Speaker 5 (00:00):
Grab a seat.
President Trump (00:07):
Okay. You ready? You sure? It's the last time. You can change your mind until-
Howard Lutnick (00:11):
I get to work for you, right here. What's better than this? This room has never looks so beautiful.
President Trump (00:17):
How do you like to the new look? The desk is a different desk. It's one of seven. But the resolute desk is being renovated and refurbished after many, many years of service. It'll be back in four weeks. In case anybody missed it. A lot of people do.
(00:35)
Okay, Howard. You're in.
JD Vance (01:00):
All right. Now, Howard, come next to your beautiful wife and your beautiful family here. Put your hand on the Bible. Raise your right hand, and repeat after for me. I, Howard Lutnick.
Howard Lutnick (01:10):
I Howard Lutnick.
JD Vance (01:11):
Do solemnly swear.
Howard Lutnick (01:12):
Do solemnly swear.
JD Vance (01:13):
That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Howard Lutnick (01:16):
I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
JD Vance (01:19):
Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Howard Lutnick (01:21):
Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
JD Vance (01:24):
That I will bear truth, faith, and allegiance to the same.
Howard Lutnick (01:27):
And I will bear truth, faith, and allegiance to the same.
JD Vance (01:30):
That I take this obligation freely.
Howard Lutnick (01:33):
I will take this obligation freely.
JD Vance (01:35):
Without any mental reservation.
Howard Lutnick (01:38):
Without any mental reservation.
JD Vance (01:39):
Or purpose of evasion.
Howard Lutnick (01:40):
Or purpose of evasion.
JD Vance (01:42):
And that I will well and faithfully discharge.
Howard Lutnick (01:44):
And I will well and faithfully discharge.
JD Vance (01:46):
The duties of the office on which I'm about to enter.
Howard Lutnick (01:49):
The duties of the office of which I'm about to enter.
JD Vance (01:51):
So help you God?
Howard Lutnick (01:52):
So help me God.
JD Vance (01:53):
Congratulations, Mr. Secretary.
President Trump (02:07):
Thank you much.
Press (02:08):
Mr. President? There are reports that you are considering merging the United States Postal Service with the Commerce Department. Can you elaborate on if this is something you're considering?
President Trump (02:17):
Well, we want to have a post office that works well and doesn't lose massive amounts of money. And we're thinking about doing that, and it'll be a form of a merger, but it'll remain the Postal service. And I think it'll operate a lot better than it has been over the years. It's been just a tremendous loser for this country. Tremendous amounts of money are being lost, and we think we can do something that'll be very good, and keep it a very similar way, but whether it's a merger or just using some of the very talented people that we have elsewhere, so it doesn't lose so much. It's losing a tremendous amount of money.
Press (02:54):
Some members of Congress in red districts facing pushback from voters in town halls. We know that about Americans-
President Trump (03:01):
About what?
Press (03:02):
Americans voted for you on immigration and the economy, but these voters say they're angry and frustrated by these firings. They don't like the work of Elon Musk and these other actions. What do you say to them?
President Trump (03:12):
Who do you work for?
Press (03:13):
I work for ABC News, sir.
President Trump (03:13):
Who?
Press (03:15):
ABC News.
President Trump (03:16):
No wonder. Let me just tell you, let me just tell you, that I have today the highest poll numbers I've ever had. I have today the highest poll numbers of any Republican President ever. We haven't even checked the Democrats, but that's what I was just told. And they like the job that we're doing. They like the job that Elon's doing. He's doing something that a lot of people wouldn't have the courage to do. We want to streamline our country. We want to streamline because, you know why? Because we want our country to survive, and thrive and we're finding billions and billions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse. Billions. And I mean numbers like you wouldn't believe and we haven't even started yet.
