world leaders.

The President. By many, many countries. That's right.

Q. By many countries as well as the hostage families. Do you think you will win?

The President. I have no idea. I mean, look, I did settle—Marco would tell you: We settled seven wars. We're close to settling an eighth. And I think we'll end up settling the Russia situation, which is horrible. Seven thousand people died last week, by the way, in Russia—between Russia and Ukraine. I think we'll settle that. So, I don't think anybody in history has settled that more—that many. But perhaps they'll find a reason not to give it to me. You know, perhaps I will.

Q. Mr. President. Thank you so much, Mr. President.

The President. Thank you.

Lapse in Federal Government Appropriations/Health Insurance Premium Subsidies

Q. Going to the shutdown, quickly. What is your position on the extension of health care subsidies, which is what Democrats are asking for?

The President. All I want to do is very simple. I want to get the country open, and then we're going to discuss that. And we'd like to—Obamacare is a horrible mess, and it has been from the beginning. We want to make it better, stronger, even it costs—if it costs more money, costs more money. We want to make it better.

The Democrats want to make it worse. The Democrats want to approve health care for illegals coming into our country. Many of them coming in from prisons and mental institutions and drug dealers. They want to give them health care.

We don't want that for our people because that's going to destroy the health care that we already have. We'd like to make Obamacare better—better for people, less expensive and better health care.

Yes, ma'am.

"Antifa" Organization

Q. On antifa, Mr. President. I'm wondering if you've been briefed on the organization and funding of antifa. And if so, what have you learned?

The President. I have been. And they have pretty good knowledge, but they're going to have a very good knowledge. And I really ask these very brave patriots that we're surrounded with today to let us know, because I think you probably have some pretty good ideas. And even if you're not sure, let us know and we'll figure it out. Okay? If you could do that.

U.S. Cease-Fire Proposal Between Hamas and Israel

Q. Thank you very much. On the Middle East, can you specify how close——

The President. You're from Italy?

Q. No, I'm from France.

The President. Oh.

Q. Can you specify how close we are to the deal? Would that be announced today or tomorrow? And do you want to see the hostages released before you travel to the region?

The President. No, I think I'll probably go maybe before the hostages are released or shortly thereafter. Pretty much shortly thereafter.

Yes, please.

Q. Mr. President. Mr. President.

The President. Go ahead. Who are you with? Who are you with?

"Antifa" Organization

Q. The Center Square.

I was—I had the honor of asking you originally if you would designate antifa a terror organization. And I stand here before you today and I'm echoing what Andy said over here: Are you going to work with your administration, as the Secretary of State is here—are you going to work with your administration to designate it a foreign terror organization?

The President. You mean it a terror?

Q. Antifa.

The President. Antifa?

Q. A foreign terror organization.

The President. Well, has that been done?

Q. No.

The President. Pretty close, right? Would you like to see it done?

Mr. Posobiec. Yes, Mr. President.

The President. Do you think it would help?

Mr. Posobiec. They—they have foreign links——

The President. I'd be glad to do it.

Mr. Posobiec. ——all across Western Europe—

The President. I think it's the thing I'd like to do. If you like to do——

Mr. Posobiec. ——the Middle East.

The President. Does everybody agree? If you agree, I agree. Let's get it done. Okay? Let's get it done. Marco will—will take care of it.

That's international, you mean?

Q. Yes.

The President. International? Sounds good to me.

Q. Foreign terrorist organization.

The President. Steve, are you okay with that?

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller. Yes, it's true there are extensive foreign ties, and I think that would be a very valid step to take.

The President. Good. I think so too.

Deputy Chief of Staff Miller. Yes.

The President. Good. I think it's a——

Q. President Trump——

The President. ——good point.

Thank you.

Lapse in Federal Government Appropriations

Q. On the shutdown. We are now about one week away from military service members missing their paycheck. Would you——

The President. We'll always take care of our military.

Q. Would you encourage Congress to pass a standalone bill to pay our servicemembers?

The President. Yes, that probably will happen. We don't have to worry about it yet. That's a long time. You know what one week is for me? An eternity. One week for me is a long time. We'll take care of it. Our military is always going to be taken care of.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Yes, please. Blue dress. Blue.

Investigation Into Political Organizations

Q. Thank you, Mr. President. Rebeka [Rebeka Zeljko] with Blaze News. I'm curious to know, you—you're talking about the money funding these antifa organizations, and somebody brought up Roy Singham—I think it was you—who, by the way, is married to one of the cofounders of Code Pink, this infamous left-wing organization. I'm curious to know the administration's——

The President. Who is that? Who is that?

