Transcript: President Trump Remarks on Activating National Guard in DC – Press Conference

Read the full transcript of President Trump’s remarks in a press conference held in the White House on activating National Guard in DC, August 11, 2025.

Historic Action to Restore Order in the Nation’s Capital

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’ve been up here a lot. I’ve never seen a crowd like this. I think we need a ballroom. And that’s happening. It’s going to be a beautiful ballroom. This is really a lot of people. Most I’ve ever seen in this room. And we’re here for a very serious purpose, very serious purpose. Something’s out of control, but we’re going to put it in control very quickly like we did on the southern border.

I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse. This is Liberation Day in D.C. and we’re going to take our capital back. We’re taking it back.

Under the authorities vested in me as the president of the United States, I’m officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. You know what that is? And placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control. And you’ll be meeting the people that will be directly involved with that. Very good people, but they’re tough and they know what’s happening and they’ve done it before.

In addition, I’m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, D.C. and they’re going to be allowed to do their job properly. And you people are victims of it, too. You know, you’re reporters and I understand a lot of you tend to be on the liberal side, but you don’t want to get mugged and raped and shot and killed. And you all know people and friends of yours that that happened. And so you can be anything you want, but you want to have safety in the streets. You want to be able to leave your apartment or your house where you live and feel safe and go into a store to buy a newspaper or buy something. And you don’t have that now.

Crime Statistics Reveal Alarming Crisis

PRESIDENT TRUMP: The murder rate in Washington today is higher than that of Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City. Some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on Earth. Much higher. This is much higher. The number of car thefts has doubled over the past five years and the number of carjackings has more than tripled. Murders in twenty twenty three reached the highest rate probably ever. They say twenty five years, but they don’t know what that means because it just goes back twenty five years. Can’t be worse.

Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people. And we’re not going to let it happen anymore. We’re not going to take it. And just like we did on our southern border, nobody comes to our southern border and we’re three months in a row. We had zero. I don’t know if that’s right. But the people that do the work, it’s a very liberal group of people, actually. And they actually said zero for the last three months. Nobody thought a thing like that was possible.

And, you know, you say take a look at numbers. I just saw some charts. These are different cities throughout the world. The red is OK. The red is a place called Washington, D.C. Look at these. Baghdad is we doubled up on Baghdad, Panama City, Brasilia, San Jose, Costa Rica, Bogota, Colombia, heavy drugs. Mexico City, I mentioned Lima, Peru. All double and triple what they said you want to live in places like that. I don’t think so. I don’t think so.

And I think the people in this room, if you wrote correctly, you’d say, look at the kind of numbers we have. D.C. Forty one per one hundred thousand. Number one that we can find anywhere in the world. Other cities are pretty bad, but they’re not as bad as that. That way, you want to live the reporters of the world, juvenile offenders and crimes against persons, as they say. It’s getting worse, not getting better. It’s getting worse.

And we had a recent indication and there was a story about a man who was just left. He quit because he was asked to do phony numbers on crime. And we’re going to look into that. I think Pam is going to be looking into that. But he was asked by the city, I guess, that we don’t want to show the real numbers. Let me do numbers. So it looks like it’s going down, not going down. And under Biden, it was a disaster and nobody did anything about it. We’re going to do things about it like you wouldn’t believe.

Constitutional Right to Safe Government Access

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Every American has a constitutional right to be able to access and petition their government in safety. And countless federal officials and employees likewise have the right to carry out their jobs in peace without being shot. As you know, I lost a very good person a while ago was shot waiting for his wife. He was in the car. They robbed this car. They shot him. They killed him like it was nothing to it. She was walking to the car. She was a horror show.

This issue directly impacts the functioning of the federal government and is a threat to America. Really, it’s a threat to our country. We have other cities also that are bad, very bad. You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that anymore. They’re so they’re so far gone. We’re not going to let it happen. We’re not going to lose our cities over this.

And this will go further. We’re starting very strongly with D.C. and we’re going to clean it up real quick, very quickly, as they say.

Recent Violent Incidents Highlight Crisis

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Days ago, a former member of the DOGE staff was savagely beaten by a band of roving thugs after defending a young woman from an attempted carjacking. He was left dripping in blood. He thought he was dead with a broken nose and concussion. Can’t believe that he’s alive. He can’t believe it.

In June, a 21 year old congressional intern was tragically killed after being hit by a stray bullet in a drive by shooting. A former Trump administration official named Mike Gill, fantastic person, was murdered last year in cold blood in a carjacking blocks away from the White House. We all knew him. Great person. Waiting for his wife as she was walking to the car.

The Democrat congressman was also carjacked at gunpoint not far from the Capitol. And Senator Rand Paul was stabbed in the chest and head by a demented lunatic as he walked down the street just absolutely for no reason. Horrifically, last July 4th weekend, a three year old girl was shot in the head and killed while sitting in a car near the Capitol. It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness.

And we’re getting rid of the slums too. We have slums here. We’re getting rid of them. I know it’s not politically correct. You’ll say, oh, so terrible. No, we’re getting rid of the slums where they live.

New Enforcement Approach

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Caravans of mass youth rampage through city streets at all times of the day. There are ATVs, motorbikes. They travel pretty well. Entire neighborhoods are now under emergency curfews. Just this past weekend, gunfire went through and you saw that the Navy Yard. I saw it this morning. They saw that they fought back against law. See, they fight back until you knock the hell out of them because it’s the only language they understand.

But they fought back against law enforcement last night. And they’re not going to be fighting back long because I’ve instructed them and told them whatever happens, you know, they love to spit in the face of the police as the police are standing up there in uniform. They’re standing and they’re screaming at them an inch away from their face. And then they start spitting in their face. And they said, “You tell them you spit and we hit and they can hit real hard.”

It’s a disgusting thing. I’ve watched that for years, for three, four years. I’ve watched them. The police system and they’re told, don’t do anything under any circumstances. And you can see they want to get at it. And they’re standing there and people are spitting in their face and they’re not allowed to do anything. But now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.

This dire public safety crisis stems directly from the abject failures of the city’s local leadership. The radical left city council adopted no cash bail. By the way, every place in the country where you have no cash bail is a disaster. That’s

PRESIDENT TRUMP: what started the problem in New York. And they don’t change it. They don’t want to change it. That’s what started it in Chicago. I mean, bad politicians started it, bad leadership started it. But that was the one thing that’s central. No cash bail. Somebody murders somebody and they’re out on no cash bail before the day is out. We’re going to end that in Chicago. We’re going to change the statute. I spoke with Pam and Todd and everybody, we’re going to change the statute and I’m going to have to get the Republicans to vote because the Democrats are weak on crime. Totally weak on crime. They don’t know why. They want to stop because they get mugged too. But we’re going to change. No cash bail. We’re going to change the statute and get rid of some of the other things.

And we’ll count on the Republicans in Congress and Senate to vote. We have the majority, so we’ll vote. We don’t have a big majority, but we’ve gotten everything, including the great, big, beautiful bill. Got that done. And that’s one of the greatest things that’s ever happened to people in this country. They’re starting to figure it out how good it is. Biggest tax cut in history. So many things. But we’ll be able to get that done. So, Todd, if you and Pam can draw up things working with the people, we will. I’ll get it passed. We’ll get it passed with the Republicans … probably won’t get. Think of this. Probably won’t get one Democrat vote because they have no idea what they’re doing.

