Remarks at a Swearing-in Ceremony for Alina Habba as Acting United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey and an Exchange with Reporters

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

We have Paula White, who's been very inspirational and—during the campaign and our friend. And Alina has requested a prayer.

And, Paula, if you would do the honors, please. Thank you.

Senior Adviser to the White House Faith Office Paula White-Cain. I would be so honored, sir. Thank you.

Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. And on this very divine appointment of Alina Habba, we thank you that you have chosen her before the foundations of the Earth. I ask that you would give your wisdom according to James 1:5 and, as she moves into this new season and this divine appointment, that she will protect the innocent, that she will always rule righteously, that she will stand in your peace and reign in truth and justice. I secure her family, her life, her calling, and her purpose. We thank you for President Trump. We thank you for this opportunity for all that you are doing. And we secure this in the name that is above all names, the name of Jesus. Amen.

Participants. Amen.

The President. Thank you very much, Paula.

Senior Adviser White-Cain. Thank you, sir.

Administration Agreement With the Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP Law Firm

The President. Before we begin, we have a little announcement, which is just going to be put out over the wires, that Skadden, Arps—the highly respected firm—Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom announced the following agreement regarding a series of actions that were taken by Skadden. And it reads, number one, Skadden will provide a total of at least $100 million in pro bono legal services during the Trump administration and beyond to cause that the President and Skadden both support—this is something we both support—in relation to the following areas: assisting veterans and other public servants, including members of the military, law enforcement, and on and on.

Number two, Skadden will commit to the mission of providing pro bono legal services to a wide variety deserving organizations and individuals. Skadden is committed to funding no fewer than five Skadden fellows. That's a scholarship fund that they've set up.

And number three—and, again, we're going to put this out in much greater detail—that Skadden affirms and commits its—to merit-based hiring, promotion, and retention. Again, that will go on for a little while, and you'll read that. And Skadden will not deny any representation to clients, such as its members or members of politically disenfranchised groups who have not historically received legal representation from major national law firms, et cetera.

So this is going out now, and I'm instructing my people to release it. And this just was announced, so you can—you'll get it in—this was essentially a settlement, and you'll be able to read that in great detail.

We appreciate Skadden's coming to the table. As you know, other law firms have like-—likewise settled the case. And it's a shame what's—you know, what's gone on is a shame, but we very much appreciate their coming to the table.

Swearing-in Ceremony for Alina Habba as Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey

But we're here for, right now, a different reason. It's a very important one, because today we're thrilled to swear in our interim U.S. attorney for the district of New Jersey, Alina Habba. Congratulations, Alina.

And I want to just congratulate—along with your husband Gregg, and your children—your wonderful parents, who I've gotten to know over the years. Great parents and a great family. So, congratulations.

And to Luke, Chloe, and Parker. That's great. You're proud, right? Of your father and your mother, right? [Laughter] Both. Not just your mom, right? Your father too. He's done pretty well. He's a good guy and very successful man.

I also want to thank Attorney General Pam Bondi. She's been incredible, by the way. She's—I don't want to brag, but I've been watching her for the last couple of weeks, and she's been incredible. Thank you very much, Pam.

And a couple of others who have been really outstanding. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. Thank you, Howard. Thank you very much.

And I think I see Scott there. He has been—this is somebody that's done incredibly well at the Treasury. Nobody is going to outfox Scott, right? [Laughter] Nobody. And he's waiting for liberation day—right?—which is April 2. We wanted to do it April 1, but that has some negative connotation. [Laughter]

And I see Sebastian Gorka there. Thank you, Sebastian, very much. That's very much—

Kevin, thank you very much.

We have great people. Susie Wiles, the most powerful woman in the world is—[Laughter]. She was just rated the most powerful woman in the world. If you think about it, I guess it's true, when you think about it. [Laughter] Anyway, thank you, Susie.

And Director Kash Patel. Where's Kash? Kash is fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you, Kash.

So Alina is a proud New Jersey native. She was born and raised in Summit and now lives in Bernardsville with her family—beautiful area of our country.

