Speaker 1 (00:00):
(silence)
Donald Trump (13:22):
… and why now I can say that it can't come soon enough. Frankly, we want to keep bad people out of our country. The Biden Administration allowed some horrendous people and we're getting them out one by one and we're not stopping until we get them out. We have thousands of murderers. I even hate to say this in front of the Chancellor because you have a little problem too with some of the people that were allowed into your country getting.
Friedrich Merz (13:47):
It's getting smaller.
Donald Trump (13:47):
It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It shouldn't have happened. I told her it shouldn't have happened what she did, but you have your own difficulty with that. And we do and we're moving them out and we're moving them out very strongly. But it can't come fast enough. We want to get them out, we want to get them out now. We don't want to have other bad people coming into our country, but using the word bad, I'm being nice. Okay, question, please.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Mr. President, you put out on Truth Social a post regarding your conversation with President Xi.
Donald Trump (14:17):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Can you talk about whether or not you feel that trade talks, trade relations are back on track after appearing to be a little bit off track last week?
Donald Trump (14:27):
A little bit off track. It was only the complexity. It's pretty complex stuff. We had a very good conversation with President Xi a little while ago, just before your arrival. In fact, we just hung up and they said you're here. I said, "That's pretty good. Two great leaders of the world in a very short period of time." We had a very good talk and we've straightened out any complexity. It's very complex stuff and we straighten it out. The agreement was we're going to have Scott and Howard and Jameson will be going and meeting with their top people and continue it forward. But no, I think we have everything. I think we're in very good shape with China and the trade deal. We have a deal with China, as you know, but we were straightening out some of the points having to do mostly with rare earth magnets and some other things.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
So those reduced trade tariff rates, they remain in effect?
Donald Trump (15:28):
Yeah, we have the deal. I mean, we've had a deal. We announced the deal and we'll be, I guess you could say, I wouldn't even say finalizing it up, Scott. I would say we have a deal and we're going to just make sure that everybody understands what the deal is. Okay. We had a really good conversation. By the way, he invited me to China and I invited him here and we both accepted. So I'll be going there with the First lady at a certain point and he'll be coming here hopefully with the First Lady of China. Go ahead please.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Did you talk about the Chinese students? Are you allowing them to come to the U.S.?
Donald Trump (16:07):
Okay. Chinese students are coming. No problem, no problem. It's our honor to have them, frankly. Look, we want have want to have foreign students, but we want them to be checked. In the case of Harvard and Columbia and others, all we want to do is see their list. There's no problem with that. This is anybody outside of our country, international students, because when we see some of the people that we've been watching, we say, "Where do these people come from?" How is that possible? No, we want to have foreign students come. We're very honored by it, but we want to see their list. Harvard didn't want to give us the list. They're going to be giving us the list now. I think they're starting to behave, actually, if you want to know the truth.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
Mr. President on Russia, are you willing to put more pressure on Putin to end the war by imposing new sanctions on Russia and also on China?
Donald Trump (17:00):
Well, remember, I'm the one that ended Nord Stream 2 going to a place called Germany come to think of and I'm sorry I did that. I don't know. But I ended Nord Stream 2. Nobody else did. And then when Biden came in, he immediately approved it. That's essentially the largest pipeline in the world going to Germany and other countries, and by the way, we have so much oil and gas, you will not be able to buy it all. I mean, literally we have so much, and I hope we're going to make that a part of our trade deal because we have more than anybody else. We have actually the most by far in the world, probably double what anyone else says, so we'll work on that. I'm sure that's something we'll discuss today.
Speaker 6 (17:40):
Mr. President, what do you expect from Germany and what do you expect from the Chancellor?
Donald Trump (17:45):
Well, first of all, I'm glad to meet because I've been dealing with the Chancellor and he's a, very good man to deal with. He's difficult, I would say. Can I say that? It's a positive.
Friedrich Merz (17:56):
Go ahead.
Donald Trump (17:56):
You wouldn't want me to say you're easy, right?
Friedrich Merz (17:58):
No.
