Remarks Upon Arrival and an Exchange With Reporters at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland

Cease-Fire and Hostage-Release Negotiations Between Israel and Hamas

The President. Thank you very much. I meant to go back and see you on the plane, but some things came up having to do with Hamas, et cetera, and we're working on a solution that maybe could be very good.

Q. Can you tell us what that solution may be?

The President. No, but I—you'll be hearing about it pretty soon. We're trying to get it ended—get the hostages back, get it ended. We got them all back but 20. And, as you know, we have 20, plus there are a lot of, unfortunately, dead bodies involved. And they want them back. The parents want them back.

So we had some very good discussions. Good things could happen.

Immigration Enforcement Actions/Job Training/South Korea–U.S. Relations

Q. Can you give us your reaction to South Korea's regrets—or calling it "regrettable," what happened with their workers at the Hyundai plant?

The President. Well, I'll speak to them. You know, look, it's a battery factory in that case, as I'm told. And you know, when they're building batteries, if you don't have people in this country right now that know about batteries, maybe we should help them along and let some people come in and train our people to do, you know, complex things, whether it's battery manufacturing or computer manufacturing or building ships.

So we're going to look at that whole situation. We have a lot of industries that we don't have anymore, and we're going to have to train people. And the way you train people is bring people in that know what they're doing and let them stay for a little while and help.

So I'm going to look at that. It's a very interesting situation that took place in Georgia. And we heard about it yesterday.

At the same thing—time, ICE was doing right, because they were here illegally. But we do have to work something out where we bring in experts so that our people can be trained so that they can do it themselves. Does that make sense? Right?

Q. Is it straining the relationship with Korea at all?

The President. No, we have a great relationship with South Korea. Really good relationship. You know, we just made a trade deal.

But I'm going to look at it, because I understand exactly what they're saying.

U.S. Open Tennis Championship

Q. So Page Six crowned you—Page Six crowned you the "king of the U.S. Open." They put out all these old pictures through the years——

The President. Oh. [Laughter] Wow.

Q. ——of you at the U.S. Open. What does it mean for you to go back after going for so many decades, growing up in Queens? Now you're going back as the President in a different capacity.

The President. Well, I loved it. First of all, the two players have unbelievable talent. It just seemed that they hit the ball harder than I've ever seen before. Incredible talent. And I enjoyed it.

And I used to go all the time, but you know, lately, it's a little bit more difficult to go. I really enjoyed it. They were really nice. The fans were really nice. I didn't know what to expect. Usually, you would say that would be a somewhat progressive, as they say nowadays, crowd. Sometimes—some people would call it "liberal." But we'll use the word they like to use, "progressive." But they were great. The fans were great.

Russia/Ukraine/The President's Diplomatic Efforts

Q. Mr. President, back on Russia, Russia had a pretty big attack on Ukraine over the weekend.

The President. Yes, I know all about it.

Q. You have always said how good your relationship is with President Putin.

The President. Yes.

Q. But he's not really giving you anything that you want. Is that making you less trustful of him?

The President. Well, nobody was tougher on Russia than me. That has to do with the pipeline—as you know, Nord Stream 2—and lots of other things. But I'm not happy. I'm not happy. I'm not happy about the whole situation.

You know, it's interesting. It doesn't affect us because it's not our soldiers. But they're losing now—I used to tell you 5,000—they're losing 7,000—between Ukraine and Russia, 7,000 soldiers every single week. It's such a horrible waste of humanity.

So, no, I am not thrilled with what's happening there, I will tell you.

I think it's going to get settled.

So I settled seven wars. This, I would have said, would have been maybe the easiest one to settle of all. But with war, you never know what you're getting. But we're going to get it—I believe we're going to get it settled.

But I am not happy with them. I'm not happy with anything having to do with that war. It's just such a waste of great humanity.

Ukraine/Russia/The President's Diplomatic Efforts

Q. As of right now, what do you think is the greatest obstacle to a peace deal in Ukraine?

The President. Say it.

Q. As of right now, what do you think is the greatest obstacle to a peace deal?

The President. Well, we're going to see. I mean, we have some very interesting discussions. You know, Europe—certain European leaders are coming over to our country on Monday or Tuesday and—individually. And I think we're going to get that settled. I think we're going to get it settled.

