Full Transcript of Trump, Musk Goodbye Press Conference

59 million dollars for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City and the landlord never made the kind of money that he made in the last short period of time 59 million dollars to a hotel in New York City. 45 million dollars for diversity equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma in Burma does anyone know about Burma. 42 million dollars for social and behavioral change in Uganda. 40 million dollars to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants.

I can say it’s two billion dollars to Stacey Abrams and her environmental movement there was a hundred dollars in the account and all of a sudden they found two billion dollars in the account and I assume that’s being looked at I don’t know I’m not sure but I assume that’s being looked at to think of that two billion dollars and then Lee will tell you there’s another one over there for 20 billion dollars being spent on another environmental 20 billion not 20 million a lot not 200,000 which is a lot. So think of it in her case you have a hundred dollars and now all of a sudden she gets hit with an infusion of two billion dollars just before I take office.

20 million dollars for Arab Sesame Street in the Middle East nobody knows what that’s all about nobody’s been able to find it. 8 million dollars for making mice transgender so they spent 8 million dollars on making mice transgender and those are better than many of the others I could sit here all day and read things just like that but we have other things to do.

So it’s much much more than just that we’re totally committed to making the DOGE cuts permanent and stopping much more of the waste in the months to come we want to get our great big beautiful bill finished and done after that we’re going to be we put some of this into the bill but most of it’s going to come later we’re going to have it cauterized by Congress affirmed by Congress in some cases we’ll make cuts in some cases we’ll just use it in a different layer to save the money but it’s hundreds of billions of dollars.

DOGE is also fully modernized the federal retirement process and continues to work very hard on the IRS modernization but we’re taking that over with those many of the DOGE people Ilan are staying behind you so they’re not leaving and Ilan’s really not leaving he’s going to be back and forth I think I have a feeling it’s it’s his baby and I think he’s going to be doing a lot of things but Elon’s service to America has been without comparison in modern history he’s already running one of the most innovative car companies in the world you look at his factories and compare them with some of the old factories we have and it’s a big difference and the most successful space company and I guess in history you would have to stay the largest free speech platform on the internet etc yet Elon willingly with all of the success he willingly accepted the outrageous abuse and slander and lies and attacks because he does love our country I know that very much he loves our country comes from another country country that’s going through trials and tribulations I would say but he’s all about the USA and Americans owe him a great debt of gratitude so I just want to thank Elon for his time as special government employee can you imagine they call him an employee But it’s a special government employee. And for coming and helping us, and he really has changed the mindset of a lot of people. A lot of people thought, you know, maybe we’ll cut 1 percent or 2 percent or 3 percent. Then they said, well, we can cut a lot more than that. And we’re going to do it very surgically. We’re going to continue on the march. We’re making America great again.

America’s Global Standing

When I was in Saudi Arabia, we were in, as you know, three really great countries, predominantly the three. Qatar was great. UAE was great. Saudi Arabia, incredible. What an — like, such an incredible experience to be in those three countries. But the crown prince of Saudi Arabia. And I must tell you, the leaders — the great leaders of the other two that we just mentioned, they all said the same thing, that the United States is the hottest country right now anywhere in the world. And six months ago, we thought it was dead. It was like a dead country. And it would have been a dead country if we didn’t have the right result on November 5th. It would have been a horrible, horrible situation was going on with the borders, with transgender for everyone, men playing in women’s sports, and so much more. But they were saying, the hottest country anywhere in the world. And then I played that little clip because there was one person who was respected, but — or two people, because Joe was in that one, too. Joe is a good man. But that was one group of people saying something about the success of what we’ve done over the last four months. They cannot believe it. In the one case they said they’ve never seen anything like it as long as they’ve been doing what they’ve been doing. They’ve been doing it for a long time.

So I just — I want to thank Elon for helping. And again, you know, the United States right now is the hottest country anywhere in the world. There’s — no country is hot. And we’re doing really well. We came — when I left, we had no wars. We had no problems. We defeated ISIS. We rebuilt our military. And we had no inflation. And when I came back, we had a lot of inflation. We had wars all over the place. We had the embarrassment in Afghanistan, where we gave up billions and billions of dollars of military equipment. The most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, I believe. I believe that strongly. We have Russia with Ukraine. We had the attack on Israel in October. The horrible attack, October 7th. Horrible, horrible attack. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. And now we have something where we’re really healing a lot of that.

