Read the full transcript of President Donald Trump remarks amid signing new executive orders on February 3, 2025.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
OFFICIAL: We have, for your signature, five official designations of special envoys. The first is, Mister Steve Witkoff who’s actually in the room to be your Middle East envoy.
DONALD TRUMP: Where is Steve? Steve Witkoff. He’s done a great job in the Middle East. Really great. But we’ll see how it all turns out. It’s complex, but I think he’s going to do very well.
OFFICIAL: Next, we have Mauricio Claver-Carone to be your special envoy to Latin America, sir.
DONALD TRUMP: Alright. Good man.
OFFICIAL: Thank you, sir. Next, we have retired general Keith Kellogg to be your special envoy on Russian-Ukraine issue.
DONALD TRUMP: We’ve made a lot of progress on Russia, Ukraine. We’ll see what happens, but a lot of progress has been made. We got to stop that ridiculous war.
OFFICIAL: Thank you, sir. Next, we have designation of Richard Grenell, Rick Grenell, to be your envoy for special missions.
DONALD TRUMP: I sent him to California to turn on the water. We turned it on. It was not easy because we had to go through a lot of environmentalists that are causing a lot of problems, and we have billions of gallons of water. It was on three days ago. You probably saw. It should’ve gotten a lot of press, but it didn’t get much.
All we’re doing is giving Los Angeles and the entire state of California virtually unlimited water, which they could have done five years ago, which I told them they should do, but the environmentalists stopped them. And we opened it, and we did it, regardless of the state. And now the state seems to be very happy. I spoke with Gavin Newsom, and he’s very happy. I almost called him by the other name, but my little nickname for him.
But I think they’re all happy. They have a lot of water in California. Too bad we didn’t have it about two months ago. Right? That was, by the way, that was a big, that was a big move. We have, I don’t, I don’t know if you saw the pictures that were released of the water pouring down from the Pacific Northwest and Canada and lots of other places, and it’s a pretty amazing sight.
OFFICIAL: Mister President, Rick Grenell had a big Friday trip as well.
DONALD TRUMP: He had a very big Friday trip. You’re right. We’ll talk about that. He’s doing, he’s a good man, Rick.
OFFICIAL: Lastly, sir, we have a designation of Mark Burnett as your special envoy to the United Kingdom.
DONALD TRUMP: You know who Mark Burnett is? I figured he should be good. He certainly, you’ve done a great job. Friend of mine and very talented guy. We have very talented people working for us. I’ll hold that one up because Mark gets so much television. We’ll hold it up. Right? He’ll be thrilled to see it. He’s going to do a good job.
OFFICIAL: Thank you, sir. Next, your administration has smashed records for appointing large numbers of highly qualified, capable people at all levels of the federal government. These are twenty-eight subcabinet level officials being appointed to a number of different departments and agencies. Some of them are quite important positions like departmental general counsels, but these are people who have been pre-vetted and have received your approval previously.
DONALD TRUMP: Very good. Okay.
American Sovereign Wealth Fund
REPORTER: Thank you, sir. Next, this is an executive order. This charges your Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, and your Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, to begin a process that will hopefully result in the creation of an American sovereign wealth fund.
DONALD TRUMP: It’s a very exciting event. We’re going to have a sovereign wealth fund, which we’ve never had. We have a lot of things that create wealth, and you’ve seen that over the last two weeks. I think we’ve created more wealth. Other people have created de-wealth, to people, my predecessors. We’re creating a lot of wealth. Scott, maybe you’d like to say something about it, and I’d ask also Howard to come over to say something about it.
SCOTT BESSENT: Yes, sir. This is very exciting. We’re going to stand this thing up within the next twelve months. We are going to monetize the asset side of the US balance sheet for the American people. We are going to put the assets to work, and I think it’s going to be very exciting. We’re going to study best practices that’s done around the world. It’ll be a combination of liquid assets, assets that we have in this country as we work to bring them out for the American people.
