The President's News Conference

The President. Well, thank you very much everybody. It's great to be in this beautiful Oval Office. The—it never looked so nice. We're getting great compliments, and I—you see outside how that's come out. It's been great. We make a lot of improvements to the White House, and we're doing that.

One of the things you should be looking at is the Palm Court, because that's been totally redone. So we like to preserve and make better the White House, and that's really what's happened. And we're getting tremendous reviews, and we appreciate it.

But we're here for a different reason. It's called Operation Summer Heat, which is an appropriate term in light of what we're doing. And early yesterday morning I returned from the Middle East where we celebrated a historic agreement to end years of suffering and conflict. Amazing. Every country came together. I mean, even the enemies came out and totally endorsed it. Everybody. I've never seen anything like it. Nobody has seen anything like it.

And just as we are forging peace and stability abroad, we're also restoring peace and safety and stability at home. And you see that in Washington, DC, maybe better than any place, because we got there, and within 12 days it was—it was very good. And within 30 days, it's been as safe as any city in the country. It's been great. Took out 1,700 people. Got them out. These are career criminals in many cases and people that shouldn't have been allowed in by the Biden administration.

Historically, the summer months have been a time when violent crimes soar, as you know, but not under President Trump.

Today we're announcing the results of a sweeping law enforcement effort known as Operation Summer Heat. We were in many cities that people didn't know about. We kept it a little quiet, and it had a big impact, and you'll hear that in a second.

But over the past few months, FBI officers in all 50 States made crushing violent crime a top enforcement priority—that's what they did—rounding up and arresting thousands of the most violent and dangerous criminals. And these are among the most dangerous and violent people in the world. They were allowed in many cases—not in all cases, but in many cases, they were allowed in by a very foolish, actually stupid, open-border policy. Just anybody could have come in. They emptied out their jails, their prisons, their mental institutions. They emptied them into our country.

And the people behind me have done an incredible job, because if we didn't have that administration, it would have been so much easier. They allowed millions of people in this country that shouldn't have been allowed, including over 11,000 murderers, half of whom murdered more than one person. And many of them are gone now or they're put in prison because we're—we don't want to have them come back, so we literally put them in our prison, which we don't want to do, but we bring them back to their countries.

Working with State and local partners, the FBI arrested over 8,000 violent criminals during the course of this period. In major cities like in New Orleans, Nashville, we saw a 250-percent increase in arrests. We got—and we really went after the bad ones. These include 725 individuals wanted for violent crimes against children and murderers. These arrests are in addition to the work of our historic Federal Task Forces that—Make DC Safe Task Force has been unbelievable.

I mean, the job they've done, it's incredible. And it's been so nice because so many people, they're going out to dinner, and they're having dinners. They wouldn't—they didn't go out for 4 years, and now they're going out three times a week. Restaurants are opening, restaurants are full, and usually that means a lot of good things. But restaurants that were closed are now opening up, and everybody is happy.

It's—nobody has ever seen anything like it, actually. And everybody feels safe. You can have a child walk right through the middle of Washington, DC, and nothing is going to happen.

We were losing more than one person a week in Washington—they were being killed on an average of over one a week.

The Make DC Safe Task Force has been incredible, and the Make Memphis Safe Task Force is having very similar results. It's much earlier, but—we've been there for a week and a half, but I'm hearing the results are pretty incredible, and you'll hear about that. They're mobilizing more than 20 Federal agencies for the largest law enforcement operation targeting violent criminals in American history.

As a result of these efforts, violent crime declined nearly 20 percent nationwide compared to the same period last year, and it was the safest and most peaceful summer in two decades.

And honestly, we haven't really even gotten going yet. If we didn't have to fight all of these radical-left Governors, we could have had Chicago taken care of as an example.

They had, in a short period of time, 4,000 murders in Chicago. And we have to listen to this man stand up and say that we're bad people. And the people of Chicago are walking around with MAGA hats. You have women—beautiful Black women walking around with MAGA hats. "Please let the President in. And we don't care how he does it." They're not interested—National Guard or Army, Navy. Bring them in. Marines. Bring in the Marines.

They just want the crime to stop, and more so because of the success that we had in DC. I think if we didn't have that success, nobody would even believe it.

So I want to congratulate all of the incredible law enforcement professionals joining us today, especially Attorney General Pam Bondi, who's terrific; Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is a fantastic legal talent. He really is. He's a great guy too. And of course, FBI Director Kash Patel. They have worked so hard on this and other things.

Since the start of the administration, the FBI has arrested over 23,000 violent criminals, more than double the number arrested in the final year of the Biden disaster. The FBI has also destroyed or severely disrupted more than 170 organized criminal enterprises and gangs, 1,600 of the most violent gangs, and confiscated over 6,000 illegal firearms. And they've tracked down and arrested four fugitives on the Most Wanted list—four of the Most Wanted. Actually, two of them were the most wanted fugitives in the world.

There's still much more work to be done, which is why the FBI continues to work alongside the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of War to defend—and Pete Hegseth has been fantastic, by the way, on this too; on other things, but on this too—to defend law and order and combat violent crime, arrest illegal aliens, and make American cities the safest in the world.

And when I campaigned, I talked about crime, but I never knew that we were going to get into it like we did. You know, I mean, I used to watch these cities with the murders. Chicago recently had one deal where they had 11 murders in one weekend, and they said, "Well, yes, but it was a holiday weekend." They actually told me that was the reason, like it was okay because it was a holiday. It was Labor Day.

These people are the worst. They are—they really have to—they'd better—I tell you what: The people in Chicago and the people in places like that that can be fixed, at some point it gets to where you can't fix it anymore. It's too far gone. And we have some cities like that. But these are great cities that can be fixed.

I'm going to be strongly recommending, at the request of Government officials, which is always nice, that you start looking at San Francisco. I think we can make San Francisco—it was one of our great cities 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and now it's a mess. And we have great support in San Francisco. So I'd like to recommend that for inclusion, maybe in your next group. You'll get great support.

Every American deserves to live in a community where they're not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted, or shot. And that's exactly what our administration is working to deliver. I didn't realize I was going to make this such a big factor in the administration—I didn't really campaign—I campaigned on crime, but I never thought we'd go into every city and take a really safe city that we've all been living with for years and make them safe. And now it's like a passion for me, and it's a passion for the people behind me.

