Richard (00:00):
Your royal highnesses, your excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, welcome to the third edition of the FII Priority Summit in Miami. This year, we're starting with an exceptional session. It is my distinct honor to introduce a man who is the 45th and 47th president of United States of America. This man is a visionary business person, a media icon, and a political leader, of course. His impact on the global stage has been profound. From transforming the real estate industry to reshaping economic and foreign policy, his leadership continues to spark dialogue and drive change.
(00:50)
At the Future Investment Initiative Institute, we are committed to shaping a brighter, more sustainable future by fostering innovation and global collaboration. These are principles that align with the President's bold approach to leadership and economic growth. Please, ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming 45th and 47th President of United States, Donald J. Trump.
MUSIC (01:18):
And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
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And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
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And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
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'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land!
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God bless the U.S.A.
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From the lakes of Minnesota, to the hills of Tennessee.
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Across the plains of Texas, from sea to shining sea.
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From Detroit down to Houston and New York to LA.
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Well, there's pride in every American heart.
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And it's time we stand and say.
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That I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
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And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
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And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
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'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land!
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God bless the U.S.A.
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And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free.
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And I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.
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And I'd gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.
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'Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land!
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God bless the U.S.A.
Donald J. Trump (03:40):
Thank you very much. What a great group this is. You have to see outside. It's going wild outside with a lot of love for all of us, I guess. But thank you, Richard, for the introduction and thank you to all for such a warm welcome. It's great to be back in beautiful Miami where I've actually built a lot of great buildings with the Dezer family and some others. We've had tremendous success in Miami. We have Trump Towers and Sunny Isles Beach. It's four beautiful buildings right on the ocean. The Trump Grande, put the little E in the end for a little … class it up a little bit. Trump Grande and the 700-acre Doral. It's a tremendous country club. It's actually the most successful country club in the US where I was just given approval to build 1,500 units and I couldn't care less about building units. When you're president, who the hell wants to build units? I've been building units all my life. I don't want to build units, but they gave us permission to do it.
(04:43)
But today is a tremendous honor to become the first American president to address the Future Investment Initiative Institute. That's the first one. [inaudible 00:04:53]. And I want to thank Mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez for being here. Thank you very much, Francis, wherever you may be. Hi Francis, and thank you for the endorsement when I ran, I was very appreciative, along with the mayor of Miami Beach, Steven Meiner. Steven, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Steven. Thank you very much. And numerous American business leaders. Some of the biggest business leaders actually anywhere in the world, and many distinguished guests from the Middle East and in particular the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A special place with special leaders.
(05:43)
And including FII Institute, chairman and governor of the Public Investment Fund, which is a seriously big fund. Yasir, I see you there. Stand up, Yasir. Everyone knows Yasir. Thank you. Great guy, great person. And Finance Minister Mohammed, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good to see you again. That's pretty good finance minister of that part of the world. That's not bad. Other parts of the world, not so good, but that one is good. And many other senior government leaders. I also want to recognize the Kingdom's ambassador to the United States, Her Royal Highness Princess Reema.
(06:26)
Ooh, very popular. Very popular. Wow, that's very nice. Sitting next to Elon. Wow, you couldn't do better than that, huh? As well as my own special envoy to the Middle East who's really done a fantastic job, Steve Witkoff. Thank you, Steve. He's been busy and Michael Waltz is here. Where is Michael? Michael's been so busy. They've been going back and forth and back, and a woman who is just voted the most powerful woman anywhere in the world. No, I'll go with … I'm going to go with Princess Reema, but she was voted the most powerful woman anywhere in the world. Susie Wiles, thank you. Thank you. Most powerful woman. That's pretty good. We have to talk to you about that, Susie. That's pretty good.
(07:25)
And also, we all know Jared Kushner. Very special guy. Thank you, Jared. Thank you, Jared. And Elon Musk. He's been making a little news lately, hasn't he, though? Very positive news. Stand up, Elon. He's a great guy. We did a little show last night. I heard they got very good ratings too, by the way. We did Hannity. Sean Hannity is fantastic, a fantastic man, a fantastic guy, and he did a show and it was great being on the show with you last night.
(08:01)
I come today with a simple message for business leaders from all across the nation and all around the world, if you want to build the future, push boundaries, unleash breakthroughs, transform industries and make a fortune, because you want to make a fortune. Most of you have already made a fortune. I don't want to say that. There's no better place on earth than the current and future United States of America under a certain president named Donald J. Trump. I think that you're going to do very well.
(08:34)
They're saying that November 5th, election day, 2024 will go down as one of the most important days in the history of our country. They said in 129 years, the most consequential election. I don't know if they're right about that or not, but it sounds good. I wanted to see if I could get a couple of more years tacked on, but I figured the fight wasn't really worth it. 129 is a lot. And as of January 20th, 2025, the dark days of high taxes, crushing regulations, rampant inflation, flagrant corruption, government weaponization … Oh, I know about weaponization, and total incompetence will be gone forever. They'll be gone forever because the United States is back and open for business, and the golden age of America has officially begun. You see it happening.
(09:27)
Since my election, America's economic engines have come roaring back to life in just a very short period of time. Think of it, from November 5th, the progress that's been made has been amazing. The Nasdaq is up nearly 10% in just a few months, and that's a lot. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 2,200 points. And Bitcoin has set multiple all-time record highs because everyone knows that I'm committed to making America the crypto capital. We want to stay at the forefront of everything, and one of them is crypto. And Miami seems to be the center of the action, come to think of it. And maybe it'll stay there.
(10:12)
Business optimism skyrocketed 42 points. Think of that in a single month, the most in history, by far. That's the biggest increase in history by not even close, the ISM, index of manufacturing activity surged into positive territory for the first time in many years, amazing. And it was just announced. This is an interesting one.
(10:36)
I didn't realize it was that bad for so long, but it was just announced by one of the nation's most historically accurate and respected pollsters Rasmussen, that the number of Americans who believe our country is on the right track now exceeds those who think it's heading in the wrong direction for the first time in 20 years. Can you believe that, 20 years? And this is really a seismic 27 point swing from just before the election, nobody's ever seen anything like that one. Yes, sir. I want to tell you that's a big one.
(11:10)
The best and most successful business leaders on earth are now racing to invest in the United States since November. DAMAC has announced plans to invest 40 billion in the US, creating at least 10,000 jobs. SoftBank has announced investments of between 100 and $200 billion, creating at least 100,000 American jobs. Oracle and OpenAI and SoftBank are now collectively committing 500 billion to keep the United States on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence and so many more. I mean so many companies that want to come to the White House and have a little news conference all the time. I said, "Why don't you just announce it?" But they want to come, and I'll do that. I don't mind doing that. I say anytime they want to go 10 billion or more, I'm there. 10 billion or more.
(12:04)
But on his recent visit to the White House, the Prime Minister of Japan announced he anticipates Japanese investment to the United States of well over a trillion dollars. And we're working on an Alaska pipeline already, which is the closest point to Asia. And as you know, the ANWR, which we've started, Ronald Reagan couldn't get it approved. Nobody could get it approved for so many years, couldn't get it approved. I got it approved. I actually got it approved twice. I got it approved, and Biden ended it. That was a shocker, but we just got it approved again. And we're going to be, it's probably the largest deposit, maybe anywhere in the world, just by itself. It's, they say of similar size to Saudi Arabia. So we hope that's correct, but all of this is only happening because of the world changing results of the 2024 election. We won the house, we won the Senate, the White House, and the electoral college, and the popular vote in a landslide.
