Transcript of Trump and Nayib Bukele Holds Press Briefing – April 14

Do you think I can use that?

PRESIDENT BUKELE: And in fact, Mr. President, you have 350 million people to liberate. To liberate 350 million people, you have to imprison some.

That’s the way it works. You cannot just free the criminals and think crime is going to go down magically. You have to imprison them so you can liberate 350 million Americans that are asking for the end of crime and the end of terrorism. And it can be done. I mean, you’re doing it already.

And I’m sure that people have seen the change in the streets, a long way to go because you’re just initiating your second term. But it’s clear that with the numbers at the border, even in terms of repatriation series, they get help from the work you’re doing. So I’m really happy to be here, honored and eager to help.

Border Security and Immigration

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we had a terrible thing happen. We had an administration that allowed people to come in freely into our country from not only South America, but from all over the world, many from The Congo and Africa, Asia, all over the world, Europe, rough parts of Europe.

And they came from prisons, they came from mental institutions, and they came from gangs, the gangs of Venezuela and other places. And hundreds of thousands and even millions of them came. 21 million people altogether, but many of the people that came, a tremendous percentage of them were criminals, in some cases, violent criminals. We had 11,088 known murderers, half of them murdered more than one person. This was allowed by a man who what he did to our country is just unbelievable.

So we’re straightening it out. We’re getting them out. But what they did and what that party did to our country, open borders, anybody could come in. As soon as they heard that, I said every prison is going to be emptied. Next we’ll have the highest numbers we’ve ever had.

We call it recruitment numbers. And we’ve never had anything like it. We had records on every single level. But very important, the policemen. The policemen are joining forces now that we really we’re having a hard time with policemen because we weren’t protecting our police. And we cherish our police.

The police are great and the firemen and everybody else. But we have the highest numbers that we’ve ever had, the most enthusiasm. We have great enthusiasm on trade and other things. We’re doing great. We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars.

We made two weeks ago, I gave them a little bit of a pause because you have to show a little flexibility. We go back to what we have to do. The markets have been very strong once they got used to it, but we were losing $2 billion a day. There’s no company big like this. This is the biggest deal ever made.

Now we’re making $3 billion a day. We’re a great country, but we had stupid people running this country. And I can say what they’ve done to us at the border should never and can never be forgotten. It’s a sin what they did, and you are helping us out. And we appreciate it, President.

PRESIDENT BUKELE: Actually, what you’re doing with the border is remarkable. It has dropped, what, 95%. It’s incredible.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: As of this morning, 99.1% to be exact. Why are those numbers not in the media?

Well, they get out with the fake news, like CNN over here doesn’t want to put them out because they don’t like putting out good numbers. Only like putting out bad because I think they hate our country, actually.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes. But it’s a shame. You’re right. Isn’t that a great question? Why doesn’t the media put out numbers?

PRESIDENT BUKELE: Yes. 99%. I mean, it’s crazy, right?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’re doing a crazy job. Kristi, could you maybe say a couple of words about the border, how we’re doing?

KRISTI NOEM: Yes. It’s just been absolutely phenomenal what a great leader can do. Clear direction. Our laws matter. We should only have people in our country that love us. And the Border Patrol and our ICE officers and law enforcement officers have done fantastic work. So we’re proud of them. Now we just need to get the criminals and murderers and rapists and dangerous gang members and terrorist organizations out of our country.

So Mr. President Bukele, we thank you very much for your partnership. It has been wonderful for us to be able to have somewhere to send the worst of the worst and someone to partner with. And we’d like to continue that partnership because it’s been a powerful message of consequences. Mr. President, you wanted people to know that there were consequences if you break our laws and harm our people and endanger families. And this is a clear consequence for the worst of the worst that we have somewhere to put them. Thank you very much.

Criminal Deportations

PRESIDENT BUKELE: Yes, we even had this gang member from Venezuela, one of the ones you sent. We interviewed him just to get some information, etcetera, from him. And he said, “Oh, I got arrested six times, but they released me the six times. So I should be released again.” And then we said, “Well, what’s the last thing you did?” And he said, “Well, I shot a cop in the leg, but I didn’t kill him. I just shot him in the leg.”