Donald Trump (17:59):
Yeah. He's a very great representative of Germany. I think all we want is just going to have a good relationship. The rest will just sort of follow very easily. We'll have a good trade deal. I mean, I guess that will be mostly determined by the European Union-
Friedrich Merz (18:14):
Yeah, that's true.
Donald Trump (18:14):
… but you're a very big part of that, so you'll be involved. But we'll end up hopefully with a trade deal or we'll do something. We'll do the tariffs. I mean, I'm okay with the tariffs or we make a deal with the trade and I guess that's what we're discussing now. Back there, please go ahead.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Is Germany doing enough on defense, Mr. President? Is Germany doing enough on defense?
Donald Trump (18:41):
What?
Speaker 5 (18:41):
Defense spending?
Speaker 7 (18:42):
Is Germany doing enough on defense spending? Is Germany doing enough a defense?
Speaker 5 (18:47):
The Chancellor wants to spend 3.5 billion-
Donald Trump (18:48):
Well, I don't know. I mean, I haven't discussed it very much. I know that you're spending more money on defense now and quite a bit more money and that's a positive thing.
Friedrich Merz (18:58):
Yeah, definitely.
Donald Trump (18:59):
I'm not sure the General MacArthur would've said it's positive. He wouldn't like it, but I sort of think it's good. You understand what I mean by that?
Friedrich Merz (19:07):
Absolutely, I understand.
Donald Trump (19:08):
He made a statement, "Never let Germany rearm." And I said, I always think about that when he says, "Sir, we're spending more money on defense." They say, "Oh, is that a good thing or a bad thing?" I think it's a good thing, but at least to a certain point, there'll be a point when I'll say "Please don't arm anymore. If you don't mind." We'll be watching him. I'll get it.
Speaker 8 (19:32):
On Biden, Mr President.
Donald Trump (19:34):
Yeah, Biden. You said Biden.
Speaker 8 (19:34):
You say your predecessor dismissed your autopen investigation. He said he made all the decisions during his presidency. I'm curious reaction to his dismissal?
Donald Trump (19:45):
Well, look, the autopen, I think is the big scandal outside of the rigged Election of 2020. I think the biggest scandal of the last many years is the autopen and who's using it? I happen to think I know because I'm here and I'm not a big autopen person, fortunately, I'm glad. I'm very glad. It's an easy way out, but it's a very bad thing, very dangerous. I sign important documents. Usually when they put documents in front of you, they're important. Even if you're signing ambassadorships, I consider that important, I think it's inappropriate you have somebody that's devoting four years of their life or more to being an ambassador, I think that person deserves to get a real signature, not an autopen signature, and I can tell autopen easily. I can look at it like two little pinholes from pulling the paper, right?
Friedrich Merz (20:34):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (20:35):
You always see the pinholes. It's real easy to tell about autopen. I think it's very disrespectful to people when they get an autopen signature. Outside autopen to me are used when thousands of letters come in from young people all over the country and you want to get them back, and people use autopens for that, to send a little signature at the bottom of a letter where you have thousands of them. We get thousands of letters a week and it's not possible to do. I'd like to do it myself, but you can't do it.
(21:07)
To me, that's where autopens start and stop. But I'm sure that he didn't know many of the things. Look, he was never for open borders. He was never for transgender for everybody. He was never for men playing in women's sports. I mean, all of these things that changed so radically, I don't think he had any idea that what was… Frankly, I said it during the debate and I say it now, he didn't have much of an idea what was going on. I mean, essentially whoever used the autopen was the president, and that is wrong, it's illegal, it's so bad and it's so disrespectful to our country.
Speaker 9 (21:49):
Mr. President, will you leave your troops in Germany? And if I may ask a question to the Chancellor answer in German, for the German audience, how is your first encounter been?
Donald Trump (22:03):
The answer is yes. We'll talk about that, but if they'd like to have them there-
Speaker 9 (22:06):
[inaudible 00:22:08]
Donald Trump (22:08):
… we have a lot of them. About 45,000. It's a lot of troops. It's a city when you think of-
Friedrich Merz (22:13):
More than that, yeah.
Donald Trump (22:14):
That's good economic development. They're highly paid troops and they spend a lot of money in Germany, but the relationship with Germany is very important. Yeah, we'll be doing that. No problem.
