Remarks on Signing an Executive Order Combating Unfair Practices in the Live Entertainment Market and an Exchange With Reporters

The President. So it's an honor to have you back.

A friend of mine, Kid Rock, sometimes referred to as "Bob"—I know him as "Bob"—but he's been a good friend for a long time, many years. And he's been after something that is for the good of a lot of people, including, in particular, the public, and having to do with ticket sales and scalping and all of the gouging that you have been reading about. It's gotten worse and worse with time.

And I didn't know too much about it, but I checked it out, and it is a big problem. And I thought—I think you've been trying to get this done for 20 years or something. He said, "Trump got it done in 2 weeks."

But we came up with a very serious EO, and I'm going to sign it now. And maybe I'll ask you, Will, to explain a little bit about it, please.

White House Staff Secretary William O. Scharf. Of course, sir.

So this is an Executive order, as you said, that deals with the ticket reselling business. For fans of live entertainment and for entertainers as well, the ticket reselling industry has become a huge issue. These people use bots and computer algorithms to buy up huge blocks of tickets and then jack up the price so that fans of—live entertainers like Mr. Ritchie—I almost called him "Mr. Rock"—don't have access to concerts—the way that they should, and when they do, it's at exorbitantly high prices.

So what this Executive order does, it charges the FTC and the Department of Justice with rigorously enforcing laws on the books in collaboration with state attorneys general that have power over consumer protection and to other people who have the power to really crack down on this issue so that entertainers and fans won't be subject to these abusive and oftentimes illegal practices.

The President. Good. Thank you very much.

Bob, do you want to say something?

Musician Robert J. "Kid Rock" Ritchie. Yes, anybody who's—it doesn't matter your politics. First off, thank you, Mr. President, because this has happened at lightning speed. I know you put—I want to make sure Alina Habba gets her credit too——

The President. Right.

Mr. Ritchie. ——because I know she worked very hard on this. But thank you for making this happen so quick.

Anyone who's bought a concert ticket in the last decade, maybe 20 years, no matter what your politics are, knows that it's a conundrum. You buy a ticket for 100 bucks. By the time you check out, it's $170. You don't know what you're getting charged for. But more importantly, these bots, you know, they come in and they get all the good tickets to your favorite shows you want to go to, and then they're relisted immediately for sometimes a 4-, 500-percent markup. And the artists don't see any of that money.

And you know, ultimately, I think this is a great first step. I would love, down the road, if there would be some legislation that we could actually put a cap on the resale of tickets.

And I'm a capitalist and a deregulation guy, but they've tried this in some places in Europe, and it seems to be the only thing that's—us, as artists, be able to get the tickets into the hands of the fans at the prices we set.

I'll be the first one to say—and I know the President doesn't like when I say this—but I'm a little overpaid right now. [Laughter] It's kind of ridiculous. I would rather be, you know, a hero to working-class people and have them be able to come attend my shows and give them a fair ticket price. I can't control that right now, so hopefully this is a step to really be able to make that happen.

I know a lot of artists and a lot of fans who love—love concerts and music are going to be very appreciative of you taking this action, sir.

The President. And I think Bob is more interested in the fans and the people that are having to pay crazy prices than he is the artists—maybe the artists a little bit, but the fans a lot. I've spoken to him over the years about it, and it's been—it bothers him. It bothers a lot of other artists too.

Mr. Ritchie. It does.

The President. You see the artists and they go out with $100 ticket, and it sells for $2,000 the following night. And they seem to be able to sweep up the best locations too, which is pretty amazing. So——

Mr. Ritchie. They've only enforced that BOTS Act one time, I believe.

The President. Yes.

Mr. Ritchie. A couple years ago, in New York City, there was a couple-million-dollar fine, and that's the only time they've enforced that act. It's just——

The President. And who's the primary culprit? Who sells these tickets?

Mr. Ritchie. It's the scalpers. It's the—these bots go in, and they're automated. So, you're—

The President. But is there a company involved? You might not want to say it.

Mr. Ritchie. No. No. Well, there's——

The President. [Laughter] I think I know.

Mr. Ritchie. There's reselling markets all—yes, it's just—[laughter]——

The President. I think I know, Peter [Peter Doocy, Fox News]. [Laughter] But that's all right. Don't get them involved. Maybe they're——

Live Entertainment Market

Q. What company do you think it is?

The President. Maybe they're more innocent than we think, huh?

Mr. Ritchie. Well, if you think of it, like, if Ticketmaster sells a ticket—if you buy a ticket and go to a show, you're, in a lot of ways, their worst customer because they make another 17—whatever—percentage every time that ticket resells. So they don't want to enforce the BOTS Act, necessarily, because they're making more money off it.