So I didn't get elected—I did get elected for crime, but I didn't get elected for what we're doing. This is many, many steps above. And I want to thank Stephen Miller, who's right back in the audience, right there. I'd love to have him—I love watching him on television. I'd love to have him come up and explain his true feelings. [Laughter] But maybe not his truest feelings. That might be going a little bit too far.

But, Stephen, thank you for doing an unbelievable job. And the people of this country love you, I'll tell you, and they love what you say about crime and stopping crime.

So now I'd like to ask Director—I'd like to ask Director Patel to say a few words, and then Pam and Todd also. And I just want to congratulate them. This is an amazing thing, and we're just at the start. We're going to go into other cities that we're not talking about purposely. We're getting ready to go in.

And when they go in—like Kash, as an example, told me that people didn't even know—five months ago, they went into Chicago, and they started doing a lot of work in Chicago, and we brought the—the numbers down a little bit.

And—but that really was just preparatory work for what we're going to do with the surge. We're going to have a surge of strong, good people; patriots. And they're going to go in, they straighten it all out.

So a lot of these cities we're already working on, but we don't do it with a big flavor. But in a little while, you're going to see some numbers that you're not going to believe. And I think you'll probably start with Memphis, because I'm hearing the numbers are much quicker than we even thought possible.

But again, DC is—it speaks for itself. Chicago is going to be okay. We're going to save Chicago. And I told you and I told them: A very respected man, the head of the Union Pacific, said: "Sir, save Chicago. It can be saved." And the way he said it, it was like, can you believe it—we're trying to save Chicago? But I understood exactly what he wants, and that's what we're going to do.

We're going to save all of our cities, and we're going to make them essentially crime-free, like other countries have crime-free. If you go all over the world, you go to the—you hear Afghanistan, and you hear all these different places—our crime in certain cities is worse than anything they can even imagine. And we're not going to have that any longer. And it's going it's going to stop, and it stops right here.

Kash, please.

Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kashyap P. "Kash" Patel. Thank you, Mr. President. What I'd like to do is just highlight some of the outstanding work that the men and women of the FBI have been doing. And thanks to your brave leadership and the mandate you were given by the American people to not only defend the homeland, but crush violent crime, you tasked us, with our great partners at the Department of Justice and the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General, to start making arrests and bring prosecutions and safeguard our cities.

And you said it: This is just the beginning. In just 7 months—I hope the media takes a look at every one of these charts, because these are the best numbers for fighting crime in U.S. history, and it's only 7 months in. And to do that, our vehicle to do it of choice was Operation Summer Heat, which the FBI architected to go after violent criminals.

And in just a 3-month span, you had 8,700 arrests of violent criminals. You had 2,200 firearms seized off the streets permanently to safeguard our communities. You had 421 kilograms of fentanyl seized. Just to put that in perspective, that's enough to kill 55 million Americans alone. You had 45,000 kilograms of cocaine seized. And thanks to our Department of Justice partners, you had 2,100 indictments in 3 months from June to September alone.

Mr. President, that in and of itself would be historic for a 4-year Presidency. You did that in 7 months because you let good cops be cops and you partnered us with the right people at the Department of Justice to put the handcuffs on and bring them to court and put them in prison.

And if that weren't enough, when you look at the year for the entire 7-month period that we're talking about here, if you look at the past 4 years of the Biden administration, 16,000, 17,000, 15,000, 15,000—that's the number of arrests year-over-year of violent felons in this country for the Biden administration.

Mr. President, in 7 months, you have 27-—28,600 arrests of violent fenols [felons; White House correction] in just 7 months alone because of your leadership and the dedication of the men and women at the FBI who want to go out there and do the job they were prevented from doing because that department used to be weaponized and politicized. And this is what happens when you take out the fangs of weaponization.

This number is historic by every metric. Twenty-eight thousand people have been arrested, violent felons alone.

The President. That's great.

Director Patel. And then when you go over there and look at some of these charts—if you don't mind, I'll just hop over here—look at the metrics for not just violent crime but the homeland.

Mr. President, during your administration, the FBI has found and located 5,400 children. That is a 30-percent increase year-to-date over the last administration. Violent crimes against children arrests alone are up 10 percent. Gang arrests are up 210 percent in the last 7 months alone. And transnational organized crime, which Stephen Miller has been a great partner in, is up over 12 percent alone.

These numbers are historic just as a snapshot. But just so people don't think we're focusing on violent crime alone, the national security mission, Mr. President, under your leadership, has never been stronger. We have gone after espionage activities against our main counterparts in China, Russia, and Iran.

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

Mr. President, I just want to thank you for your incredible leadership, our brave partnership with prosecutors who know how to bring cases and make sure these arrests stick. And that's what the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General have led the charge across this country, because arrests without prosecutions are meaningless. We are deterring criminals from doing this activity, we are preventing criminals from coming into America, and we are absolutely crushing violent crime like never before and defending this homeland, sir.

And not to mention—I almost forgot this one—it took you, sir, 2 weeks to get the Abbey Gate bomber. Joe Biden had 4 years to look for him. You got him in 2 weeks thanks to the interagency effort by the FBI and the CIA. Went to Pakistan, and now 13 brave warriors who were senselessly murdered because of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, they have justice, their families have peace of mind, and we're going to continue to find the others, Mr. President.

On behalf of the FBI, sir, I just want to thank you.

The President. Thank you very much, Kash. Great job. Very good. Very impressive.

Pam, would you like to say something?

Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi. President Trump, the men and women of law enforcement say two things to me repeatedly. First, you have taken the handcuffs off them and let them do their jobs, and you let cops be cops. That's why all this is happening.

The Director, the Deputy Director are working around the clock. All of these great men and women in the FBI, they have—think about it—they have families at home, and they are working during a Government shutdown right now. Many of them have small children. Many of them—I was talking to an agent this morning. Many of them have babies at home, and they are working around the clock to not only keep our country but our world safe, and that's what Operation Summer Heat did.

Thank you, Director, and to the Deputy Director for everything you did on behalf of the Department of Justice and you're going to continue to keep doing.

And they set the stage for what we're doing in Memphis. You're going to hear a lot more about that, our Joint Task Force, next week. But they set the stage for Memphis. And last night alone in Memphis, there were almost 70 arrests. There were 12 guns seized. And there was a 70-year-old man arrested as a result of our operation in Memphis who raped a child under the age of 3. That one case makes everything we're doing worthwhile.

So thank you all for being here on behalf of both of us.