Friedrich Merz (22:24):
May I say a few words in German to the Germans public?
Donald Trump (22:41):
Yes, please.
Friedrich Merz (22:41):
So [German 00:22:42]
Donald Trump (22:46):
Because you speak such good English, is it as good as your German, would you say? Do you feel more comfortable in your mother tongue?
Friedrich Merz (22:52):
No, it's not my mother tongue, but I try to understand almost everything and to speak as good as I can.
Donald Trump (22:58):
Yeah, very good. It's an achievement actually.
Friedrich Merz (23:03):
Thank you.
Donald Trump (23:03):
[inaudible 00:23:05]
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Thank you, Mr. President. The criticism that I've seen, and I'm sure you've seen, regarding Elon Musk and your big beautiful bill, what's your reaction to that? Do you think it in any way hurts passage in the Senate, which of course, what is your seeking?
Donald Trump (23:17):
Well, look, I've always liked Elon and I was very surprised you saw the words he had from me, the words, and he hasn't said anything about me that's bad. I'd rather have him criticize me than the bill because the bill is incredible. It's the biggest cut in the history of our country. It's about 1.6 trillion in cuts. It's the biggest tax cut, you would say people's taxes will go way down, but it's the biggest tax cut in history. We are doing things in that bill that are unbelievable, and when you look at what we're doing for small businesses, for people, for middle income people, all of the things that we're doing, nobody's ever seen anything like it. And Elon's upset because we took the EV mandate, which was a lot of money for electric vehicles, and they're having a hard time, the electric vehicles, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidy and Elon knew this from the beginning.
(24:22)
He knew it for a long time ago. That's been in there. I would say, JD, that hasn't changed. That's been right from the beginning, I think, Mr. Secretary that hasn't changed at all, right from the beginning. But I know that it disturbed him. He wanted, and rightfully he recommended somebody from that he, I guess, knew very well. I'm sure he respected him to run NASA and I didn't think it was appropriate and he happened to be a Democrat, totally Democrat. And I say, "Look, we won. We get certain privileges and one of the privileges, we don't have to appoint a Democrat." NASA is very important. We have great people. General Caine is going to be picking somebody with our… We'll be checking them out, seeing, but he wanted that person, a certain person, and we said, "No," and I can understand why he's upset.
(25:17)
Remember he was here for a long time. You saw a man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval Desk and even with the black eye. I said, "Do you want a little makeup? We'll get you little makeup." But he said, "No, I don't think so." Which is interesting and very nice. He wants to be who he is. So you could make that statement too, I guess. Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore. I was surprised because you were here, everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful send-off. He said wonderful things about me. You couldn't have nicer, said the best thing. He's worn the hat, "Trump was right about everything," and I am right about the
Donald Trump (26:00):
… the great big, beautiful bill. We call it a great big, beautiful bill because that's what it is. And again, biggest tax cuts in history, biggest economic development moves anywhere. We've never done anything like it. Business is spurred. And I don't know if you've seen the numbers, but the numbers came out. Even the CBO, which is run by Democrats, said that we're going to be doing… You know, I'd like you to discuss it, the 2.8 trillion that CBO. This is a group of people that are Democrats. They're very hostile to us. They just came out with phenomenal numbers, what it does. You want to mention that, Scott?
Scott Bessent (26:38):
Yes, sir. So what we've seen is we keep hearing from the CBO that there's going to be a large deficit from the bill, which we disagree with, but using the CBO scoring, they came out and scored the tariff revenue. We think it'll be the minimum of 2.8 trillion over the 10-year window, which actually puts the bill in surplus if you include the tariff revenue, which they won't do.
Donald Trump (27:02):
It gives you a tremendous surplus, but we're not allowed to use that for some reason. They say scoring. Nobody knows what scoring means. Maybe a couple of people, but nobody. Somebody sits in the background they say, "Well, we're not going to allow that." They're not allowing other things that we have that are tremendously profitable for our country.