And we’re like, this guy was arrested six times here in The United States. Six times. He was released six times. And the last time he shot a cop actually and he shot him in the leg. These are… I mean, yes, there’s something broken.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: The liberal establishment. But they’re not running things anymore in this country, and we’re run by and I don’t say conservative. I don’t say anything. We’re run by people with great common sense.

This is all common sense. It’s not liberal conservative. It’s common sense. Like, do you allow men to play in women’s sports? Do you allow men to box your women and box? Because I know you have a lot of boxing. That’s abusive to women. It’s abusive to women. But we have people that fight to the death because they think men should be able to play in women’s sports. And some of those sports, it wouldn’t matter much, but it still matters. But some of them are very dangerous for women.

PRESIDENT BUKELE: Some years ago, some of them, like we said, a decade ago or so, women’s rights movements were pressuring so that we enact specific laws to avoid men abusing women. And I think those laws were great because there were a lot of men abusing women. But now some of the same people are trying to backtrack and actually trying to make new laws, allowing men to abuse women in sports. So actually, that doesn’t make sense.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Doesn’t make sense. They have weight lifting records, right? A woman gets up this way. She’s incredible. A guy gets up and beats her by 100. What are you going to do? A record that hadn’t been broken in eighteen years. They put on an ounce and an ounce, quarter of an ounce, eighth of an ounce for eighteen years. Now they have a guy come up, beating. The whole thing is crazy, but they continue to fight.

And I don’t like talking about it because I want to save it for just before the next election. I told my people don’t even talk about it because they’ll change. And we’ll have a… but I watched this morning. There was a congressman fighting to the death for men to play against women in sports. And you say to yourself, why? What are they doing? Right? What are they doing? But your country is not too big in that.

PRESIDENT BUKELE: No, no, of course not. We’re big in protecting women. Yes. It’s a very important form of protection too. And as you can see, most of my cabinet are women.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: That’s impressive.

PRESIDENT BUKELE: Yes, yes. And they’re not the token hires or anything. They’re great at what they do. This is very impressive. This is a first. We’ve had women, but we’ve never had three of them right here.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Look at what you have. You guys feel a little bit mistreated? That’s good. I like that.

We’ve been advanced. I’ve been very advanced in that regard too. We have Pam and she’s been so fantastic. And the most powerful woman they say anyway. Think the most powerful woman in the world according to magazines. What do I know? But I think she probably is.

PRESIDENT BUKELE: Yes. Probably is. Congratulations.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And you know Stephen has done such a great job. We have great people. We’re famous, too. But we love working with the investors. We really let them have it, right?

PRESIDENT BUKELE: Yes, exactly. There’s no games.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. He knows. No. No. Knows. Do you have any questions, please?

Questions from Reporters

REPORTER: Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. You repeatedly mentioned last night that…

PRESIDENT TRUMP: The mistake was letting the war happen. If Biden were competent, the If Zelensky were competent, and I don’t know that he is. We had a rough session with this guy over here. He just kept asking for more and more. That war should have never been allowed to happen. That war… I went four years and Putin wouldn’t even bring it up.

And as soon as the election was rigged and I wasn’t here, that war started. There was no way that war should have been allowed to happen. And Biden should have stopped it. And you take a look at Putin. I’m not saying anybody’s an angel. But I will tell you, I went four years, and it wasn’t even a question. He would never and I told him, don’t do it. You’re not going to do it. And it was the apple of his eye, but there was no way that he would have done it.

All you had to do is lower oil prices. If you lowered oil prices, Biden kept the prices so high because he made it impossible to get it. If you lowered oil prices, you would have never had the war. But you wouldn’t have had it with me anyway. That war would have never happened. And I think it’s a great abuse.

So now what do you do? You get a country where 25% of its land is gone and the best locations where millions of people are killed. You know, you haven’t reported accurately the death. And this was Biden’s war, and I’m trying to stop it. And I think we’re going to do a good job. I hope we’re going to do it.

They lose 2,500 young people a week, think, on average. Now they’re Russians and they’re Ukrainians, but it’s 2,000 we don’t care. It’s like whatever it is. They’re not from your country, they’re not from mine, but I want to stop it. February, it’s a killing field. It’s like the civil war. You take a look. I look at the satellite pictures.

This should not be happening in our time. Of course, our time can be pretty violent, as we know. But that’s a war that should have never been allowed to start. And Biden could have stopped it, and Zelenskyy could have stopped it, and Putin should have never started it. Everybody’s to blame.