HOWARD LUTNICK: The extraordinary size and scale of the US government and the business it does with companies should create value for American citizens. If we are going to buy two billion COVID vaccines, maybe we should have some warrants and some equity in these companies and have that grow for the help of the American people. So I bring all these things together, I think we’ll create, Scott and I will create, an amazing sovereign wealth fund for you, sir.
DONALD TRUMP: So other countries have sovereign wealth funds, and they’re much smaller countries, and they’re not the United States. We have tremendous potential in this country, tremendous. You’re seeing that’s what’s happened just in a short period of time.
And as an example, TikTok, we’re going to be doing something perhaps with TikTok and perhaps not. If we make the right deal, we’ll do it. Otherwise, we won’t. But I have the right to do that, and we might put that in the sovereign wealth fund, whatever we make, or if we do a partnership with very wealthy people, a lot of options. But we could put that as an example in the fund. And we have a lot of other things that we could put in the fund.
And I think in a short period of time, we’d have one of the biggest funds. And, you know, some of them are pretty large, I must tell you. Some of them, like the Saudi Arabia fund, is on the large side. But eventually, we’ll catch it. But we’re going to create a lot of wealth for the fund. And I think it’s about time that this country had a sovereign wealth fund, and these two gentlemen and some others are going to work with them very closely, and they’ll be heading it up, and they’re going to do a great, great job. Two highly respected people that have done unbelievably well in the world, in the real world. So that’s a big deal.
HOWARD LUTNICK: Yes, sir. I think it’s going to create value and be of great strategic importance.
Elon Musk and Government Waste
REPORTER: Mister President, why is it important for Elon Musk to have access to the payment systems and treasury?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, he’s got access only to letting people go that he thinks are no good, if we agree with him, and it’s only if we agree with him. He’s a very talented guy from the standpoint of management and costs, and we put him in charge of seeing what he can do with certain groups and certain numbers.
The numbers, some of the numbers are horrible, but what he’s found, a hundred, think of it, a hundred million dollars on condoms to Hamas. Condoms to Hamas and many other things that are frankly even more ridiculous. And they’re finding tremendous waste, really waste more than anything else, I think you could say. Probably fraud and abuse could be added to it. Waste, fraud, and abuse, but they’re finding tremendous amounts of really bad things, bad spending.
You’ve been reading about, you’ve been writing about some of it, frankly, and some of the things that they’ve been doing is just terrible. Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval, and we’ll give him the approval where appropriate. Where not appropriate, we won’t. But he reports in, and it’s something that he feels very strongly about, and I’m impressed because he’s running, obviously, a big company. Has nothing to do with, there’s a conflict that we won’t let him get near it.
But he does have a good natural instinct. He’s got a team of very talented people. We’re trying to shrink government, and he can probably shrink it as well as anybody else, if not better. Where we think there’s a conflict or there’s a problem, we won’t let him go near it. But he has some very good ideas, and we have a lot of very other talented people also. We’re bringing in the most talented people in the world.
Honoring Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison
By the way, unrelated, but we have two of the most talented people in the world, the legendary Rupert Murdoch and Larry Ellison. So they are two legends in business, publishing and probably every other. Rupert is, Larry pretty much in a class by himself. Right? I mean, although he may have a couple of bucks more. I don’t know. But Rupert is in a class by himself. He’s an amazing guy, and Larry is, Larry is Larry. Larry is one of the most serious players anywhere in the world, so it’s an honor to have you.
This has nothing to do with you people, but they hear it. I thought it would be appropriate. I’m sure you didn’t recognize them. If you’re all going crazy to say, “What are they doing here?”
REPORTER: Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Trade and Tariffs
REPORTER: On the tariffs, is there any chance that Canada or China could also get out of the tariffs after you start the deal with Mexico?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, nobody’s out — with Mexico we had a great talk with Mexico, and we had President Sheinbaum , is a woman. I like her very much. We’ve had good relationships, but we have to stop fentanyl from coming in whether I like somebody or not, and we have to stop the illegal aliens from coming in.