Not—the artists don't see any of that money, but that's not what I'm advocating for is for me to make more money. I want the fans to have fairer ticket prices, to be able to go——

The President. That's great.

Mr. Ritchie. ——and enjoy more shows. I know people that can only—they decide on a family vacation or going to their favorite concert once a year, rather than—you know, my parents used to go see multiple shows when you could afford them back in their day.

And I'd like to take my ticket prices lower, but if I set my ticket prices low, these bots immediately eat them up, and they resell for hundreds of dollars more, and I'm just making these bad actors rich.

The President. Yes. Well, I think this is a big step to getting it stopped.

Do you have something, Brian [Brian Glenn, American's Real Voice]?

Ticket Prices/Live Entertainment

Q. Yes, I do actually. I actually feel that the consumer is going to take the money that they save and actually buy merch, which you guys have a big percentage of, or do concessions, which you guys split with the venue on that as well. So I think the—their money goes further.

Mr. Ritchie. We don't share in concessions a lot.

Q. No?

Mr. Ritchie. No, those are—we try to, but they don't want us—they don't want us sharing in the beer prices and parking or any of that stuff.

But the bottom line is, there's money for everyone to be made. There's plenty of money to go around. You know, no one is going to really lose here.

You know, Ticketmaster, if—we can get a cap, they're going to lose some money. But I've already talked to the CEO, Michael. He's given me his word. He's on board for it.

Q. I was talking to Jacoby with Papa Roach earlier. And by the way, he's a big fan of what you're doing, President Trump, digging into——

The President. Good.

Q. ——this whole scalping and the bots. A lot of musicians, and you can say that, they're—they're with Kid Rock, sir——

The President. Good.

Q. ——on this.

The President. I think so.

Q. Without a doubt.

The President. A lot of people are.

Q. President Trump——

The President. Peter.

Q. ——would you ever wear a jacket like that?

Tesla

The President. I don't know. I was thinking about doing it for tomorrow. [Laughter] We have—we have a big event coming up, and I was thinking about doing it. But I'm not sure.

Q. So you recently bought a Tesla for White House staff——

The President. I did.

Q. ——to use. But now there's all these domestic terrorists targeting Teslas. Are the staff scared to drive it?

The President. I don't think so. I haven't heard. They weren't complaining. I did buy one, and I let the staff use it. I—we have it parked conveniently, and one day we give it to Margo, one day we give it to Chamberlain, give it to Natalie. We give it to everybody around. Give it to Dan Scavino, but he's got so much money, it doesn't matter. [Laughter]

But they love the car, and it's a great car, and it's made here, you know, it's made in the country. He's got a tremendous plant now in Texas, and he had one in—he has one in California. Does a lot of his work here. And he's been really unfairly treated, in my opinion.

Mr. Ritchie. I drive one.

The President's Tenure of Office/Tariffs/Manufacturing Investment

Q. And——

The President. Yes.

Q. ——there's this other story. I know it's hypothetical right now. But if you are allowed, for some reason, to run for a third term, is there a thought that the Democrats could try to run Barack Obama against you——

The President. I'd love that.

Q. ——for his third term?

The President. Oh, that—I'd love that. That would be a good one. I'd like that.

No. People are asking me to run, and there's a whole story about running for a third term. I don't know. I never looked into it. They do say there's a way you can do it, but I don't know about that, but I have not looked into it.

I want to do a fantastic job. We have 4 years, just about—almost close to 4 years. It's—time is flying, but it's still close to 4 years, and we're getting a lot of credit for having done a great job in the first almost 100 days.

And we have some big things we're going to be announcing over the next 2 days that you know very well, Peter, and I think it's going to be something that's going to bring a lot of wealth back to our country—tremendous wealth back to our country, actually. And other countries are understanding it, because they've been ripping us for 50 years, longer, but they've been ripping us off for years right from the beginning.

And I think this is going to be an amazing—you know, I call it a lot of different names, but it's really the—in a sense, it's a rebirth of a country, because what—how we could have afforded to do what we did. We help everybody, and they don't help us.

I really—the term I like best, probably, is the "liberation of America." It's the liberation of this country, because it's incredible. Look, we have $36 trillion in debt for a reason, and that accumulates over a long period of time.

So I think what you're going to be seeing over the next couple of days will be very inspiring to a lot of people. You know, they had a lot of auto plants being built in a certain country. I don't want to mention the country, because we get along great with the country, but those plants aren't being built there anymore. They gave them up today and yesterday, the day before, and they're building them all now in the United States. And we have many examples.

Not only auto plants. Chip companies from Taiwan are coming in. The biggest—Mr. Wei. He's big. I said you are a smart guy, aren't you? I've been reading about him over the years, but he controls a large portion of the chip business, as you know. You don't get smarter. They're going to be investing $2- or $300 billion.