Global Conflict Resolution

We stopped India and Pakistan from fighting. I believe that could have turned out into a nuclear disaster. And I want to thank the leaders of India, the leaders of Pakistan. And I want to thank my people also. We talked trade. And we said, we can’t trade with people that are shooting at each other and potentially using nuclear weapons. And they’re great leaders in those countries. And they understood, and they agreed. And it had all stopped. And we’re stopping others from fighting also. Because ultimately, we can fight better than anybody. We have the greatest military in the world. We have the greatest leaders in the world. We put one of them in charge of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as you know, General Raising Cain. And we wiped out ISIS. Completely wiped out ISIS in three weeks. They said it would take five years, and we did it in three weeks. And that’s the way it is. But we don’t want to have to use our military. We want to be peace through strength when we can. And that’s the way we’re going to have it.

So, I just want to thank Elon and all of his people. Most of those people are staying. Almost all of them are staying. And they’re going to be with us. And you’re going to see the results coming long into the future. Even a year and two years later, you’re going to see a lot of the results. And those hundreds of billions of dollars are going to be adding up. And they’re going to continue to add. It’ll be interesting. It’ll be really interesting to see what the final number is going to be. But again, Elon gave an incredible service. Nobody liked him. And he had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame, because he’s an incredible patriot. The good news is that 90 percent of the country knows that. And they appreciate it. And they really appreciate what he did. And they gave him a little special something we have here. A very special that I give to very special people. I have given it to some. But it goes to very special people. And I thought I’d give it to Elon as a presentation from our country. Thank you, Elon. Take care. Thank you. The lockdown is just amazing. A large luck.

Elon Musk’s Remarks

ELON MUSK: Well, let me say perhaps a few words. That this is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning. My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end. It was a limited time thing. It’s 134 days, I believe, which ends in a few days. So it comes with a time limit. But the DOGE team will only grow stronger over time. The DOGE influence will only grow stronger. It’s likened to a sort of Buddhism. It’s like a way of life. So it is permeating throughout the government, and I’m confident that over time we’ll see a trillion dollars of savings and a trillion dollars of waste and fraud reduction. The calculations of the DOGE team thus far, in terms of FY25 to FY26 Delta, are over $160 billion, and that’s climbing. We expect that number will probably go over $200 billion soon.

So I think the DOGE team is doing an incredible job. They’re gonna continue doing an incredible job. And I’ll continue to be visiting here and be a friend and advisor to the president. And I look forward to times being back in this amazing room. By the way, isn’t this incredible? Look at this incredible. It’s stunning, I think, the way that the Oval Office, the President has just completely redone the Oval Office. It’s beautiful. I love the gold on this deal.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you, it’s pretty nice. Yeah. It’s been here a long time. That was plaster. Nobody ever really saw it. They didn’t know the eagle was up there, and we highlight it. It’s essentially, it’s a landmark, a great landmark, and that’s 24-karat gold, and everybody loved it, and now they all see it when they come in. It’s been good.

ELON MUSK: The Oval Office finally has the majesty that it deserves, thanks to the president. So I look forward to continuing to be a friend and advisor to the president, continuing to support the DOJ team, and we are relentlessly pursuing $8 trillion in waste and port reductions, which will benefit the American taxpayer. So that’s it, really. Thank you, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Questions from Reporters

REPORTER: Thank you, President Trump. The president mentioned that you had to deal with all the slings and arrows during your time at DOJ. There’s this New York Times.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, some of the people, you know, some of the media organizations in this room are the slingers.

REPORTER: Well, so, there is a New York Times report today that accuses you of blurring the line between. Is the New

PRESIDENT TRUMP: York Times, is that the same publication that got a Pulitzer Prize for false reporting on the Russiagate? Is this the same organization? I gotta check my Pulitzer counter. I think it is. It is. But so, I think the judge just ruled against the New York Times for their lies about the Russiagate hoax, and that they might have to give back that Pulitzer Prize. That New York Times? Let’s move on. Okay. Next question.