REPORTER: Have you spoken to President Zelensky, sir, about his offer to purchase more Patriot missile batteries?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, I don’t know. He’s always looking to purchase missiles. You know? He’s against… listen. When you start a war, you gotta know that you can win the war. Right? You don’t start a war against somebody that’s 20 times your size and then hope that people give you some missiles.

If we didn’t give them what we gave, remember, I gave them javelins. That’s how they won their first big battle with the tanks that got stuck in the mud, and they took them out with javelins. They have an expression that Obama at the time… Obama gave them sheets and Trump gave them javelins. But there’s something that should have never happened. It’s a real shame.

The towns are destroyed. Towns and cities are, you know, largely destroyed. They have the spires, you know, the beautiful spires that go up. They say that were the most beautiful in the world in Ukraine for whatever… but the most beautiful in the world. They’re mostly laying on their side, shattered and broken. And most importantly, you have millions of people dead.

Millions of people dead because of three people. I would say three people. Let’s say Putin, number one, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing. Number two, and Zelensky. And all I can do is try and stop it.

That’s all I want to do. I want to stop the killing. And I think we’re doing well in that regard. I think you’ll have some very good proposals very soon.

REPORTER: ….last question, Hester, is there any FBI investigation behind the attack on Governor Josh Shapiro over the weekend?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I haven’t. But the attacker was not a fan of Trump. I understand. Just from what I read and from what I’ve been told, the attacker basically wasn’t a fan of anybody. It’s probably just a whack job.

And certainly, a thing like that cannot be allowed to happen.

REPORTER: The best guarantee that this time you won’t terminate the temporary protective status?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Have the best relationship with him. We’ve known each other. I’ve known him since he was a very young man, as I said, very, very young. And I was impressed. I said, look how this guy is. In fact, you sort of look like a teenager. You look like a teenager. Said, what’s going to happen to you? He grew up well in the last five years.

REPORTER: Do you support extension for National Southern Salvador under temporary protection status? You plan to ask President to help return the man who your administration says was mistakenly deported, the man who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, let me ask Pam. Would you answer that question?

Discussion on Deportation Case

PAM BONDI: Sure, President. First and foremost, this man is from El Salvador, which is President Bukele’s country. He had been illegally in our country. And in 2019, two courts, an immigration court and an appellate immigration court, ruled that he was a member of MS-13, and he was illegally in our country. Right now, it was a paperwork issue. Additional paperwork had needed to be done. That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us. The Supreme Court ruled, president, that if El Salvador wants to return him, this is international matters, foreign affairs, if they wanted to return him, we would facilitate it, meaning provide a plane.

REPORTER: So will you return him, President Trump?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You are doing a great job. Wait a minute. Can you just also respond to that question? Because it’s asked by CNN, and they always ask it with a slant because they’re totally slanted. They don’t know what’s happening. That’s why nobody is watching them. But would you answer that question also?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes, gladly. So as Pam mentioned, there’s a legal alien from El Salvador. So with respect to you, he’s a citizen of El Salvador. So it’s very arrogant even for American media to suggest that we would even tell El Salvador how to handle their own citizens as a starting point.

As two immigration courts found that he was a member of MS-13, when President Trump declared MS-13 to be a foreign terrorist organization, that meant that he was no longer eligible under federal law, which I’m sure you know, you’re very familiar with the INA, that he was no longer eligible for any form of immigration relief in The United States. So he had a deportation order that was valid, which meant that under our law, he’s not even allowed to be present in The United States and had to be returned because of the foreign terrorist designation.

This issue was then by a district court judge completely inverted, and a district court judge tried to tell the administration that they had to kidnap a citizen of El Salvador and fly him back here. That issue was raised to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said the district court order was unlawful and its main components were reversed unanimously, stating clearly that neither Secretary of State nor the President could be compelled by anybody to forcibly retrieve a citizen of El Salvador from El Salvador, who, again, is a member of MS-13, which, as I’m sure you understand, rapes little girls, murders women, murders children, is engaged in the most barbaric activities in the world.

And I can promise you, if he was your neighbor, you would move right away.

REPORTER: So you don’t plan to ask for any of us to get it? And what was the ruling in the Supreme Court?