Apple is investing $500 billion. You know, they always built their places in China. Now he's building here. I think because of the—and I—you speak to Tim Cook—because of the election, but maybe more importantly because of the tariffs. You know, he's—got, really, an obligation to do it.

But we have many, many companies that you haven't even heard of, but I think we'll be at $5 trillion very soon. And if you think about this, we've never been anywhere near that. You—I don't know if we've ever been at a trillion dollars. We're——

Tariffs

Q. What do you mean by that—$5 trillion?

The President. We're 500—what do I mean by a trillion?

Q. Five trillion. What are you referring to, sir?

The President. I think that we're going to be at $5 trillion of investment. I think you're going to have investments very shortly. We're already three and a half, and we have commitments—verbal commitments—for a lot more. And numbers like that have never been done in this country.

And it's going to get harder. This is in 2 months. It's really in less than 2 months, because since we've really gone out with it. And we have other—interesting things happening. But to me, the whole tariff situation—and essentially, they've done that to us for many years.

So, if we're anywhere near $5 trillion in 2 months, this could be numbers like the country has never seen. And every time you hear a dollar spent, that's another job, because the jobs are coming with it. So auto plants, chip plants, pharmaceuticals, lumber coming in. We have things happening in this country I don't think—I'm not sure that they've ever seen it. Steel—you know, we have tariffs on steel. They've been here for a while—steel and aluminum.

Nobody has ever seen anything like we're witnessing now. Nobody has ever seen—and I think you—most of you agree with that. I mean, it's nothing much you can't agree with. We have things happening in terms of jobs and investment the likes of which I don't think we've ever seen.

If you look at, let's say, $4- to $5 trillion in a period of a month and a half—that's even more than you do with your concerts, which are always sold out, right? [Laughter]

Mr. Ritchie. Little bit.

The President. Nobody has ever seen numbers. And think of it where Apple is at $500 billion, as I said, but they always used to spend that money in China. Now they're spending it here. That means they're going to build—now, they don't have any tariffs. Remember, there are no tariffs if you do your product here, if you build whatever it is in the U.S.A.

One of the things we're also trying to get is if you build—if you buy a car that was built in the U.S.A., you get a deduction on interest. So, if you go out and borrow money to buy a car, if it's built in the U.S.A.—never been done before. It's a big deduction for people that really aren't used to deductions, frankly, because people that buy cars like that are not big into the world of deductions, and now they're going to learn about deductions. So I think it's going to be great.

Yes.

Tariff

Q. Mr. President, are you going to move in with a universal tariff or different individual tariff rates on a whole variety of different products?

The President. Well, you're going to see in 2 days, which is maybe tomorrow night or probably Wednesday. You're going to see. And they're reciprocal, so whatever they charge us, we charge them, but we're being nicer than they were. We have a lot of countries, friend and foe—I always say "friend and foe"—but the friend, in many cases, is worse than the foe—they took advantage of us.

And we are going to be very nice by comparison to what they were. The numbers will be lower than what they've been charging us and, in some cases, maybe substantially lower. But we sort of have a world obligation, perhaps. But we're going to be very nice. Relatively speaking, we're going to be very kind.

Q. Mr. President, you met with the chairman——

Q. Can you give us a——

The President. Somebody said that about me the other day. They said—who doesn't know me very well. They said, "You're such a kind person." And I said, "Say that again." They said, "You're a kind person." I said, "I've never heard that before." [Laughter] It was a weird statement. I was "kind."

Q. Who said that?

The President. I've heard of words that—I don't know. I better not tell you.

Q. Who said that?

The President. You know, I've heard of—I've been called a lot of things, but that's sort of a different kind of a word. It's like an old-fashioned word, isn't it?

Q. Have you—have you——

U.S. Automobile Industry/Environmental Regulations

Q. Mr. President, you met with the chairman of Stellantis today.

The President. Yes.

Q. Did he ask you for a pause on the auto tariffs?

The President. No. No.

Q. What was that meeting about?

The President. Just about some of the problems they have with the environmental, which we're going to clean up.

Q. Have any of the automakers——

The President. We're going to probably go back to 1920—if you—look, we're going to go back probably to a 2020 standard. So we'll have 2020 standard. And that's, you know, just a few years ago.

Oh, they're putting them—they're making it so difficult. All over the world, they're making—and it doesn't mean a damn bit of difference, either, for the environment. It doesn't matter. They make it impossible for people to build cars.