REPORTER: I got one for you. I got one for President Trump. So, President Trump, Biden aides who used to work here are in talks with Republicans in Congress to go and testify about what they did or didn’t do to possibly conceal President Biden’s decline. Do you think that Dr. Jill Biden should also have to come in and testify about what she did or didn’t do?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I hate the concept of it. It’s the wife of a man who was going through a lot of problems, and everybody that dealt with him understood that. And I guess it came out during the debate loud and clear. That was the biggest signal of all. They have to do what’s right. The country was, there was a lot of dishonesty in the election, as you know. 2020, that’s been now caught. People understand it was a rigged election. And when you go further out, when you see the auto pen, I mean, I think the auto pen is gonna become one of the great scandals of all time because you have somebody operating it or a number of people operating. Because I knew Joe Biden. Joe Biden wasn’t in favor of opening up borders, letting 21 million people into this from prisons and mental institutions and gang members. He wasn’t into that at all. And, you know, who signed these orders, proclamations, and all of the different things that he signed that set our country so far back, that was so bad for our country?

REPORTER: With the auto pen, how would it work? Like, we’re in the Oval Office right now. If there was a group of rogue staffers that worked for you, who wanted to advance a bill or an executive order without your knowledge, how could they do it? How do they go about it?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’d read your newspapers or your media the next day and I’d say, well, I didn’t approve that. And I would find it. I mean, they wouldn’t get away with it for long because they’d say, I never signed that. Who the hell signed that? Auto pens. me, are used to sign letters to people, because we get, I think they said 20,000 letters a week, and you like to be able, when somebody takes the time to write a letter, it’s nice to sort of write back, and Autopens are meant for that. Autopens are not meant to sign major proclamations or tax cuts or borders, anything having to do with the border which is so important, and if it happened on my watch, I would be able to see it, because the next day or sooner I’d be reading about something that I knew nothing about, and who the hell signed this?

So I almost never used the Autopen, in fact, yesterday I was signing about 81, I think it was 81 proclamations and statements to people that I think should be signed by us. I think when you write letters to foreign dignitaries or presidents or prime ministers, you should be signing those letters, not done with Autopens. I understand he signed almost everything with an Autopen. It’s a very dangerous thing. It really means you’re not president. Whoever operated the Autopen, and we think we know who that is, and it was actually more than one person, but that’s not what the presidency is all about. I hardly used the Autopen.

Foreign Affairs: China and Middle East

REPORTER: When we see the tariffs on China, you said that they violated the agreement with the US.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, they did. They violated a big part of the agreement we’ve made. If you read that whole statement, I was very nice to them. I helped them because they were in trouble with the stoppage of a massive amount of business. But I’m sure that I’ll speak to presidency and hopefully we’ll work that out. But yeah, there’s a violation of the agreement. Yeah, please.

REPORTER: Mr. President, can you give us an update to the latest ceasefire agreement that Israel has agreed to, but Hamas is still considering?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, they’re very close to an agreement on Gaza, and we’ll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow, and we have a chance of that. I think we have a chance of making a deal with Iran also. They don’t want to be blown up. They would rather make a deal, and I think that could happen in the not too distant future. That would be a great thing. If we could have a deal without bombs being dropped all over the Middle East, that would be a very good thing. They can’t have an agreement. We want them to be safe. We want them to have a very, very successful nation. Let it be a great nation, but we can’t have that. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple. And I think we’re fairly close to a deal with Iran.

Musk’s Future Role and Government Efficiency

REPORTER: Mr. President, I have a question for you, Lon.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah, please.

REPORTER: You said just now that you look forward to being a friend and advisor to the president. So do you expect to continue advising the president and DOJ informally, or are you going to sort of shift your focus entirely to your companies?

ELON MUSK: Well, I expect to continue to provide advice whenever the president would like advice. I hope so. I mean, yeah, I expect to remain a friend and an advisor. And certainly, if there’s anything the president wants me to do, I’m at the president’s service.

REPORTER: Mr. Maduro, you said that there was a trillion-dollar promise for cuts from DOJ. Yes, I think we do expect over time to achieve a trillion dollars. But what have you found in your time here was the biggest roadblock to getting those cuts? Was it the cabinet, or was it Congress, or something else? What was the biggest roadblock from your work?