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yes. It was nine-zero in our favor. In our favor against the district court ruling, saying that no district court has the power to compel the foreign policy function of The United States. As Pam said, the ruling solely stated that if this individual at El Salvador’s sole discretion was sent back to our country, that we could deport him a second time.

No version of this legally ends up with him ever living here because he is a citizen of El Salvador. That is the President of El Salvador. Your questions about per the court can only be directed to him.

REPORTER: President Bukele, can you weigh in on this? Do you plan to return him?

PRESIDENT BUKELE: Well, I guess you’re supposed to have suggested that I smuggle terrorists into The United States, right? How can I smuggle him? How can I return him to The United States? If I could, would I smuggle him to The United States or would I do the course? I’m not going to do it. It’s like, the question is preposterous. How can I smuggle a terrorist into The United States? I don’t have the power to return him to The United States.

REPORTER: So you can release him inside of El Salvador?

PRESIDENT BUKELE: Yes, but I’m not releasing him. I mean, we’re not very fond of releasing terrorists into our country. We just turned the murder capital of the world into the safest country in the Western Hemisphere, and you want us to go back into releasing criminals so we can go back to being the murder capital of the world. And that’s not going to happen.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, they’d love to have a criminal. I mean, there’s a fascination. They would love it. They’re sick people. Marco, do you have something to say about that?

MARCO RUBIO: Yes. I mean, Steve and I outlined it. I don’t understand what the confusion is. This individual is a citizen of El Salvador. He was illegally in The United States and was returned to his country.

That’s where you deport people back to their country of origin, except for Venezuela that wasn’t refusing to take people back or places like that. I can tell you this, Mr. President, the foreign policy of The United States is conducted by the President of The United States, not by a court. And no court in The United States has a right to conduct the foreign policy of the United States. It’s that simple. End of story.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And that’s what the Supreme Court held, by the way, to Marco’s point. The Supreme Court said exactly what Marco said, that no court has the authority to compel the foreign policy function in United States. We won a case nine-zero, and people like CNN are portraying it as a loss, as usual, because they want foreign terrorists in the country who kidnap women and children. But President Trump’s policy is foreign terrorists that are here illegally get expelled from the country, which, by the way, is a ninety-ten issue.

REPORTER: Well, President, Mr. President, you said that if the Supreme Court said someone needed to be returned, that you would abide by that. You said that on Air Force One just a few days ago. And they said that it must be—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Why don’t you just say, isn’t it wonderful that we’re keeping criminals out of our country? Why can’t you just say that? Why do you go over and over? And that’s why nobody watches you anymore. You have no credibility. Please go ahead.

Deportation Plans and Crime Policies

REPORTER: Thank you very much. How many illegal criminals are you planning on exporting to El Salvador? And President Bukele, how many are you willing to take from The U.S.?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: As many as possible. And I just asked the President about this massive complex city built, jail complex. I said, can you build some more of them, please? As many as we can get out of our country that were allowed in here by incompetent Joe Biden through open borders.

Open borders. You probably hear open borders and you can’t even understand it because nobody can understand. Nobody smart or with common sense can understand it. So we have millions of people that should not be in this country that are dangerous, not just people because we have people, but we have millions of people that are murderers, drug dealers. They’ve been allowed to come into our country by other countries that were very smart.

When they heard that this very low IQ president—and by the way, I took my cognitive exam, it was released. I hope you’re all happy with it. I noticed there’s no question, so probably you are. But the cognitive, they said to me, sir, would you like to take a cognitive test? I said, did Biden take one? No. Did anybody take one? No. Not too many people took them. I said, what about Obama? Did he take one? No. He didn’t take one either. I said, let me be the only one to take one.

But Walter Reed does a great thing. They do a phenomenal job. I just want to say Walter Reed, I was there for, what, five, six hours. You were there with me. But I took a full physical and it came out perfecto. So that’s good.

REPORTER: Would you pay for those facilities to be opened if new ones were going to be built?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’d do something. We’d help them out. Yes. We have great facilities, very strong facilities, and they don’t play games. I’d like to go a step further. I mean, I say I said it to Pam. I don’t know what the laws are. We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking.

REPORTER: Do you think more presidents should follow suit like you guys as far as taking a hard step on crime here in United States?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I do. I think everybody has to. The President said it better than anybody. He said, you have liberty and you have to have liberty, but to have liberty, you’re going to—not everybody is going to be good. And some are bad because they’re sick, mentally deranged, they’re bad.

