Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters Prior to Departure for Kerrville, Texas

The President. Hello, everybody.

So we're going to Texas. Some of you are coming with us. How are you?

And it's a horrible thing, a horrible thing. Nobody can even believe it, such a thing—that much water that fast without a dam break. You'd think a dam would have to break to have it.

So it's a terrible thing, but we're going to be there with some of the great families and others, the Governor—everybody is going to be there.

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

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil/Former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro of Brazil

Q. Mr. President, do you plan to talk with the Brazilian President about the tariffs?

The President. Maybe at some point I'll talk to him. Right now I'm not. They're treating President Bolsonaro very unfairly. He's a good man.

You know, I know him well. I negotiated with him. He was a very tough negotiator, and I can tell you, he was a very honest man, and he loved the people of Brazil. He was a very tough guy to negotiate with.

I shouldn't like him, because he was very tough in negotiation, but he was also very honest. And I know the honest ones, and I know the crooked ones.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Canada-U.S. Trade

Q. [Inaudible]—exceptions in your new tariffs with Canada? Any carve-outs?

The President. We're going to see. It was sent yesterday. They called. I think it was fairly well received. I mean, it's what we need. So we'll see what happens.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Russia/Ukraine

Q. Sir, Russian drones, sir—Russian drones hit a maternity hospital in Ukraine overnight. Your reaction to that, sir?

The President. I know. I—you'll be seeing things happening.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Illegal Immigration/Immigration Enforcement Actions

Q. Now that you will go to Texas, are you planning on delivering any type of help for undocumented families that lost everything, including their children?

The President. I think we've done very well on immigration. We were given a very bad hand by Biden. He allowed 25 million people to come in totally unchecked, unvetted. We're getting the criminals out, and we're getting them out fast.

The courts have ultimately done the right thing. Amazingly, they've really done the right thing, and they understand it's really the survival of our country. It's a very important thing. We can't have, like, 11,888 murderers.

And, you know, something that you should have that you haven't reported: As you know, 300,000 children are missing, right? Three hundred thousand under Biden. We've already gotten back 10,000 of those children, and we have a lot more planned to come back. We're getting them back by the thousands, but 300,000—and we—as of this morning, over 10,000 we've gotten back.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Tariffs

Q. What is your advice—what is your advice to countries worldwide ahead of the upcoming tariff deadlines?

The President. Oh, I think just keep working hard. You know, I've—we've been taken advantage of for many, many years by countries both—both friend and foe. And frankly, the friends have been worse than the foes in many cases.

So I would say, just keep working. It's all going to work out.

[Several reporters spoke at once.]

Chairman of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Jerome H. Powell

Q. Do you plan to fire Jerome Powell——

The President. No.

Q. ——the Fed Chair?

The President. I think he's doing a terrible job. I think we should be——

Q. Are you going to fire him?

The President. No. I think we should be 3 points lower interest rate. He's costing our country a lot of money. We should be number one, and we're not, and that's because of Jerome Powell. In terms of interest, we are number one in the world.

Look, I'll tell you a little simple—a little simple language. One year ago, our country was a dead country. We were going nowhere except down. We were the laughingstock all over the world.

And now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're number one everywhere, anywhere in the world, and that's all they're talking about is our country. One year ago, it was a dead country. Now it's the hottest country anywhere in the world.

Thank you.