Thank you, President Trump.

The President. Thank you. Todd, do you want to say something?

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. So, this is a great day, and I think there's stats that the Director talked about which are important, but I want to give two examples of what Summer Heat has done that actually will apply, hopefully, to everybody in this room.

The first is: For over 4 years during the last administration, there was a hotel in a town—the middle of a town in Alaska that was being run as a drug den. There were over 1,000 calls to 911 over 4, 4½-year period. There were multiple violent crimes, drug dealers, overdoses, and murders at this one hotel, ruining a community.

Summer Heat went in there. It's not only arrested all the participants that were controlling the hotel but seized the hotel. And so that's one example of what Summer Heat means to everyday Americans that just want to live in peace.

The second example is a large narcotics trafficking group that was selling fentanyl in the State of Washington. They were shipping fentanyl using commercial aircraft, putting fentanyl pills and powder onto—in suitcases, flying them from the southwest border, mostly Arizona, all the way to Washington. It had been going on for an extremely long time, and the entire organization was arrested.

And I say those two examples because it's easy to look at the board and see a thousand arrests, how much different is our communities now compared to the past 4 years. But there's actual life examples. Every one of these arrests means that our streets are safer, and that's—because of the work of this administration, of President Trump, and—Director Patel.

So, I will tell you, Attorney General Bondi and I are together every day with—Director Patel figuring out ways that we can continue to do this work, and it's—not going to stop. Like the attorney general said and like the President said, this is just the beginning or phase one or start, whatever you want to say, but it will continue on.

So thank you, Mr. President. And thank you very much, Director Patel.

The President. Thanks, Todd.

Director Patel. And, Mr. President, just one last thank you from the men and women at the FBI. You found a way to get these individuals paid during a Government shutdown——

The President. That's right. That was——

Director Patel. ——our 1811 agents.

The President. That's right.

Director Patel. On behalf of the FBI, it's a great debt that we owe you, sir.

The President. Thank you.

Director Patel. They're now allowed to pay for their families. So thank you.

The President. Thank you. And the military. Good.

Attorney General Bondi. That's right.

The President. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much.

Any questions, please? Brian [Brian Glenn, Real America's Voice], go ahead.

Q. Mr. President, first of all, I know the feedback I'm getting from the American people, but they want to say thank you. Law and order is not a option in this country, it's a mandate. So, I know the American people thank you for that.

In terms of the guns that have been taken off the street, do you have a number of how many guns were taken away from someone that had a prior felony or a previous crime, that perhaps we can prosecute that? Because I know that wasn't the case under Joe Biden.

Deputy Attorney General Blanche. We don't take guns off the streets of people that are allowed to have guns. So every gun that we're taking off the street, it's because it belonged to somebody who is not allowed to have it. Could be a felon. Could be somebody who is here illegally. There's all sorts of conditions. But we—if there's a gun taken off the streets by the FBI, it's because the person who has it is not allowed to. It's not somebody who's lawfully allowed to have it. So every single one of those guns were taken off of people that aren't allowed to have them.

Attorney General Bondi. And not including the FBI. All of the other agencies. ATF alone, since January 20, has removed over 25,000 illegal guns off our streets, just since President Trump has been in office.

Firearm Rights

Q. And, Mr. President, if I could follow up on that. Could there be any further conversation to have national concealed carry applied to actual DC? Like if you had a driver's license in Texas and you had a permit, of course you can drive.

The President. Well, they're—as you know, they've been talking about that for a long time. It's an interesting question. A lot of people feel strongly both ways, but we are talking about that, Brian. Thank you.

U.S. Airstrikes on Suspected Tren de Aragua Vessels in the Caribbean Sea

Q. Mr. President, on Venezuelan boats. I want to ask you, why not have the Coast Guard stop them, which it's empowered by law to do? You know, this way you can confirm who's on the boat and ensure that they're doing what they—what you suspect they're doing.

The President. Because we've been doing that for 30 years, and it has been totally ineffective. They have faster boats. Some of these boats are seriously—I mean, they're world-class speed boats, and—but they're not faster than missiles. But we've been trying to do that for years, and so much of the drugs—25, 30 percent—would come in through the seas. Right now we have, I would say, none coming in through the seas. In fact, I don't know about the fishing industry. If you want to go fishing, a lot of people aren't deciding to even go fishing. We've almost totally stopped it by sea. Now we'll stop it by land.

Q. And what's the next step——

U.S. Counternarcotics Efforts

The President. But it never worked. It never worked when—you know, when you did it in a very politically correct manner.

Q. What's the next step in this war on cartels? And are you considering options—are you considering strikes on land and in Venezuela?

The President. Well, I don't want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now, because we've got the sea very well under control. We've had a couple of days where there isn't a boat to be found. And that—I view that as a good thing, not a bad thing.

But we had tremendous amounts coming in by boats, by very expensive boats. You know, they have a lot of money. Very fast, very expensive boats that were pretty big. And the way you look at it is: Every boat that we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives.

So every time you see a boat and you feel badly, you say, "Wow, that's rough," it is rough. But if you lose three people and save 25,000 people—these are people that are killing our population. Every boat is saving 25,000 lives. And you can see it. The boats get hit, and you see that fentanyl all over the ocean. It's like floating in bags. It's all over the place. And it's a tremendous—we're saving tremendous amounts of lives.

Yes, please.

Boston, Massachusetts/Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup

Q. Mr. President, I know you've talked about—I have a question for you, and then I also have a question for Director Patel. I know you talked about having some distaste for Boston recently. Is this one of the cities that you might be looking into? And can you give us a hint about other cities that you might be sending Federal——

The President. You say for where? For where?

Q. For Boston.

The President. Yes, well, Boston has a bad mayor, who at least is a reasonable-IQ person. You know, most of them are low-IQ, but—and they're so bad. I mean, what's going on in Chicago is just—you'd think the guy would say: "Hey, look, we have a problem, Mr. President. Could you come in and straighten it out?" I could have that—we could have that done in a month if we had their cooperation. It's going to be done anyway, but we could have it done in a month.

Yes, Boston, she's got four areas that are, you know, wrong. And you know, somebody said would we take—would we think about taking the World Cup away from Boston if they don't straighten it out. And the answer is, yes, we have the right to do that with FIFA. So, if we think that L.A. is going to be bad or if we think—that applies a little bit to the Olympics too, but we'll talk about FIFA first.