And you have to take them. If you’re going to have a country, you’re going to have to take those people out. And we’ve been doing that. But this was like an unforced error, they would call it, where we had people that may hate our country or maybe they’re just stupid people. I think they’re probably stupid people more so.

A lot of people said they did it for the vote, but I did better with Hispanic people than they did because they always use Hispanic. I did better. You people love me. I saw my phone numbers in your country up through the roof, right? 91%.

No, no. They—some people think they do it for the vote, but they don’t have to do it for the vote. They cheat. They’re professional cheaters. That’s about the only thing they do well.

So we just have had a great relationship, and it’s become bigger because of a strange thing that happened. You know, I came back. We had no war in Ukraine. We had no war with—we had no October 7 Middle East problem. We had nothing. We had no inflation. We didn’t have the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country—Afghanistan, not withdrawing because I would have been—you know, I was—I had it all set to bring people out with dignity and pride. That was the worst, most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.

We’ve got a problem with Iran, but I’ll solve that problem. That’s almost an easy one. We got to solve a war that should have never started, Ukraine and Russia, and we’ll get that solved. And we have to solve problems and we already solved inflation. If you look at the numbers, the numbers are incredible, actually. Stock market is up.

And we’re not letting other countries take advantage of this country like they have for the last forty years. So thank you very much.

NVIDIA Investment Announcement

Do you have a question, please?

REPORTER: Yes, Mr. President, thank you so much. You scored another major investment win this morning when NVIDIA pledged to build its AI supercomputer, the first time ever right here in The United States. What is your reaction to this announcement, sir? And how will this positively benefit Americans across the entire country?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it’s one of the biggest announcements you’ll ever hear because NVIDIA, as you know, controls almost the entire sector, which is one of the most important sectors in the world between chips and semiconductors and everything else. And they’re the biggest. And the other biggest, we already have coming in and spending $300 billion as you know, they announced two weeks ago. But NVIDIA is so highly respected. And this was an announcement that a lot of people—I knew it was going to happen, but not to the extent that it happened.

It’s big. And the reason they did it is because of the election on November 5 and because of a thing called tariffs. As I said, the most beautiful word in the dictionary, after love, God, relationship. The press actually hit me. I said, tariff is the most beautiful word in the dictionary. What about family, love, God? I got hit even on that. Do you understand? I said, okay. So now I say it’s my fifth most favorite word because they get you on anything.

But no, it’s one of the great companies of the world, modern, super modern companies, controls segments that nobody sort of controls—the world in a sense, and they’re coming in here in the biggest way with hundreds of billions of dollars, not like millions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars, and I’m honored by it. And I want to thank Jensen and all of the people that we deal with. They’re great people. They’re brilliant people. And without tariffs, they wouldn’t be doing it.

Thank you very much.

REPORTER: Are you considering additional sanctions against Russia after their latest attack? And do you have an update on the rate and when you might announce semiconductor tariff?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we have sanctions on Russia. I put them there. If you remember, Nord Stream Two, that was—that’s the big pipeline that goes through Europe. I stopped it. That’s Russia’s pipeline, the largest pipeline, I think, in the world, goes to Germany. And I stopped it.

Trump’s Comments on Energy and Russia

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And when Biden came in, he approved it. And then they say, oh, I’m friendly with Russia. No, no. Putin said, if you’re my friend, I’d hate to see you when you’re my enemy. I stopped the biggest economic job they ever had. I stopped the pipeline, right? It was dead. You know that, right? And Biden came in, and he immediately approved it. What was that all about?

It’s a pipeline that takes care of a lot of the needs. Now it was a very controversial thing, but I stopped it and Biden approved it.

Discussion on Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

PRESIDENT TRUMP: In the U.S. we don’t make our own drugs anymore. The drug companies are in Ireland, and they’re in lots of other places, China.

And all they have to do is impose a tariff. The more, the faster they move in. The higher the tariff is very – it’s inversely proportional. The higher the tariff, the faster they come. And yes, we’re going to be doing that. That’s going to be like we have on cars. We have, as you know, a 25% tariff on cars. We have a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum. And that’s what that category fits right now.