Q. There was some reporting——

The President. We have to. You can't lose—you know, when they're losing 5- to 7,000 soldiers a week for no reason, you have to get it settled. Of all of the wars, whether it's the Congo and Rwanda—they said it was impossible to settle. You look at every one of the—I mean, every one of these wars were impossible. I got every one of them settled. Seven of them. Seven.

This was the one I really thought would be the easiest, but it's not. But I think it's going to get settled.

Former President Joseph R. Biden, Jr./Pardons and Commutations/House Select Committee To Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol

Q. So, there was some reporting in Axios that in the last 3 months of the Biden administration, they did about 4,000 pardons. The Chief of Staff's assistant was sending e-mails to pardon his own family members. Are you still interested in getting to the bottom of the autopen scandal? What's——

The President. Well, I think the autopen is one of the great scandals of our time. The autopen was our President, or to put it a different way, whoever operated the autopen was our president.

Q. If you pardon——

The President. It's not allowed. It's just not allowed.

And they gave a pardon to the "Unselect Committee" after the "Unselect Committee" realized that that whole situation was a hoax and it was all their fault, including Nancy Pelosi turning down security and all—you know, turning down soldiers. It all came out bad for them. They burned everything. They got rid of everything. There's absolutely nothing there. It's all gone.

And that was based on an autopen. You know, they gave—those Members of Congress that were on the "Unselect Committee," they gave them pardons.

Q. What do you think——

The President. So I think that—I think it's a big—I think it's a tremendous scandal, actually.

Q. What do you think the media would say if you pardoned your kids your last day in office via an autopen? Don't you think the media would go haywire?

The President. Well, I think it would have been a big story.

Q. It would be a big story.

The President. Yes. It would have been a big—I like this guy.

Commuter Rail Security Footage of a Stabbing in Charlotte, North Carolina

Q. There's a viral video——

The President. Thank you.

Q. Mr. President, there's a viral video of Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed multiple times on a Charlotte subway. Have you seen this video, and do you have any reaction to it?

The President. Yes. And where was——

Q. Multiple-time offender.

The President. The subway was where?

Q. She was in Charlotte at a—on a light train. She was stabbed multiple times by a multi-time offender.

The President. Horrible. No, I haven't heard.

Q. Okay.

The President. When did this happen?

Q. It happened in August, but the video just came out.

The President. Oh, I see. Yes, I see—the video. I'll know all about it by tomorrow morning. Okay? Thank you.

District of Columbia

Q. Do you have plans for Chicago this week?

The President. No, not really. I mean, not really. We—we're going to go someplace, but we're picking.

Look, DC now is 100 percent—I don't want to say 100, but it's pretty close to 100-percent healthy, happy, thriving. It's a crime-free zone. You know that? You know, you could go out to dinner tonight, Jeff [Jeff Mason, Reuters]. You could go out to dinner, and you, most likely, will not be harmed. You know that.

Q. There's still——

The President. You won't be beat to hell.

Q. There's still some crime in DC——

The President. Huh? Very——

Q. There's still some crime, sir.

The President. Very little. And within a week—within a week, there will be nothing.

Do you agree with me?

Q. I feel much safer walking around.

The President. Yes.

Q. I can't fight, though.

The President. No, it's a safe place now.

Q. Yes.

The President. But——

Chicago, Illinois/Use of Military Personnel in U.S. Cities/District of Columbia

Q. You've been talking a lot about Chicago, and there was——

The President. No, no.

Q. ——some——

The President. Chicago has been talking a lot. So Chicago, last week, lost—9 people were killed and 28 people were shot. The week before, it was 7 people were killed and 37 people were shot. The week before that, it was the same kind of numbers.

Chicago is a very dangerous place, and we have a Governor that doesn't care about crime, I guess. We could solve Chicago very quickly, but we're going to make a decision as to where we go over the next day or two.

When you look at what happened to DC in a short period of time, honestly, it's amazing. Over a period of 12 days—in other words, on the 12th day, we had the crime just about solved.

And right now people are walking out—they're going out, right now, to restaurants all over DC. Whereas, if you go back a year ago or 6 months ago, nobody was going out. Nobody. We did it in 12 days. Now it's better than it was in 12 days.

We'll make it even better. And then we're also going to clean it up. We're going to clean up the city. We're going to make some great improvements to the roads and the medians. You know, to all of the cosmestics—signs. You got signs that have been up for 30, 40 years. They're worn out. They look like hell. We're going to redo the signs. We're going to put up new signs.