You know, FIFA is very hot. If we think there's any reason that—whether it's Boston or anywhere else—that they're not doing their job, we're going to take that—those World Cup games and move them someplace else.

Q. Thank you. And then, Director Patel, there's been so many conspiracy—theories swirling around about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Do you have any updates for us, especially in light of all the online content that everyone's been talking about?

Director Patel. The only thing we deal with at the FBI and the Department of Justice is facts. And we delivered in record speed a manhunt to capture Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin in 33 hours. And if you put that in perspective to Luigi Mangione or the Boston bomber, they took them 5 days and a police officer lost their life in their manhunt.

We are running on absolutely every single lead, and the best thing we can do to honor my friend Charlie Kirk's life is to make sure that everyone involved is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And that's what we're focused on—investigating the facts, not trading in conspiracy theories.

The President. Okay.

Q. Mr. President, thank you so much.

The President. Thank you.

India-U.S. Relations/Russia/Ukraine

Q. In light of China's export cuts on rare earths, do you view India as a reliable partner going forward? And are you planning to meet Prime Minister Modi in Malaysia? Are you open to——

The President. Yes.

Q. ——talks in terms of trade?

The President. Yes, sure. He's a friend of mine. We have a great relationship. He just said that 2 days ago. As you know, we have a great relationship.

No, we were not happy with him buying oil from Russia because that lets Russia continue on with this ridiculous war where they've lost a million and a half people, by the way. Russia has lost a million and a half people. Soldiers, mostly.

This is a war that should have never started, but it's a war that Russia should have won in the first week. And they're going into the fourth year, and I want to see it stop. So I was not happy that India was buying oil, and he assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia. That's a big stop. Now I got to get China to do the same thing.

You know, that—is relatively easy compared to what we just did over the last week in the Middle East. The Middle East was 3,000 years, and we got it done. This is 3 years. And I think we'll get it done.

I think that Putin—President Putin, I think, is going to—I think he wants to get it done. We'll see. There's a great animosity between him and Zelenskyy. You probably have noticed, right? And it's—I think it's hurting the process.

Yes. Yes, please.

Venezuela/Central Intelligence Agency

Q. Mr. President, thank you. Curious, why did you authorize the CIA to go into Venezuela? And is there more information you can share about these strikes on the alleged drug boats in the Caribbean?

The President. Well, I can't do that, but I authorized because—for two reasons, really. Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America. They came in through the—well, they came in through the border. They came in because we had an open-border policy. And, as soon as I heard that, I said a lot of these countries—they're not the only country, but they're the worst abuser, and they've entered their—they've allowed thousands and thousands of prisoners, mental institution—people from mental institutions, insane asylums, emptied out into the United States. We're bringing them back.

But that's a really bad—and they did it at a level that probably not—many, many countries have done it, but not like Venezuela. They were down and dirty. And the other thing are drugs. We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela. And a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea, so you get to see that, but we're going to stop them by land also.

Q. Does the CIA have authority to take out Maduro?

The President. Oh, I don't want to answer a question like that. That's a ridiculous question for me to be given. Not really a ridiculous question, but wouldn't it be a ridiculous question for me to answer?

But I think Venezuela is feeling heat, but I think a lot of other countries are feeling heat too. We're not going to let this country, our country, be ruined because other people want to drop, as you say, their worst. They have given us their worst. They've loaded up our country with prisoners, with mentally ill people that are seriously ill, criminally ill, and we're not going to take it. And so, I mean, it's just one of those things.

And I can tell you, we've taken care of the sea. There's nobody. And we're watching. We're watching. And if we see it, we'll save it.

Yes, please.

U.S. Airstrikes on Suspected Tren de Aragua Vessels in the Caribbean Sea

Q. Well, on the ships, though, sir, there are Republicans and Democrats up on the Hill concerned that in the briefings they've gotten about those attacks, they're not necessarily getting information about who was on them and what exactly was on those ships. Can you ensure——

The President. Well, but they are——

Q. ——that at least lawmakers are being told that?

The President. ——given information that they were loaded up with drugs, and that's the thing that matters. When they're loaded up with drugs, they're fair game. And every one of those ships were. And they're not ships, they're boats. They're speedboats. They're extremely fast, record-setting-type speed boats. They cost a lot of money, and they have a lot of money because they're drug sellers.

But they know one thing, and they all have the same thing in common. There's drug dust—they call it drug dust; they call it fentanyl dust—all over the boat after those bombs go off, and you can take along——

Q. How do we know before we attack them, though, that there are drugs on board?

The President. We know. We know before. We know when they go out. We know—we have much information about each boat that goes out. Deep, strong information.

Yes, please.

Ukraine/U.S. Security Assistance/The President's Foreign Policy/India-U.S. Relations

Q. Sir, you're going to have Volodymyr Zelenskyy here this week. What is your message at this stage of the war for him? And shy of Tomahawks, are there——

The President. To—who is it?

Q. For Zelenskyy.

The President. Yes.

Q. And shy of Tomahawks for Ukraine, are you considering other options, and will you speak with Vladimir Putin about the Tomahawk?

The President. No, we're looking at other options. We are. President Zelenskyy is coming in. I'm not a fan of the war. I'm not a fan of the way it started. It should have never happened. It wouldn't have started if I were President.

The election was rigged, and because of that, we lost—a lot of lives have been lost because of that war—not American lives. But if I can save a lot of lives, that's why I'm in it. I want to save lives.

I've—had eight wars. The Prime Minister of Pakistan got up the other day, said—so beautifully, says, "You saved millions of lives." He told that to a group of people right in this office. He said, "The President saved millions of lives." And I think what he's referring to is the fact that that would have been, with India, a nuclear war. That was getting very close. You know, seven planes—they don't talk about it, but seven aircraft were shot down.

In fact, we have the new Ambassador to India right here. They're well represented. You better represent us, not them, okay? [Laughter]

U.S. Ambassador to India Sergio Gor. America first, sir.

The President. But Sergio is going to do a great job. He's going to do a great job.

But no, we'll be talking about the war with him. And we'll be talking about—I mean, they want to go offensive. I'll make a determination on that, but they would like to go offensive. You know that. And we'll have to make a determination.

Q. Sir, can I follow up on the question?

Former Department of Justice Special Counsel John L. Smith/Border Security/Lapse in Federal Government Appropriations

Q. Mr. President, given you have the FBI Director and Attorney General here today, Jim Jordan has asked Jack Smith to appear in front of the House Judiciary——

The President. You mean "Deranged Jack?" He's a deranged individual. Yes.