After a career leading a successful law practice in the State—very successful—Alina joined my legal team several years ago and helped spearhead the effort to defeat the corrupt and grotesque weaponization of our justice system, and she was very effective at doing it. And I want to thank you for doing it. You took a lot of abuse, and now they're all sort of apologizing. [Laughter] So, anyway——

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. It was an honor.

The President. But we appreciate it. Great job you did. And thank you, Gregg, for allowing her to do it, because your life wasn't made any easier was it? Huh? [Laughter] They even came after him. They didn't come after the kids. They would have waited about a year or two. You're very lucky. [Laughter] You're very lucky.

But through her work, Alina became a nationally recognized warrior for the fair, equal, and impartial rule of law.

She also served as a key member of my successful 2024 campaign for President. You saw her doing a lot of explaining and doing it very well. And upon my Inauguration, she joined the White House—House as senior staff. She was a senior staff member as the Counselor to the President, and she counseled me very well.

Alina has been named to the Super Lawyers Rising Stars list every year since 2014 and also earned a spot on the Top 100 Lawyers in America numerous times. As a young person, it's very unusual to have achieved that.

As U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Alina will work tirelessly to weed out crime and corruption and restore law and order to the Garden State, as we call it. It's the Garden State. It's a great place. I think it's highly underrated. It's a great place to be and to live, and we all love it.

Under the last administration, violent crime in New Jersey, however, rose more than 60 percent. And under the last administration, violent crime throughout the country rose at levels that are higher than that and unacceptable. And we're bringing it down, and we're getting rid of a lot of bad people. And we're being—they're being taken out.

And we hope this court system that's become so active all of a sudden in trying to protect some very, very bad people of crime—they have to stop. They have to let us do the job. We were elected to do the job. They shouldn't be interfering in that. It's a very sad thing that's gone—nobody can even believe it.

They'd rather have them stay in our country. These are murderers, in many cases, and people about as bad as we've ever seen, and they have to let us do the job. They have to let Kash and Pam and everybody else do their job.

Alina will take on the violence and the lawbreaking in Newark, however; in Camden; and all parts of New Jersey. And she'll be as good as it gets, because there's a lot of bad things happening there too. She'll stop the graft and corruption in Trenton, and she'll persecute [prosecute; White House correction] human traffickers, gang members, illegal aliens, and criminal cartels to the fullest extent of the law.

And between Pam and Alina, you don't want them after you, I can tell you. [Laughter] I watched Pam 2 days ago, talking about what was so unfair to a patriot, what was happening. And she said: "We're watching you. We're looking for you. And you're not going to get away with it." And I said, "I wouldn't want to have her after me." [Laughter]

And you did pretty well. I think a lot of that stuff has stopped. They watched, and they said, "Who needs this?" Right, Pam?

Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi. [Inaudible]

The President. So thank you very much. Really amazing job that you're doing.

So, Alina, I want to congratulate you.

Now I will ask Pam, our Attorney General, to come up and do the honors of swearing in. And this is a great day for law enforcement in our country. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Alina.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. Ok. Right hand——

Attorney General Bondi. Yes. Place your left hand on the Bible.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. Let's go.

Attorney General Bondi. All right. Now raise your right hand.

I do solemnly swear.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. I, Alina Habba, do solemnly swear.

Attorney General Bondi. That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Attorney General Bondi. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Attorney General Bondi. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.

Attorney General Bondi. That I take this obligation freely.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. That I take this obligation freely.

Attorney General Bondi. Without any mental reservation.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. Without any mental reservation.

Attorney General Bondi. Or purpose of evasion.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. Or purpose of evasion.

Attorney General Bondi. And that I will well and faithfully.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. And that I will well and faithfully.

Attorney General Bondi. Discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. Discharge the duties of the office upon which I'm about to enter.

Attorney General Bondi. So help me God.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. So help me God.

Attorney General Bondi. Congratulations, U.S. Attorney Habba.

Acting U.S. Attorney Habba. Thank you so much, President Trump. Thank you, Pam Bondi. Thank you, more importantly, to every person in this room. There are so many people that I won't even try to start naming them.