(13:04)
We also won all seven swing states and all 50 states shifted in the Republican direction for the first time ever. So every state, every single state of the 50 states shifted Republican. It's never happened before. Either way, it's never happened. And 85% of counties voted for Trump. Think of that. So you have 2,600 counties versus 525. 2600, think of that. That's why when you look at the election map after it was all done, the certified map, the whole thing was read, 2600 versus 500. It's a big, big … Nobody's seen anything like it actually. So as a result of this very historic victory, investors from all over the planet, once again have confidence in America's future and respect for America's leaders. And it's about time we get a little respect. The last administration was the worst and most incompetent in the history of our country. But we are moving quickly to fix every single disaster Joe Biden created and make America stronger and more prosperous than ever before.
(14:23)
Our first and most urgent mission is to remove the criminals that Biden allowed into our country with the ridiculous and very dangerous open borders policy. They came from all over the world. They came from prisons and jails. They came from mental institutions and insane asylums. They were gang members, they were drug lords. They came from all over, and they were allowed to come into our country, and we're getting them out in record levels just like they came in record levels. I want to thank Tom Homan and Christy, who was just doing, she's doing a fantastic job. Governor of South Dakota and Tom Homan, you know? They are doing a fantastic job, and the results are incredible. And every country is taking them back. They're sending their criminals to us, and they're all taking them back. We had a little problem with a couple of them that ended very quickly. And because some said, "We don't really want MS-13 back in our country," but I said, "Congratulations, you're taking them back." And they take them back.
(15:34)
And by the way, Europe and other places ought to start also doing that. They better start looking at immigration because it's really hurting Europe very, very badly. And they better get smart and they better get tough before it's too late. We're also working to end the highest inflation in our country's history all because they played with our energy policy and wasted money on the green new scam and other things such as that, and they wasted moneys at never-seen-before levels. If Joe Biden had simply held federal spending at the pre-pandemic levels we had in 2019, we right now, we would have virtually no inflation. We're trying to balance the budget immediately and because of the tariff income, which is really, it's already turned out to be amazing actually. It's really meant more for bringing countries and companies into our country.
(16:32)
But the numbers are rather staggering because with a big piggy bank that everybody wants to be, and they can play games and they can say, "Well, there'll be retribution and equal this and that," but they can't be equal. But we want to keep it so that we're the big piggy bank. And if we had years like we did the last four years, that wouldn't have lasted too long. So we're not promising it. But all of these things could happen. We hope to balance our budget. So I don't want to promise it because if I do and we come about $10 short, the fake news media back there would say, "We have breaking news. He did not make it. He did not make it." But we'll get it done very soon. It might not be this year, but it could be this year. Actually, we have a chance at getting it even this year, which people would be shocked at because they were talking about 10 years, 15 years, 20 years from now.
(17:25)
When I took office last month, we inherited the consequences of inflation. That was more than four times what it was when I left four years ago. Think of that I left, it was at 1.4% and the annual government spending over $1.5 trillion more than projected in 2020 alone, 1.5 trillion. But under the Trump administration, all of that is changing faster and more dramatically than anyone ever thought possible. They didn't think it was possible to do what we've done in just a very short period of time. We've accomplished more in four weeks than most administrations accomplished in four years. On my first day in office, I imposed an immediate federal hiring freeze, a federal regulation freeze and a foreign aid freeze. I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency and put a man named Elon Musk in charge. Thank you Elon for doing it. Thank you very much.
(18:23)
And he's doing a great job. I wish you could have seen him last night. It's really, he's a very committed person. He's a very serious person and he's a very high IQ people. I like high IQ people. Not all have to be, but it'd be nice to have some people up there that … he's a seriously high IQ individual. Now he's got his faults also. I will tell you that, but not too many of them, which is now really waging war on government waste, fraud, and abuse, and they're curbing inflation and saving taxpayers billions and billions of dollars every single day. There's even under consideration a new concept where we give 20% of the Doge savings to American citizens and 20% goes to paying down debt because the numbers are incredible, Elon. So many billions, billions, hundreds of billions. And we're thinking about giving 20% back to the American citizens and 20% down to pay back debt and pay down debt, which is, if you look at value, if it were a real estate balance sheet, the debt is tiny, but we still want to pay it down.
(19:33)
Doesn't matter. We don't look at it as a piece of real estate. It's America. We're going to get it down through intelligence, hard work. And as Elon said, a word called caring. You have to care. By doing this, Americans will tell us where there's waste. They'll be reporting it themselves. They participate in the process of saving money. So many of the men and women in this room as an example, they pay tremendous amounts of taxes. And here are just a few examples of where your money was going before I came along. These are some just some of, just taking at random. Oh, there are much worse examples than this. I was just looking at them before the speech and I can tell you they were much worse. And there are some that are horrible, but I don't want to really say them because they're very, very embarrassing to people. Very, very embarrassing and they're really something. But you'll be seeing it and you will be reading about it.
(20:33)
But just some taking at random, $2 million for sex change operations in Guatemala. $20 million for Sesame Street performances in Iraq. 20 million? That's a lot of money. I know what it costs to do those things. You get a cast over for 50,000, give them a couple of bucks tip, and that's it. Not 20 million. 20 million? That's gone with the wind on steroids. $101
Donald J. Trump (21:00):
The $101 million for 29 diversity, equity and inclusion contracts at the Department of Education. Wow. And we've canceled all of these, saved all of this money. And again, this is just a small sample. This could go on. I could read them all day. $520 million for a consultant, I want to know who is that consultant, to do ESG. That's environmental, social and governance investments in Africa. $25 million to promote biodiversity conservation and licit livelihoods by developing socially responsible behavior in Colombia. $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that even means. None of this stuff. Everyone's trying to figure out, what the hell does it all mean? $42 million for social and behavior changes in Uganda. 40 million's a lot of newspaper ads in Uganda. $70 million for research of evidence-based solutions for development challenges. $10 million for Mozambique medical male circumcision. What does that mean?
(22:25)
$2.3 million for strengthening independent voices in Cambodia. $14 million for improving public procurement in Serbia. $486 million to the consortium for elections and political process strengthening, including $22 million for inclusion, inclusive participatory political process in Moldova. And $21 million for voter turnout in India. Why do we need to spend 21 million for voter turnout in India? Wow, $21 million. I guess they were trying to get somebody else elected. Wow. We ought to tell the Indian government, because when we hear that Russia spent about $2 in our country, it was a big deal. They took some internet ads for $2,000. This is a total breakthrough.
(23:19)
$21 million for India elections. $29 million to strengthen the political landscape in Bangladesh. $20 million for fiscal federalism and $19 million, in addition to the $21 million for biodiversity conversion in Nepal. $1.5 million for voter confidence in Liberia. We need voter confidence, too, when you read this list. $14 million for social cohesion in Mali. $2.5 million for inclusive democracies in South Africa. $47 million for improving learning outcomes in Asia. Asia is doing very well. We don't need to give them money. And in another program, $50 million plus another $50 million for condoms for Hamas. You know about that? $100 dollars for condoms. Condoms. Does everybody know what a condom is? For Hamas, $100 million dollars.