REPORTER: Do you have a percentage in mind and a timeline?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I have a timeline, yes, not too distant future. We’re doing it because we want to make our own drugs. We’re doing it because we want to make our own steel and aluminum, lumber, other things. And they’re all coming in. We have record numbers, $7 trillion since I announced back a month and a half ago – since I came basically since I came in.

We have over $7 trillion being invested in the country. We didn’t have $1 trillion. We didn’t have $0.5 trillion for some of these guys. They didn’t know what the hell they were doing. So we have the largest investment that we’ve ever heard of, and we’re only two months in. And that will continue at levels that you’ve never seen before.

This is what’s going to happen. And even the stock market is up today. We also had a lot of people didn’t say it the way it was. We had the largest gain in the stock market in history on every single category last week. That was a nice gain because we’re getting a little hit because people didn’t understand the power of our economic – our country economically, if you use it right.

Do you have something to say on that, JD?

VICE PRESIDENT VANCE: Yes, sir. I mean, look, for forty years, we have lost manufacturing capacity. Workers are seeing their wages stagnate. And some of the most critical things that we need from the pharmaceuticals, the drugs that we give to our children, the antibiotics that we give to our kids, to the weapons that we actually need to fight a war, if God forbid, we had to fight a war, we don’t make enough of that stuff.

And so President Trump ran explicitly on changing that. Yes, as the President mentioned, it caused a little bit of disruption in the market. But I actually think over the long term, workers are going to benefit, stocks are going to go up, American businesses are going to benefit as we reinvest and re-industrialize our country.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And the auto workers and the teamsters and all of the unions, not traditionally Republican, but winning those unions by – we’re up forty, fifty points on the Democrats. They’re losing everything.

They’re losing everything because they just have policies that are not believable. They have – they fight for policies that are 5% popular, and nobody knows who the 5% are. I mean, nobody can find the 5%. But if you go back to Ohio – and by the way, we have the great championship team from Ohio coming in today, right? Perfect day.

And that’s going to be a little bit later. But and that will be – if you want to stick around, you’ll see some very large people, right? You’ll see some people that even you have not seen the people like this. These are big – these are six’seven, three eighty pounds with no fat, Okay. That’s pretty good.

But the team, the national championship team is being honored today at the White House. So that will be exciting. You’re around, you want to stay around? I’ll have you up there. You can tell them all about your prison, how you have to behave.

Iran Nuclear Discussions

REPORTER: You said yesterday that you’re making a decision on Iran very quickly. What do you mean by that? Is that a decision to strike Iran?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: They’re – take the problem very quickly. Iran wants to deal with us, but they don’t know how. They really don’t know how. We had a meeting with them on Saturday. We have another meeting scheduled next Saturday. I said, that’s a long time. That’s a long time.

So I think that might be tapping us along. Iran has to get rid of the concept of a nuclear weapon. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. He can’t have a nuclear weapon. Nobody can have – we can’t have anybody have any nuclear weapons. We can’t have nuclear weapons.

And I think they’re tapping us along because they were so used to dealing with stupid people in this country. And I had Iran perfect. You had no attacks – you would have never had October 7 in Israel, the attack by Hamas because Iran was broke. They were stone cold broke when I was president.

And I don’t want to do that. I want them to be a rich, great nation. The only thing is one thing, simple. It’s really simple. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. And they got to go fast because they’re fairly close to having one. And they’re not going to have one. And if we have to do something very harsh, we’ll do it. And I’m not doing it for us. I’m doing it for the world. And these are radicalized people, and they cannot have a nuclear weapon.

REPORTER: Does that include a potential strike on Iranian nuclear facilities?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Of course, it does.

Deportation of Criminals to El Salvador

REPORTER: And just a follow-up question, you mentioned that you’re open to deporting individuals that aren’t foreign aliens, but are criminals to El Salvador. Does that include potentially U.S. Citizens fully naturalized in their heads?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: If they’re criminals and if they hit people with baseball bats over their head that happened to be 90 years old, and if they rape 87-year-old women in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Yeah. Yeah.

That includes them. Why do you think there’s special category of person? They’re bad as anybody that comes in. We have bad ones too. And I’m all for it because we can do things with the president for less money and have great security. And we have a huge prison population. We have a huge number of prisons and then we have the private prisons and some are operated well, I guess, and some aren’t. But he does a great job with that. We have others that we’re negotiating with too. But no, if it’s a homegrown criminal, I have no problem.