I think we’ve lost two hundred thousand people on average a year for many years, much higher than the hundred thousand. It could be even closer to three hundred thousand. And they’ve agreed to put in ten thousand soldiers permanently, like forever. Ten thousand soldiers at their side of the border and stop fentanyl and illegal aliens from coming into our country. They have a big incentive to do. Other than that, we’ve agreed to talk and consider various other things. We haven’t agreed on tariffs yet, and maybe we will, maybe we won’t, but we have a very good relationship.
I also spoke with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada, and we had a good talk in the morning, but I did ask him a couple of questions. Like, you know, banks aren’t allowed to do business in Canada. Canada is very tough. Canada is very, you know, we’re not treated well by Canada, and we have to be treated well. Banks are not, as an example, allowed. Did you know that American banks are not allowed to do business in Canada? Can you believe that?
And that’s one of many things that we talked about, and I think we’ll win most of the subjects. But for some reason, a lot of things have been very unfair with Canada. I noticed that in the first term, you deal with people, and after a while, you begin to realize, like, you learn that Larry Ellison is very tough to do business with. Okay? He’s a very tough guy. I mean, I’m sure you’re shocked to hear that.
But Canada is very tough. They’re very, very tough to do business with, and we can’t let them take advantage of the US. They don’t take our agricultural product for the most part. They don’t take our cars. They make cars, but they basically don’t take our cars. And, you know, we need, and look, I think we’re going to have another good conversation today. We’re actually speaking at three o’clock again. But we don’t need them to make our cars. We don’t need them to give us lumber.
DONALD TRUMP: We don’t need them for agricultural products because we have all the agriculture we need. They don’t take our agricultural product for the most part, our milk and dairy, etcetera. A little bit they do, but not much. We take theirs. And as far as cars are concerned, they took in a big percentage, almost nineteen percent of the market.
And, you know, I wouldn’t mind making our cars in the United States. So if we have a problem there, I’d like to make our cars in the US. We don’t need Canada to make our cars. With that being said, we’re going to another call at three o’clock. We had a call this morning. It was a pretty good call, I’d say.
Mexico Border Security
So, the call with Mexico went very well in the sense that they’re very strong now on the border. They’re going to put soldiers there. So, they’re best military soldiers, and they’re going to be at the border. Ten thousand. That’s a lot of soldiers. And they want to protect it also. You know, they want, they don’t want people running through Mexico, coming through Mexico to come into our country. So they’re going to do that, and then we’re going to talk about other things over the next. And we’re going to have over the next thirty days, we’re going to have Scott, Howard and Marco, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, lead the delegation, and we’re going to have a big negotiation with Mexico. I’ll be involved too, and President Sheinbaum will be involved to see whether or not we can work something out on the tariffs.
China and Fentanyl
REPORTER: [Question Inaudible]
DONALD TRUMP: China — we will be speaking to China probably over the next twenty-four hours.
REPORTER: [Question Inaudible]
DONALD TRUMP: We don’t want fentanyl coming into our country.
The Panama Canal
DONALD TRUMP: Now we had another big thing. Speaking of China, China’s involved with the Panama Canal. They won’t be for long, and that’s the way it has to be. Marco just got back as you know. He’s in the process of coming back. I guess he’s almost back by now.
And he had a very long conversation with the leader of Panama, the respected man, and some others, the entire leadership group. And we’re trying to work a deal on the Panama Canal. The Panama Canal was given foolishly years ago to, it shouldn’t have happened. Years ago to Panama, like Jimmy Carter and the group, we lost thirty-eight thousand people building the Panama Canal, like one of the great wonders of the world. It’s the biggest job we’ve ever built, the biggest project we’ve ever built in this country dollar-wise and every other way.
Thirty-eight thousand people died, Americans, all men, just about, laborers and construction people that went to Panama. The mosquito got them. Between mosquito and snakes, we lost thirty-eight thousand people. It was the most expensive project ever built by the United States. Most, the biggest, most expensive project we ever built a hundred and ten years ago.