That’s why they want men playing in women’s sports. That’s what they want, why they want transgender for everybody, everybody transgender. And they’ve just got walloped in an election in a landslide. And they haven’t changed one thing. I saw the other day that certain gentlemen who were very well-known politician Democrat was fighting like hell that men should be allowed to play in women’s sport. They just don’t get it. They said it’s an 80-20 issue. And I think it’s a 97 to 3 issue. And I don’t know who the three are. I’ve never heard anybody come. Nobody’s ever come up to me, “Sir, you have to let men play in women’s sports. You have to do it, sir.” Nobody’s ever approached me. I don’t know where this issue even comes from. Never seen anything like it.

Sanctuary Cities and Crime Statistics

But they turned our nation’s capital into a sanctuary jurisdiction. That’s the other thing. We have to get rid of sanctuary cities as quickly as possible. We’re going to do it, too. We have to, because it’s sanctuary for criminals releasing illegal alien gang members onto the streets in 2022. Nearly 70 percent of criminals arrested in Washington went unprosecuted. That’s not going to happen with the group we have standing aside and standing behind me.

And at the Metropolitan Police Department, it’s now reached a small number relatively compared to what it was. But it’s thousands of people. You know, we have thousands of police. I was told today, “Sir, they want more police.” I heard a number 3,500 police. That’s a lot of police. 3,500. I thought they’re going to say we only have 30 policemen or women. So we have 3,500. We need more. You don’t need more. That’s so many. I never heard. That’s like an army. How could you need more than three? It just happened two minutes ago, sir. They requested more police. What do they have? About 3,500. I said 3,500. This is not a big area. It’s ridiculous. What you need is rules and regulations and you need the right people to implement them. And we have the right people here that I can tell you.

Look at the border. Biden said there’s nothing you can do. Kamala was the border czar. She never called one of the border patrol agents who are great. ICE is great. Never spoke to anybody. Never went there. But she was the border czar. And everybody said it was impossible to fix. I fixed it in three months. No, really. I fixed it the first week, but really fixed it over the last couple of months. And I mean, literally to a point where, as I said, zero illegals entering our country in the last 90 days. Pretty amazing.

It’s time for dramatic action. We’re going to do the same thing over. It’s going to be a very safe city. Very soon. We’re not looking to take years because a lot of people die in years. And we’ve got incredible people in this country, except we have to allow them to do their job. And that we will deliver like nobody’s ever delivered before. I actually think it’s easy. You know, if you’re competent, it’s easy. If you’re incompetent, it’s impossible. But I’m very competent.

Federal Law Enforcement Surge

Last week, my administration surge, surge 500 federal agents into the district, including from the FBI, ATF, DEA, Park Police, the U.S. Marshal Service, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security. You know, a lot of nations. They don’t have anything like that. They got some police. And they’re rough police. They don’t have DEA, ATF, FBI, Park Police, U.S. Marshal Service, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security. They got some police, but they’re rough police and they do their job. They don’t have crime. We’re not going to have crime either. They made dozens of arrests. And that’s what starts to happen again. Cashless bail. Watch what we do with that.

Public Safety Emergency Declaration

Today, we’re formally declaring a public safety emergency. This is an emergency. This is a tragic emergency. And it’s embarrassing for me to be up here. You know, I’m going to see Putin. I’m going to Russia on Friday. I don’t like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once beautiful capital was with graffiti all over the walls. It’s another part of it, by the way, because we’re talking about safety. We’re also talking about beautification. We’re the most beautiful, potentially capital in the world. We always said. But people come from Iowa. They come from Indiana. They come and then they get mugged. Not going to happen. Keep coming, because within by the time you get your trip set, it’s going to be safe again and it’s going to be clean very quickly.

We’re going to replace the medians that are falling down all over the roads. We’re going to replace the potholes. We’re going to put a nice new coat of asphalt over the top. No, we don’t have to rip the road out and spend seven years building a new road because they cut everything. Because some designers said, “Well, we need a quarter of an inch more turn for safety reasons.” We’re going to do it right. We’re going to get it done quickly.

So today we’re declaring public safety emergency in the District of Columbia and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who’s fantastic, is taking command of the Metropolitan Police Department as of this moment. And I’ll be making the appropriate notifications to Congress and to the mayor, our new DEA administrator, who’s one of the top in the country. He better be, Terry. If you’re not, I’m going to get rid of you so fast. Terry Cole. Terry, thanks. Very good. We just got him. Most highly recommended person. And you’ll be designated as the interim federal commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Department. OK. And you run them tough. They’re good. You have a lot of good people. You have people that shouldn’t be there. You also have people that shouldn’t be there. They got in there because of woke. But you have a lot of great police. And those people are the ones that want to help you.

Law Enforcement Deployment

This city will no longer be a sanctuary for illegal alien criminals. We will have full, seamless, integrated cooperation at all levels of law enforcement and will deploy officers across the district with an overwhelming presence. You’ll have more police and you’ll be so happy because you’ll be safe when you walk down the street. You’re going to see police or you’re going to see FBI agents. We have a lot of agents on the street. You’re going to have a lot of essentially military. And we will bring in the military if it’s needed. By the way, we’re going to have National Guard. But Pete Hegseth will tell you about it. We will bring in the military if needed. People say, “Oh, that’s so terrible. He’s going to bring in.” It’s been it’s been many times over the years. I don’t think we’ll need it. I think we’ve got so many great people, including the people that are in the police department

Targeting Criminal Networks and Gangs

with proper leadership. They’ll immediately begin massive enforcement operations targeting known gangs, drug dealers and criminal networks to get them the hell off the street, maybe get them out of the country, because a lot of them came into our country illegally. They shouldn’t have been allowed in. They come from Venezuela. They come from all over the world. We’re going to get them the hell out. They won’t be here long. But some of these people, a lot of them are homegrown criminals. And these are bad people. These are rough people. And this is just a list of some of the people that were given to me today that were criminals removed from the D.C. streets this weekend. They were rough, rough and tough. But we’re rougher and tougher.

Look at these people here. Nothing, you know, they’re not going to be your local school teacher. This guy has killed people numerous times. They’re not going to be an asset. They will never be an asset to society. I don’t care. I know we all want to say, oh, they’re going to be rehabbed. It’s not going to be real.

I’m going to ask Doug Burgum to come up and say a couple of words because he’s in charge, as you know, he’s interior, but he’s in charge of the U.S. Park Police. And I’ve heard so many great things about the park police. They’re proud of it. They’ve been there for a long time. Their families oftentimes grow into the roles. They love the country. They love this area. So, Doug, could you say a few words, please?

Secretary Burgum on U.S. Park Police

SECRETARY BURGUM: Thank you, Mr. President. On behalf of the U.S. Park Police, this is the oldest federal police force in the nation. They were formed in 1791 by none other than President George Washington. They’ve got the awesome responsibility of protecting our nation’s most sacred monuments. The National Mall, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Statue of Liberty and out west the Presidio and the Golden Gate area. These folks have tens of millions of visitors a year, the kind of people that President Trump is talking about that come from around the country and around the world to see our sacred and learn about our history and our sacred monuments.

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They’ve been doing a fantastic job, but they are so pleased the rank and file that President Trump is now allowing them to enforce the law. As those of you that live in the city may know that the circles and the triangle parks that are spread throughout D.C. are actually federal park property, so the U.S. Park Police also have responsibility for that. These became littered with homeless camps under the Biden administration. All of you saw that.