I would not be standing here today if it was not for the man to my right. If—as a person who is a first-generation American—with parents that came in legally—[laughter]—I would like to say that I do not ever, ever take for granted that every dream that I ever could have imagined, I have surpassed because of this administration, because of President Trump.

Four years ago, he entrusted faith in me as his personal attorney, and I have been on the journey of a lifetime every single day for that. But I have also been with him through some very dark days when I lost faith in our justice system, when I saw things that never—I never, ever thought I would ever see. And from being outside the courtroom steps, defending him and defending our great Nation, I saw the most resilience I've ever seen in my life. This man kept fighting for America, and I am just so honored that now I get to fight for the State of New Jersey.

I will do a good job, sir. I will clean it up. And we're going to make New Jersey great again.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

The President. Thank you very much.

You have—do you have any questions, please?

Canada-U.S. Trade/Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada

Q. Mr. President, Canada's Prime Minister says that they will be implementing retaliatory tariffs. You said, if that were to happen, that you would be responding with large-scale tariffs. Will you be following through with that promise?

The President. Well, absolutely. But we had a very good conversation. Mark called me today at 10 o'clock. We put out a statement. We had a very, very good talk. He's going through an election now, and we'll see what happens.

But we are—we have liberation day, as you know, on April 2, because—and I'm not referring to Canada, but many countries have taken advantage of us, the likes of which nobody even thought was possible, for many, many decades—for decades. And you know, that has to stop.

We're going to end up with a very good relationship with Canada and a lot of the other countries. Some, we probably won't. It won't be so pleasant. But with—I think most countries will—are agreeing with me. They actually—many of them have actually apologized. They said, "Look, we have taken advantage." And I don't blame them as much as I blame the people that stood—in this case, I can say the men because, so far, they've been all men, haven't they?—but the men that sat right there and behind the Resolute Desk—mostly the Resolute Desk, you know.

If—I don't know if you know, you have a choice of seven desks. The Resolute is the one I like, but some chose other ones. But they sat right behind a desk right in this location, and they let our country be hurt very badly. But I didn't do that.

So—but we had a very good talk—the Prime Minister and myself. And I think things are going to work out very well between Canada and the United States.

Yes. Please, go ahead.

Inda-U.S. Trade

Q. Mr. President—Mr. President, how are your talks with India on tariff going on? And what is expectations from India? How much do you want them to reduce?

The President. Well, as you know, Prime Minister Modi was here just recently, and we've always been very good friends. India is one of the highest tariffing nations in the world. You know that. I noticed—thank you for shaking your head, but it's brutal. [Laughter] It's brutal. They're very smart. And he's a very smart man and a great friend of mine, actually.

And we had very good talks. I think it's going to work out very well between India and our country. Very, very well.

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

And I want to say, you have a great Prime Minister.

Earthquake in Burma

Q. Mr. President, there's been a very serious earthquake in Burma, or Myanmar, today.

The President. Yes.

Q. It was a—up to several hundred killed.

The President. Yes.

Q. They, the military regime there has asked for help from anybody.

The President. Yes, we're going to be helping.

Q. You are going to be help——

The President. We've already alerted the people. Yes, it's terrible what's happened. It's a real bad one. And we will be helping. We've already spoken with the country. Okay?

Please.

Q. Do you—do you know what kind of——

Representative Elise M. Stefanik/2024 Presidential Election

Q. Mr. President—Mr. President, yesterday, you asked Representative Stefanik to stay in her seat. Can you explain your reason for that it? And did it have anything to do with the tight polling in the Florida district that former Representative Waltz held? Is that——

The President. Well, I think we're doing——

Q. Is that a factor?

The President. Yes, I think we had—as you know, we have a few elections going on. And she is phenomenal, number one. She is a friend of mine, and she was going to go to the United Nations, and I said, "Look, there's a lot of room for doing that or something else."

But she's very popular in her district, and I didn't want to take a chance. I don't even know who else is running. I assume somebody else would have been running. But if she runs, she can't be—you never want to say, "can't be beaten," but I think can't be beaten. She's very, very well liked and very smart.