If you bring it up to now, it would have been the equivalent of two trillion dollars, the most expensive we ever built, and we gave it away for one dollar. Okay? We gave it away essentially for nothing. And we either want it back or we’re going to get something very strong or we’re going to take it back. And China will be dealt with. And we didn’t give that to China. We gave it to Panama. We shouldn’t have given it to Panama, but Panama, as you know, has violated the agreement, totally violated the agreement. So that’s in the process right now, but they did have a very good meeting with the head of Panama.
REPORTER: In addition to tariffs on China, would you say you’re thinking about whether China should be forced to pay reparations for professional deaths and the…
COVID Reparations
DONALD TRUMP: No. I haven’t talked about that, but they do have tariffs. Honestly, nobody, the amount of money that was lost and most importantly, the lives lost because of COVID is not something that anybody could ever even imagine. It’s probably sixty trillion dollars and all the countries in the world don’t have sixty trillion dollars. The amount of death and the amount of destruction and the amount of money lost is probably sixty trillion dollars. I had it figured by people about three months ago. I was just, it just had figured out, nobody knows what the real number is, but it’s an almost an infinite number. The damage done, but I have not discussed that.
What I have discussed is, we’ll have some good meetings with China. We have meetings planned, and we’ll see what happens. But that was just an opening salvo. If we can’t make a deal with China, then the tariffs will be very, very substantial.
National Heart Month
DONALD TRUMP: Okay. I’m going to sign this one.
OFFICIAL: Sir, this is, you’ve obviously made making America healthy again a key priority of this administration. A key component of that is obviously heart health. This is a ceremonial proclamation declaring the month of February to be National Heart Month.
DONALD TRUMP: Okay? I hear we’re doing very well with nominations. We’ll see. But it looks like we’re doing very well with nominations.
REPORTER: So President, have you been involved with calling senators who had some concerns about Tulsi Gabbard or…
DONALD TRUMP: Yes. Yeah. I’ve gotten great response. And they want to do what’s right, and we’ve had a good response. I think we’ll do well. We have great people — like people like this. We have great, great people coming in. I think I’d like to say the best ever recruited for government. I think we have the finest people ever recruited for government.
Biden Administration Comparison
REPORTER: Well, let’s take an act of Congress.
DONALD TRUMP: And you know what? You’re starting to see that because we’ve done more in two weeks than Biden’s done in four, five years, six years. They could be here between him and Obama. You added up. Okay? We’ve done more in two weeks than they’ve done in twelve years.
REPORTER: Will it take an act of Congress to do away with USAID or people in…
DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know. I don’t think so. No. We’ve not, when it comes to fraud. If there’s fraud, these people are lunatics. And if it comes to fraud, you wouldn’t have an act of Congress. And I’m not sure that you would anyway, but we just want to do the right thing. It’s something that should have been done a long time ago. Went crazy during the Biden administration. They went totally crazy what they were doing, and the money they were giving to people that shouldn’t be getting it and to agencies and others that shouldn’t be getting it. It was a shame.
So, a tremendous fraud, but we’ll be doing a report. We’ll be giving you that report at the appropriate time.
REPORTER: Yeah. The first term though, USAID was something that you liked in some respect.
DONALD TRUMP: I love the concept of it. Yeah. Sure. I love the concept, but they turn out to be radical left lunatics. And the concept of it is good, but it’s all about the people.
European Union Trade Deficits
REPORTER: [Question Inaudible]
DONALD TRUMP: Well, we have massive deficits with the European Union. Massive, like, three hundred fifty billion dollars if you can believe it. They don’t take our farm product. They don’t take our cars. They don’t take almost anything, but we take their cars. Cars. We have millions of cars coming in, BMW and Mercedes Benz and Volkswagen and just so many different cars, and we don’t do anything about that. And we don’t charge them tariffs. They make it impossible to sell cars in the European Union. They make it very difficult agricultural product. They actually don’t take it, and they have a lot of excuses.