ELON MUSK: It’s mostly just a lot of hard work. It’s really not any one person or Congress. It’s going through really millions of line items and saying, does each one of them make sense, or does it not make sense? Obviously, at times when you cut expenses, those who are receiving whether they’re receiving that money legitimately or not, they do complain. And you’re not going to hear someone confessing that they received money inappropriately, never. They’re going to always say that they received money appropriately for an important cause, naturally. That’s what you’d expect.

So it’s just a lot of work going through the vast expenses of the federal government and just really asking questions. What’s this money for? Are you sure it’s actually being used well? Many times we can’t even find anyone who defends it. So for a lot of these expenses, there is actually no defender at all. And then we have to just work through the process of stopping the spending, where there’s often literally no defender. Nobody even knows why the money’s being spent. It’s truly absurd. I mean, we find situations where there are millions of software licenses with zero people using them. Zero.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Exactly. This is the quizzical expression.

ELON MUSK: You’re like, surely if there’s millions of software licenses, someone should be using them. No. And then we’ve got to go through the process of saying, okay, look, if someone’s using the software, we need to terminate this software license agreement. That’s everywhere in the government, by the way.

REPORTER: Mr. Musk, what do you think would be easier, colonizing Mars or making the government efficient?

ELON MUSK: It’s a tough call. But I think colonizing Mars and making life multi-planetary is harder. And as I said, we do expect to achieve over time the $20 billion of savings. We can’t do it in like a few months. But if you say, I think the official end of donors, the president may choose to extend, is the middle of next year. Say by the middle of next year, with the support of the president and Congress, could we achieve $20 billion of savings? I think so. We’re on track to do so.

REPORTER: Do you have faith that Congress is going to do it?

REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. You had mentioned earlier in the week that Doe should become a whipping boy. And as the president mentioned, you went through a lot to go through this process. Was it worth it for you? And what would you change?

ELON MUSK: Yes. So what we thought was happening was that if there were any cuts anywhere, then people would assume that was done by DOGE. And so we became essentially the DOGE boogeyman, where any cut anywhere would be ascribed to DOGE. A friend of mine’s daughter, who’s at law school at Georgetown, thought that DOGE had cut the legal internships for the Senate. And we have nothing to do with that. So if they have been cut, there’s nothing to do with us, just as an example. So it just became a bit ridiculous where any cut anywhere was somehow DOGE, including things that made no sense. And we would agree it made no sense.

So there are many things that occur in the government, because it’s the banal evil of bureaucracy. It’s sort of the, frankly, largely uncaring nature of bureaucracy. As the great Milton Friedman said, money is spent most poorly when it is someone else’s money being spent on people you don’t know. And that’s how federal spending is. And then you can’t really even blame the individuals, because the way the government works is complaint minimization. So when someone within the government tries to suss out money being spent, there’s usually someone that complains. And then their manager will say, it’s not worth the trouble. Just pay it anyway. That happens over and over again. I think it was an important thing. I think it was a necessary thing. And I think we’ll have a good effect in the future. Thank you, President Trump.

REPORTER: This week, there was a video on board a plane that showed the first lady of France slapping her husband, Emmanuel Macron. Do you have any world leader to world leader marital advice?

TRUMP: Make sure the door remains closed. I spoke to him, and he’s fine. They’re fine. They’re two really good people. I know them very well. And I don’t know what that was all about, but I know them very well, and they’re fine.

REPORTER: What do you think about the Democratic Party plan to avoid being slapped in every battleground state again by spending $20 million to study how to speak to American men?

TRUMP: They spent $2.8 billion. We spent $1.5 billion. We spent much less. We spent about half of what they spent. And at the end, they were $28 million short. They spent $2.8 billion. That’s a lot, but they couldn’t get $28 million at the end. And now they want to spend. I read that they want to spend money to learn how to talk. That’s fake. You don’t want to be fake. You shouldn’t have to hire consultants to say what America needs, because then the consultants should be running the deal, not them.

But I read that they want to spend a lot of money in each state. We won all seven swing states, seven out of seven. We won a lot more than that. We won the popular vote. We won everything. And they want to spend money to find out what they did wrong. And I mean, I can tell you what they did wrong. I can tell you every one of their programs, when they say men playing in women’s sports, I would say that’s not a winner. When they say transgender for everybody, I think that’s not a winner. When they say open borders so the entire world’s population of criminals can pour into our country, I don’t think that’s a winner.