So we're going to be doing much different. Twenty-twenty is a strong standard, but they've taken it to a level now that, you know, makes it very difficult to build a car. So——

Q. Are you hearing——

The President. ——we're going to be—we're going to be bringing it back to a standard that is a very good environmental standard, but it makes it possible to build a car.

Q. Have you heard any concerns from the automakers, though, about the tariffs on parts that will go into effect——

The President. None.

Q. ——over the coming weeks——

The President. They all—no.

Q. ——about what that's going to mean for the price of American-made cars?

The President. Well, I gave them a big break. For a month, I didn't charge them anything. You know, for a big month, for that first month, and they brought a lot of material into this country because they could bring it in without tariff.

If you look at Canada and Mexico, they were driving hundreds of thousands of cars into the market because they avoid the tariffs by doing it before the tariffs go on, which would be Wednesday. And I looked at the—I saw on some of your shows where cars are lined up for miles and miles. Some of them didn't have fenders on them. Some of them didn't have the roof on yet. They're driving it here—brandnew—they're driving it in because they want to avoid the tariffs.

I let them have that. They sort of took advantage of it because, you know, that wasn't part of the deal, but that's okay.

Q. Are there any countries——

The President. They're great American car companies and car companies, and so I gave them a little break on that.

Yes.

Scope of Proposed Tariffs

Q. Are there any countries that you're not targeting on Wednesday?

The President. Well, it depends. You know, I said it's reciprocal. Not everybody has made a fortune, but—almost everybody has, but not everybody. And the ones that haven't, we're going to be very nice to them.

Q. And on a separate issue——

The President. Because that word "reciprocal" is very important. What they do to us, we do to them.

Okay. Please.

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

Russia/Ukraine/Venezuela/U.S. Security Assistance to Ukraine/North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Q. Can I just ask you—can I just ask you briefly on President Putin. You said over the weekend—or indicated over the weekend some frustration with him. How serious are you about imposing oil sanctions on Russian oil?

The President. No, I want to see him make a deal so that we stop Russian soldiers and Ukrainian soldiers and other people from being killed. But mostly it's Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. They're losing at least 2,500 human beings—beautiful human beings a week, and I want it to stop. And some people would say, "Why do you worry about Russian soldiers or Ukrainian soldiers?" I worry because it's like—they're just like you people. They're like us. They're like all of us.

And I seem to have an ability to do those things. And if I can do that, I think it's a very worthwhile thing to do. And I think we will.

No, I want to make sure that he follows through, and I think he will. I don't want to go secondary tariffs on his oil, but I—think, you know, it's something I—would do if I thought he wasn't doing the job. I did it with Venezuela—secondary tariffs—and you know what happened? Every boat left the harbor. Did you see that? It was a beautiful thing to see. The whole harbor emptied out.

My words weren't even finished, and they have these massive—these massive ships—they're actually taking the hoses and dumping them into the—they couldn't get out of there fast enough, because they know I don't play games. So I think he's going to live up to what he told me, and I think he's going to fulfill his part of the deal.

Now, then you have Zelenskyy, and hopefully, he's going to live up. I see he's trying to renegotiate the rare earth. You know, we did something because, as you know, the Europeans get paid back the money that they gave, and we don't, because Biden is an incompetent President, and he should have asked for rare earth or he should have asked for the loans to be guaranteed in some form. That's what Europe did.

Europe is in for $100—probably $100 billion, and we're in for $350 billion. So, we're in for more than three times. And now, you could make it a little bit less than that, but it doesn't matter, whatever the number. We're in for substantially more than Europe. We could be in for $350 billion. They have no idea because Biden wasn't a good bookkeeper, except for himself.

And what happens is, we made a deal for rare earth. It was all done. And I heard through—through you—I haven't spoken to them yet. But through you, I heard that they're now saying, "Well, I'll only do that deal if we get into NATO" or something to that effect. Well, that was never, number one, discussed. Number two, I think it's going to be very—long before Putin, they said, "You're not going into NATO." And it could be—that's probably the reason the war started, actually.

Yes.

Wisconsin State Supreme Court Election/2024 Presidential Election

Q. Mr. President, we're hours away from a very special election in Wisconsin, Florida. I want to share your thoughts on Republican voters to not sleep on this.

The President. Yes.

Q. These are two very important races—[inaudible].

The President. Well, it's—it's a big race—Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. It's taking place essentially as we—as—you know, it was early voting, and so we'll see what happens. It's a big race.

I love Wisconsin. We won Wisconsin. Republicans typically don't do very well in Wisconsin, but I did. I actually won it twice. I actually probably won it three times, to be exact.

Mr. Ritchie. We played there several——

The President. Not probably. I won it three times. And we had a rigged election the second time, but that's, you know, one of those things. We had to make this one too big to rig, as he—would you agree with that, Brian?