(24:25)
And these are just som., I could read this list all day long, I just don't want to bore you. But these are just some and not nearly as bad as others. And some, I just don't want to say them because they're too incendiary. We're also finding tremendous abuse, waste and fraud in Social Security. Social Security is what's happening there is going to be one of the great potential scandals in history. On the program, there are over 4.7 million Social Security numbers from people from 100 years old to 109. Think of that. Now, over 100. There aren't a lot of people that make it. Hopefully, most of the people in this room will make it. But historically, you don't have thousands and thousands of people.
(25:14)
But listen to this: 3.6 million people are on Social Security roles from the age of 110 years old to 119. Do you think there are really that many? Those people are seriously old. But it gets worse. 3.47 million people are on Social Security from the age of 120 years old to 129 years old. 3.9 million people are on the age of Social Security from 130 years old to 139 years old. Now, the all time record I heard is a woman, she was 127 years old. That's the record. A woman from a certain country where they have actually people that live pretty long, actually. And she was 127 years old. That's pretty old, but we're topping her by millions of people.
(26:22)
3.5 million people from the age 140 to 149 years old. 1.3 million people are on Social Security from the age 150 to 159. And over 130,000 people are on Social Security over the age of 160 years old, including 1,039 people. Think of it. Over 1,000 people between the ages of 220 to 229. And one person between the age of 240 years old to 249. And the record topper, there is one person on Social Security who's 360 years old, which is approximately 110 years older than our country. So, what we're trying to find out, and what we will find out is are people being paid from all of these. Somebody pocketing 10,000 here, 10,000 there. What's going on? So, we'll find that out pretty easily because we have a lot of computer geniuses.
(27:42)
I said to Elon, "Who are these people that are doing this?" "The Doge people." I said, "Who are they? Where do they come from?" He said, "Well, number one, they love our country. Number two, they're really genius at computers, so nobody's going to fool them." When they go in, they see some bureaucrat that's scamming the country. And they try and talk about certain computer language. These people say, "No, it doesn't work that way." These are people that have a natural ability as brilliant computer people. It was very interesting when he told me that. I said, "That's what you need today."
(28:16)
But all of these scams have now been terminated. In addition, over the past month, we have effectively eliminated the US Agency for International Development, which was funding much of this lunacy. We virtually shut down the out of control CFPB escorting radical left bureaucrats out of the building and locking the doors behind them. What they were doing was so terrible. Where they were spending the money was so terrible. What we haven't looked at yet, but will be is does the money come back to them, because nobody can be stupid like that. And they're not stupid. They're smart, actually. And why are they doing that? Does money come back to them? So, we'll figure that out pretty easily, I think, and quickly.
(28:59)
But I've ended all of the so-called diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the entire federal government, and private sector, and notified every single government DEI officer that their jobs have been deleted. They're all deleted. And it's interesting, even these companies that have tremendous amounts of money, a number of them just announced Walmart, if you can believe it. They just announced that they're stopping. And these companies are writing off $220 million. How can you spend that much money? No matter what you're doing, if you're teaching something, you're going to have an instructor, you're going to talk, you're going to give them a book. Please read the book. Then you find they spend $225 million on that. What's going on?
(29:47)
And we were going in the wrong way. And our military was really… Although, I tell you, we defeated ISIS with our military in three weeks. General Razin Caine, he's some general. He's a real general, not a television general. And three weeks, ISIS. And I asked him, and I saw some of his people that were so great, the soldiers. We have the greatest military in the world, but we don't have the greatest top-top leadership. That's why Afghanistan was such a horrible situation, and so embarrassing, and so many other things. But when we want to with proper leadership, there's nobody even close to us. We have the best equipment in the world. We make the best equipment in the world, but we have the best military. But we never fight to win. We fight to just keep it going forever.
(30:35)
And when we fight to win, there's nobody that can even come close to us. But I was talking to General Dan Caine. And we call him Razin Caine. And I was told it would take about four years to defeat ISIS. And he did it in three weeks. I said to him, "What do you think, General? How long will it take, sir?" "I think we should do it in less than four weeks. You're going to have time left over." And he did, he did that. And we were told by the television generals it would take four years, so we did it. That's when I went to Iraq. I flew to Iraq. And late at night, the dark of night, all the windows closed, all the lights off in the plane in Air Force One. And we flew in and it was pretty amazing, I'll tell you.
(31:20)
We were landing and there were no lights. No lights in the plane. "Sir, we have to turn off all lights." I said, "You mean we spend $9 trillion, and we have to fly in Air Force One with the lights off." And I went up to the pilot, said, "Hello." And by the way, these guys are like central casting. These are the best-looking human beings. Everybody is perfect. The most handsome people, the best-looking people you've ever seen with the flat tops and the whole thing. And I was a little concerned because the lights are off and everything's off. And even the lights where he was were down very dim, very, very dim with all of the lights on the fancy dashboards of the plane of Air Force One. We're getting a new Air Force One, if they can ever finish the damn thing. We're getting two of them, actually, but we may have to go a different route because it's taking them a long time. We're going to get military that's going to start building. We're going to get people to start building properly again in our country, because they don't build properly. This was Boeing. But we're up there and I'm looking at these people. And again, I say they look like Tom Cruise, but better, stronger, tougher. And I like Tom Cruise, but these are better. And I said, "Are we okay, Captain?" "Yes, sir, we're fine." But I'm looking out. I don't see any lights and we're landing. And I'm used to that. I like to sit with the pilots a lot and respect the pilots greatly.
(32:48)
And we're up there and we have the computer. I call it the computer voice where it goes 1,000, 900, 800. It's feet. Your feet above ground, so that means you're very low. And I'm looking out and my eyes are pretty good, and I don't see any lights. And the computer goes out. Sounds like an intelligent individual. It goes 1,000. We're 1,000 feet up. It's a 10-story building. There's a big, big plane. And then it goes 900, 800, 700. I said, "Captain, we don't see any lights. Is everything…?" "Yes, sir, everything's fine. Sir, we'll be landing in three minutes." And then it goes like 600, 500. "Captain, are we okay?"
(33:44)
And then it goes, 400, 300, 200. And I'm saying, "Man, there's nothing out there." And then he goes, boom, perfect landing right on this thing. There are no lights on the runway. I don't know how the hell they do it, but I'm sure as hell glad we had somebody that knows how to fly. But they didn't want to have any lights because they didn't want the enemy… After spending years and trillions of dollars, we have to land with Air Force One with no lights on the runway. But they were incredible people. And then I got out of the plane and I actually asked my people, I said, "Excuse me, I was very brave sitting in that cockpit. Am I allowed to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor?" And they said, "I don't think so, sir." I said, "Well, I felt I was extremely brave."
(34:37)
Now, here's the problem with saying a story like that when you kid. The press will say, "President Donald Trump wanted to give himself the Congressional Medal of Honor." Headlines, headlines, all over the fake news. We call it the fake news, but we're all wise to them. But it was something. And then I went down and it was the same thing. I'm standing on the top, and I looked down and there's these handsome people. Everybody's like from a movie set, good-looking guys. I get down the stairs and, "What's your name?" My name is Caine, sir." "What's your first name?" They call me Razin. I say, Wait a minute, your name is Razin Caine? I love you. I've been looking for you for five years. You are the great. This is what I want."