Since President Trump’s executive order on March 27th, making D.C. safe and beautiful again, the U.S. Park Police have removed over 70 homeless camps and President Trump also talked about beautification. They’re stopping and enforcing the laws against graffiti on our monuments. They’ve removed over 80 specific attacks against our history with graffiti on our monuments, so they continue to do a great job, whether it’s in their vehicles on foot or on the mounted police that you see around the National Mall. President Trump, they thank you. The rank and file is so happy to be enforcing the law again. Thank you for your leadership, and they’re excited about the announcement you’re making today.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Great job you’re doing. Thank you very much. Pete, could you say something about the military?

Defense Secretary Hegseth on National Guard Deployment

DEFENSE SECRETARY HEGSETH: Well, Mr. President, it’s an honor to be here. At your direction this morning, we’ve mobilized the D.C. National Guard. It’ll be operationalized by the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, through the D.C. Guard. You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week. At your direction as well, sir, there are other units we are prepared to bring in. Other National Guard units, other specialized units, they will be strong, they will be tough, and they will stand with their law enforcement partners.

This is nothing new for DOD. As the President noted, at the border, we’ve got 10,000 troops down there who’ve been operating in defense cooperation areas, defense zones, where there’s zero, zero illegal crossings because of troops on strikers scanning the border. We’ve been protecting other people’s borders for 20 years. It’s about time we protect our own, and we’re working with ICE and CBP.

In Los Angeles, we did the same thing, working with the California National Guard, working with ICE officers. ICE officers deserve to do their job and not be attacked. We will work alongside all D.C. police and federal law enforcement to ensure this city is safe, this city is beautiful. And as I always say about President Trump to the troops, he has their back. And my message to the National Guard and federal law enforcement in Washington is we have your back as well. Be tough, be strong. We’re right behind you. Thank you, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’m going to ask Pam, because she’s now, as you heard me say, she’s really in charge of a lot of what we’re talking about. She’s done an incredible job. People are going to start to see the fruits of her labor. And Pam, maybe you could say a few words about what we’re talking about here.

Attorney General Bondi on Crime Enforcement

ATTORNEY GENERAL BONDI: Sure, President. Let me be crystal clear. Crime in D.C. is ending and ending today. We are going to use every power we have to fight criminals here. President, thank you for caring about our capital. Families come here every summer. Our museums are free. We have the National Zoo. We have the National Gallery. D.C. should be a place where everyone can come and feel safe.

Behind me and to my side, we have some of the best career law enforcement and prosecutors in the country who are ready to take this on. As the president said, Terry Cole is going to be supervising the Metro Police Department. Gatti Serrata, our U.S. Marshal, is going to be supervising command and control, the entire operation. Our Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and I will be working with them closely, along with our great FBI Director Kash Patel.

Kash is going to talk to you in a minute about what we did in Virginia recently with Governor Yunkin. Many of you covered that, and it was tremendously successful. Not only that, our secret weapon here in D.C. is U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, one of the toughest prosecutors and a former judge, and she is going to be talking about juvenile crime, how it’s out of control here, and what she’s going to do to fight back.

No more, no more crime rampant in our beautiful capital. No more teenage girls beating a disabled man to death. No more of that. No more drive-bys. We’re going to do everything we can. And working with the ATF, ATF Director Driscoll and Commander of the Army, we’re going to all work together. That’s what we all do in this room. We work together. We fight. Do not underestimate one person in this room. We’re going to make D.C. beautiful. We’re going to make D.C. safe again.

One other thing, just at the wharf a few days ago, the area of the wharf, Terry Cole reached out to me. Not even nightfall, on the weekend, were so many families in Turrisco, guys overdosing from fentanyl on a park bench, in the middle of families around. They administered Narcan and saved his life. No more of that. The President of the United States is going to clean up D.C., and we’re going to be there to help him, and we’re going to be successful. Thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Kash, talk about Northern Virginia.

FBI Director Patel on Enforcement Success

FBI DIRECTOR PATEL: Northern Virginia, we had a big success. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Attorney General Bondi, for your leadership, Deputy Attorney General, the rest of our interagency partners. Mr. President, the following is what happens when you let good cops be cops, and I just want to highlight that before I get into Northern Virginia.

This year alone, under President Trump’s administration, we’ve had over 4,000 child victims identified and found. That’s a 33 percent increase from the same time period last year. 33 percent increase. We’ve had a seizure of 1,500 kilograms of fentanyl up to this date. That is a 25 percent increase since the same time period last year. And just to put it in perspective, 1,500 kilograms of fentanyl is enough to kill 115 million Americans. 115 million Americans.

Cops are getting after it. The FBI has arrested 19,000 people this year alone. Thanks to President Trump’s administration, that’s double than where we were this time last year. And we have also arrested 1,600 people who have committed violent acts against children. Children. 270 of them are human traffickers of children. Mr. President, this is what happens when

KASH PATEL: You have great leadership of the Attorney General with Pam Bondi, your administration’s priority of protecting the homeland and protecting American citizens and protecting our children. And the murder rates are plummeting. We are now able to report that the murder rate is on track to be the lowest in U.S. history, in modern recorded U.S. history, thanks to this team behind me and President Trump’s priorities.

And how do we do it? And what are we going to bring to D.C.? What we did in Northern Virginia, thanks to Terry Cole and Governor Youngkin and the team, we stood up a task force out in my Northern Virginia field office, and we said, let’s let good cops be cops. Let’s get them the intelligence and what they need, and let’s get the red tape out of their way, and let’s get DOJ partnered up with us to bring great prosecutions, and that’s exactly what we did.

In one month, we arrested 545 violent felons. 545 in the state of Virginia, thanks to Governor Youngkin’s partnership. And that simplicity in law enforcement is what’s coming to Washington, D.C. When you let good cops be cops, when you give them the intel they need, when you work with our Homeland Security Task Force, when you work with Terry and Gotti and I go way back to Miami, these guys are great leaders of their respective departments and law enforcement capacities. And when you have the DOJ and President Trump driving behind this mission, we are going to clean up Washington, D.C., and we’re going to do it the right way, the lawful way, and we’re going to make sure Washington, D.C. is safe again. Thank you, Mr. President.

Clearing Encampments and Homeless Operations

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you, Attorney General. Thank you very much, Attorney General. Thank you, Kash. So the process begins right now. It actually started over the weekend, and we confronted a lot of very bad people. But it’s going to be something that will be pretty amazing to you as you watch it. And I think most of you will say it’s a beautiful thing to do it right.

We’re going to be removing homeless and campers from all over our parks, our beautiful, beautiful parks, which now a lot of people can’t walk on. They’ve been very dirty, very — got a lot of problems. But we’ve already started that. We’re moving the encampments away, trying to take care of people. Some of those people, we don’t know how they even got there. Some of those people are from different countries, different parts of the world. Nobody knows who they are. They have no idea. But they’re there getting rid of the people from underpasses and public spaces from all over the city.

There are many places that they can go, and we’re going to help them as much as you can help. But they’ll not be allowed to turn our capital into a wasteland for the world to see. The Metropolitan Police Department and the federal authorities will be supported in the effort — a really big effort — the 800 D.C. National Guardsmen that we’ll put on.