Q. He has asked him to appear in front of the House——

The President. Well, they should. I'm surprised it takes so long.

Q. Right. It——

The President. You know, we're talking about violent crime. What about the crime against a political opponent? That's what we have to talk about too.

Q. And Mr. Jordan would like to understand the full extent to which the Biden-Harris Justice Department weaponized Federal law enforcement. What do you think the committee will find out in Mr. Smith's testimony?

The President. I think it was the worst weaponization of a political opponent in the history of the world, let alone this country. And I hope that everybody's—you know, they're involved in it. I'm not. I'm the one that had to suffer through it and ultimately win.

But what they did was criminal. Deranged Jack Smith, in my opinion, is a criminal. And I noticed his—interviewer was—I think that was Weissmann. And I hope they're going to look into Weissmann too. Weissmann is a bad guy.

And he had somebody in—Lisa, who was his puppet, worked in the office, really, as the top person. And I think that she should be looked at very strongly.

There was tremendous criminal activity having to do—if we don't have fair elections in this country, we're not going to have a country. And I've said it from the beginning: fair elections and borders. And we need also fair press, because if you don't have fair press, it's very tough.

And we've got the strongest border of anybody. Nobody has a border—we have a border where the numbers just came out. Again, you saw zero people came in illegally. Now, we do take people into our country legally—but zero people.

But you know, you're talking about a different subject. You're talking about political crime. They have committed massive political crime.

I hope they're looking at Shifty Schiff. I hope they're looking at all these people. And I'm allowed to find out. I'm allowed—you know, I'm, in theory, the chief law enforcement officer. But I have a very good, talented group. This is about something else.

But I hope they're looking at political crime, because there's never been so much political crime against a political opponent as what I had to go through. They raided my house in Florida. It was an illegal raid. I have a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I—when I became President, I said, I'm sort of suing myself. I don't know, what do—how do you settle the lawsuit? I'll say, "Give me X dollars," right?

And I don't know what to do with the lawsuit. It's a great lawsuit. And now I won, it sort of looks bad. I'm suing myself, right?

So I don't know. But—that was a lawsuit that was a very strong, very powerful—they raided illegally my house in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. They went through the drawers of my young son. They went through all of the cabinets and drawers of the First Lady.

She walked in. She said, "Wow, what happened?" Because she's very meticulous. And this wasn't so meticulous. As she looked into the drawers, and she saw everything a mess. It's a—what they did against a person that just got out of office.

And then you look at these corrupt people. You look at Hunter Biden. You look at the signature, as an example, the autopen.

I just signed so many different things—an admiral, a four-star general. I'm signing them left and right—the commissions.

And by the way, I want to compliment John Thune and also Mike, our great Speaker. But John Thune, all of a sudden, I'm getting these things by the hundreds. I was getting one every 2 weeks. It would have been 4 years before you got them in—more. You would have had some that didn't even get in all because of Democrat obstruction.

So John Thune did a great job. I signed—I must have signed 200 into the administration. We're just about caught up. It's amazing. And so compliments to John. He had to do some things that were very tough to do, that he didn't want to do, but he was forced to do it by the Democrats.

And as far as the shutdown is concerned, this is a Democrat, Schumer shutdown. And he's trying to do it to get relevance back into the party, because he's a loser. I've known him all his life. He's always been sort of a loser, but an intelligent one. But I think he's losing IQ points with time.

I think that happens. I hope it hasn't happened with me. I know if it did, you guys will let me know about it very quickly.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro

Q. And one more question on violent crime, sir. Here in DC, a local—a judge has given the two teenagers that beat up ex-DOGE staffer "Big Balls"——

The President. Yes.

Q. ——probation. They tried——

The President. It's incredible.

Q. ——and no jail time. Is this justice?

The President. That's too bad.

Jeanine Pirro is doing a fantastic job, and she is beside herself, because you have these radical-left judges that—they beat the hell out of this guy, and it was many people against this one guy who was really trying to protect his girlfriend. He didn't want—he's hooded over the door because—but they really beat him up badly.

That just happened, right?

Q. Yes.

Q. Today.

The President. Wow, that's terrible. I think the judge should be ashamed of himself. That's a big problem. You know, they can do their job, and then they go into a court, and the people are protected by these—I don't know where they come from. Where do these people come from? Where did these—the judges come from?

I want to compliment on behalf of Pam and Todd and all of us, because, Kash, I think that Jeanine has done a fantastic job. And the case I heard was, like, flawless. It's a flawless case. They have them on tape. They have everything, and then a judge gives them a little probation.

It's very—these are rough guys, and they're young. And if that happens, they're going to grow up, they're going to be real bad.

[Several reporters began asking questions at once.]

They're going to cause—they're going to cause a lot of problems.

Yes, please. Go ahead.

India-U.S. Relations/Russian Oil and Gas Supply

Q. So Sergio Gor has just gotten back from India.

The President. Right.

Q. What were the conversations like with Prime Minister Modi and the other officials?

The President. I think they were great. He reported to me that—you're great. You're—the great—he's a great man, you know. Modi is a great man that—he loves Trump.

Now, I don't know if the word "love"—I don't want you to take that any different. I don't want to destroy his political career, okay? But you have to understand, I've watched India for years. It's an incredible country. And every single year, you'd have a new leader. I mean, some would be in there for a few months, and this was year after year after year.

And my friend has been there now for a long time. And he is, and he's assured me, there will be no oil purchased from Russia. I don't know. Maybe that's a breaking story. Can I say that? Would you say?

Ambassador Gor. [Inaudible].

The President. There will be no oil. He's not buying his oil from Russia. It—started. You know, you can't do it immediately. You can't—it's a little bit of a process, but the process is going to be over with soon.

And all we want from President Putin is stop this. Stop killing Ukraines and stop killing Russians, because he's killing a lot of Russians.

Again, it doesn't make him look good. It's a war that he should have won in 1 week, and he's now going into his fourth year. That does not look—there's—make this big, so-called war machine look good.

But he could make a settlement. We're willing to settle. I thought we had a deal. The hatred of the two leaders is very—you know, it's an obstacle. It's an obstacle. There's no question about it. But I thought we had a deal 2 months ago.

Who would think I created peace in the Middle East, and can't get the two guys to settle? But I think we'll get them.