(27:20)
But if you saw the other day, CNBC, they came out with numbers. And the people on the show, very good people, I've watched them for a long time, they couldn't believe the numbers, how good they are. The numbers were incredible. And that was personal income and also very low inflation. We have very low inflation. We're down to 2% now and maybe even lower than that. And when I took it over, it was a mess.
(27:43)
Remember, we had the worst inflation probably in the history of our country. They say 48 years, but let's say that's… I think it's worse than that. So we had the worst inflation in the history of our country under the Biden administration. Now we're down to a beautiful number, 2%. You'd actually like to keep it there. Better than zero is 2%. It's going down maybe to one, and 1% is like perfect. That's perfect. You don't want to have zero for certain reasons that nobody is very interested to listen to.
(28:16)
But we have almost perfect inflation. Grocery prices are down, everything. Remember eggs? Eggs. We weren't going to buy another egg for the next 20 years they were so expensive, right? Remember? You guys all hit me about eggs. Eggs have come down 400%. Everybody has eggs now. They're having eggs for breakfast again.
(28:34)
But if you look at gasoline, very important. I think always the most important because it's the energy is the biggest factor. That's what happened. He screwed up our energy policy and everything went up because energy went up. But now energy is way down. And they have states where you're at $1.98 a gallon for gasoline.
(28:55)
So the costs have come way down. And one of the things I ran on was that. I ran on the border. We have the best border in the history of our country, 99.99%. It was last week three people came in. Two of them for medical reasons. We let them in because one of them had a heart attack. I think that was the nice thing to do. And one of them had something else. So we've never had… I had very good numbers for four years, but we've really topped it. And I want to thank Kristi and Tom Homan. They've done a fantastic job. But nobody mentions that anymore.
(29:32)
Remember, a few months ago, the border was a total disaster. People were coming in by the hundreds of thousands of people a day, a week, a month. I mean, we had a month, two million people came in one month. The border was being overrun, and a lot of bad people, criminals, murderers, drug dealers. We had some of the worst people in the world coming in from all over the world. It's totally closed. And you know what? People are coming into our country, but they're coming in legally. So we've done a great job.
(30:04)
Elon knew that. Elon endorsed me very strongly. He actually went up and campaigned for me. I think I would've won. Susie would say I would've won Pennsylvania easily anyway. Even if the governor ran, the real governor, not the governor from Minnesota who's, I mean, he's a sick puppy that guy. That poor guy, feel sorry for him. But they made a bad choice with him. But if you pick Shapiro or anybody else. I spoke to him recently about his house being set on fire, which was terrible. But if they picked him, I would've won Pennsylvania. I won it by a lot.
(30:39)
But I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden, he had a problem. And he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate because that's billions and billions of dollars. And it really is unfair. We want to have cars of all types. Electric. We want to have electric, but we want to have gasoline, combustion. We want to have different, we want to have hybrids. We want to be able to sell everything. And when that was cut and Congress wanted to cut it, he became a little bit different. And I can understand that. But he knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody. And he never had a problem until right after he left.
(31:28)
And if you saw the statements he made about me, which I'm sure you can get very easily, it's very fresh on tape. He said the most beautiful things about me. And he hasn't said bad about me personally, but I'm sure that'll be next. But I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot.
Speaker 10 (31:44):
Mr. President, I just want to clarify, did he raise any of these concerns with you privately before he raised them publicly? And this is the guy you put in charge of cutting spending. Should people not take him seriously about spending now. Are you saying this is all sour grapes?
Donald Trump (31:57):
No, he worked hard and he did a good job. And I'll be honest, I think he misses the place. I think he got out there and all of a sudden he wasn't in this beautiful Oval Office and he was… He's got nice offices too. But there's something about this one.
(32:10)
I was telling the Chancellor, this is where it is. People come in here, even from Germany, they come in and they-
Friedrich Merz (32:16):
Even from Germany, right.
Donald Trump (32:17):
… walk into the Oval Office, and it's just a special place. World War I it started and it ended here. And World War II and so many other things. Everything big comes right from this beautiful space. It's now much more beautiful than it was six months ago. A lot of good things are happening in this room.