Now, we’re studying the laws right now. Pam is studying. If we can do that, that’s good. And I’m talking about violent people. I’m talking about really bad people, really bad people. Every bit as bad as the ones coming in. And I made the statement when I heard about this a long time ago now, four years ago, when I heard that this guy was having open borders, I said every single criminal from all over the world is gonna be dumped into our country. And that’s what happened. Jails – the jails of The Congo were emptied out. The jails of Venezuela were emptied out.

And you know what happened? Their crime went way down. But now Venezuela has other country problems. You know what the problem is? They have no money there because I shut off their oil, and we put secondary tariffs because they’re not – they’re not doing what’s right over there. They know what to do. We spoke to them. I spoke to them. They know what to do. But they have no money.

Venezuela has no money. But Iran had no money, and Iran behaved so beautifully. And then Biden took all those secondary tariffs on tariffs. I told China, you can’t buy oil. If you buy oil from Iran, China, I told it to President Xi that we no longer want you to do business with The United States Of America. And those ships disappeared from that harbor so quickly. China, get along great with China.

REPORTER: Are the talks of Iran productive? Do you want to continue that?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think Iran could be a great country as long as it doesn’t have nuclear weapons. If they have nuclear weapons, they’ll never get a chance to be a great country. They will never get a chance. It won’t even come to us.

Tariff Exemptions

REPORTER: Tariffs?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes.

REPORTER: Payne, yesterday, you mentioned short lived product exemptions. Which specific products are you considering? And how long is short lived? Weeks, months?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’m looking at something to help some of the car companies with switching to parts that were made in Canada, Mexico and other places. And they need a little bit of time because they’re going to make them here, but they need a little bit of time. So I’m talking about things like that.

REPORTER: What about any Apple products, other cell phones?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Look, I’m a very flexible person. I don’t change my mind, but I’m flexible. And you have to be, you just can’t have a wall and you’ll only go – sometimes you have to go around it, under it or above it. There’ll be maybe things coming up.

I speak to Tim Cook. I helped Tim Cook recently and that whole business. I’m not – I don’t want to hurt anybody. But the end result is we’re going to get to the position of greatness for our country. We’re the greatest economic power in the world if we’re smart.

If we’re not smart, we’re going hurt our country very badly. We lost with China over the Biden years trillions of dollars on trade, trillions of dollars. And he let them fleece us, and we can’t do that anymore. And you know what? I don’t blame China at all. I don’t blame President Xi. I like him. He likes me. Mean, you know, think who knows? Who the hell cares?

International Trade Relations

REPORTER: Do you have any updates on Fox?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Let me just tell you this. I don’t blame China. I don’t blame Vietnam. I don’t – I see their meeting today. Isn’t that wonderful? That’s a lovely meeting. The meeting like trying to figure out how do we screw The United States Of America.

Don’t forget, the European Union was formed to do just – European Union was formed to hurt The United States and on trade. And they get us on NATO because they don’t pay their bills. But now since I got involved, they have been paying their bills.

I took in 600 – over $600 billion for NATO. Nobody took in anything. I mean, we were – they were all delinquent. Most of the – they had eight nations out of 28 paid their bills. The rest of them were way delinquent. And I said, if you don’t pay your bills, we’re not gonna protect you anymore. And the money poured in over 600. The Secretary General last week made that statement. He said, I’ve never seen anything like it. We couldn’t get anybody to pay because The United States was footing the bill for NATO.

Well, we got hurt there, and we got hurt on trade, likewise, European Union. And they’ve got to come to the table, and they’re trying to. They’re trying to. But the European Union has taken terrible advantage. Products. They don’t take our cars. Take – we have millions of their cars, BMW, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, many others. They come in by the millions. They don’t take – there are no Chevrolets in Munich. I can tell you that.

I said to Angela Merkel when she was there, as she was letting millions of people infiltrate Germany, which was not so good from – we would call them illegal immigrants, but she made them legal. But I said to her, and I got along with her very – I said, how many Chevrolets do we have in Munich or Frankfurt? “Why none, Donald, none.” I said, you’re right. And yet we take in millions and millions of cars.

No. Those days are over. Okay. Thank you very much, everybody.

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