But if India doesn't buy oil, it makes it much easier. And they're not going to buy it. They—they assured me they will—within a short period of time, they will not be buying oil from Russia, and they'll go back to Russia after the war is open—over.

Jennifer [Jennifer Jacobs, CBS News].

Lapse in Federal Government Appropriations/Federal Program Reductions

Q. On the shutdown, sir, are FBI officials being paid right now? Are all the FBI employees being paid? And are all the intelligence——

The President. Well, that's what I understand. I hope so.

Director Patel. Thanks to your great work, Mr. President, the 1811s and special agents at the FBI are going to receive their paychecks.

Q. Special Agents.

The President. Got a lot of people paid, actually.

Q. And everybody in the whole intelligence community as well?

The President. We've got the people that we want paid, okay? And we want the FBI paid. We want the military paid. We've got the people that we want paid.

And I'll tell you, the Democrats, they don't talk about this. You know, we're getting rid of programs that we didn't like—but that were negotiated in but that we didn't like. We're terminating those programs, and they're going to be terminated on a permanent basis.

And it's thousands of people, and it's, you know, billions of dollars. We're getting rid of a lot of things that we never wanted because of the fact that they made this stupid move. And they don't want to talk about it.

You know, they have their day coming up. I hear very few people are going to be there, by the way. But they have their day coming up, and they want to have their day in the sun, but they should really make a deal.

So what we're doing—I mean, they call him Darth Vader, but he's actually a very nice person, Russell Vought. But Russell Vought is—really terminating tremendous numbers of Democrat projects. This—there's not only jobs. I mean, the project in Manhattan, the project in New York. It's billions and billions of dollars that Schumer has worked 20 years to get. It's terminated. Tell them it's terminated, Jennifer. [Laughter]

All right.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Hostages Held in Gaza, Palestinian Territories/Hamas/U.S. Airstrikes on Iranian Nuclear Facilities

Q. On Hamas, sir, what is your understanding of the pace of returning the deceased hostages? Are you pleased with that pace?

The President. Well, they're looking for them. Absolutely, they're looking.

So we have the living hostages all back. They returned some more today. It's a gruesome process. I almost hate to talk about it. So—but they're digging. They're actually digging.

There are areas where they're digging, and they're finding a lot of bodies, and then they have to separate the bodies. You wouldn't believe this. This is—and some of those bodies have been in there a long time, and some of them are under rubble. They have to remove rubble.

But there are graves, and some are in tunnels that are—that that died in tunnels that are way down under the earth, and the tunnels are like 3 feet—can you believe it?—3 feet high. They lived like this for a long period of time. It's a horrible—it's a horrible atrocity.

At the same time—we, meaning Israel—but I knew everything they were doing pretty much. I knew most of the things they were doing, but they've killed probably 70,000 of these people—Hamas. And I said, "It's time now."

So we'll see what happens.

We'll also see what happens—your next question is going to be the weapons.

Q. Yes.

The President. We want the weapons to be given up, sacrificed, and they've agreed to do it. Now they have to do it——

Q. That——

The President. ——and if they don't do it, we'll do it.

Q. That we had the head of CENTCOM today suggest that Hamas needs to hurry up and—and disarm and follow your comprehensive plan—that——

The President. Yes.

Q. ——that it was the head of CENTCOM saying that, is that not a signal to Hamas, to the rest of the world, that at some point the U.S. military may more directly engage in all this?

The President. We won't need the U.S. military.

Q. So then why have them say it at all?

The President. We won't need it. We're going to——

Q. Why not just you?

The President. Well, because we're very much involved in it, and if we weren't involved, there wouldn't be peace. If we didn't destroy the nuclear capability of Iran, that deal would have never happened for two reasons.

The Arab nations would not have felt bold enough to do it, because you have a very powerful—at that time—Iran is not powerful anymore, between what we—what Israel and us did, because, you know, the attack was—if you look at it, we helped them very much. They will be the first to tell you, including shooting down thousands of drones that were coming into Israel. You know, we shot them down. We were shooting them down like it was target practice. But we shot down thousands of drones and missiles also going into Israel.

But between what we did to Iran that way, with the, you know, "conventional," we will call it, and what that beautiful—see that beautiful plane, that B–2, I noticed that on the desk. I always thought it was beautiful, but I never understood it. Now I understand. It took in hundreds of thousands of bombs, in the form of two, but hundreds of thousands of pounds of bombs, and every single bomb hit perfectly.

Then they sent Tomahawks in. They sent 30 Tomahawks on top of it, and that was totally—you know, CNN said, "Well, maybe it wasn't as bad as—you know, as Trump said," because I said "obliterated." Obliterated is not a strong enough word, actually.

And you saw the Atomic Energy Commission came out and said the word obliteration is very, very—they—think of it. They came in under potential fire. They entered Iran airspace late at night, in the dark, no Moon. The moon was low for a reason. Was the—what time we picked it. Couldn't see anything. And they hit every target, and they weren't hit. Nobody saw that plane. That plane is stealth. Nobody saw it.

The problem with that is it may be stealth today, but tomorrow it won't be. And we just ordered about 20 brandnew B–2 bombers. It's unbelievable as a weapon.

I know Putin—when I was riding with him in Alaska, we passed a lot of them—and he said, "That really did the trick." I said, "Yes, it did." It's amazing. The flying wing. It's——

Gaza, Palestinian Territories

Q. But you still foresee no reason for the U.S. military to get involved in Gaza?

The President. No, I don't see that. No, I think we're going to handle it very well. We'll be helping Israel. But we have other countries that are now—you know, we signed—many, many countries signed. And many of those countries, relatively, have very strong military powers.

And Hamas has no support. See, Hamas had the support of Iran, and now Iran says, "Don't get us involved." The last time they got them involved, didn't work out too well.

So they used to have the support of Iran. Today, Iran is—they're trying to survive. You know?

When I heard the reports 2 weeks ago, Iran is looking to build a nuclear weapon. I said, "Don't worry about it." They've got a lot of things they want to do before nuclear weapons. I said, "The last thing they want to do is a nuclear weapon." It didn't work out. And if they did a nuclear weapon, before they got even close, that site would be attacked, and it would be wiped out.

Yes.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

China-U.S. Trade/Tariffs/The President's Foreign Policy/European Union

Q. Mr. President, you're meeting with President Xi in a few weeks.

The President. Yes.