Q. Roy Singham. He's married to——

The President. No. Did you say they're here?

Q. No, he's not. A journalist brought him up.

The President. Oh, I see. Okay.

Q. But he is——

The President. Okay.

Q. Yes, Seamus. Thank you.

The President. Great. Good. Good bring-up. [Laughter]

Q. You know, he's——

The President. Go ahead.

Q. He's somebody who's been reported on extensively and I'd love to know what the administration is going to do to actually bring consequences to some of these names. You mentioned——

The President. Well, I don't know the name, but I would like to ask Pam to take a look at it. You know, a lot of the best information we find are through you and other people like you. So I'd like you to look at it, Pam.

In the back, please.

2021 Civil Unrest and Violence at the U.S. Capitol/Presidential Medal of Freedom

Q. Thank you so much. President Trump, it's been actually very compelling proof that antifa did infiltrate on January 6, dressed up like Trump supporters and incited violence. Is that something that you would want the new J6 committee at Congress to look into?

The President. Well, I've heard that. They dress up like, you know——

Q. Trump supporters.

The President. ——they're fresh out of MAGA——

Q. They wore red hats.

The President. ——but they have nothing to do with MAGA. And they make trouble, and they try and blame it. And yes, we know some of that and we will be acting on some of that. We've seen it. We've seen it.

So I think you could stay a little longer. But you know, the problem is, although you have some very honest journalists in here, you also have some—mostly largely dishonest journalists like MSDNC and CNN. I think they're very dishonest, unbelievably. Like a waste of time even talking to them.

But I have to go now to try and solve some problems in the Middle East, although I'm very well represented by our Secretary of State. He could probably do an even better job than me. But who knows? We don't want to take any chances.

So we're going to go and do that. If you'd like—Pam, would you like to stay for another 5 minutes, 10 minutes while we have all these great people? And I'll let Pam and Kristi take over and get some good points out.

I just want to thank the people around the table in particular. You've been amazing. You've been brave. You're real patriots. You're real patriots. And at some point, we're going to have to look into, at least in certain cases, rewarding you with some very important medals and honors—okay?—as we have done and will be doing with Charlie Kirk.

You know, Charlie is getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is our highest award outside of the congressional Medal of Honor. And I think they're sort of even: one is civilian, and one is military. But unfortunately, the civilian sometimes is military also because of what we have to go through on the streets of this country.

I can only tell you this: We have a great nation. We have a nation that's right now the hottest in the entire world. We're the hottest nation in the world, despite all of the things we've been saying today. But that's going to make your job easier, because nobody is doing better than we are financially. We're—we've never done better.

We've had, I think, 58 stock market increases since I've been—"top," you know, meaning record increases. We have never seen anything like it, and we're going to keep it going. That makes it a little bit easier for what we're doing.

I guess maybe it also makes some people crazy because they don't want to see us do well. But we're the hottest nation anywhere in the world. And we were a dead nation one year ago. I say it all the time: We were a dead nation. Now we're the hottest nation in the world. And that's said, too, by every leader.

One of the reasons that we have every country already signed up, or just about to sign—every country in the world on this whole mess we have going over with Hamas in the Middle East and all of the things you see—is they respect our Nation.

A year ago, you wouldn't have been able to get it. You certainly couldn't have gotten it with Biden. He didn't know where the hell he was. But a year ago, you wouldn't have been able to have a situation like this.

So I just want to thank the people around this table, and then, certainly, the officials around the table, because they've been incredible. They've been brave. And I watched yesterday—Pam. And I watched a little bit. I thought it was so good. I rounded up and I watched it late in the evening—[laughter]—because I thought you were fantastic——

Attorney General Bondi. Thank you.

The President. ——yesterday. You really—look, you had some wonderful Senators, some great politicians asking you very fair questions. And you had some real slimeballs. But I thought you were amazing. So thank you very much.

Attorney General Bondi. Thank you, President Trump.

The President. And, Kristi, thanks for the great job.

Kash, thanks for the great job.

Always—my man back—down there. He's the silent type, but he's a hell of a lawyer.

Thank you all.

We're going to get peace in the Middle East. That's what we want to do.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Q. Thank you, Mr. President.

Q. What specifically makes you so hopeful, Mr. President?