And I said: "Elise, would you do me a favor? We can—we cannot take a chance. We have a slim margin. We don't want to take any chances. We don't want to experiment." And she polls like I do. I won her district, as you know, by a lot of points. And she also does very well there.

When it comes to Florida, you have two races, and they seem to be good. It's a Trump-plus-32 area.

The one thing is, they're spending, like, $12 million, and our candidate doesn't have that kind of money—spending much less than that, like maybe one-twelfth—about a million dollars, a little bit more than a million dollars—so the airwaves are blanketed. And you never know what happens in a case like that.

I won it by 32 points. And it's very—a very strong—it used to be Democrat, but when I came along, they liked me. For whatever reason—you'll have to explain that, but they liked me, and we're way up.

But you don't know what happens, and then you have the second district, who seems to be in pretty good shape. But likewise, he's being outspent about five to one.

So we don't want to take any chances, so I went to Elise, and I said, "Elise, do you mind?" A very highly rated person, you know. She was a real leader, and she will be again. I spoke with Mike Johnson. They're going to put her in a high leadership position. But: "Will you mind staying in Congress, because we don't want to take any chances?"

And it's as simple as that. It's basic politics. It's politics 101. She's very popular. She's going to win, and somebody else will probably win too, because we did very well there. I did very well there. But the word "probably" is no good.

So I really appreciate her doing it. She's doing me a big favor when she does it, because she was all set to go to the United Nations. And she would have dealt with Putin and Zelenskyy and everybody else, and she would have been very effective. But we really want to—don't—we don't want to take any chances, because it is tight.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

No. Go ahead, please.

Arrest of Alleged MS-13 Gang Leader Henrry Josue Villatoro in Alexandria, Virginia/Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. Thank you, sir. You and your team apprehended a top-three leader in the violent gang, MS-13, yesterday, just 30 minutes outside of Washington, DC. What has made you and your team so effective in finding, locating, apprehending, and deporting these violent illegal migrant gang members?

The President. I love this guy. [Laughter] I wish more people would ask questions like that. But thank you. That's very nice. I appreciate—and they have been. And we—I—all you're doing is being fair with—you—when you ask a question in that way.

Pam Bondi and Kash Patel and all of the rest of law enforcement—and I think we have to include ICE and Border Patrol. You know, Paul with Border Patrol—the whole group from Border Patrol—they're so incredible. And it's, you know, dangerous stuff, hard stuff.

And it's really an unforced error, because these people were allowed into this country, and they shouldn't have been in this country. They would have never been in this country. We're getting rid of some of the worst criminals in the world. They came out of jails and mental institutions from all over the world.

But Pam and the whole group and Kash, who's here—and it's so good to have him. He's—I see him all over. He's working 24 hours a day. But the job they've done is incredible.

And they caught one of the worst criminals in the world, I guess, in terms of evilness. You don't get any worse than the MS-13 guys and the Tren de Aragua guys. It's—you can flip a coin. It's a rough group.

And you know, the big thing is, they have to be able to do their job. We—I know I saw—I was watching it on television, like you, and I saw the home that he lived in, in a good area, but, boy, they had a lot of weaponry in there, right? Highly sophisticated, really brutal stuff.

So I appreciate the question. And I just want to thank Kash and Pam and the whole group for doing a fantastic—and the local law enforcement, who has been so terrific—working with local enforcement and even first responders.

So I want to thank everybody. And thank you very much.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Mr. President, happy—I want to say, first of all, happy Women's Month.

The President. Thank you.

Q. You do so much for women by——

The President. Thank you.

Q. ——first of all, keeping men out of women's sports, and you've platformed so many——

The President. That was an easy one. [Laughter]

Q. [Laughter] You——

The President. It was crazy.

Q. You've platformed so many great women, like your Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles.

The President. Right.