(35:19)
And there was a general next to him, there was a colonel, there was a drill sergeant, a master sergeant. They were all like people, I could make a movie right now. I'd have the best looking people ever. And they were great. And then I went in and, "Sir, would you like to rest before the bed?" "No, I don't want to rest. I don't want to rest. I've been resting on the plane, other than the last few moments, which were quite harrowing." And I said, "I don't want to arrest." He was thinking about Biden in advance. Biden would've gone there. He would've arrested for days and then they wouldn't have had a meeting. He'd just go home. No. I said, "I don't want to rest. I don't want to rest at all. I want to go." So, we went into this bunker and we had a lot of very good talented people.
(36:03)
And that's when I asked him, I they said, "I'm hearing it's going to take a long time." "No, that's not right, sir. It's not going to take a long time. We'll have it done in four weeks." I said, "How can you say four weeks when in Washington they said four years." He said, "Four weeks, sir. We'll hit them left. We'll hit them right. We'll hit them up the center. We'll hit them underground and overground. We'll knock the hell out of them, sir." And I said, "Why is it that they said so long?" He said, "Because they wouldn't let us fight. And we're very far away. They want us to fight from this airport. We're very, very far away, sir. And they want us to fight here. We have many substations out. Sub airports, they call them. Remote airports where they build them in the sand. And we have many of them. And I'd use them all, sir.And I would hit them so hard from so many different directions."
(36:50)
I said, "Well, what do you think?" He said, "You just let me know." And I called him back and I said, "Go ahead and do it. Are you sure you can do this, General?" I said, " Yes, sir." And he did it actually in three weeks. It was over 100% of people that are really hurting the Middle East, hurting the world. And it was done. And I'm telling you, we have the greatest military in the world, but you have to use the right people. But there's nothing like what they were able to do. And that case, and in other cases, wherever I gave them something, it was done incredibly well. And you know many of the instances, because it's been well-reported. So, we have a country that's a great country. It's a strong country, but it's a country that's just now gaining its respect back to the levels that it should've never lost. We were being laughed at by the entire world, but we're not being laughed at anymore. But we've also required that all federal employees must, once again, show up to work. It's a new phenomenon since COVID. Show up to work in person like the rest of us. So, I mean, it doesn't work when you don't show up. And I see companies now, we're all going back to it. They're all going back. It's great. I watch some of the big business leaders saying, "We absolutely are going back." You can't work at home. They're not working. They're playing tennis. They're playing golf or they have other jobs. But they're not working or they're certainly not working hard. You could never build a company or a country with that.
(38:25)
So, we have a very strong policy. And if they don't show up to work, they get fired. And we're trying to make our government smaller, but much stronger. And we have tremendous bureaucracy, but it's happening. A lot of people are leaving and in some cases leaving with pretty good offers. You're paid seven or eight months and go out, find a job. But some of these people had jobs. They were actually working for us, but they also had other jobs. And those people, in theory, they have problems. I don't know if we're going to do anything about that. So, we have other things to do. But they were working other jobs instead of working for us.
(38:59)
So, they were staying home working, but they were working other jobs, getting paid a lot of money perhaps. We offered deferred resignation buyouts to all federal workers, resulting in more than 75,000 bureaucrats, voluntarily surrendering their taxpayer funded jobs. A lot of them are leaving because they don't want to be caught having the second job. Some are leaving because they didn't want to be in government any longer. And some are leaving because they didn't want to show up to work. They wanted to work outside of an office, and that's never going to work for anybody, including companies. The companies ought to get smart. You watch these companies where they do that, they start going bad.
(39:36)
Nobody knows what's wrong with this company. Well, try getting the people back into the office where they can be cohesive and together. In less than a single month, the Department of Government Efficiency has already saved over, this is just a short period of time, $55 billion. And we're just getting started. That's nothing compared to the numbers that you're talking about. We're ending trillions of dollars in waste and it'll mean much lower inflation, lower interest rates, lower payments on mortgages, credit cards, car loans, and much higher stock markets. I think the stock market's going to be great. In other words, we will rapidly grow our economy by dramatically shrinking the federal government that we have to do it.
(40:24)
I'm also taking fast action to end the radical left's nation wrecking crusade against oil and natural gas. Over the past four years, the Biden administration cut the number of new oil leases and gas leases by 95%. They slowed new pipeline. I mean, look anyone. Dakota Access, they wanted that one knocked out. The Keystone Pipeline, they wanted that one knocked out. They ended the Keystone. We got the Dakota Access done, but it wasn't easy after they tried to stop it. They slowed new oil and gas pipeline construction to virtually a halt. They shut down 38% of active oil and gas rigs in the United States. But they love the wind turbines. They go round, and round and round, and if the wind doesn't blow, they got problems. They kill all the birds. They ruin the sight lines. They ruin the plains and the beautiful areas of our country, including the oceans, the lakes.
(41:22)
They closed more than 50 power plants all causing energy prices to skyrocket. You saw that happen? That's what caused inflation pretty easy. These policies were so destructive that despite draining nearly 40% of US Strategic Petroleum Reserve meant for emergencies, it was meant for emergencies. It wasn't meant for getting a price of gasoline down so that you can win an election. Didn't work for winning the election. Actually, there's so many people that are driving that. It's a very small number. Just had a very small effect. But in the meantime, it takes it down. We'll fill it up fast,
Donald J. Trump (42:00):
… fast, but it's at the lowest level. When we made the transition, it was at the lowest level in history ever recorded. It's the lowest level. Nobody's ever seen it that way. They put it all out because they thought they could keep gasoline prices down a little bit, just go past the election and after that they didn't care and it didn't work because they didn't get elected, I got elected. But the price of gasoline still rose over 35% and in some cases, at some periods it was 100% and 125% during certain periods of time.
(42:31)
Under the Trump administration, we have implemented a very different plan. You probably heard of it. It's called Drill, Baby, Drill, and we're doing it. The world runs on low-cost energy and energy-producing nations like us have nothing to apologize for. We have more energy than any other nation in the world and we're going to use it and we're going to use it on AI plants. I was telling some of the people that came in that everybody's talking about AI. Hope you're right. I don't know who knows, but Elon, are they right? Are they right or going? Are they all in for AI?
(43:14)
But the problem is to do it just in our country, you need twice the electricity just to open up and be the top of AI. You need twice the electricity that we have right now in the entire country. If you take all of the electricity, you need more than twice. You need twice. You need double what we have right now just to fuel this new industry that's growing. I was amazed when I heard that number and they all said, "How can we do this?" Because in China and various other places, you can probably get it with the shake of a hand, but in our country you can't. But now you can because we've declared, I've been declaring a national emergency in order to get fast approvals and we're going to have, if you build a plant, you're able to build an electric generating facility right next to your plant, so you'll be making your own. You won't have to count on utilities, you won't have to count on an old grid that could fail, could get hit by something, bad things or good things, but you're not going to have to worry about grids.