Q. If you can't come to an agreement or a deal at that meeting, are we in for a sustained trade war with China?

The President. Well, you're in one now. Look, we have 100-percent tariff. If we didn't have tariffs, we would be exposed as being a nothing. We would have no defense.

You know, they've used tariffs on us, but we've never had anybody sitting in that chair that felt the need to do it, and they've allowed us to be $37 trillion in debt, et cetera, et cetera.

We—tariffs are a very important tool for our defense, for our national security. If we don't have tariffs, we're not going to have national security.

As an example, if you look at Pakistan and Iran, I told them—I was in the midst of negotiating a trade deal with—actually, with Iran, and Pakistan was going to be in line. And because of tariffs, they all want to negotiate much differently. And we were making a good deal.

And then I heard that they're shooting at each other, and I said during one of my conversations, "Are you guys going to go to war?" Two nuclear powers. "We are thinking about"—I said: "Here's the deal. You go to war. I'm going to put a 200-percent tariff. I'm going to stop you from doing any business in the United States." I said it to both of them. Within 24 hours, the war ended. That would have been a nuclear war.

And, again, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, who was here 2 weeks ago, said that that man saved many millions of lives, he—in front of a whole group of people, because he thought it was going to be war.

But when it came to war or having to pay massive tariffs, the tariffs overrode. That's why it's so important—not only the money—we're taking in trillions of dollars, not only the money—the power to keep peace, the power to be used for good is enormous.

But a lot of people didn't understand tariffs. It's also made us very rich. We have a big case coming up in the Supreme Court, and I will tell you, that's one of the most important cases in the history of our country, because if we don't win that case, we will be a weakened, troubled, financial mess for many, many years to come. I don't even know if—you know, survivable is—a good term.

And if we do, we're going to be the most powerful economic country in the world, and all we're doing is using them as a defense against what's—what took place for many years. China would charge us tariffs—it was incredible—but we weren't allowed to charge—and we were—so we're allowed to do whatever we want. We just had Presidents that didn't want to do it, for whatever reason, and it was nothing.

But of the eight wars—I was saying seven—of the eight wars, I would say tariffs are responsible—directly responsible for me ending six of them—five or six. Without the tariffs, you have wars raging all over the world. With the tariffs, other than Russia, we have no wars out there, and we made a lot of good friends too.

Tariffs are so important to our national security. If we don't have tariffs, we don't have national security. Our country would—suffer a level that—[inaudible]—because they use so strongly on us.

As an example, the European Union. They won't take our cars. They won't take our agriculture. They won't take anything, but they send their cars in—Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen—by the millions. We don't send any cars. They don't take them. They were tariffing us out.

Agricultural product. They don't take our agriculture. They want their farmers to do it. I understand that, but it was very unfair, and they were tariffing our product. They're keeping up by using tariffs. And we didn't use them, but I used them, and now we made one of the great deals with your—$650 billion they pay us. And we've evened it out. It's really a good thing to see.

And you have to understand, they've all signed—Japan, South Korea. I mean, South Korea, $350 billion up front; Japan, $650 billion. And they've all agreed to it. They're all happy. But before, it was a total rip-off. And if we don't have the use of tariffs, we have no national security. This country will have no financial security. We'll not have national security.

And the people that brought the lawsuit are people that are aligned with foreign nations that are now being treated fairly, as opposed to just ripping us off and ripping us asunder. So—but if we don't—if we are not allowed to use what other people use against us, there's no defense. It'll be a disaster for America.

That's why I think I'm going to go to the Supreme Court to watch it. I've not done that, and I had some pretty big cases. This is—I think it's one of the most important cases ever brought, because we will be defenseless against the world, okay?

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Did you have one? Yes, please.

Georgia Senate Race

Q. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to ask you about the Georgia Senate race. I know it's very early, but there's several Republicans in that field that are vying for your endorsement.

The President. A lot of good people in that field.

Q. Yes.

The President. I know all of them, actually.

I haven't made a decision on that, but you have some very good people in the Georgia Senate race.

Q. Well, Governor Kemp——

The President. What else?

Q. ——has endorsed——

The President. No, I know.

Q. ——Kemp—yes.

The President. The Governor has, and he's talking to me about it a lot. He likes that candidate a lot, and I understand that. I haven't made a decision yet.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

But I'm following that race very carefully. I think it's very important for Georgia to get a real Senator, because the Senator they have now is a horrible Senator. He—allows all the crime, all the border—you'll have open borders. I mean, his whole philosophy is a disaster.

That's not representative of the people of Georgia. I know the people of Georgia. I won Georgia three times, but they say twice, okay? I won it very big the last time, and I won it big the first time, and I won it big the second time. But we had criminals that didn't allow—I mean, they—I hope they're going to go into that. I hope they go into the votes, which are being stored in Fulton County, and take a look at—a real look at those votes—okay?—because I won it the second time too.

But I know Georgia very well. I love Georgia. Those people are great, and they deserve a good Senator, because the man they have now is a weak, ineffective person. Okay.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Q. By the way, you won Georgia three times, just—[inaudible]——

The President. Yes, I agree. Do you agree with me?

Q. I do.

The President. And he's the media.

Q. For someone that——

The President. He's media.

Q. ——spends a lot of time in Georgia, I believe you won that.

The President. Yes, okay.

Q. I really have a question about the——

The President. But you know, the word "believe" isn't strong enough, right? You know.

Q. Yes. [Laughter] I know. There you go.

The President. It's true. I know I won too.

Oh, we have the great Newt Gingrich. Newt, do you agree with us?

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newton L. Gingrich. Sure.

The President. Good. Otherwise, I'd have him dismissed immediately forever.

You know, his wife, as you know, is becoming an Ambassador to a great country. Callista. So congratulations. And we're going to take a picture.

And the only reason I'm doing—he speaks so well of me. He said I'll go down as the greatest President in history. And then he blew it. He said, "I'm not sure if I put him above Washington or Lincoln." [Laughter] So I'm not that happy about that, Newt.

Department of Justice Investigations/National Economy

Q. I've got a question about the weaponization of the DOJ. The media often says your department is weaponizing the DOJ.

The President. Yes, yes. That's the opposite.

Q. Now—it's the opposite. Todd, you represented President Trump in probably the greatest weaponization of the DOJ by Alvin Bragg. You know firsthand. If you can describe what you saw under the Biden administration and how they weaponized the DOJ.