National Guard Deployment and Military Support

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And much more if necessary, much more, it’s, you remember I said, I offered 10,000 once, remember I said to a certain person, a person who I thought always was highly overrated, not very competent, but I said, if you need them, we’ll give you 10,000 of the military or the National Guard, they turned me down, but if necessary, we’re going to move service members directly to joining the Guardsmen, and that’ll take place very rapidly, and that’ll be done in conjunction with Pam and with Pete and everybody else.

Washington, D.C. should be one of the safest, cleanest, and most beautiful cities anywhere in the world, and we’re going to make it that, we’re going to make it safe, we’re going to make it smart, we’re going to make it beautiful, so beautiful. Some of the buildings, we’re going to add to it, you see what we’ve done at the White House. The White House is a whole different building, I do that in my part time because it’s a natural instinct as a real estate person, I was very good at that, I was very good at fixing things up, I like fixing things up, you see what’s happening, the marble floors are being reinstalled, renovated, fixed, the whole place is becoming very beautiful, we’re going to be adding a magnificent ballroom, most beautiful ballroom I think anywhere, we need it, I would have certainly loved to have had it today, I think we would have filled it up, a lot of you are standing outside, can’t get in this room, I’ve never seen a room like this, which tells me that you want to talk about, I mean this was a D.C. news conference, it tells me that you want to talk about crime in D.C., and beautification of D.C., but I’m going to put that, that’s easy, and I think frankly, fixing the crime with the pros, fixing the crime is easy too.

Introducing Judge Jeanine Pirro

PRESIDENT TRUMP: A person who I’ve known for a long time, and she’s been incredible, she was a fantastic, one of the best ever district attorneys in New York, she was in Westchester, she became a judge, a very successful judge, and then she went into showbiz because she was such a good D.A. and such a good judge, tough judge, but fair, always fair, nobody ever complained about that, but she was tough, and because of that and her reputation, she went into showbiz.

So a lot of people don’t, you know, they think of Jeanine as showbiz, actually showbiz was not her thing, and she did great, she was on along with a couple of other of my friends on the number one show, and she did great, but this is what she loves doing, this is really her baby, what she’s going to do is going to be incredible. And I’d like to introduce, to speak for just a few seconds on what she has in mind, what she wants to do, we’re going to be appointing some judges, you know we have some open spots, and we’re going to take people, because the judges are letting killers out, they just say go, that’s okay, don’t worry about it, so we’re putting some, Pam recommended, Todd recommended, some judges that are great, Jeanine recommended, Jeanine’s given me three great candidates already, we’ve got ten open spots, and we can probably create some more, we need them, Jeanine, would you say a few words please?

Judge Jeanine Pirro on Criminal Justice Reform

JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO: Thank you very much Mr. President, and thank you Madam Attorney General, and to all my partners here. We all want the same thing, we all want a safe city, we want a safe capital, we want to be able to bring our families here, we want to be able to come and enjoy the history that makes this place great, and unfortunately we are not in that position right now.

And Mr. President, I want to thank you for taking the step that we need right now to make criminals understand that they are not going to get away with it anymore. And I’m not going to stand here and go over and over the cases, but what I can tell you is this, I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think that they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you, or anyone else. They don’t care where they are, they can be in DuPont Circle, but they know that we can’t touch them, why? Because the laws are weak. I can’t touch you if you’re 14, 15, 16, 17 years old and you have a gun.

I convict someone of shooting another person with an illegal gun on a public bus, in the chest, intent to kill, I convict him, and you know what the judge gives him? Probation, says “you should go to college,” we need to go after the DC council and their absurd laws. We need to get rid of this concept of no cash bail, we need to recognize that the people who matter are the law abiding citizens, and it starts today. But it’s not going to end today, because the President is going to do everything we need to do to make sure that these emboldened criminals understand, we see you, we’re watching you, and we’re going to change the law to catch you.

And my final note is this, these kids understand that the jurisdiction is through the state attorney general, Brian Schwalb, I did a poster of the young man from Georgetown who was beaten bloody with a severe concussion, a broken nose, and then I did a poster of what happens to those kids, because I can’t arrest them, I can’t prosecute them, they go to family court, and… it changes today. Thank you Mr. President.

WILL: A short while ago in the Oval Office, President Trump signed two crucial executive actions to deal with the emergency crime conditions we currently face in the District of Columbia. The first of these was an executive order, as President Trump said before, invoking his powers under section 40 of the Home Rule Act to take federal control of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. Along with that executive order, President Trump signed the statutorily required notification letters to Mayor Bowser and to the relevant House and Senate committee leaders.

The second major executive action that President Trump signed was a presidential memorandum directing the Secretary of Defense to utilize the National Guard to address the conditions we see on our streets here in D.C. It also authorized the Secretary of Defense to work with state governors to utilize their National Guard units if necessary as well. These are bold, decisive steps intended to combat the out-of-control crime conditions we’ve seen on D.C.’s streets for far too long. And I, for one, am deeply proud to be part of an administration that’s finally coming to terms with these issues, sir. Thank you very much, sir.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you.

Historical Precedent on Monument Protection

PRESIDENT TRUMP: So just to conclude, Washington, D.C. should be one of the safest, cleanest, most beautiful places anywhere in the world. It was years ago. We had one problem that was a pretty big problem. The radical left got out of control and they started trying to rip down statues. And I said, let’s go pass a law real fast. We’re going to do it real fast. But we were blocked by the Democrats, who do not want safety. Nobody gets it. I don’t get it. They don’t get it because they can’t get votes. I don’t know how they can win an election with this, but they don’t want safety.

And I found an old statute, very old, early 1900s, that said, if you so much as touch or even think about destroying a statue or a monument in Washington, D.C., you go to jail for 10 years with no probation, no anything. In other words, slightly different than we have today. Today we have cashless bail. There you get jail, 10 years, no curtailed sentence, 10 years. And we took it out. Nobody used it. It was never used because, you know, it’s harsh.

And you remember, they started to rip down the statue of Abraham Lincoln. I said, “That’s a tough one to rip down. He was pretty good, Pam. I think he was pretty good.” When the ropes started going around Abraham Lincoln to pull him down, Andrew Jackson, others. And they were heading to the Jefferson Memorial, Thomas Jefferson. They’re going to do a big number there. I said, “It’s time.” And I signed that statute immediately. We had it updated. We made it use the same language, all passed by Congress.

And I announced it’s 10 years in jail, no probation, no anything, 10 years, no curtailed sentence if you touch, so much as touch a statue in Washington, D.C. And it was an amazing sight, beautiful sight. Everybody just left. The ropes were hanging around Andrew Jackson and there were two ropes around Abraham Lincoln. They left the rope. But everybody just left and that was the last problem we ever had. You know, that was the last problem that we ever had with the statues. They were going wild.

And we, somebody came to me and said, “Sir, in 1910,” I don’t want to give you an exact answer because you’ll say, “Donald Trump gave us rope that’s around like early on.” You know, if I’m slightly off, they make you sound a little bad. So I won’t be, I won’t put myself in that position. I won’t put you in that position. I think everybody agrees with what we’re doing today. But when I signed that thing, it was like a miracle. Everybody left. They were gone.

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They were starting to march down. They started the march toward Thomas Jefferson. And I figured he was always going to be safe. But they found something with him and they found something with Abraham Lincoln. And even in the name George Washington in California, numerous places changed the name of George Washington High School and various other places. They took George Washington’s name. This was a sick, woke culture that I think we’ve largely ended. And a lot of those people that were woke are now turning out to be the opposite. I won’t go so far as to say MAGA. It’s a very special category. But they’ve gotten out of that.