(44:16)
You build your plant and you'll build essentially, you'll become a utility in a way. You can build your own electricity if you want to build extra and put it out and get paid for that. You're going to be able to do that. You could put it back into the grid, but you're going to be able to build with your plant a generating facility, and we're going to get you Lee Zeldin, head of the environmental group, various groups, and we've got them unified now, but we're going to get you very fast approvals and that we approve so fast, your head will spin and we're going to get that whole industry started and we're going to be the head of it.
(44:52)
We're leading right now. We have the greatest brainpower we're leading right now, and I expect that we're going to be leading by a lot, but we're going to get you the energy very, very quickly. That would be the one thing that everybody was concerned. How do we have that much electricity when Los Angeles has blackouts and brownouts right now and there's a lack of electricity, but we're going to get it at levels never seen before. I ended the ridiculous green new scam, halting tens of billions of dollars of wasteful deficit spending, and I withdrew the United States from the unfair one-sided Paris Climate Accord, and I ended Joe Biden's insane electric vehicle mandate because it was just insane.
(45:34)
And by the way, if you want to buy an electric car, it's great. If you want to buy a gasoline-driven car or a hybrid, it's great, whatever the thing happens to be, I heard hydrogen's hot. The problem is when it's not, you're in deep trouble because when that sucker blows up, they don't find the body. So that's one that I said, "You know what? Let's take a pass on that one." They said, "It's good, but when it's bad, it's really bad." You find the bodies on trees on the side of a tree. I said, "I think we'll pass on that one." We're not going to want that one, but you never know. Maybe someday it'll be good, but it doesn't sound like it's off to a good start.
(46:11)
I repealed the last administration's very destructive natural gas export ban, and last week we approved our first new liquefied natural gas export license and we have literally hundreds of people that want to export. I recently met with the Japanese Prime Minister Ishiba to discuss large increases in American oil and gas exports they wanted so badly. They said, "We went to the Biden administration, they wouldn't sell it." They wouldn't sell it. Nobody knows why. Biden didn't know why either. They asked him, "I don't know. Oh, I didn't know that."
(46:50)
But we're going to sell it and the new project in Alaska is going to feed all of Asia. We're going to take care of all of Asia. We have so much oil and gas. Very few people, very few countries have really, actually no country has. I also met with Prime Minister Modi of India who wants to greatly expand India's purchase of American energy, and my administration has also launched the most aggressive deregulation program of any nation in history under my executive order. For every 1 new regulation added, 10 old regulations have to be eliminated. And in our first term, which was actually an incredible success, we had the greatest economy in history until COVID, and even after that we did great. The stock market was higher. If you think of it, it was higher after the fact, after we went through that whole thing, it was higher than it was just prior to COVID coming in, which is a pretty amazing thing, but we did a great job on that, but it was a terrible thing for the world. The whole world suffered, suffered terribly including China, including other countries. It just was a terrible period of time. But despite that, we did well, but we had the greatest economy in the history of our country, and I think this time we're going to do even better.
(48:11)
We were artificially hurt by COVID. We had a focus on that instead of focusing on, but just prior to COVID coming in, there's never been anything like what we did, what we achieved. And even after we did very well and especially considering what all of us had to do with COVID. Some nations were hit so badly, it was just unbelievable what happened to them. As part of our effort, I've signed executive orders to keep the United States at the forefront of artificial intelligence and to end Joe Biden's war on Bitcoin and crypto. We ended that war totally. That war is over. They were very hostile toward them until the very end just because there's so many people on Bitcoin and crypto that just before the end, the SEC came out and they were being very nice. I was so nice to people because so many people were being indicted for no reason whatsoever, very political group of people.
(49:04)
That's all they did was they liked indicting people, but they were being indicted and many of those indictments were drop just before the election because they said, "Wait a minute, there's 125 million people using this," and they didn't want to have all these people being voted against. But by the time they did that, it was too late. We had that vote entirely, I think. I think anybody smart that believed in that, and there were a lot of people believing it. Anybody that was smart voted for Trump and they pulled the indictments and I see people that were indicted. I said, "I saved your life. I saved your life," because if they thought that, they actually thought that I was doing it, they say, "Why is Trump doing it? Is he doing it for political reasons?" I don't do anything for political reasons. I do what's right. I want to be in the forefront of every industry.
(49:56)
So I'll be working with the Republican Congress to pass the largest tax cuts in American history, and that includes, obviously, that includes we have to extend the Trump tax cuts, which were until now the largest. We're going to dramatically cut taxes for families and for workers and for companies including no tax on tips and hopefully no tax on social security and no tax on overtime, and that overtime one is a sleeper because I think a lot of people are going to be spurred on to do a lot of extra work when they hear that. A lot of companies really like it and a lot of people really like it.
(50:32)
The new Trump tax cuts will also include 100% expensing for new factory construction in the United States and anything else that you're going to buy with capital. If you buy something, if you buy something that is going to be good for our country, we're going to let you expense it, one year expense, and I did that the first time and everybody was saying, "Can you go back to that?" Now you still get, I guess, 40% or whatever, but it pairs down, but we're going to bring that right up to the top level. I think that had a lot to do with the success that I had during my first term and we'll substantially cut taxes for all domestic producers of oil and gas and just about everything else that they produce.
(51:16)
In my first term, I brought the business tax down from around 40% to 21%, which everybody said was an impossible thing to do. I cut it from 40. It actually was state and said it was much higher than 40, but I got it down to 21% and now I'm bringing it down to a goal of 15%, but only if you make your product in America. In other words, you're going to be at 21%, but if you make your product in America, you're going to go from 21 to 15. If you don't, you're going to pay 21%, which is still lower than anything. So guys like Elon are going to come and make his great cars in the United States. A lot of people will. A lot of people are calling, a lot of car companies are calling. They call me, three of them, three of the majors, they called and they said, "We're looking all over the place. We want to be there."
(52:06)
I'm going to be announcing tariffs on cars and semiconductors and chips and pharmaceuticals, drugs and pharmaceuticals and lumber probably and some other things over the next month or sooner, and it's going to have a big impact on America. We're bringing our businesses back. If they don't make their product in America, then they very simply, they have to pay a tariff, but if they do make their product in America, they don't have to pay any tariff, which it's all going to bring trillions of dollars into our treasury or it's going to mean that there won't be any taxes because we won't have a fair base. If they don't have it, we don't have it. If they don't pay, if they don't charge us, we don't charge them. It's pretty simple.
(52:49)
The Republican Party is once again the party of common sense. We're a party of common sense. We want strong borders. We don't want men playing in women's sports. We don't want to have transgender for everybody. We're the party of common sense. That's how we won the election in such a big manner. We'll no longer allow other countries to ransack and plunder our nation. That's why I've announced that we will soon begin imposing reciprocal tariffs on any country that engages in unfair and unequal trading practices. If they tariff us, as I said, we will tariff them at the exact same rate so of a certain country. Because some of the countries, even countries that I've already mentioned are extremely aggressive with tariffs. Nobody knows that European Union, they have a VAT tax. It's devastating. It's very tough for people in the outside, hard to sell cars, really impossible to sell them because they also have non-monetary tariffs that are very, very tough. But if you take a look at that, it's a very unfair situation, and the VAT tax is similar to the tariff.
(53:54)
Around the world, I'm moving quickly to end wars, settle conflicts, and restore the planet to peace. I want peace and I don't want to see these, everybody being killed. And you take a look at the death in the Middle East and the death that's taking place between Russia and Ukraine, it's been going on and we're going to end it. There's no profit for anyone in having World War III and you're not so far away from it, I'll tell you right now, you're not so far away. If we would've had this administration for another year, you would've been in World War III and now it's not going to happen.