(32:37)
And I'll tell you, he's not the first. People leave my administration and they love us. And then at some point, they miss it so badly. And some of them embrace it, and some of them actually become hostile. I don't know what it is. It's sort of Trump Derangement Syndrome, I guess they call it. But we have it with others too. They leave and they wake up in the morning and the glamour is gone, the whole world is different, and they become hostile. I don't know what it is. Someday you'll write a book about it and you'll let us know. Yeah.
Speaker 11 (33:13):
Mr. President, speaking of ending wars in this room, you were very critical of Vladimir Putin a couple of days ago. What kind of play is he playing from your perspective? What are his [inaudible 00:33:23]
Donald Trump (33:23):
Well, look, he got hit. He's been doing hitting, so I understand it. But he got hit hard. And I don't think he's playing games. I think he… I've always said he wanted the whole thing. I thought he wanted the entire, everything having to do with Ukraine. That's something that would've never happened if I were president. The election was rigged, I didn't get to be president, but I got to be president now.
(33:49)
And I think it's a much more important presidency other than a couple of things like that. The war would have never happened. The war with Ukraine, with Putin would've never happened, ever. Not even a chance. And it didn't happen for four years. And it wasn't thought of. I used to talk to him about Ukraine a lot. It was the apple of his eye, but he would've never done what he did. And I think mistakes were made by him. But I think mistakes were made by other people.
(34:17)
The President should have never allowed that war. Biden should have never allowed that war to happen. If you had the right guy in here, that war would've never happened. Israel would've never happened with Hamas. That would've never happened. The attack on Israel would've never happened because Iran was broke. They had no money. They had no money to give to Hamas or Hezbollah or anybody else. And all of that would've never happened.
(34:43)
Inflation wouldn't have happened. It was caused mostly by energy. And the Biden administration messed up my great energy policy. We were down into the 1.90 a gallon, and it would've never happened. It was caused by energy and their bad spending on the Green New Scam and other things that they spent on. But all of those things would've never happened.
(35:03)
But maybe most importantly, the war, Chancellor, with Russia would never have happened with Ukraine. It was something that would've… I dealt with Putin a lot. There was no chance, zero. And a lot of people say, "How do you know?" For four years it didn't happen. There was never a chance of it happening. And he understood the consequences. Now it's a shame.
(35:30)
And when you see all of those people. They came out with a report today that millions of people, millions of people died, much more than people thought. And I've been saying that for a long time. The amount of death in that war is far greater than the news has been reporting, or frankly, that either side has been reporting. It's a very sad thing.
(35:53)
And I can tell you, just speaking for the Chancellor, because we speak about it, he feels the same way. He wants to see it ended. Would you like to say something?
Friedrich Merz (36:00):
Absolutely. And I'm here, Mr. President, to talk with you later on, on how we could contribute to that goal. And we all are looking for measures and for instruments to bring this terrible war to an end. And may I remind you that we are having June 6th tomorrow. This is D-Day anniversary when the Americans once ended a war in Europe. And I think this is in your hand, in specific in ours.
Donald Trump (36:35):
That was not a pleasant day for you.
Friedrich Merz (36:36):
No, that was not a pleasant… Well-
Donald Trump (36:36):
This is not a great day.
Friedrich Merz (36:37):
… in the long run, Mr. President, this was the liberation of my country from Nazi dictatorship.
Donald Trump (36:44):
That's true. That's true.
Friedrich Merz (36:44):
And we know what we owe you. But this is the reason why I'm saying that America is again in a very strong position to do something on this war and ending this war. So let's talk about what we can do jointly, and we are ready to do what we can. And you know that we gave support to Ukraine and that we are looking for more pressure on Russia. The European Union did, and we should talk about that.
Donald Trump (37:09):
We will talk about it and it's good timing. The numbers for our country are through the roof, the economic numbers, because of the election and because of tariffs and other things, a lot of things. But we've had some of the best numbers we've ever had. They were reported yesterday, the day before and even today. Our country's doing really well. I think that one of the things you'd be most interested in is that six months ago, we were having a hard time getting anybody to join our military. I mean, they just couldn't do it. The numbers were record low. We couldn't get people to join the military. It wasn't me. This was before I got there, the past administration. But six months ago, a year ago, the numbers were record low. You couldn't get them to join. That included the police, and you couldn't get them to join. Now we just hit the highest number in the history of our country, we think, but very close, but the highest in the history of our country recruitment, joining the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, police forces all over the country.