(03:58)
So it's actually just the opposite. We've polled it, and people are thrilled. They can't even believe it's happening. And it won't affect many people. It'll only affect the people that get caught stealing. The waste, fraud and abuse is at a level like nobody's ever seen. It's been going on for years. And all you have to do is look at the social security rolls, look at some of the things, look at where the money is going. The attorney general's looking into something, environmental protection, 20 billion and it's out-and-out fraud. So I think the people are very happy. Yes, please?
Press (04:32):
Mr. President, I want to ask you about this week. The secretary spent four hours with the European Union trade representative. The European Union has signaled that they would lower tariffs and do a trade deal with the United States.
President Trump (04:44):
Yeah, the European Union wants to come back. They've treated us very badly and the European Union wants to lower their tariffs because of the fact we were paying fortune of tariffs. We couldn't sell a car there. We couldn't sell our farm products there. They wouldn't take anything. Now all of a sudden they're being very nice and that's going to happen with a lot of others too.
(05:03)
European Union is wanting to lower its barriers at very low levels. They want to now bring their car number, which was extremely high, down to two and a half percent, which is the same thing that we charge. That's reciprocal. See, that's what is happening. Reciprocal, and I think it's a big start in the right direction with the European Union.
Press (05:22):
Reports you called President Zelensky of Ukraine a dictator. Do you think that President Putin of Russia is also a dictator?
President Trump (05:31):
I think that President Putin and President Zelensky are going to have to get together because you know what? We want to stop killing millions of people. You have young soldiers being killed. If you saw the pictures that I saw of the battlefield from satellite, you've never seen any pictures like that. Soldiers are being killed by the thousands a week, thousands of soldiers a week. As we speak they're being killed. That's why I want to see a ceasefire and I want to get the deal done.
(05:59)
I think we have a chance to get the deal done. I had to make sure that Russia wanted to do it. It's a war that would've never happened if I was president, but it did happen. So I got stuck with it and I want to stop people from being killed. It doesn't affect the United States very much. It's on the other side of the ocean.
(06:17)
It does affect Europe. And we've put in three times more money. We're in for 300 billion, they're in for 100 billion. And Europe is also doing it in the form of a loan. Biden just gave them money. There was no loan, there was no security. It was no anything. So we're going to either sign a deal or there's going to be a lot of problems with them. So we're going to sign a deal to get security because we have to do that.
(06:42)
We're spending our treasure, they're spending their blood. They are, and they're very brave and in every way you can imagine. But we are spending our treasure on a country that's very, very far away, and it's okay. But we have to be treated the same as Europe is being treated. Europe gets their money back. Europe is basically giving nothing, because they get it back in the form of a loan and it's a guaranteed loan.
(07:07)
We don't get our money back and we're losing. I mean, we don't want to do that anymore. So we're signing an agreement, hopefully, in the next fairly short period of time, that will assure us that we'll get four or $500 billion back. We're in there for 300 billion.
(07:21)
Now, one other thing, Europe is at a hundred. We're at 300. We think it has to equalize. In other words, they have to come up with more money, because it has a big effect on Europe. It doesn't have much of an effect on us because we have a big beautiful ocean in between. But it does affect, and Biden should have never gotten us into this mess. We had an incompetent President who got us into a mess. But we're going to get you out of it.
(07:46)
The same thing in the Middle East. We're going to have some good news in the Middle East. What happened yesterday, the site of those babies was not acceptable to anybody. Nobody's seen anything like it.
Press (07:57):
Mr. President, are you going to Moscow? There's a report out of France that you're going to Moscow on May 9th.
President Trump (08:03):
No, no. I'm not.
Press (08:04):
To join President Putin.
President Trump (08:05):
I'm not.
Press (08:06):
And then if I could, sir, just ask you about Kash Patel, who's going to be sworn in soon as your FBI director. Talk to us about your reaction to him getting sworn in, and the fact that many agents across the country are concerned that they will be fired, en masse, for simply just doing their jobs.