The President's Definition of a Woman/Transgender Athlete Restrictions

Q. You also have Karoline Leavitt doing a great job as Press Secretary. Now Alina will be joining as well.

Since Democrats seem to struggle answering this question, I wanted to ask you: What is a woman, and why is it important that we understand the difference between men and women? [Laughter]

The President. Well, I—it's sort of easy to answer for me, because a woman is somebody that can have a baby under certain circumstances. [Laughter] She can—she has a quality—a woman is a person who's much smarter than a man, I've always found. [Laughter] But men—a woman is a person that doesn't give a man even a chance of success.

And a woman is a person that, in many cases, has been treated very badly, because I think that what happens with this crazy—this crazy—issue of men being able to play in women's sports is just ridiculous and very unfair to women and very demeaning to women, and that's got to be about a 94 percent—I read today it was a 94 percent issue.

And I watched—the other day, I watched a Congressman—a Democrat—a well-known Democrat Congressman fighting for the fact that men should be allowed to compete, essentially, in women's sports. And I say, "I hope they keep that going, because they'll never win another election." That's a big deal.

But women are basically incredible people, do so much for our country, and we love our women, and we're going to take care of our women.

Yes.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Pardons and Commutations/Nikola Corp. Founder and Former Chief Executive Officer Trevor Milton

Q. Mr. President, what was your reason——

The President. Go ahead.

Q. What was your reason for pardoning Trevor Milton?

The President. Highly recommended by many people that was taken advantage of. He did a business deal, like, in Utah, as I have it, and I think he was exonerated. And then they brought him into New York, where he had a rough, rough road and road—I mean, he was exonerated. It was a big celebration.

Again, I don't know him, but I was—they say it was very unfair. And they say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for President. He supported Trump. He liked Trump. I didn't know him, but he liked him.

It was in Utah. And they went after him. They went after his family. They went after his businesses. And he was, I believe, exonerated, and then they went after him again, and they brought him, this time, into Manhattan, and he had nothing to do with Manhattan. And they got him. And I said, "That's unfair."

There are many people like that. They support Trump, and they went after them.

You don't realize: This is a vicious group of people that were in this office before us. This is a vicious group. They are violent. What they were doing to people—and you could go story after story—hundreds and even thousands of stories. And they went after this man, and when I heard about it, I said, "Nope, not going to happen."

They persecute—they destroyed 5 years of his life. He went—fought for 5 years of his life, and he did nothing wrong, and he's a good person. And basically, I had these fantastic recommendations about him from people that you know very well, all top-of-the-line people. They thought it was a horrible thing.

There were—there are many such cases, by the way. Many such cases.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. Mr. President, should Americans buy cars now if they want to avoid high prices?

The President. Please go ahead.

Russia/Ukraine

Q. Thank you, Mr. President. Have you spoken with Vladimir Putin about buying weapons from Iran and from North Korea?

The President. Not about specifically that, no. I haven't.

Q. Well, that seems to be an issue that you want to make important. Is the—

The President. Well, I'm making all issues important. You've got a lot of important issues. You also have the children issue that's important. You know, it's a lot of children are living in Russia right now. That's a horrible situation that would have never taken place if I were President, but it did, and the country is being decimated.

But you know, they're losing 2,500, on average, young men—mostly men; almost in all cases, men, actually—but young men every single week: 2,500. And they're not from our country. They're from Ukraine, and they're from Russia. But it's human lives, and if we can get it stopped—and I think we're making progress. But there's a lot of ill will between the parties. That I can tell you.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. But Iran is making money. Iran is making money.

Manufacturing Investments/Tariffs/U.S. Automobile Industry

Q. Should Americans buy cars now if they want to avoid higher prices? And then just to follow up——

The President. No, I don't think so. I think you're going to have a country that's going to boom. I just spoke to Tim Cook of Apple. He's investing $500 billion in the United States, which he would have never—he told me: "I would never have done it if you lost the election. And I would have never done it if there wasn't a tariff system that is a incentive for people to come."

And remember, there are no tariffs. All you have to do is do your work right here. If you have your company here, if you build your product, make your product, make your car or whatever it is you're making, no tariffs. And we're going to have—I think, Scott, I would say we're close to $4 trillion, even going close to $5 trillion.

Now, we haven't had that for years. If you add up years, they haven't invested like that. And here we are, in 2 months, we think we're up to close to $5 trillion of investment. They're going to build car plants. They're already building so—many of them have already started.