Friedrich Merz (38:16):
What did you do for that? What was the reason?
Donald Trump (38:16):
Spirit. They love our country again. You're going to do the same thing. Spirit.
Speaker 12 (38:21):
Mr. President…
Donald Trump (38:22):
We have great spirit is back in our country and it's very simple. It was only, Susie, six months ago, right, that you got reports. You're the one that released them, that you couldn't get anybody to join the military. And now we're stocked. Every service now is packed. And we have waiting lists of people trying to get in, as good as we've ever had in the history of our country. So that's an honor.
Friedrich Merz (38:45):
Yes.
Donald Trump (38:45):
That's a great honor. Yeah.
Speaker 13 (38:47):
Mr. President, on the war…
Donald Trump (38:48):
You've asked. You've had enough. Go ahead.
Speaker 14 (38:49):
Mr. President, so would you consider to put more sanctions on Russia? Because this discussion is going on now for weeks and months, and you tweeted
Donald Trump (39:00):
Yeah, when I see…
Speaker 14 (39:00):
… tweeted about it once, but then nothing happened. So, what would you do?
Donald Trump (39:03):
Yeah. When I see the moment when we're not going to make a deal, when this thing won't stop-
Speaker 14 (39:07):
Is there a deadline in that moment?
Donald Trump (39:09):
… at that moment… Yeah, it's in my brain, the deadline. When I see the moment where it's not going to stop, and I'm sure you're going to do the same thing, we'll be very, very tough. And it could be on both countries, to be honest, it takes two to tango, but we are going to be very tough, whether it's Russia or anybody else, we're going to be very tough. That's a bloodbath that's going on over there. And when I see the moment where I say, well, they're going to just keep fighting. I gave the analogy yesterday when I spoke to President Putin, I had a two-hour and fifteen-minute call with him, sometimes, and this is me speaking maybe in a negative sense, but sometimes you see two young children fighting like crazy. They hate each other and they're fighting in a park and you try and pull them apart, they don't want to be pulled. Sometimes you're better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart.
(40:09)
And I gave that analogy to Putin yesterday. I said, "President, maybe you're going to have to keep fighting and suffering a lot, because both sides are suffering, before you pull them apart before they're able to be pulled apart. But it's a pretty known analogy. You have two kids, they fight, fight, fight, sometimes you let them fight for a little while. You see it in hockey, you see it in sports. The referees let them go for a couple of seconds, let them go for a little while before you pull them apart. And maybe, and I said it, and maybe that's a negative because we're saying go, but a lot of bad blood, there's some bad blood between the two. I have to deal with it. And the Chancellor has to deal with it. It's incredible the level of, there's a great hatred between those two men, but between the warring parties. A great hatred.
Speaker 15 (41:03):
[inaudible 00:41:04] you say and believe apparently that there is no immediate peace?
Donald Trump (41:07):
What?
Speaker 15 (41:07):
That there is no immediate peace that will [inaudible 00:41:10].
Donald Trump (41:09):
Well, I can't. I'd love to have immediate if I could, but we don't have immediate. I'd love to have that, I'd like it to start right now. We would leave a room if we knew the war could end, we'd say, forget about you guys. Forget about trade, right? We'd say, let's go settle it. There's some additional fighting that's going to go on. He attacked and they attacked pretty harshly, they went deep into Russia. And he actually told me, I mean I made it very clear, he said, "We have no choice but to attack based on that, and it's probably not going to be pretty, I don't like it." I said, "Don't do it. You shouldn't do it. You should stop it." But again, there's a lot of hatred. And I'm very proud of the fact that with India and Pakistan, I was able to stop that. And those are nuclear powers and that would have really… That was getting close to being out of hand. And I spoke to some very talented people on both sides, very good people on both sides, and I said, "We're dealing with you on trade, Pakistan and India, right now." I said, "We're not going to deal with you on trade if you're going to go shooting each other and whipping out nuclear weapons that maybe even affect us." Because you know that nuclear dust blows across oceans very quickly. It affects us. And I said, "If you're going to do that, we're not going to do any trade deals." And you know what? I got that war stopped. Now I hope we don't go back and we find out that they started, but I don't think they will.