Q. Yes, sir.

The President. Too big to rig?

Q. Yes, sir.

The President. So, anyway. But yes, there's a big race, and I hope you get out and vote for the Republican. The woman is a radical-left lunatic. And let's see who wins, but the woman will be very bad. And you know, Wisconsin is a big State politically, and the Supreme Court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin. So, if—whoever it is that's running—including, you know, even Senate races, et cetera—but whoever it is in 4 years that runs, having Wisconsin is a very big—you know, we won it early and big, but winning Wisconsin is a big deal.

So, therefore, the Supreme Court choice is—that's—is the one you're talking about right now?

Q. Yes, sir.

The President. It's a big race. It's going to be announced fairly shortly.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

TikTok Application/China-U.S. Trade

Q. President Trump, on TikTok.

The President. Yes.

Q. Big week of deadlines. You got "liberation day," and the TikTok deadline is this week.

The President. Yes, we do. I—which I can extend if I want. But we have a lot of enthusiasm for TikTok, for buying it. I think TikTok is good. I used it very—I was a—great TikTok guy, and we won by 36 points, the youth.

Q. Is——

The President. You know, we won the youth, which Republicans don't do. Maybe it's because Kid Rock likes Trump, I don't know. [Laughter] But we won the youth by 36 points, and I attribute some of that to TikTok.

Q. Is the TikTok deal, the negotiations now tied to a bigger tariff deal with China?

The President. No, but, you know, it could be. I mean, you know I've used tariffs for lots of different reasons, but I could see—you know, one point in tariffs with China, a big country, would be probably worth more than all of TikTok, as valuable as TikTok is. It's big stuff.

So, there's a great example. That's a great question, actually. I'm a very flexible person. I could use that for that. Like, maybe I'll take a couple of points off if I get approvals for something. I haven't done it. Maybe I'll do it. Maybe I won't. But it's a very good question. Peter, you're very good.

Q. Thank you.

The President. That's very good.

Q. You'll love this one.

The President. Go ahead. I can imagine.

Professional Golfer Eldrick T. "Tiger" Woods/The President's Family

Q. It's not front-page news, but I am just curious. What is your thought about Tiger Woods now becoming part of the broader Trump family?

The President. Well, I love Tiger, and I love Vanessa. And they had a great relationship, I happen to think—the relationship with my son.

I think—I happen to think the relationship was hurt very badly by the witch hunt that went on—Russia, Russia, Russia—and all the crap that they put Don through, who knew nothing about it. But Vanessa and Don had a very good relationship. They have incredible children—five incredible children. All good athletes, all great students, who are great. And they broke up, you know, quite a while ago, and—which was, to me, very sad, because I think they're both great—Don and Vanessa.

And Tiger actually called me a few months ago, and he—and you know, I have a very special, very good relationship with Tiger. I played golf with him a couple of times over the last month, and he's a fantastic guy and a fantastic athlete. And he told me about it, and I said, "Tiger, that's good. That's good."

I'm very happy for both. I just—let them both be happy. Let them both be happy. They're both great.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Tariffs/European Union/India

Q. Sir, to follow up—to follow up on China. To follow up on China. China, South Korea, and Japan say they're going to work together in cooperation to respond to the tariffs that you're going to put into effect this week.

The President. Could be.

Q. Are you concerned that this move, the tariffs this week, could push some of the United States' closest allies to work with China?

The President. No, I'm not worried about it. I'm not worried about it.

Yes.

Q. Mr. President, can I ask you about something——

The President. I think they have a chance of doing better, actually, with the tariffs. It can actually help them in a certain way. And I think a lot of them will drop their tariffs because, you know, they've been unfairly tariffing the United States for years.

And if you look at the European Union on cars, the European Union already dropped their tariff down to 2½ percent. It was announced a couple of days ago, which is what the United—which is a very small tariff. The United States charged very little.

And a lot of—I think I heard that India, just a little while ago, is going to be dropping its tariffs very substantially. And I said, "Why didn't somebody do this a long time ago?" A lot of countries are going to be dropping their tariffs.

Q. Mr. President——

French National Rally Party Leader Marine Le Pen

Q. About something that happened in France today, Mr. President. Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, got convicted in court and is now banned from running for office for 5 years. Do you have a comment about that?

The President. That's a big deal. That's a very big deal. I know all about it, and a lot of people thought she wasn't going to be convicted of anything. And I don't know if it means conviction, but she was banned for running for 5 years, and she was the leading candidate. That sounds like this country. That sounds very much like this country.

Okay. Anybody else?

Q. Mr. President——

Tariffs

Q. You presented—you've been presented with a bunch of proposals for tariffs by your advisers. They've been talking about that idea publicly.