Some of them are the pesticides and the different chemicals used, and Bobby Kennedy actually is looking at that very, very seriously because maybe it’s not necessary to use all of that. You know, we want to be the healthiest country, and we’re not. We spend more money on food than anybody else in terms of its creation, but we’re not the healthiest country. So maybe there is something to the fact that we shouldn’t be using so much chemical, and maybe that’ll stop. But Bobby Kennedy is the one because he is not a believer in all of the things we have done, and neither are the Europeans.
So we’ll see what happens. But they use it as an excuse not to buy our product. And they, you tried, I asked a couple of the leaders. I don’t want to use names, but how many Chevrolets or Fords do you see in the middle of Munich? And the answer is none because they don’t take any cars. They don’t take anything.
So the European has abused the United States for years, and they can’t do that. And they want to make a deal. Let me tell you, in all cases, they all want to make deals. There’s nobody that doesn’t want to make deals. They’ve been abusers, and they want to make deals. So, we’ll see about that. But we’ll have, I think, some very fair, all we want is a fair deal.
And, you know, there’s a word reciprocal. I’d go right now, reciprocal tariffs on everybody because many of the countries that you feel so horrible about, the way they’re being treated by Trump, you’re saying, oh, President Trump is so terrible to them. Well, they charge us tariffs. European Union has a VAT tax, which is through the roof. Okay? It’s a similar thing, similar to a tariff. It’s a VAT. And they have it and it’s numbers like you wouldn’t believe.
And Canada, I told you about the banks and I told you they charge us and people don’t say that. They don’t like to say it just like they don’t like to say that I opened up the water for California. It’s a great thing. It’s too bad they didn’t do it themselves. I had to do it, and it was not easy. We did it a very rough way, and I didn’t like to do it a rough way. We shouldn’t have to do it a rough way. But a lot of these countries that we’re talking about, you know, they’re so-called allies, but they don’t treat us well.
NATO Funding
And just like I got four hundred and twenty billion dollars and now it’s actually over six hundred billion dollars, the Secretary General of NATO came in two weeks ago, and he said it was a miracle when Trump came in. When President Trump came into NATO, I got, he said it was six hundred thirty-six billion dollars by saying to them, no, you have to pay. And if you don’t pay, we’re not going to be there for you. You know, somebody has to say it, and they pay it. And it was a large amount of money.
And one of the problems we have with the Russia-Ukraine situation is that we want to see some equalization because we’re in for close to three hundred million dollars and they’re in for two hundred million dollars less. Why are they in for less? Because Biden never asked them for money. He never said you got to pay. He never did. All he did is hand out money.
Rare Earth Minerals in Ukraine
So, we’re talking with them right now, and we’re actually working some deals right now. So we have some guarantees and some other things to keep that whole situation to go, really going. I mean, going. We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earth. We want what we put up to go in terms of a guarantee. We want a guarantee. We want, we’re handing money hand over fist. We’re giving them equipment. European is not keeping up with us. They should equalize.
And look, we have an ocean in between. They don’t. It’s more important for them than it is for us, but they’re way below us in terms of money, and they should be paying at least equal. They should really be paying much more than us, but let’s say equal to us, and they have billions and billions of dollars below. So we’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earth and other things.
REPORTER: They mentioned what they do with Mexico this morning. Was that partially related to the market reaction and a criticism for Mister Murdoch’s selling newspaper? He called it the dumbest trade war on the, on the editorial page on Saturday.
DONALD TRUMP: I’m going to have to talk to him. I’ve been right over The Wall Street Journal many times. I will tell you that. I don’t agree with him on some things.
No. It’s not only is it not them. You’re going to see. You’re going to see. Every single one of those countries is dying to make a deal. You know why? Because they’re ripping us off really badly. And the United States is tired of being ripped off.
And that’s why we have thirty-six trillion dollars in debt. We have it for a reason because we make bad deals with everybody, and we don’t allow that anymore. So The Wall Street Journal is wrong because very simply every single country that you’re writing about right now is dying to make a deal because the deals they have right now are so good and so good for them and so profitable for them. You didn’t know that Canada didn’t allow our banks. You didn’t know all of these different things.