(42:45)
They were both good. They were well represented there. I want to congratulate both countries because as you know, the leader of India, who's a great guy, was here a few weeks ago. We had some great talks. We're doing a trade deal. And Pakistan, likewise, they have very strong leadership. Some people won't like when I say that, but it is what it is. And they stopped that war. Now, am I going to get credit? I'll never get credit for anything. They don't give me credit for anything. But nobody else could have done it. I stopped it. I was very proud of that.
(43:22)
I wish we could do the same thing with Ukraine and Russia. And at some point it'll happen. I believe that. And if it doesn't happen, or if I see somebody's out of line, if Russia's out of line, we'll be, you'll be amazed how tough. Remember this, they like to say that I'm friends with… I'm not friends with anybody. I'm friends with you. I'm not friends with any… I want the right thing to happen for our country, for everybody, for humanity.
(43:51)
But I'm the one that stopped the pipeline. It's called Nord Stream 2. Until I came along, nobody ever heard, not one person in this room, ever heard of Nord Stream 2. You probably did because it went to Germany. He's the only one-
Friedrich Merz (44:03):
Knowing that this was a mistake [inaudible 00:44:05].
Donald Trump (44:04):
… but I stopped it. I stopped it. Yeah. And you've said that openly it was a mistake because, and I used to go with Angela. I'd say, "Well, wait a minute. We are spending all this money to defend you against Russia, and then you're giving Russia billions of dollars a month. What kind of a deal is that?" Which was… But you said it better than anybody else. I appreciate it. But I'm the one that stopped it. And that was the biggest economic development job, if you want to call it that, in the history, think of it, in the history of Russia. That was a massive, it's the biggest pipeline in the world, going to go all over Europe, not only to Germany, they're in Germany, but then they were branching off all over to Europe. Nobody ever heard of, not one person of you, heard of it. And I stopped it. It was dead.
(44:48)
And then they say, I'm friends with Putin. I got along with him. He respected me, I respected him. It would've never happened. But I stopped Nord Stream 2. When Biden came in almost the first week, he approved it, he let it be built. And then they say that I wasn't tough on Russia. Putin said to me, "You're not tough on Russia? You stopped the biggest, most important job we've ever done. You stopped it." And Biden came in and he let it be built. And I'll tell you what, I'll never forget the day I had it totally stopped. They weren't building. They gave up on it. They weren't able to. And then Biden came in and he let him build. I couldn't believe it. Okay. One or two questions more, please. Any questions? Any question for the Chancellor? [inaudible 00:45:33] Go ahead. For the Chancellor.
Speaker 16 (45:35):
[inaudible 00:45:35] that would be one.
Donald Trump (45:36):
I like his answers much better.
Speaker 16 (45:39):
Would you continue to support Ukraine?
Donald Trump (45:42):
Yeah, I'm with Ukraine. We just signed a big deal on rare earth with Ukraine. And we You know what I'm for? Stopping killing, really. That's what I'm for. Again, a war that would've never started, should have never started, I want to see the killing stop. We spent $350 billion, much more than Europe, but Europe spent a lot also. And they spent way over a hundred billion.
Friedrich Merz (46:07):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (46:08):
So you're talking about close to $500 billion went into that whole thing. And it's not even the money. And I know with you too, it's a lot of money, but it's the death that's being caused. We went to the Middle East, I went last week to the Middle East, we took in $5.1 trillion. That's many, many times, it's 30, 40 times, 50 times more than what we're talking about. It's, think of that $5.1 trillion of investment with one trip that lasted four days. So it's not the money, it's a little the money, but not the money, the big thing. The big thing is the death. The death of…
(46:48)
And really the decimation. You've lost a whole culture. Ukraine had the most beautiful turrets, they call them turrets, little towers, beautiful towers, the most beautiful in the world. They're all now laying on their side blown to smithereens. It'll never happen again. They've taken away the culture of a country. They've taken away the heritage of a country. It's a terrible thing. But most importantly, again, is the death. Five thousand-plus people a week, soldiers, are being killed. He doesn't want that. And I don't want that. One more. Please. [inaudible 00:47:24]
Speaker 17 (47:24):
Mr. President, do you support the Graham Bill on putting high tariffs on China?