The President. That who?

Q. That your advisers have presented ideas to you——

The President. They do.

Q. ——about——

The President. Oh, yes.

Q. ——about tariffs and what to do the next 2 days. Have you settled on any——

The President. Well, you're going to see. I've settled, yes, a long—actually, a long time ago. But we talk about it. We talk about it a lot, and we want to do what's right for the country and even the world. You know, it affects the world, not just this country.

This has been the piggy bank for the entire world, so it really does affect the world, and that's important to me also.

Yes.

U.S. Citizen Austin B. Tice/Syria

Q. Is—Mr. President, in the past, you have said that you want—you want the quick return of Austin Tice, a Marine Corps veteran and a journalist who went missing in Syria over 12 years ago.

The President. Yes.

Q. Have efforts been made to locate Austin Tice been extended beyond Syria, including potential leads in Iran? And do you have plans to get in touch with Ms. Debra Tice, the mother of Mr.—Austin Tice?

And also, at the same time, organizations like Hostage Aid Worldwide have been in—on the ground in Syria, searching for—searching for Austin Tice for many years. Can I get your comment on the future—potential future plans to relocate—to locate Austin Tice and to bring him home, finally?

The President. So we've been looking, as you know, for Austin for years. The—I don't know about Biden. I don't think Biden was looking for anything, but we were. And there's been virtually no sign. You know that. There's been no sign of Austin, an incredible young guy—be less young now. It's been a long time. It's been many, many years.

The mother is fantastic. She's a very committed mother that—her whole life is to find her son, who was in Syria and just disappeared off the face of the Earth. So, you know, a lot of bad things happened, but I—we're always—you know, we'll never—we will never—until we find out something definitive, one way or the other, we'll never stop looking for him. But we have been.

And the response, it's just a lot of dead ends. He's been gone for a long time. The problem is, there's never been a sighting. You know, sometimes you'll have somebody, you're looking for him, and there's a sighting. There's never been a sighting of Austin. But we are out there, and we have great respect for his family and for his mother. She's been unbelievable.

Yeas, please.

Q. Mr. President, a question about——

The President. No, behind you.

Q. Oh, apologies.

President of the State Affairs Commission Kim Jong Un of North Korea

Q. Yes. You've had outreach with the leaders of Russia and China. You've made an outreach to Iran. When are you going to plan to reach out to North Korea and Kim Jong Un? Anytime in the near future?

The President. Well, I do. I have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un. Now, you people hate to hear that, but it's very important. I got along with him fantastically.

As you know, it started off very rough, very nasty—"little rocket man." [Laughter] The whole thing was a nasty deal. And then one day we got a call that they'd like to meet. We met. We have a great relationship.

And yes, we have—there is communication. Yes.

Q. Mr. President——

The President. I think that's very important.

You know, he's a big nuclear nation, and he's a very smart guy. I got to know him very well. I foot—you remember, I put my foot across the line, and then I walked across the line. I don't know if Secret Service was thrilled with that. They actually wasn't—they were not too thrilled. But I have a very good relationship with him.

Yes, we'll probably do something at some point.

Yes, please, Jeff [Jeff Mason, Reuters].

Representative Elise M. Stefanik/U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations/Florida Special Congressional Election

Q. What's—who's on your short list, Mr. President, to replace Elise Stefanik as U.S. ambassador to the U.N.?

The President. So we have a lot of good people that want it.

First of all, Elise is fantastic, and I just don't want to take chances with you guys saying, "How is the election going?" We have a congressional election that's a little bit close. I guess the one is in good shape, but the other one is a little bit close. But Randy Fine is a great guy. They're both good candidates. They're very good. But it's, you know, a little bit—we want to be careful. And Elise is very popular in her district, and so am I. We won by a lot of points, and so did she.

And there's a lot of people that wanted to run for it, but we have no idea are they going to win. I think it's just security. And I said: "Elise, what about going back? Because they love you there." And she's going to take a big leadership position with Mike Johnson and the—group—the Speaker.

And I can tell you that for the replacement, we have a lot of people that have asked about it and would like to do it: David Friedman, Ric Grenell, and maybe 30 other people. Everyone loves that position. That's a star-making position.

And so we'll see what happens. But we have a lot of people that are interested in going to the United Nations, as you can imagine.

Yes.

The President's Campaign Rallies/2024 Presidential Election

Q. I just want to get a quick music question. Favorite song to play live is what?

And then my question for you, Mr. President. Your favorite rally you did last—last year, 2024—what was your favorite one?

Mr. Ritchie. Favorite song to play live?