And I think in the end, you’re going to see that either very, very substantial tariffs are going to be paid by them or they going to make some kind of a deal.
REPORTER: [Question Inaudible]
DONALD TRUMP: There was no blinking. She’s a wonderful woman, but she did agree to ten thousand soldiers on the border. I would say that’s a lot. Would you say that’s pretty good? Ten thousand soldiers on the border? And the ten thousand soldiers are going to keep illegal aliens out, and they’re going to keep them out seriously out. And otherwise, they’re going to have a big penalty. Mexico is going to be penalized. They’re not going to come through Mexico anymore, and they’re not going to let the fentanyl come in from China. And China hopefully is going to stop sending us fentanyl. And if they’re not, the tariffs are going to go substantially higher.
REPORTER: Sir, just to clarify what you said about Ukraine earlier, the rare earths. Is that something you want them to give the rare earths to the United States?
DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. Yeah. I want to have security of rare earth. We’re putting in hundreds of billions of dollars. They have great rare earth, and I want security of the rare earth, and they’re willing to do it.
REPORTER: Sir, on Canada, when you talk to Justin Trudeau again, is there anything he can give you at 3:30 PM when we talk again to…
DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know. I don’t know. Like you said, it was not, I don’t know. We have big deficits with Canada like we do with all countries. I mean, I look at some of the deals made. I say, “Who the hell made these deals that are so bad?”
But with Canada, I have a talk with him that you maybe know or maybe not. We’re going to meet again or talk again at three o’clock right after my next meeting, and we’ll see what happens. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen.
REPORTER: That he could agree to to change your mind on the…
Donald Trump Wants Canada to Become the 51st State
DONALD TRUMP: Well, we can always, but look. What I’d like to see Canada become, become our fifty-first state. We give them protection, military protection. We don’t need them to build our cars. I’d rather see Detroit or South Carolina or any one of our, Tennessee, any one of our states build the cars.
They can do it very easily. We don’t need them for the cars. We don’t need them for lumber. We don’t need them for anything. We don’t need them for energy. We have more energy than they do. We don’t need them for energy. So I say, why are we doing this? Why do we, why are we willing to lose between a hundred billion and two hundred billion dollars a year? We don’t need them.
As a state, it’s different. As a state, it’s much different, and there are no tariffs. So I’d love to see that, but some people say that would be a long shot. If people wanted to play the game right, it would be a hundred percent certain that they’d become a state. But a lot of people don’t like to play the game because they don’t have a threshold of pain. And there would be some pain, but not a lot. The pain would be really there.
So we’re going to meet again by phone at three o’clock, and we’ll let you know what.
Israel and West Bank Annexation
REPORTER: On Israel, President Trump, you’re prepared to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu.
DONALD TRUMP: Coming in tomorrow. Yes.
REPORTER: You’ve mentioned in the past, you’re concerned about Israel being too small geographically. Would you support annexation in parts of the West Bank by Israel?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I’m not going to talk about that. It certainly is a small, it’s a small country in terms of land. I think, see this pen, this wonderful pen? My desk is the Middle East. And this pen, the top of the pen, that’s Israel. That’s not good. Right? You know?
That’s a pretty big difference. I use that as an analogy. It’s pretty accurate, actually. It’s a pretty small piece of land, and it’s amazing that they’ve been able to do what they’ve been able to do. When you think about it, there’s a lot of good smart brainpower, but it is a very small piece of land. No question about it.
REPORTER: I was trying to be said earlier that Elon Musk is doing everything with your state. So is there everything that he has done thus far, building all the agencies, shutting off access…
DONALD TRUMP: For the most part, yeah. If we, I mean, if there was something that didn’t have my okay, I’d let you know about it really fast. If there was a con, no. No. I haven’t seen that, and he would know not to do it. So we haven’t had that yet. But if there was a conflict, we would let him work in that.
Panama Canal Deal
REPORTER: Deal where the US is going to take it. How long do they have to make that sort of deal, and are you still leaving on the table?