Donald Trump (47:30):
I haven't looked at it, but they'll be guided by me. That's the way it's supposed to be. They're going to be guided by me. No, I haven't looked at it. It's a bill on sanctions, et cetera. When it … I'm a very quick study, at the right time I'll do what I want to do, but it could very well be okay. I'll have to see. But they're waiting for me to decide on what to do. And I'll know maybe very soon. It is a harsh bill. Yeah, very harsh. Take one more. [inaudible 00:48:01].
Speaker 17 (48:02):
I would like to have a question to the Chancellor as well, because… Do you agree with the analogy the president made on the war between Russia and Ukraine as being a fight between two kids? Is that how you feel that as well? And what do you actually want the US president to do in this?
Friedrich Merz (48:19):
Well, I think we both agree on this war and how terrible this war is going on. And we are both looking for ways to stop it very soon. And I told the president before we came in that he is the key person in the world who can really do that now by putting pressure on Russia. And we will have this debate later on again, how we can proceed jointly between the Europeans and the Americans.
(48:53)
And I think we are having the duty to do something on that now to stop it after three and a half years, which is really terrible. Look at the kids, the kids which were kidnapped from Ukraine to Russia. This is all terrible. And so we are talking about instruments, measures, what we can do. And my personal view is clear on that. We are on the side of Ukraine and we are trying to get them stronger and stronger just to make Putin stop this war. And this is our approach.
Donald Trump (49:25):
We get satellite pictures of the war field and you don't even like to look at them, right?
Friedrich Merz (49:31):
It's terrible. It's really terrible.
Donald Trump (49:33):
Bodies, arms, heads, legs, all over the place. You've never seen anything like it. It's so ridiculous.
Friedrich Merz (49:41):
And this is only by Russian weapons against Ukraine. This had never happened with Ukraine weapons against Russia. Never. Ukraine is only targeting military targets. Not civilians, not private, not energy infrastructure. So this is the difference, and that's the reason why we are trying to do more on Russia, how to stop this war.
Donald Trump (50:05):
Well, in this case I'm talking about the battlefield, the soldiers on soldiers. But you could also say that too, with the cities.
Friedrich Merz (50:11):
Yeah.
Donald Trump (50:11):
The cities are being hit also. So it's a terrible, terrible thing. One, somebody said autopen? Did I hear the word autopen?
Speaker 18 (50:17):
I'm just curious.
Donald Trump (50:18):
Because I think it's the biggest scandal maybe in the last a hundred years in this country. So when I hear that word, I think it has to be discussed because the fake news will try and hide it and we can't do that. Go ahead.
Speaker 18 (50:32):
[inaudible 00:50:32] asking, have you uncovered any evidence that anything specific was signed without President Biden's knowledge or by other people in the administration acting illegally?
Donald Trump (50:41):
Well, I don't think Biden would know whether or not he signed it.
Speaker 18 (50:43):
I'm asking if you've uncovered any of that information?
Donald Trump (50:45):
No, but I've uncovered the human mind. I was in a debate with the human mind and I didn't think he knew what the hell he was doing. So it's just one of those things, one of those problems. We can't ever allow that to happen to our country. The danger, our country was in. And I know some of the people that worked with him, radical-left horrible people.
(51:05)
And I could give you the name of some of the people that used the autopen because I'm here and I asked questions about people that were here, also. There are a lot of people that were here when that happened, and they're here right now and they'll answer your question very accurately. But I know some of the people that used that autopen, and those are not the people that had the same ideology as Joe Biden. These were radical-left lunatics that used that. And they didn't get elected. He didn't get elected either, actually.
(51:33)
Thank you very much, everybody. [inaudible 00:51:40].