Restoring Washington D.C.’s Beauty

PRESIDENT TRUMP: But we have people that love this country and they love this really beautiful capital. It is. I flew over it the other day and I said, “What a beautiful place.” But if there’s crime all over the streets, when you get there, it doesn’t look so beautiful. But we’re going to make it beautiful again. We’re going to fix it with crime. And we’re going to also, as we’re doing that, we’re going to start doing things that we know how to do that I know how to do better than anybody, I guess, because of my experience from previous life.

But not only are we stopping the crime, we’re going to clean up the trash and the graffiti and the grime and the dirt and the broken marble panels and all of the things they’ve done to hurt this city. And we’re going to restore the city back to the gleaming capital that everybody wants it to be. It’s going to be something very special.

All of these people are really tough. Can I shake your hand, Gaddy, please? You’re going to be so important here. You’re going to be you’re going to be that guy. I hope I don’t have to fire him in two weeks because he’s too soft. I don’t think he’s too soft. If I do, I will, though. Is it OK if you if you’re soft, weak and pathetic like so many people? I will fire you so you’re not going to have to worry about that. No, I think you’re going to do a fantastic job.

And everybody in this room, they may not express it, but they all want that to happen. You know, they want to be safe and their families, too. So it’s an honor to have such a large group. I’ve done this for years now. Hard to believe I’ve never seen this room so packed. In fact, I’m sure it’s a violation of every fire code. But we’ll let you stay anyway. You take it a chance.

Questions from Press

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And with that, we’ll say maybe if you could. Oh, wow. We could be here all day long. If you could, if we could, if we could keep the first questions perhaps to this subject and then we’ll go on to a few other. Please, Mr. President.

REPORTER: Thank you so much. Can you talk about how personal of an issue this is? You talked about flying over the Washington Monument and seeing the pride of what D.C. is. Do you believe that the status of the city, the cleanliness, the the way that crime is low is a direct reflection on how the country is run?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah, I do. I think the Capitol. Look, everyone comes here. They’re all coming. All the leaders, they’re all wanting to come. And I say that I’ve said it again, but I’m really just quoting other leaders from NATO, from the Middle East, King of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE. I was over there. We brought back five point one trillion dollars of investment into our country. But I was a month and a half ago. I was at NATO. We had a great thing. They agreed to put up five percent instead of two percent, two percent. They didn’t pay. Five percent is already paid.

We had a great meeting and they all said the same thing. They said our country was dead. They thought our country was gone. One year ago, they said your country was dead and now you have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We do have the hottest country in the world right now. The tariffs have helped. It’s given us not only the money, it’s billions, trillions of dollars of money, but it gives us great power over enemies. We saw five wars with Pakistan and India with. We just solved one. As you’re by John and as you know, in Armenia, it was a war was raging for thirty seven years and the two

International Peace Efforts and Infrastructure

TRUMP: leaders got up and they said we never thought this would be solved. Russia tried to solve it. They all tried to solve it. It was a very tough situation, but we got it done and got it done. And I said to the two men, I said, are you guys friends? And they had a hard time. They’ve been killing each other for thirty seven years. Right. One was there five years. One was there for twenty two years. He said my whole life I’ve been fighting this war and you got it. But we did many of those we did in the Congo and Rwanda. That’s been going on for 30 years. Eight to nine million people killed that they know of. But it was raging and we got that. We get a lot of them. It’s a great honor.

But you want to have when they come, the leaders come to our country to sign documents that the war is over or whatever, or for other reasons. They come for trade and you want them to come through so beautifully. You ride down those roads. Everything should be perfect. You shouldn’t have medians falling down into the roadway median. You know, the metal things that are always somebody had a great, a great lobbyist because I’ve never seen them look good. I’ve been looking at those things with a little great. They’re always broken, bad. But here they’re really bad. And we’re going to either put new or fix it. And it’s not expensive. It’s not really expensive. And we’re going to fix our roads a little bit. We’re going to clean up our sidewalks.

You have countries where every Saturday the people go out and they wash their sidewalks in front of their stores or their houses. They scrub. They scrub their sidewalks. So we aren’t quite at that level yet. I don’t think, Gaddy, we’re not quite there yet. But maybe we will. They go they go out and they scrub. I think it’s so beautiful to hear that and to see those things. But we’re going to make it clean.

But just to finish with your question, it’s a very, very strong reflection of our country. And when they see a bad city, you know, my father always used to tell me I had a wonderful father, very smart. And he used to say, “Son, when you walk into a restaurant and you see a dirty front door, don’t go in, because if the front door is dirty, the kitchen is dirty also.” Same thing with the Capitol. If our Capitol is dirty, our whole country is dirty. And they don’t respect us. So it’s a very good question, actually.

Expansion to Other Cities

REPORTER: Mr. President, I have a question for you on this specific issue. Do you expect more cities to follow D.C.’s path if this goes through? So the idea is that Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, would they expect similar action what we’ve seen in D.C.?

REPORTER: And other questions, sir?

Marijuana Reclassification Discussion

REPORTER: There’s reporting that the administration is going to reclassify marijuana. Would that send mixed messages that if marijuana is okay, drugs are — some drugs are okay, but we’re trying to clean up crime? How do they go hand in hand?

TRUMP: We’re only looking at that. That’s early. But, you know, somebody reported it, which is fine. We’re looking at it. Some people like it. Some people hate it. Some people hate the whole concept of marijuana, because if it does bad for the children, it does bad for people that are older than children. But we’re looking at reclassification, and we’ll make a determination over the next — I would say over the next few weeks. And that determination hopefully will be the right one.

It’s a very complicated subject, you know, the subject of marijuana. I’ve heard great things having to do with medical, and I’ve had bad things having to do with just about everything else. But medical and, you know, for pain and various things, I’ve heard some pretty good things. But for other things, I’ve heard some pretty bad things. The other part of your question — I mean, we’re just going to see what happens with it all.

Other Cities and Cashless Bail

TRUMP: You’re going to have — we’re going to have a tremendous success in what we’re doing. Other cities are hopefully watching this. They’re all watching, just like everyone’s watching here. They’re all watching. And maybe they’ll self-clean up, and maybe they’ll self-do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem. I mean, if you go back, this whole thing with cashless bail is a disaster. So many problems came that we never had before.

So they’re watching us today. And if they don’t learn their lesson, if they haven’t studied us properly — because we’re going to be very successful. I have zero doubt about that. It’s going to be — it’s a question of will it be really fast, like the border. You know, everyone said — they used to say — Biden used to say, “I need legislation. I need” — he didn’t need — I didn’t get any legislation. I called up our people, and we did a great job. Tom Homan was great. Our — as you know, our secretary did a great job. They did a great job. There’s no games. They didn’t play games. And we’re going to have the same thing here.

Plans for Chicago and Leadership Criticism

TRUMP: But then I’m going to look at New York in a little while. Let’s do this. Let’s do this together. Let’s see. It’s going to go pretty quickly. And if we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster. We have a mayor there who’s totally incompetent. He’s an incompetent man. And we have an incompetent governor there. Pritzker’s an incompetent. His family threw him out of the business, and he ran for governor. And now I understand he wants to be president. But I noticed he lost a little weight, so maybe he has a chance. You know, you never know what happens. But Pritzker’s a gross incompetent guy thrown out of the family business.