(54:25)
In the Middle East, I've restored my policy of maximum pressure on Iran designed to bring peace, and we've designated the Houthis a terrorist organization. They're destroying shipping lanes all over the place. They make it very hard for people to get their product delivered. They're making it very difficult, but we'll take care of that situation. And we've secured a ceasefire in Gaza and we're bringing in the hostages and we're bringing them home to their family. Some of them are in pretty bad shape, I have to tell you.
(55:02)
To end the horrible war in Ukraine, I've spoken with President Putin and President Zelenskyy, and our teams began negotiations this week in Saudi Arabia. I want to thank Saudi Arabia for that. That was so great. And I want to thank in particular, I mean, we have so many of the people, yes, Sir Mohammed, all the people, but in particular we have to thank Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for hosting these historic talks and talks that went very, very well. Steve was there, Steve Witkoff was there, and Michael was there, Michael Waltz and others, and they really went well. It's a big step. We got to get that war over with.
(55:49)
You have to see the people that are dying. I look at the pictures, the satellite pictures of the field. It's a level field and it looks like a modern day version of Gettysburg, and you know what that means, it is just carnage, it's horrible. And it's not American soldiers. It's not even soldiers from the Middle East in the case of Ukraine and Russia, but it's people. It's young people from Russia and Ukraine mostly that are just being decimated. It's flat fields and a bullet goes, and a bullet only stops when it hits somebody and the level of people being killed in that battle, soldiers, young soldiers, in some cases, old soldiers, because they're running out of people, they're running out of soldiers one case.
(56:34)
But think of it, a modestly successful comedian, President Zelenskyy talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion to go into a war that basically couldn't be won, that never had to start and never would've started if I was president, not even a chance, and it didn't start for four years, never would've started, but a war that he without the US and Trump will never be able to settle. They'll never settle that war without our involvement. That's why they did such a great job this weekend. That's why Saudi Arabia did such a great job this weekend in hosting.
(57:11)
The United States has spent $200 billion more than Europe, and Europe's money is guaranteed. They get their money back. It's a form of a loan. Nobody knows that. I know that. I said, "Why isn't somebody saying we do it the same way and we spent much more money, we have to equalize." But while the United States gets nothing back, so they get their money back, it's a loan. We just give our money. And we had a deal based on rare earth and things, but they broke that deal, but they broke it. Two days ago, we had a deal because I said, "We're spending $350 billion and Europe gets their money back in the form of a loan, and we don't. We're just giving the money hand over fist." That's the Biden administration for you, but they're no longer dealing with the same United States as they were dealing with a few months ago.
(58:03)
Why didn't crooked Joe Biden demand equalization and that this war is far more important to Europe than it is to us and that there's a very big, beautiful ocean, a separation? We're helping Europe. We're trying to help Europe. On top of this, Zelenskyy admits that half of the money that we sent them is missing. They don't know where the money is. He said, "Well, we don't know where half of it is." That's great. Wonderful. He refuses to have elections. It's low and the real Ukrainian polls, I mean, how can you be high with every city is being demolished. It's hard to be. Somebody said, "Oh no, his polls are good."
(58:42)
Give me a break. Every city's being demolished. They look like a demolition site. Every single one of them. And the only thing he was really good at was playing Joe Biden like a fiddle. He played him like a fiddle. That's an expression we use. Yes, sir. To say that he's pretty easy, pretty easy. A dictator without elections, Zelenskyy better move fast, or he is not going to have a country left. Got to move, got to move fast because that war is going in the wrong direction. In the meantime, we're successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia, something all admit that only Trump is going to be able to do in the Trump administration. We're going to be able to do it. I think Putin even admitted that Biden never tried. Europe has failed to bring peace, and Zelenskyy probably wants to. Maybe he wants to keep the gravy train going. I don't know what's the problem. But he hasn't been able. He is very upset that he wasn't invited. He could have come if he wanted to, but that he wasn't invited to Saudi Arabia.
(59:42)
But he's been working for three years. There's never been even meetings or phone calls to stop this war. It's a horrible thing. I figure Russia's lost 900,000 soldiers. I think that Ukraine's lost probably 700,000 and it's a terrible thing. You'll see body parts, bodies and body parts all over the field, all over. We see them through very accurately through satellites. I love Ukraine, but Zelenskyy has done a terrible job. His country has shattered, and millions and millions of people have unnecessarily died, and you can't bring a war to an end if you don't talk to both sides. You got to talk. They haven't been talking for three years. So we hope to see a ceasefire soon and to reestablish stability in Europe and the Middle East. Thank you very much. And as I've said before, it's my hope that my greatest legacy will be as a peacemaker and a unifier. That will be a great legacy. So in conclusion, the golden age of America is upon us, and I'm inviting everyone here today and every citizen across our land to take part in the most extraordinary period of peace, prosperity, growth, innovation, wealth creation, and expansion the world has ever seen. We're on our way. I mean, everyone's talking about us. Three weeks, we're in there for a couple of days, more than three weeks, and everyone's talking about it. You have to see the crowds of people outside. It's pretty amazing what's happening. We're on the verge of soaring markets, surging incomes, booming production, groundbreaking technologies, thrilling discoveries, and a quantum leap in the quality of life, absolutely a quantum leap. One day, very soon, our country will have the greatest economy in the history of the world because we once again have a president who puts America first, and we put America first, and your country should put your country first.
(01:01:43)
But in the end, we want America first, and when it's all beautiful, which is going to be pretty soon, we want to help other countries and you want to help other countries, but I tell your leaders, and some of the leaders are in this room right now, you got to put your country first, whether it's Saudi Arabia, whether it's something else, you're going to put your country first, but we're going to have plenty left over to help others also. As long as you invest in America, build in America, and hire in America, that means that I'm fighting for you. I am fighting very hard for you. Together, we're going to make the United States of America bigger, better, bolder, richer and greater than ever before. It's going to be stronger than ever before. We're going to be a peacemaker and a peacekeeper. We're going to stop people from these stupid never-ending wars. We're not going to partake in them ourselves, but we'll be stronger and more powerful than anybody by far.
(01:02:35)
And if it ever came to war, there is nobody that will be able to come close to us, but we don't think that's going to ever happen. So I want to thank you all very much. It's a great honor to be here. And I think somebody said they're going to ask questions, and I didn't say, "Gee, what are the questions?" like Biden does. I say, "Just ask. It doesn't matter." You ask a question and I give an answer. So I think, Richard, you're going to come up and you're going to give me some questions. Thank you very much.
Richard (00:00):
Richard (01:03:01):
Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Please, a round of applause for the President of United States of America. Thank you.
(01:03:19)
Mr. President, thank you for accepting to take a few questions. 20 years ago, I don't know if you will remember, we were under the same roof in Orlando and you were delivering an amazing speech in front of 3000 sales rep, giving him the best advice to be successful. So what is the best piece of advice that you have ever received?