It's going to look beautiful. In—within a 6-month period, it will look really beautiful.

But you have, essentially, a crime-free zone. I mean, here we are on a nice Sunday evening. If you'd like—feels like Saturday, actually—if you like, you could go out, and you could have dinner on me. But you wouldn't do that.

Q. No, sir, I would not.

The President. But you could have dinner on me, if you'd like.

Go ahead. What else?

Russia/Ukraine/The President's Diplomatic Efforts

Q. Sir, back to Russia. When do you plan to speak to President Putin next, and what might second——

The President. Very soon.

Q. Very soon.

The President. Over the next couple of days.

Q. What might secondary sanctions look like?

The President. Look, I—we're going to get it done. The Russia-Ukraine situation, we're going to get it done. I have confidence we're going to get it done.

Think of it. I got seven done, all of which were impossible to do. If you look at any one of the seven—you know them. I don't have to go through them. Many of them were impossible—they were—one was 31 years, 10 million people killed. One was 34 years with 8 million people killed. How about the Congo? They lost 9 million people. And it went on for years with Rwanda. All settled. Everybody happy.

The one that I thought would have been, for me, the easiest—because of Putin, I thought that would have been—it's not—it's not turned out that way, but we're going to get it settled.

Hostages Held in Gaza, Palestinian Territories

Q. On Jared Kushner, you brought him in to discuss the Gaza issue and help to make peace in Gaza. What's kind of—what's some of the advice he's giving to you, and why did you bring him back in to work on this deal?

The President. I think we're going to have a deal on Gaza very soon. It's a hell of a problem.

Q. What gives you that optimism?

The President. Again, it's a problem we want to solve for the Middle East, for Israel, for everybody. But it's a problem we're going to get done.

So they have hostages. It could be a little bit less than 20, because some—you know, they tend to die, right? They tend to die. Even though they're young people, largely, they're dying. Young people don't die. Young people stay alive. But with this whole thing, they tend to die.

But we have, let's say, 20 people, and we have about 38 bodies—bodies, meaning bodies.

Q. Are you confident you can get them all released?

The President. Yes, I think so. I think we're going to get them all.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba of Japan

Q. Did you see the turnover of the Japanese Prime Minister stepping down? Do you have any reaction to that?

The President. No, I was surprised, because I knew him, I liked him, and he's just now stepping down. A little bit surprised. I found him to be a very nice man, actually. We dealt very well together.

Beef Prices/Gasoline Prices

Q. Mr. President, the price of beef continues to rise, and other items keep going up. Is there any way to address the cost of beef?

The President. Yes, once it kicks in—once our policies kick in, the price of beef will be going down. Just like the price of eggs went down and the price of a lot of other grocery items went down, beef will go down. It will all go down.

Q. Do you have a——

The President. Energy has gone way down. The price of gasoline has gone—really, I mean, I think you'll be hitting $2 very soon, and it was $4½ a little while ago. So energy has gone way down. That brings everything else with it. But beef has gone—as you know, for other reasons, the price of beef has gone up a little bit. It will be coming down.

Q. Do you have a timeline on that?

The First Lady/President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin of Russia

Q. Before you went to Alaska, in the Oval Office, you said that the First Lady expressed she wasn't too enamored with Putin. You said you came home. You said you spoke to Putin. She said, "Well, I heard he just blew up a village today." Has she expressed anything since you've come back from Alaska?

The President. No, the First Lady actually got along great with Putin——

Q. Right.

The President. ——as I did. But you know, we're disappointed. We're—both of us are disappointed that this ridiculous war continues.

Q. Right. Are you proud to see her sending the letter that she sent to Putin——

The President. Yes, she is——

Q. I loved it.

The President. She felt very strongly about the children. Yes, feels very badly about it.

Thank you, everybody.

Q. Thank you.

The President's Schedule/Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. Do you have plans to go to Japan and South Korea this fall?

The President. What does that mean?

Q. Are—do have plans to go to South Korea and Japan?

The President. Maybe. I mean, we'll see. But it's going to be very interesting what comes out. I think we may have learned something, because when they come here—and there's nobody that can do what they're supposed to be doing—and they bring people, those people can also teach our people. You know, it's complicated stuff, and something very interesting could come out of that.

Thank you, everybody.

Q. Thank you.