President Trump (08:20):
No, I think the agents are very happy about Kash. In fact, the agents led the charge for Kash. One of the reasons I loved Kash and wanted to put him in is because of the respect the agents had for him. I think he'll go down as the best ever at that position. And it turned out he was very easy to get approved. I was not sure. He is a tough guy, strong guy. He has his opinions and I wasn't sure. He turned out to be very, he went very smoothly. I don't know if he's in the room now. He's going to be in the room very shortly. Where is he? Oh, good. I'm saying the right thing.
(08:51)
I have to be careful. I can't speak too badly about him. I better be careful. I will say this about Kash, and Howard understands this, that one of the reasons that I wanted him is because the agents love this guy, and they respect this guy, and this is what they wanted. And even somebody like Trey Gowdy who's a very good guy, but known as somewhat of a moderate person. He came out and he came out with a statement that was so incredible. He said, "Kash is an incredible person. People don't realize it." When he said that, there was no doubt left. It was really a big statement made by somebody that's respected and on the moderate side. And I will tell you, I think Kash is going to go down as maybe the best ever when it's all said and done. So I'm glad he is willing to do it. Thank you, Kash.
Press (09:45):
Talk a little bit more. You talked about-
President Trump (09:46):
Say what?
Press (09:47):
Can you speak a little bit more about your meeting with Tim Cook? You said that he was going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars. The specific projects that he spoke to you about, what were those?
President Trump (09:56):
Yeah. Yeah. All over country. All over the country. He'll start building and he doesn't want to pay tariffs, and he's going to start building. But very big numbers. You have to speak to him. I assume they're going to announce it at some point, but very big numbers. He was here yesterday. I met with him at length. And Apple is coming here with tremendous dollars. They're going to be spending a lot of money in the United States, more than they've ever spent by a factor of probably 10.
Press (10:20):
Did your reporting that you were signing a memo later to counter digital service taxes?
President Trump (10:25):
Will you speak… I mean, what are you doing reading it? Can't you just say it without having to read it?
Press (10:30):
My question?
President Trump (10:31):
Yeah.
Press (10:31):
Oh, sure. Bloomberg, were reporting that you're expected to sign tariffs, or a memo later on tariffs on digital taxes. Is there any idea how high you might go with?
President Trump (10:40):
We are going to be doing that digital. What they're doing to us in other countries is terrible with digital. So we'll be announcing that. Are we signing it, maybe today?
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Today.
President Trump (10:50):
So we'll talk about that in a little while.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
A couple of minutes.
Press (10:55):
Are you going to put the Secretary in charge of the Postal service?
President Trump (10:57):
He's going to look at it. He's got a great business instinct, which is what we need, and he'll be looking at it. And we think we can turn it around. But it is the Postal service. I mean, we're leaving the Postal service, but we're losing so much money with the Postal service, and we don't want to lose that kind of money. So the Secretary, and some others that have talent, that kind of talent, will be looking at it.
Press (11:17):
How close are you to a minerals agreement with Ukraine, Mr. President?
President Trump (11:22):
What?
Press (11:22):
How close are you two striking a minerals deal with Ukraine?
President Trump (11:24):
I think we're pretty close. Yeah. I think they want it and they feel good about it, and it's a significant, it's big deal. But they want it, and it keeps us in their country, and they're very happy about it. But we get our money back. This should have been signed along before we went in. This should have been signed by Biden. But Biden didn't know too much about what he was doing. The war should have never happened. Number one. When it did happen, it could have been settled the first week or two weeks, after that it got bad. It got really bad, but it should have never happened, and it should have been settled, and it could have been settled very easily at the beginning. Now it's tougher, but we'll get it settled.
Press (12:05):
Germany has elections on Sunday. What are your thoughts? What do you expect to happen in the elections on Sunday?
President Trump (12:09):
Who has elections?
Press (12:11):
Germany.
President Trump (12:13):
Oh, Germany? I wish them luck. We got our own problems here. Bye everybody. Thank you very much.
Speaker 6 (12:27):
Thank you guys. Thank you, press.
President Trump (12:27):
We got our own problems. We don't have to worry about Germany. Thank you everybody.