Los Angeles Fires and Rebuilding Challenges

TRUMP: But when I look at Chicago and I look at L.A., if we didn’t go to L.A. Three months ago, L.A. would be burning like the part that didn’t burn. If he would have allowed the water to come down, which I told him about in my first term, I said, “You’re going to have problems. Let it come down.” We actually sent in our military to have the water come down into L.A. They still didn’t want it to come down after the fires. But that was it. We have it coming down.

But hopefully L.A. is watching. That mayor also. The city is burning. They lost like 25,000 homes. I went there the day after the fire. You were there. And I saw people standing in front of a burned down home. It was their homes were incinerated. They weren’t like even the steel was literally it was all warped and literally disintegrated because of the winds and the flame and the whole thing like a blowtorch. They were standing on this beautiful day, maybe a couple of days after. We gave it a little time because what they had suffered. Almost 25,000 homes.

Permit Issues and Low-Income Housing Concerns

TRUMP: And you see what’s happening now. They didn’t give their permits. I went to a town hall meeting. I said, “We’re going to get you the federal permits, which are much harder.” Almost immediately, Lee Zeldin is a star. He did an incredible job. They have all their federal permits. They don’t have their city permits. And the mayor said to me, “We think we can have them in two years.” I was walking down the street and I met with firemen and police. And I was saying hello to many people that were standing in front of their homes with yellow tape. You can’t go in. You can’t go onto the lot.

And those people wanted to start rebuilding their homes then and there. And the mayor said, “We should be able to get them the permits within two years.” I said, “That’s a shame. Two years. Are you kidding? I’m going to get him the federal permit like almost immediately. Two years.” And she she wrote back, “Well, maybe one year.” The place was booing her out of the place. They don’t have their permits to build their homes.

And now they’re talking about putting this is among the most beautiful areas was in the country. Now they’re talking about putting low income housing there. Can you believe this? I love low income housing. I made money with low income housing. I built low income house. I know more about low income housing and luxury. I know about everything real estate. They want to replace some of those homes with low income housing. They haven’t gotten their permits yet. We’ve gotten all the federal permits, which are much tougher to get. And it was done almost immediately through Lee Zeldin and federal environmental. And I watched the other day. Those people are angry. And now, you know, they had tremendous. They love that area. They loved the whole big area, different places. But they loved it. It was all luxury stuff and beautiful stuff. And some wasn’t that luxury. But the level of love for that neighborhood, their neighborhoods was incredible. And you know what? I watched people on television. They want to go. They want to leave. They’ve lost their spirit. They’ve lost their heart. Because the mayor’s incompetent.

First thing I did, I got the Olympics to go there. I was the one that got it. And by a rare thing that happened, I’ll be the president. I was very upset because I got the Olympics. And I said I won’t be president when it comes. But bad things happened and illegal things happened, really illegal things happened. Now it turns out one good thing was I’m going to be the president for the Olympics for 2050, for 250, which is going to be fantastic, and also for the World Cup. So we have a lot of good things. And I hope 250 is going to be – 250th anniversary is going to be the best. But when I looked at those people and I saw last night on television that they still don’t have their permits, it’s a disgrace what’s happened in Los Angeles. Thank you.

China Tariff Discussion

REPORTER: The China tariff deadline is tonight, but do you plan to extend that?

DONALD TRUMP: We’ll see what happens. China’s been – we’ve been dealing very nicely with China, as you probably have heard. They have tremendous tariffs that they’re paying to the United States of America. And we’ll see what happens. They’ve been dealing quite nicely. Their relationship is very good with President – with President Xi and myself.

Upcoming Putin Meeting and Ukraine War

REPORTER: You mentioned your upcoming meeting with President Putin. Tell us what you hope to get out of that and whether you consider inviting President Zelensky to join.

DONALD TRUMP: So you have to understand this is a war that should have never happened. This is a war that wouldn’t have happened if I were president. It would have never happened. It wasn’t – it was the apple of his eye. I got along very well with President Putin. But if you look, under President Bush, they took a lot of territory. Under President Obama, they took a lot of territory. Under Biden, they essentially took the whole thing. You know, it’s just a question of time. Under Trump, you know what they took? Nothing. Nothing.

I was the one that said, “You can’t build your pipeline.” That was half built. I came in. I stopped the pipeline. It’s called Nord Stream 2. Nobody knows it. You know, nobody ever heard of Nord Stream 2. Pipeline – I’ve not even heard of it. Biggest pipeline in the world. I stopped it. I was not a friend of Russia, but I got along well with Putin. It’s always good to get along with other countries if possible. But that doesn’t mean you roll over like Biden did. Biden came in and he immediately approved the pipeline. I couldn’t believe it. Then they say Trump wasn’t tough on Russia. I wasn’t tough. I was the toughest. Putin said, “If you’re not tough, I would hate like hell to see you visit.” I stopped the biggest economic development job, the biggest job that Russia had ever built. I stopped it. It was dead. And this low IQ president came in and he let them build a pipeline and supply oil and gas all over Europe, you know.

So this is really a feel out meeting a little bit. And President Putin invited me to get involved. He wants to get involved. I think, I believe he wants to get it over with. Now, I’ve said that a few times. And I’ve been disappointed because I have like a great call with him. And then missiles would be lobbed into Kiev or some other place. And you’d have 60 people laying on a road dying. I said, “That’s cold. That’s cold.” But it’s a violent war. Five to seven thousand people a week are dying. And, you know, there’s nobody from here. They’re all Russian and Ukrainian people and some people from the city. But still, those missiles do damage and they kill a lot of people, but mostly soldiers. And the young soldiers, although in the case of Ukraine, they’re getting much older. They’re drafting 60 year olds. Now, it’s a terrible thing to witness. And I think I have an obligation.

Look, this is Joe Biden’s war. This is not my war. I made a deal with NATO a month ago. You covered it very accurately. Actually, we don’t pay anything anymore. You know, we’re not paying anything. They are buying things from us. And NATO is paying us. I got it raised from two percent of GDP to five percent. And they’re paying us for everything that we send. We’re not paying. But Biden approved three hundred and fifty billion dollars. Europe has spent one hundred billion. The money that’s been spent and the death is incredible. It’s the worst thing that’s happened by far. The worst that’s happened since World War Two.

So I’m going in to speak to Vladimir Putin. And I’m going to be telling him “You got to end this war. You got to end it.” And he wasn’t going to mess with me. He was this war would have never happened. You know, we had a discussion about it one time and we never had that discussion again. Would have never happened. And when the election was rigged and then Biden took office, which was barely took office, the auto pen took office. Bad things started happening. Bad things. Stupid things were said. And it ended up in a war.

And, you know, the big. And I don’t believe this will happen anymore because I have that pretty well covered. This could end up in a third world war. This could have been a third world war. I don’t think that’s going to happen now. But I thought it was very respectful that the president of Russia is coming to our country as opposed to us going to his country or even a third party place. But I think we’ll have constructive conversations.

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Meeting Strategy with Ukraine and Russia

DONALD TRUMP: Then after that meeting, immediately, maybe as I’m flying out, maybe as I’m leaving the room, I’ll be calling the European leaders who I get along with very well. And, you know, I have a great relationship, I think, with all of them. And I get along with Zelensky. But, you know, I disagree with what he’s done. Very, very severely disagree. This is a war that should have never happened, wouldn’t have happened.