Q. Yes, favorite song to play live.

Mr. Ritchie. Oh, that's a tough one. It would have to be one of the hits, probably "Cowboy" or "Bawitdaba" or—there's—there's a song that I've played every night that was never a single or hit that I probably should not say the words to—[laughter]—in this office right now——

Q. And then for you, Mr. President——

Mr. Ritchie. ——"You Never Met a 'Certain Person' Like Me."

The President. He does—by the way, his rallies are amazing. He does great and gets big crowds. He's been—he's really a—star when it comes to that. He is a very talented guy.

I would say maybe Madison Square Garden——

Mr. Ritchie. Yes.

The President. ——because anybody that was there—the owner of the Garden, Jim Dolan, who has, you know, to me, always been terrific. He said this—he's never seen anything like it.

We had—when you announce Madison Square Garden, you know, it's a big arena, but we sell out big arenas. We sold out at Milwaukee. We sold out at every big arena. We don't have—we never had empty seats. It's amazing.

They talk about Bernie Sanders gets 2-, 3,000 people. Everybody said, "These crowds are"—I get 107,000 people in New Jersey. In Butler, PA, we had over 100,000 the second time. We had 55,000 the first time. We have big crowds.

I would say Madison Square Garden, because I grew up in New York, and the Garden is great. Jim Dolan treated us well, but everybody said they—because I think I could have filled it up 10 times.

We had hundreds of thousands of people that were stacked all the way back to the Hudson River and, on the other direction, back to Fifth Avenue. Nobody has ever —I don't mean with a line. I mean, like, 50 deep—like 50 deep this way. The streets were closed. The whole thing. It was crazy.

And when you take that, you know, you want to do well at Madison Square Garden. You don't want to have empty seats, but we could have sold it out, Brian, 10 times, and everybody knew it.

And I think we got a good indication that that's where the election was going. And we won every swing State, and we won by millions of votes. It was a—it was a great election.

Yes.

Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. Mr. President, the U.S. military transferred 17 individuals to El Salvador overnight. Did you discuss with your team whether these deportations would run afoul of any recent court orders?

The President. No. I do want to thank, however, the President. He has been unbelievable and—you know, in relation to us. But I think that our people have done an incredible job.

You know, I got elected on the basis of getting bad people out of our country that shouldn't be here, very dangerous people out of our country, and that's what I did.

And then you have a judge that wants to take over, and I can't imagine it can be allowed. If it was up to him, they'd all be put back in our country. And these are killers. These are drug lords. These are really bad people.

But I want to thank the President of El Salvador, because he's—he did a—he's done an amazing job. You saw it.

Yes.

White House Senior Adviser Elon R. Musk/U.S. DOGE Service/Tesla

Q. Elon Musk's special Government tenure is coming to an end—130 days—in I think another month.

The President. Yes.

Q. Do you want him to stay longer, or is it time for him to go back to running his companies, in your opinion, Mr. President?

The President. Well, I think he's amazing, but I also think he's got a big company to run. And so, at some point, he's going to be going back. He wants to.

Q. But do you want to keep him around?

The President. But—oh, I'll keep him as long as I can keep him. He's a very talented guy. You know, I love very smart people, and he's very smart. And he's done a good job.

You know, DOGE has—we found numbers that nobody can even believe, like $400 billion, $500 billion. It could be close to a trillion dollars by the time they end on different things. And he's led the charge. And you've seen a lot of his people, and these are people that joined up. I always say they're high-IQ people. I like high-IQ people. And they've done a great job.

No, at some point, Elon is going to want to go back to his company. I will say, he's got—despite the way he's been treated, so—he's an American patriot, but the way he's been treated with Tesla is just terrible. It's just terrible.

Q. Once—he goes back——

The President. In fact, you have a Tesla.

Mr. Ritchie. Yes.

The President. And you love it. You—he was saying before he bought a Tesla, he loved it. A lot of people are buying Teslas, I think, and I hope they are.

He should not be treated that way. He's done an incredible service for our country.

Q. But once he goes back, is DOGE going to keep operating, even without Elon here?

The President. Well, I can't tell you that.

I can say this: That a lot of the people that are working with DOGE are the Secretaries and—you know the heads of the various agencies—and they've learned a lot, and they're dealing with the DOGE people. I think some of them may try and keep the DOGE people with them.

But you know, at a certain point, I think it will end, but they have also gotten a big education. And they're doing a really good job.

There'll be a point at which the Secretaries will be able to do this work and do it very, you know, as we say, with a scalpel, and that's what we want.

Yes, Jeff.

U.S. Soldiers Missing in Lithuania

Q. Mr. President, have you had any updates on the U.S. soldiers missing in Lithuania?

The President. I have.

Q. Can you give us an update?

The President. So three are no longer with us, and one is, unfortunately, probably in the same category, but they haven't declared that yet.