Q. But can you assure the American people that prices won't go up?

The President. And if you build a car in the United States——

And one thing that we just—I just spoke with John Thune about, I just spoke to Mike Johnson about—the Speaker—we're going to do something that has never been done in this country before. I'm very proud to say it was my idea. And so, sometimes a simple idea, they say, "How'd you think of that one?" It's so simple. It was never done.

If you buy a car in the United States that's made in the United States, if it's manufactured here, when you borrow money—if you borrow money, you have interest payments. We're going to let you deduct the interest payment for income tax reasons. And I think that's going to more than pay for itself. I think people are going to be—they've never had a deduction. You know, deductions are supposed to be for, like, rich people, and it's unfair to have that. But rich people are—I think I know more about deductions than any human being on Earth. [Laughter]

But you know, the truth is that people that are middle-income people that buy a car and actually have to borrow money, they're going to now get an interest deduction on their car if it's made in the United States. If it's made someplace else, that won't take place.

But car companies, as you know, are already expanding and building new plants. They've already started. And I think you're going to see numbers. Howard, you're seeing it, and, Scott, you're seeing it—you're going to see numbers the likes of which you have never seen before.

Yes. Please, go ahead.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Go ahead.

Greenland/Arctic Security Cooperation

Q. Mr. President, your Vice President—the Vice President is in Greenland right now. Do you have plans to expand U.S. military presence in Greenland? Is that part of a plan to annex the island?

The President. Well, we're getting along very well with Greenland. We get along very well with Denmark. We've always had a good—Denmark does a lot of business in the United States. We don't do so much there, but they do a lot of business in the United States. And I think they want to see—I think everybody wants to see that work out.

We need Greenland, very importantly, for international security. We have to have Greenland. It's not a question of, "Do you think we can do without it?" We can't. If you look at Greenland right now, if you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place, and we're not going to be able to do that. We're not relying on Denmark or anybody else to take care of that situation.

And we're not talking about peace for the United States. We're talking about world peace. We're talking about international security. And right now, you look at it, you have warships all over the place going through—right along Greenland. We're not going to let that happen. We cannot let that happen. Or, if it's going to happen, we have to be protective of our country.

Q. Are you planning to expand the——

The President. And more importantly, right now, it's really protection not only of our country, of the world. So Greenland is very important, and modern-day weaponry makes Greenland—a hundred years ago, less so. But also——

Q. Would you like to visit Greenland, Mr. President——

Q. Will you send more U.S. troops to Greenland?

The President. ——if you notice, also, some of those—you could call them roadways. Okay? They're water roadways, but some of those areas are opening up, and they're opening up—icebreakers out there, they're opening them, and by just nature, they're opening up. And they're headed right into China, right into Russia. And we have no choice.

The answer is: He's there with his wonderful wife Usha. They're there right now. They landed a couple of hours ago. And they will represent us well. But Greenland is very important for the peace of the world—not us, the peace of the entire world.

And I think Denmark understands it. I think the European Union understands it. And if they don't, we're going to have to explain it to them.

Q. Would you like to visit Greenland——

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Ukraine/Iran

Q. Iranian drones—Iranian drones are attacking Ukraine every day.

Q. Thank you, Mr. President.

The President. Say it?

Q. Iranian drones are attacking and killing Ukrainians every day. Why aren't you doing something about that?

The President. Well, we're going to see what happens with that. I'm getting reports on that, and we're looking at a report. You're right. They make a lot of drones, Iran makes a lot of drones. They make very effective drones too. They do very effectively at some things.

But Iran is very high on my list of things to watch. And as you probably know, I sent them a letter just recently, and I said, "You're going to have to make a decision one way or the other." And we're going to either have to talk and talk it out, or very bad things are going to happen to Iran, and I don't want that to happen. I don't want that to happen.

My big preference—and I don't say this through strength or weakness. My big preference is we work it out with Iran. But if we don't work it out, bad, bad things are going to happen to Iran.

Okay. Thank you very much, everybody.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Thank you.