Donald J. Trump (01:03:43):
Well, I think I was watching my father. My father was a very hard worker and he just worked hard and he was very smart. He had good genetics. His brother was the longest serving professor in the history of MIT, Dr. John Trump. And my father was every bit as smart, but my father had to work. He was older and he put his brother through school. In fact, he once said, "Boy, I put him through so much school." He had three different degrees and they asked him to stay on at MIT. But my father was the same ilk. And I noticed that my father was a happy man, and what he did is he worked. He just worked all the time. He worked, worked, worked, and he loved it.
(01:04:25)
And really, I think the best piece of advice I got from that is you have to love what you do. And if you love what you do, you're going to have a happy life. If you don't, I mean, I see so many people, they're in businesses that they don't want to be in. They're in businesses that they're bored in or they're not good at. They don't have a natural ability at it. There is such a thing as natural ability, whether it's sports or acting or anything else. I mean, some people have an ability for something. Try and find that ability. But you have to love what you do. If you love what you do, you're going to be, at least you have a good chance of being successful.
Richard (01:04:56):
Mr. President, it's almost time for an early dinner. So if you are throwing a dinner party and you can invite three fascinating guests, leaving or dead, who would you bring?
Donald J. Trump (01:05:09):
Well, they're all sitting right in the front row. Yasir, are you ready? Mohammed, are you ready? Steve Witkoff? And we have the most important person, at least until the World Cup is over is here. Johnny, stand up. He gave the United States the World Cup. Johnny, thank you very much. I didn't know you were here. That's very good. He's the king of soccer. That's not bad. And you've done a fantastic job.
(01:05:36)
But it's very interesting. When I was president, I got the World Cup and I got all of the … We have this 250 anniversary, so that fell in this administration. That's a big deal, 250 years. But we have all of these things happening and I also got the Olympics. And I was called by the mayor of Los Angeles, "Sir, would you call up the Olympic Committee?" Because it was at that time, President Obama will not take their phone call and we're going to get the Olympics in Los Angeles.
(01:06:07)
And by the way, they've recommitted to Los Angeles at a level that I was very worried about that. And they've … the opposite. Somebody could have said, "Well, we're going to do it someplace else until …" They have actually recommitted. They're going to make it bigger and better than ever. So I want to let you know that. But I had the Olympics. So I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup and the 250, but that one I didn't get, but it was there. It was in this term.
(01:06:32)
And I ran an election and we did fantastic in 2016. We did much better, millions and millions, tens of millions, but millions and millions of votes better and bad things happened. And I didn't get that one. And I said, "You know, when I originally signed the Olympics," I said, "I won't be able to even be president." And I got the Olympics because if I didn't … When I spoke with the people, the organizing committee and the people in different parts of the world, they asked me to do it because the president wouldn't do it.
(01:07:01)
I was president elect and I gave them a talk. I couldn't get them off the phone. They were starving for love. And the bottom line, they gave us the Olympics and I said, "Isn't it sad I won't be president?" Then we had the election result and now I'm president for the Olympics and for the World Cup. So I'm very happy about that, Johnny, thank you very much. Thank you. I'll be there. I promise I'll be there.
Richard (01:07:22):
And by the way, Mr. President, backstage, you have a gift from Johnny. He gave us the first ball with your name, which will be played for the World Cup in America.
Donald J. Trump (01:07:34):
That's great. It's going to be great. Thank you, Johnny, very much.
Richard (01:07:37):
I doubt that any day you will take a sabbatical year. But if you could take a sabbatical year, Mr. President, what unconventional thing would you do?
Donald J. Trump (01:07:46):
What was the word?
Richard (01:07:47):
Sabbatical. You don't work for one year.
Donald J. Trump (01:07:49):
Oh, sabbatical. I thought you said sabbath. It's a big difference. It's almost the opposite when you think about it, right? I think what I do is, look, what I'm doing now is the most exciting job in the world. It's a hard job, not an easy job. It's a nasty job. It could be a lot easier with, I think that the news media has to straighten themselves out because people are getting it. They're losing tremendous popularity and they've lost their prestige and they've lost their credibility.
(01:08:21)
And I think it's a very important thing, the news media. But I think they have to straighten themselves out because the people are going around them now. They have so many different things with Elon, with X, which was a big thing. And we have Truth, which has been fantastic. And we have so many other things that you don't really need traditional. But I will tell you that there is just nothing I could do to enjoy my life, whether it's that or anything else that you'd ask, because this is the ultimate.
(01:08:49)
I mean, I had to make a big decision and it was a very risky decision because if I would've lost, my life would've been a much different life. It would've a very nasty life. They were going after me at levels that nobody's ever seen before. Not Andrew Jackson, not Abraham Lincoln. The historians say that the president that was treated the worst by far by the media and overall was Andrew Jackson. In fact, his wife died of heartbreak. They were treated really rough. And Abraham Lincoln was second, but he had a civil war. You can understand that.
(01:09:22)
But nobody was treated like me, nobody. And I will tell you, you learn a lot about yourself. But there's nothing I'd rather do. I had to make a decision, do I do this? Because if I lost, it would've been very, very bad. It was dangerous, actually. Very dangerous in so many different ways. And I decided to do it. And I said, "I have to win because if I don't …" When I spoke to a friend of mine the other night, he said, "Had you lost, it would've been very …" It was actually Sean Hannity just before we did the interview last night. He said, "Boy, if you would've lost it, you would've had a tough life. You would've had a very tough life."
(01:09:57)
So there was a certain amount of courage involved in this decision to run. And it's a great honor to win by this much, to win all seven swing states, the popular vote. Popular vote doesn't get won that much by Republicans for whatever reason. I think that's changing because again, we're the party of common sense and they're the party of some real bad things. And I think they'll change. I think they have to change. It would be wonderful. I'm going to be having lunch with some of the Democrats next week, and it would be wonderful if we could work together. I think working together would be great, but they have to change. You can't get elected on the programs that they want, and that's really what America wants to see. So there's nothing I'd rather do than what I'm doing right now.
Richard (01:10:41):
When we started this conference, Mr. President, when we started this conference, Yasir and I, His Royal Highness The Crown Prince told us, "I want that to be the place where people will come to understand where to invest in terms of geographies and sector." So what is the best investment you have made in your personal [inaudible 01:10:59] Mr. President?
Donald J. Trump (01:11:00):
Well, I was involved in real estate from most of my life and it was guys like Witkoff will tell you, I was really good at it and I was successful at it, very successful at it. I've been involved in things prior to being president. But during the four years, during the last four years, I followed the trends and I've made a lot of money with following some of these trends. And again, it's something that you do. I really believe that some people have instinct.
(01:11:33)
I think I've always had an instinct for making money. I make money. And I went into show business. I had one of the most successful shows on television. I wrote books and they were all bestsellers. Virtually every book was a big bestseller, some really big bestsellers. And so I don't know, it's whatever I do, I just want to make it successful. It's very important to me.
(01:11:53)
There are many ways to make money. You can be in many different fields, and a lot of them is being in the right country. If you're in a certain country, our country is actually getting very bad, a very dangerous place actually. Bad things were happening. But if you're in a certain country, you have a chance to do well. And no matter how good you are, if you were born into the wrong country, you're not going to make money now. You can do other things. You can attain power, I guess. Maybe it's the wrong kind of power, but it's power.