But I’ll be speaking to Zelensky. The next meeting will be with Zelensky and Putin or Zelensky and Putin and me. I’ll be there if they need. But I want to have a meeting set up between the two leaders. I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, “Well, I have to get constitutional approval.” I mean, he’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody. But he needs approval to do a land swap because there’ll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody. To the good, for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff. Also, some bad stuff for both. There’s good and there’s bad.

But it’s very complex because you have lines that are very uneven. And there’ll be some swapping. There’ll be some changes in land. And the word that they will use is, you know, they make changes. “We’re going to change the lines, the battle lines.” Russia’s occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They’ve occupied some very prime territory. We’re going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine. But they’ve taken some very prime territory. They’ve taken largely ocean. You know, in real estate, we call it oceanfront property. That’s always the most valuable property. If you’re on a lake, a river, or an ocean, it’s always the best property. Well, Ukraine, a lot of people don’t know that Ukraine was largely 1,000 miles of ocean. That’s gone. Other than one small area, Odessa. It’s a small area. There’s just a little bit of water left.

So I’m going to go and see the parameters. Now, I may leave and say, “Good luck,” and that’ll be the end. I may say, “This is not going to be settled.” I mean, there are those that believe that Putin wanted all of Ukraine. I happen to be one of them, by the way.

TRUMP: I think if it weren’t for me, he would not be even talking to anybody else right now. But I’m going to meet with him. We’re going to see what the parameters are. I’m then going to call up President Zelensky and the European leaders. Afterwards. Right after the meeting, yeah. And I’m going to tell them what kind of a deal. I’m not going to make a deal. It’s not up to me to make a deal. I think a deal should be made for both. I think Russia has to get back into building their country. It’s a massive country. I think they have 11 time zones, if you can believe it. It’s a massive, it’s by far, from the standpoint of land, it’s by far the largest. They have tremendous potential in Russia to do well. They’re not doing well. Their economy’s not doing well right now because it’s been very well disturbed by this.

It doesn’t help when the President of the United States tells their largest or second largest oil buyer that we’re putting a 50% tariff on you if you buy oil from Russia. That was a big blow. And then they say, “gee, he wasn’t so tough.” Nobody else would have done that. And I haven’t stopped there. I mean, look, I was all set to do things far bigger than that, but I got a call that they’d like to meet. And I’m going to see what they want to meet about. I’d like to see a ceasefire. I’d like to see the best deal that could be made for both parties. You know, it takes two to tango, right? So ultimately, I’ll have a meeting next week.

History with Russia and Military Support

I had a great relationship with him considering the fact that I was not nice to him because of the pipeline. I ended the pipeline. I also gave the javelins. Do you ever hear of a javelin? Javelin is called a tank buster. They say that Obama gave them sheets and I gave them javelins. If it weren’t for me, all those tanks that were destroyed at the first days of the war because the tanks got stuck in the mud, some commander made a better… You know, they would have been in Kiev in four hours going down the highway, but a Russian general made a brilliant decision to go through the farmland instead. And they just had torrential rains and the rains were so bad and it was mud and those tanks got stuck in the mud. I don’t know who that general is, but knowing Vladimir, he’s probably not around any longer because all those tanks were stuck in the mud and they went along with the javelins. I gave him the javelins. You know that, right? I gave him javelins, they gave him sheets.

Deal-Making Process

But I’m going to meet with President Putin and we’re going to see what he has in mind. And if it’s a fair deal, I’ll reveal it to the European Union leaders and to the NATO leaders and also to President Zelensky. I think out of respect, I’ll call him first and then I’ll call them after. And I may say, “lots of luck, keep fighting,” or I may say “we can make a deal.” I will tell you this, I’ve seen a poll coming out of Ukraine. 88% of the people would like to see a deal made. And if you go back three years, everybody was gung-ho for war. You know, everybody’s gung-ho for war until you have it. It’s an amazing thing.

I had it with a couple of countries where I couldn’t get a deal done with one particular country. And I just couldn’t. The guy’s great, he’s a friend of mine, great. Good leader, tough as hell. I couldn’t get the deal done. And then he went into war for a short period of time. You know where I’m talking about, first term. And it was nasty, guys being killed all over the place. And he went through one week of war and I was able to get the deal done. He said, “this is nasty. Yes, please.”

REPORTER: Just to follow up on what you were saying there. First of all, Vladimir Zelensky is not invited on Friday?

TRUMP: He wasn’t a part of it. I would say he could go, but he’s gone to a lot of meetings. You know, he’s been there for three and a half years, nothing happened. And what is the definition? I mean, do you want somebody that’s been doing this for three and a half years?

REPORTER: What’s the definition of a good deal?

TRUMP: I’ll tell you after I hear what the deal is. Because there could be many definitions. You know, you’re talking about a very large and complex situation. And I tell you, the war that I just settled with Azerbaijan and with, as you know, in Armenia, was almost as complex as this one, having to do with routes.

REPORTER: He said he had a meeting on Friday with Vladimir Putin.

TRUMP: Well, we’re going to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin. And at the end of that meeting, probably in the first two minutes, I’ll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made.

REPORTER: How will you know that?

TRUMP: Because that’s what I do. I make deals.

REPORTER: Wait, wait, wait, Mr. President.

TRUMP: Please, go ahead.

China Technology and Chip Deals

REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. Two questions, one about China, one about Russia, if I could. On China, your administration agreed to send the most advanced or advanced NVIDIA and AMD chips.

TRUMP: No, obsolete. No. Obsolete chips. Well, and then 15% of the profits come back.

REPORTER: You mean the 20s?

TRUMP: No, no, this is an old chip that China already has. And I deal with Jensen, who is a great guy, and NVIDIA. The chip that we’re talking about, the H20, it’s an old chip. China already has it in a different form, different name, but they have it. Or they have a combination of two will make up for it, and even then some. Now, Jensen also has, Jensen’s a very brilliant guy, and Jensen also has a new chip, the Blackwell. Do you know what the Blackwell is? The Blackwell is super duper advanced. I wouldn’t make a deal with that, although it’s possible I’d make a deal, a somewhat enhanced, in a negative way, Blackwell. In other words, take 30% to 50% off of it. But that’s the latest and the greatest in the world. Nobody has it. They won’t have it for five years.

But the H20 is obsolete. You know, it’s one of those things, but it still has a market. So I said, “listen, I want 20%, if I’m going to approve this for you, for the country, for our country, for the US.” I don’t want it myself. You know, every time I say like 747, I want, I want, yeah, for the Air Force. That’s all I just wanted. So when I say I want 20, I want for the country. I only care about the country. I don’t care about myself. And he said, “would you make it 15?” So we negotiate a little deal. So he’s selling a essentially old chip that Huawei has a similar chip, a chip that does the same thing.

And I said, “good, if I’m going to give it to you,” cause they have a, you know, they have a stopper, what we call a stopper. Not allowed to do it. They restrict it. It’s really known as a restrictive covenant. And I said, “if I’m going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something, cause I’m giving you a release.” I released them only from the H20. Now, on the Blackwell, I think he’s coming to see me again about that. But that will be a unenhanced version of the big one. Like, I don’t know if you know it, we will sometimes sell fighter jets to a country and we’ll give them 20% less than we have. Do you know what I mean? Right? That’s just it.