It was a very heavy truck, like a ton—but, I mean, really heavy that left—lifted the heaviest equipment. And it would seem that the bank of a lake collapsed. You know, the weight is so big. And it was at night, and it was very cold weather and ice—a lot of ice. And it possibly slipped, and the weight is so enormous of this thing. It's a—massively heavy vehicle. And if they slipped a little bit, they—it's probably what happened. And it flipped. And three are gone, and one is missing.

Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. On a separate topic—a follow-up on immigration. Did you see the video of the Tufts University student who was taken off the street by ICE agents last week in hoodies and masks? There's been a lot of criticism of that. Have—are you comfortable with how that was handled?

The President. Well, I haven't really looked at it in any detail, but I will. I mean, I have seen it quickly, but not—I wouldn't want to comment on.

Yes. Please.

The President's Schedule/Saudi Arabia/Qatar/United Arab Emirates

Q. Yes. Mr. President, would you be able to confirm recent reporting that you are making plans to go to Saudi Arabia next month? And——

The President. Yes.

Q. ——if so, why is Saudi Arabia so important?

The President. So I have a very good relationship with the Middle East. In fact, if you look at Michigan, I won the vote by a lot. People were a little surprised. And I have a very good relationship with Muhammad and the King. The son is Mohammed. He's great. Crown Prince—actually, he's Prime Minister too. He's got a lot of good titles. But he's great, and the King has been wonderful.

And if you remember, last time I went to Saudi Arabia, I put them first on the list because they agreed to buy 450 billion dollars' worth of American goods, military and otherwise. And they did, and it was an unbelievable day. It was in this gorgeous ballroom, and companies were there from many, many—probably 100 companies. And they were given anywhere from $40 or $50 million to less—and more, actually. A case—some of them were given numbers that were just many times that amount. I think we had a couple of $20 billion deals and—big stuff.

And it's a very rich country because of oil. And we are a very rich country, ultimately, when we straighten it out, because of oil. [Laughter] The oil. Oil is always good.

And I agreed to do it again, but—and they've agreed to spend close to a trillion dollars of money in our American companies, which, to me, means jobs. So they're going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars giving them to American companies that are going to be making equipment for Saudi Arabia and other places in the Middle East.

And for that, I think it's worth it. I did it last time: $450 billion. And the press was there. It was a—it was one of the most unique days I've ever seen, where companies would get up and "You're getting $20 billion." They'd name the company, and the chairmen were all there—every chairman and top person in the company.

You remember that, Peter? I don't know if you were there. You might be too young for that.

Q. I was on the Democratic campaign trail at the time——

The President. Oh, that was boring.

Q. ——so I missed that one.

The President. This was a much better deal.

But it was amazing, actually. It was an amazing day. We sold, and we partook in 450 billion dollars' worth of investment into American companies. And they'd announced the company, the amount of money—$1 billion, $5 billion, $25 billion. And the chairmen of the company—many of whom, you know, are well-known figures, prestigious figures, great business leaders—they went up, they shook the hand of somebody, and they would sit down, and we just had a big investment made.

So it was a record. Nobody ever beat it before—450 billion dollars' worth of jobs. I view it as jobs more than anything else. And now we're close to a trillion dollars. So it's more than double the number that we did when I first came to office.

Q. And this trip takes place next month?

The President. It could be next month. Maybe a little bit later, yes. And we're going to Qatar also. And also, we're going to, possibly, a couple of other countries. U.A.E. is very important. It's a great leader in U.A.E. And I had his brother here the other night, if you saw that. We had a wonderful guy, a wonderful family.

So we'll probably stop at U.A.E. and Qatar. And as I used to call it, "Qatar." Nobody's ever told me right or wrong. I always like to say "Qatar," but it's Qatar. They like to say "Qatar." And Saudi Arabia. The three of them. And then we'll go other places also.

But in the Middle East, those seem to be the three.

And, again, tremendous amounts of jobs will be created that—in those 2 or 3 days.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Oh, President Trump, we need to get you signing the EO.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

The President. Boy, that was good.

Okay. Ready, everybody?

[The President signed the Executive order.]

Oh, you'd better do well with this. He's going to do it. Make sure everything is nice and clean—right?—for your industry.

Mr. Ritchie. Make America fun again.

The President. Because you're not in a clean industry.

Mr. Ritchie. [Laughter] No, we're not.

The President. Hold that up.

[The President and Mr. Ritchie posed for a photograph with the Executive order.]

Okay? Thank you, everybody.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Did Biden do news conferences like this, Peter? I don't think so.

Mr. Ritchie. No.

Q. He was never standing next to somebody who looked like they were about to be shot out of a canon. [Laughter]