(01:12:24)
But being in the right country where you have the right incentives and entrepreneurship, et cetera. And America has always been sort of at the top or one of the top, but always pretty much at the top. But it was losing that position and I think losing it rapidly. This last administration, look, I wouldn't have run if I thought Biden was doing a good job. I wouldn't have run because, as I said, it was very dangerous to run in a lot of ways. In fact, my ear will show that when you look at it closely. My ear, I have that throbbing feeling every once in a while, but it was dangerous in a lot of different ways. But he was so bad that I had no choice but to do it.
(01:13:08)
If I thought he was doing a great job, I wouldn't have run and I would be very happy. I actually wanted him to do a good job. I was saying, "Do this, do that." I'm telling them, "Do things." They should have done what I said. But I would've been very happy not to have run and frankly to have seen somebody do a good job. But our country was going to hell and I really had to run.
Richard (01:13:33):
If you were a historical ruler, would you prefer to rule during war or peace?
Donald J. Trump (01:13:39):
Well, I want to be, again, a peacemaker and I want to keep us out of war. But sometimes to do that, you have to have a very strong country. You have to have a very strong military. And as I said, we have a much stronger military than anyone would know. We have the best equipment, and I bought a lot of it. I rebuilt our military in the first four years. I rebuilt it. We gave a lot of it away to Afghanistan, to the Taliban stupidly. But that's a very small amount relative. It was billions and billions, but it's still a very small amount, relatively to what we built. But I rebuilt, largely rebuilt our military.
(01:14:12)
Now I'm going to have to do it again because so much has been given away. So much has been treated so badly. But to keep peace, you really have to. I have a thing, strength through … And I mean it, you really have it. You have strength and you need the strength, but it's really peace through strength. Because without the strength, it's going to be very hard to have peace because you're going to be taken over. Bad things are going to happen. So you really want to have peace through strength, and that's where I've been.
(01:14:41)
Having strength, having power and that sense to protect yourself and your people is a very important thing. Hopefully you don't have to use that power. I will tell you, I was dealing with President Putin very successfully on denuclearization. We were talking about it very seriously. And then COVID came and lots of things came. And we had also talked to China about it.
(01:15:02)
Now, Russia and us have the biggest nuclear by far. China is not close, but they will be close in three or four years or five years, they'll be equal. But we were going to talk to China and I spoke to President Xi about it very successfully. I think we were going to denuclearize it. We would've had to get the smaller nuclear powers of which there are four, three maybe, but four probably to do something. We would've been able to do that. But I was having very strong talks with President Putin about denuclearization.
(01:15:36)
And if you're president, you get presentations about what we're building, what we're having, the power of weapons, the power of many things besides weapons per se. When I saw the power of nuclear weapons and we can never let that happen. If that happens, the world will be destroyed. The power is so enormous. You look at Hiroshima, you look at Nagasaki, multiply that times 500 times and the world would be destroyed. So you want somebody as your president or you want somebody as your leader that understands that we just can't let that happen.
(01:16:21)
We can't let other countries get nuclear weapons. Not only Iran. Iran is a good example and maybe the one that people think about, but we can't let that happen. The power of weaponry today is so enormous that the world would disintegrate, so we can't let it happen.
Richard (01:16:42):
Mr. President, if you had to describe United States of America in just three words, what would they be?
Donald J. Trump (01:16:50):
In three words?
Richard (01:16:51):
Three words.
Donald J. Trump (01:16:54):
Love, respect, and strength. That's a tough question. That might be my best answer, Yasir. That reminds me of high school, that one. But that may have been the toughest question, actually. Do you think Joe Biden could have done that? I don't think so. I don't think so.
Richard (01:17:16):
We're almost at the end, Mr. President. But talking about United States of America, what is one cultural habit in the US business that the rest of the world could learn from? What is the best practice that [inaudible 01:17:31]?
Donald J. Trump (01:17:31):
Well, I think we love our families but I think a lot of the world loves their families. I was speaking to the head of Mexico because I complain constantly about people pouring in. Now our border is the strongest border we've ever had. We've gone from the worst border ever in history to the strongest border. But I was speaking to the president of Mexico, a very wonderful woman actually. And I said, we were talking about drugs, "You can't let people come through your country and come into the country." I was not that nice but they understood what I was saying.
(01:18:04)
And she said something that really got me. I said, "You're not a big drug-taking nation?" And she said, "No, we are not a consumer." And I said, "A consumer, what an interesting word. 'We're not a consumer nation. We're not a consumer of drugs.'" I said, "And why is that?" She said, "Well, we have very strong family values." I said, "But we do too. We do too. Our families are devastated by what's happening with fentanyl and we're going to make a deal with China that were not letting that happen anymore."
(01:18:38)
And I had a deal, by the way, before I left, I had a deal with President Xi where they were going to give their maximum penalty to anybody making fentanyl and sending it into the United States. And their maximum penalty is the death penalty, and it would've stopped. But when the election turned out to be a rigged election, but that's okay. When election turned out to be, it was an election that shouldn't have happened. All the things that happened, I'll give you an example. We wouldn't have had October 7th Israel attack. We wouldn't have had Ukraine and Russia fighting. We wouldn't have had inflation. We wouldn't have had all of these things that happened.
(01:19:14)
But in speaking with her, she said about family values. I said, "Well, you're not really saying anything there because we have great families too. We have great family values." She said, "Plus, we advertise a lot." I said, "Oh, you mean you advertise about how bad drugs are?" "Yes, we do. We spend a lot of money on advertising." And I said, "Unbelievable." That was such a great conversation because we're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars advertising how bad drugs are so that kids don't use them, that they chew up your brain, they destroy your teeth, your skin, your everything. And I thanked her for that.
(01:19:48)
I make so many calls and I never learn anything from anybody. I know everything, and I never learn anything from anybody. And I spoke to this woman as soon as she said it, she didn't have to say exactly what, I said, "Exactly. What a great idea." And I saw pieces of it. We're going to go in with a $100 million and then another a $100 million initially. But I saw some of the ads and they are really violent. I said, "You have to make them strong. Your skin practically comes off after a period of time. You lose your hearing. You lose your teeth." I mean, it is terrible and we show this happening to people.
(01:20:25)
And I think we did very well with, we had Blue Ribbon committees headed up by the First Lady of the United States and a lot of other people that they have no idea the viciousness of these cartels and these people. And their smarts. I mean, they're very smart, tough people. Making a fortune, by the way, an absolute fortune. But we got it down 18%, which was a record. But 18% is not great when you think about it. I think we could get it down 50 or 55, or maybe even 60% with advertising. So she really gave me something. I was going to call her and tell her that she did, but now I don't have to call her because she's going to be seeing this right now.
(01:21:05)
So to the president of Mexico, thank you very much. I appreciate it. But we're going to do a great advertising campaign saying how bad it is, how drugs are so bad for you.
Richard (01:21:18):
My last question, Mr. President, you have mentioned briefly in your speech about the legacy. What would you like your legacy to be, if you can tell us more about it?
Donald J. Trump (01:21:30):
That I came into a country that was great but is in trouble, and I made America great again and I got it out of trouble. And people respect America now, and we were a country of peace and we brought peace to the rest of the world.
Richard (01:21:50):
Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Donald J. Trump (01:21:52):
Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
MUSIC (01:21:53):
Young man, there's no need to feel down.
(01:22:27)
I said young man, pick yourself off-