Future US-Russia Trade Relations

REPORTER: So on Russia, do you see a time, Mr. President, when there could be normal trade between the US and Russia? Should your meeting go well? Should there be peace?

TRUMP: I do. Russia has a very valuable piece of land. If Vladimir Putin would go toward business instead of toward war. You know, it’s a warring nation. That’s what they do. They fight a lot of wars. A friend of mine said “Russia’s tough because they just keep on fighting.” They beat Hitler. So did we. And they beat Napoleon. You know, they’ve been doing this for a long time. I asked a question to a very, very smart man that some people like and some people don’t like. Viktor Orban, right? From Hungary. The head of Hungary. And he’s in that same area and knows the two countries very well. I said, this was before Biden didn’t do anything to get

TRUMP: us out of it. He could have gotten us out of that. It would have never happened. I said, so can Russia be beaten by Ukraine? He looked at me like, what a stupid question. He said, Russia’s a massive country and they win their country and they win their life through wars. They fight wars. That’s what they do. He said, “China beat you with trade. Russia beats you with war.” That was a very interesting statement.

China’s not beating us with trade. Not when I’m in charge, but they were beating Biden with trade, but they never beat us with trade. Don’t forget, China had to pay $400 billion worth of tariffs when I was last time. That was last time. And if we didn’t have COVID, all of this stuff would already, we would be loaded. We’re finding hundreds of billions of dollars of cash is pouring into our country now because of tariffs. And all we’re doing is we’re doing what they do to us. It’s so beautiful to see it.

Found last month, as you saw, $25 billion of excess cash flow. They say, “Where did it come from?” I said, “I’ll tell you where it came from. It came from a place called tariffs.” And we’re doing very well. We’re really doing well.

But I expect to have a meeting with Putin that I think it’ll be good, but it might be bad. And I have a I’m here for one reason to get rid of a war that somebody else started should have never happened. And if I could end it, great complex war, a lot of bad blood, a lot of bad blood. But Zelensky has been there for three and a half years. So if you put him in a room now, I will say this. Ultimately, I’m going to put the two of them in a room. I’ll be there or won’t be there. And I think it’ll get solved.

Questions on DC Law Enforcement

TRUMP: Yeah, please. Excuse me. I’m going to suggest because could you do you have any other questions on DC? Because I don’t want them. I don’t want them to be. Wait, wait, wait. These are incredible people. I don’t want them to be standing up here on subjects. Does anybody have a question of them? And then you guys can leave a question.

REPORTER: Brian, thank you, Mr. President.

TRUMP: All right. And by the way, this is only on DC. And then they’re going to leave because it’s unfair to have them stand up here all day long.

REPORTER: I got two questions for you first about DC. This is personal for me as well. Last year, I was robbed on the streets by one of these teenage thugs, had a gun, got away with it. Let’s talk about the effort that between law enforcement, prosecutors and judges, because it’s a, you know, recycling belt. These kids go. They don’t fear the police. They know if you talk about how we’ve got to get these judges and put these kids behind bars, adult crimes deserve adult penalties. And my second question, I’ll ask you to answer that, please.

TRUMP: Do you want me to answer it? Whoever it was. OK, OK. It’s real. Do you want me to answer it?

PAM BONDI: Here’s the problem. Assuming that there’s 17 years older than 17 years old, I can get the case. If they’re under 18 years of age, I can only get the case if it’s murder, rob one, rape. Even if they shoot a gun, but don’t kill you, I can’t get it. So the law has to be changed. As the president said, counselors fail. That has to be changed.

All right. Then even assuming I get the case, I get jurisdiction, I get a conviction. The DC council is given the judges the ability to give probation on shootings. And so then it’s up to them. All of these things, the Youth Rehabilitation Incarceration Reduction Act. And now they want to seal records. So if we work hard and we get a conviction, they want to wipe it out. So that needs to be changed.

TRUMP: OK, Pam, would you answer that next time? Yeah. And just back to back to that topic. Let’s be clear, though. We’re going to charge them and we’re going to track every single thing they do throughout every step of the court process and report back to you and let all of you know what’s happening to them. But the people who are prosecuting them, the judges who are trying them, they also need to be held accountable.

Press Room Comments

TRUMP: This is the most people we’ve ever seen in this briefing. I’ve never seen ever. Right. I’ve never seen any. Where’s Caroline? Where’s my superstar? Caroline. Where’s Caroline? Come here, Caroline. Come here, Caroline. Come here. Is she doing a good job, by the way? Come here. Is this is this the largest crowd with that you’ve ever seen?

CAROLINE: This is definitely the most packed briefing. And I think all of you would agree. I think it’s why we need to build a ballroom.

TRUMP: Yes! That’s a better idea.

REPORTER: Brian, go ahead. My question is this. You’re building a big, beautiful ballroom. Could we build a big, beautiful briefing room?

TRUMP: I don’t want you to be comfortable. No, I don’t want to make I don’t want to make life comfortable.

Russia Meeting and European Relations

TRUMP: Look, look, let’s just do this. Let’s do this. It’s going to be a big thing. We’re going to Russia. That’s going to be a big deal. What happens happens. I’ll let you know what happens. You’ll be the first to know.

I’ll be calling the European leaders. I’m going with totally. I mean, we have we have a lot of talks. They’re great people. They’re great leaders, actually. And they want to get back. Honestly, as one of them said, “I’ve OD’d on trying to settle Ukraine.” They’ve OD’d, meaning they’ve overdosed on the settlement of Ukraine. Not a nice expression, but boy, is it accurate. They’re tired of it. They want to get back to spending money on their countries.

You know, they’re in. Biden gave them three hundred and fifty billion dollars. Europe gave a hundred billion. It should be much more than that. Shouldn’t have been that kind of. They should have had equalization, but they didn’t. But you know what? Still a lot of money. They want to get back to building their own countries. They really want it resolved.

My relationship with the European leaders, as you saw, is extremely good. It’s like it’s it’s perfect. It’s beautiful. Wait, wait, wait. And and we’re going to try. I’ll be in touch with them. I have five of them call me. You think it’s easy. There’s a lot of European leaders, but they rely on me. Very much rely on me. If it wasn’t for me, this thing would never get solved until the last person breathing is dead.

REPORTER: Would you talk to them before?

TRUMP: I’m talking to them right now. So I’m talking to the European leaders. I’ll be talking to President Zelensky. I’m going to get everybody’s ideas. I go into that thing fully loaded right up there and we’re going to see what happens now.

I think one of two things is going to happen could be a good meeting and we’ll go a step further. We’ll get it done. I’d like to see a cease fire very, very quickly. Very quick. I’d like to see it immediately, but I’d like to see it very quickly. And we’re going to be dealing with the European leaders and we’re going to be dealing with President Zelensky. And hopefully we’re going to have a great success as far as this, what we did today.

Conclusion

TRUMP: And I, I think you were here for DC more so than even Russia, because Russia will be, you know, we have a couple of days to go, but the rush is going to be very interesting. But to me, what is very exciting and we’re going to take back our capital. We’re going to make it beautiful again, but we’re going to make it more importantly safe again. It’s going to be so safe. It’s going to be a model. And then we’ll look at other cities also, but other cities are starting what we’re doing. And you have some capable people in other cities. They can do it too, but we have a great group of professionals. We’re going to have a safe, beautiful capital and it’s going to happen very quickly. Thank you all. Thank you all very much.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: And there you have it. President Trump leaving the room right there.