DONALD TRUMP: We’re going to meet with Panama, we’re going to meet with Panama on Friday at about three-thirty in the afternoon by phone, and maybe there’ll be some representatives that, you know, here or there. But we’re going to be talking to Panama on Friday, essentially. And they’ve agreed to certain things, but I’m not happy with it.
Middle East Ceasefire
REPORTER: On the Middle East, Mister President. If I may, do you still have doubts that the ceasefire will hold?
DONALD TRUMP: On what?
REPORTER: On the Middle East, do you think the Chiefs…
DONALD TRUMP: I have, I have no assurances that it’ll hold. I mean, I’ve seen people brutalized. I’ve never, nobody’s ever seen anything like it. No. I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold. Steve, you might want to say something about that, Steve Witkoff.
STEVE WITKOFF: It’s holding so far. So, and we’re certainly hopeful. And that’s the President’s direction. Get the hostages out, save lives, and come to, hopefully, a peaceful settlement of it all. So so far, it’s holding.
FBI Corruption and Cash Patel
REPORTER: Mister President, on a different topic, questionnaires have been going out to FBI agents across the country, who were involved, potentially in the investigation. Do you believe anyone involved at any level should be fired, sir?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think the FBI was a very corrupt institution, and I’m a victim of it in a true sense. I was able to beat it, but other people have been treated horribly. I think the FBI had a great reputation. I think its reputation was really damaged badly as is DOJ. Look at what they’ve done in terms of weaponization. Look at what they’ve done to a political opponent. Probably got me elected by what they did or I think I was doing well anyway, but they might got me elected.
But you know what? We have to have pristine, beautiful, perfect law enforcement and what we want to do. And Kash is the one to do it. He’s the one guy that is going to do it. We have to bring the reputation of the FBI. We have to bring the fact of the FBI back to what it could be. Not even to what it was, even better than it ever was.
Because who would have thought that the FBI could have been corrupted like they were corrupted? Who would have thought that would have happened? Who would have thought they would have been used to go after, you know, political opponents essentially, but me being the number one. And so many other things beyond that. And they’ve been hurt very badly, and we’ll see what happens. But Kash is the one to do it, and I hear he’s doing very well. Kash will straighten it out. We have great confidence that we can make the FBI great again.
Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination
Okay. One or two more will be done. Average. I’m on this.
DONALD TRUMP: Say it.
REPORTER: Tulsi Gabbard.
DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. I think Tulsi’s going to be doing okay. I’m not sure. I can’t guarantee anything, but she’s liked by so many people, especially people in the military and law enforcement.
REPORTER: She has a little bit of trouble with some senators over her fault on Edward Snowden. You’ve mentioned in the past, you’re thinking about pardoning him. Are you still? And what would you think of that?
DONALD TRUMP: No. I don’t talk to him about it right now. I just, people feel very differently. Some people think he should be pardoned, and some people think it would be a terrible thing to do, but I don’t get involved in that.
Trump’s Respect for Rupert Murdoch
REPORTER: Mister President, what are you talking with Mister Murdoch?
DONALD TRUMP: Just respect. I have great respect for Rupert Murdoch. I disagree with them a lot of times with The Wall Street Journal, but that’s alright. We’ve disagreed before, but and I’m sure they didn’t have any idea what they were talking about because already you see what’s happening. Look at Colombia. Look at what happened with that. Everybody said that with Colombia, it was going to be a disaster. In one hour, everything was settled. You know why? Tariffs. Tariffs. Without tariffs, they wouldn’t have been the same way. They wouldn’t have, would not have treated me the way they treated me, which was extremely nicely.
And I don’t want to use countries. I don’t want to use names, but tariffs are very powerful both economically and in getting everything else you want. Tariffs for us, nobody can compete with us because we’re the pot of gold. But if we don’t keep winning and keep doing well, we won’t be the pot of gold, and then tariffs won’t be so good for us. But when you’re the pot of gold, the tariffs are very good. They’re very powerful, and they’re going to make our country very rich again. Thank you very much, everybody.