Deputy Attorney General Blanche. Well, I mean, I think it's hard to describe what happened in those last 4 years against President Trump. Alvin Bragg, a local prosecutor, his office staffed by somebody from DOJ. Jack Smith picked as a Special Counselor staffs his entire office with DOJ prosecutors.

And then there are countless things that happen, all in writing, most of them on the docket that require no explanation except a complete abomination of—the place that the Attorney General and I run now—and Director Patel.

So, when people talk about this department weaponizing, it's embarrassing, because there's no scenario in which you can look at what we're doing—restoring justice, doing the right thing in every single case—and say that that's weaponization and yet remain eerily silent about what happened for the past 3 years.

I mean, you read these articles and giggle, because it cannot be true that people really think that what they did to him not once, not twice—I'm still counting—three, four times, but we're the ones that are weaponizing.

So this man is not weaponizing the Department of Justice. We're not weaponizing the Department of Justice.

Attorney General Bondi. It's the opposite.

Deputy Attorney General Blanche. It's the opposite. I mean—and also, nobody questions what I'm saying, because it's true, because we all lived the past 4 years.

So listen——

The President. They never want to bring up the details. But I watch the fake news, and: "Oh, he's weaponized, and he wants to send them to prison. He wants all these." They indicted me, like, five times.

I took a mug shot. Who would have thought it turned out to my favor, because it was a good shot—[laughter]—but I had to take a mug shot. It's right out there in the door, New York Post, front page of the—every paper in the world. I had a mug shot. They wanted to send me—nobody says that.

They say: "He's acting very, very tough. He's acting unfair." Let me tell you, if they've been nice to anybody, it's to those criminals——

Attorney General Bondi. That's right.

The President. ——because they are so good having to do with all of the things we're talking about today with violent crime.

But if anything, I think this Justice Department has been so respectful of the law, because the other Justice Department, with Rita or Lisa and all of that scum—real scum—what they did to the political opponent of a guy that has a seriously low IQ—now, in his case, it was low, based on his career, but it got real low, okay? It was descending rapidly.

But what they did to go after his political opponent is legendary, worse than any third-world country, banana republic.

And what we're doing is nothing. Are you kidding? Nothing. They write stories. "Why aren't they doing this, this?" And we'll leave—I don't have to leave it up to them, but I choose to at this moment at least.

But there's never been anybody treated in the history of politics—you know, they say the two worst treated Presidents by the media, et cetera, was that man right there, the late, great Abraham Lincoln, and this guy, right there, Andrew Jackson. They say Andrew Jackson was treated terribly. They give him number one and number two. But that was before I came along, Newt. [Laughter]

I say I have number one times 10. Nobody has been treated like I've been treated.

And I did a great job. You know, we had a great first term, and we had one of the most successful economies in history, et cetera. I rebuilt the military. We did a tremendous amount.

The last part, we had a horrible thing called COVID, and we handled that well. We made ventilators for nations every—all over the world. We—I mean, we did a great job. Probably never get credit for it. Look at the therapeutics, the Regeneron, all the different things—the vaccines, all the things we did. We did a great job, but we had to focus on that.

But we had this—we had the best economy in the history of our country. We're blowing it away right now. Look at the stock market. It hit at another alltime high today. That's 48 days out of the few days that I've served. Forty-eight days have already hit record highs.

And we have, maybe most importantly, the number—we have now—I was saying 17—it's over $18 trillion is being poured into our country. It's because of the election and because of tariffs. Without the tariffs, you wouldn't have probably 18 cents. It's because of the tariffs, because there are no tariffs, if they build in our—on our country, in our country, and they understand that.

So we have medical companies coming over. We have the AI. We're dominating China in AI. Everybody said that's impossible. We're dominating. I'm letting these massive plants build their own electric generating plants. They're becoming utilities in addition to everything—maybe they'll make more money with that. Who knows? But they're building their own electric, because we have an old grid. You wouldn't be able to do that. And we're dominating China.

We're dominating with AI, which seems to be the new big thing. That's the new internet. That's the new whatever.

So we're very happy with the job we're doing. I'm very happy with the job they're doing. But when you tell me about attacking a political opponent, there's never been—and I'm a legitimate opponent.

I watch my son. He's got the number-one best selling book now. My son Eric he's a wonderful kid. That guy spent so much time with subpoenas. He got more subpoenas than anybody in the history of our country. Think of it. And he's an innocent, good boy. He's a good kid. He's always been a good kid.

All of my children are good. They went through hell. My children went through Federal grand juries on a hoax. Think of it. You have Adam Schiff and Hillary Clinton and others make up a hoax and then wanting to put—so, they know it's a hoax, and they go before the press, say, "Donald Trump Jr. will go to jail because of what he's done with Russia."

I'll never forget. I get a call from my son Don, and he said: "Dad, I'm being accused of something with Russia. I don't know anything about Russia." He didn't know anything about it. Think of it, how bad they are. They say he'll go to prison for the rest of his life—he knew nothing about it—on a hoax, the Russian hoax; Russia, Russia, Russia hoax—on a story that they made up.

And they made it up in order to explain why Hillary Clinton lost an election that she lost by pretty good numbers. The second one that—this one—actually, the second one was even better—but the third one, this one was too big to rig. It was just too big to rig. They would have rigged it. They tried to rig it.

But think of it. They want to send my children to jail, but they were after Don, in particular.

He—I'll never forget, Adam Shifty Schiff, a total crooked guy, lying in Congress, making up a phone conversation that I have with you. Totally made up. Then when he heard it was taped, he wanted to disappear.

And Nancy Pelosi went crazy because they wanted to impeach me based on the conversation that was made up. When they heard the tape, everybody—you know, I won it unanimously in the Republican Party. I got every single vote, something that never happens, and I beat it.

But think of it. They want to put my son in jail for something that they made up. So they know they made it up, and they say, "He will serve the rest of his life in prison." These are sick, bad people, and don't tell me about us going after them. If anything, we're—we've been very, very soft. I wouldn't be that soft, I'll tell you that.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Let's go.

Attorney General Bondi. Okay.

The President. That's—thank you very much.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Architectural Model of a Triumphal Arch

Q. What is this Mr.—what is this, Mr. President?

The President. It's going to be built—an arc.

Q. For who?

The President. It's going to—take a look at the location.

Q. Yes, no, I know where it is. But who is it for?

The President. Me. It's going to be a beautiful——

Q. The Arc de Trump?

The President. Newt, have you seen this?