I mean, I just gave them that for free, but I don’t know if they’ll change their ways. I see them all the time. I see people that I know in Congress, Democrats, they’re trying to justify some of the things I just said. You can’t justify them. I always hear they’re 80-20 issues. I say they’re not 80-20, they’re 97-3. They might be 99-1. They’re not 80-20. They wish they were 80-20. and they’re wasting a lot of money if they’re going to continue with that nonsense.

REPORTER: And this is a little bit more of a page six question, but back when you hosted The Apprentice, you mentioned once in 2012 that Diddy was a good friend of yours. Back then, he has since found himself in some very serious legal trouble.

TRUMP: Yeah, that’s true.

REPORTER: Would you ever consider pardoning him?

TRUMP: Well, nobody’s asked. You had to be the one to ask Diddy, but nobody’s asked. But I know people are thinking about it. I know they’re thinking about it. People have been very close to asking. First of all, I look at what’s happening, and I haven’t been watching it too closely, although it’s certainly getting a lot of coverage. I haven’t seen him, I haven’t spoken to him in years. He used to really like me a lot, but I think when I ran for politics, sort of that relationship busted up from what I read. I don’t know, he didn’t tell me that, but I’d read some little bit nasty statements in the paper all of a sudden.

You know, it’s different. You become a much different person when you run for politics, and you do what’s right. I could do other things, and I’m sure he’d like me, and I’m sure other people would like me, but it wouldn’t be as good for our country. As we said, our country’s doing really well because of what we’re doing. So I can’t, it’s not a popularity contest. So, I don’t know, I would certainly look at the facts. If I think somebody was mistreated, whether they like me or don’t like me, it wouldn’t have any impact on me.

Tariffs and Elon Musk’s Impact

REPORTER: On the Big Beautiful Bill, would you like to see the Senate build in some support for your tariffs on the Big Beautiful Bill, or should that be a standalone bill?

TRUMP: I have great support on the tariffs. I mean, I was so honored that we got that ridiculous stay lifted, because that would have taken away presidential power. It would have taken away everything that was granted by the founders. It would have been a terrible thing. And it would have, most importantly, would have left us vulnerable. We have a lot of countries that use tariffs on us, and use them viciously, actually, viciously. And if we didn’t have the power to use tariffs on them, and instantly, not when you go back to Congress and try and get hundreds of people to agree on something, that would take months to get just one simple proclamation.

If we didn’t have the power to counteract their powers, you wouldn’t have a country left. We have to act fast. We have to be fast and nimble, as they say. And that was a really great moment, I think, yesterday, when that stay was lifted. And hopefully now we’ll go to court and just win that battle. Because if we don’t have the power to do what they’re doing to us, we are going to be a great nation no longer.

REPORTER: Elon Musk was once idolized by folks on the left in this country before joining your administration. Now he’s considered a hero by conservatives. Why do you think this man, what he’s done in American life has been so politicized?

TRUMP: His life has been amazing. When I look at so many different things, I look at that rocket being guided back into position. I’ve never seen that before. I thought it was a space movie. I thought it was a movie. You look at what he’s done in terms of communication. It’s been unbelievable. So many different, even tunnels going underground, not having to go through all the process of going, you know, he’s got a company that does that. He’s got so many different companies.

Starlink, as an example, he saved a lot of lives, probably hundreds of lives in North Carolina. I don’t even know if you remember, but I called you. They needed Starlink in North Carolina. And I didn’t know what the hell Starlink was. I said, what is it? Who owns it? He said, do you know Elon Musk? I said, yeah, I happen to know the gentleman. This was before his government stay. And they said, we really need it. Because North Carolina was literally, became an island. There was people who had no communication. They had no access to anything. And they were dying. And I called up Elon. And you can’t get it because it’s so successful. It’s very hard to get. And he had so much of it brought over there. And they told me it was unbelievable. It saved a lot of lives.

So, you know, he’s just done a lot of things. I don’t think, frankly, I don’t think he gets credit for what he’s done. And he’s a very good person, too. You know what? If he wasn’t a good person, if he wasn’t, but he did the same things, you know, I’d probably maybe speak differently. He happens to be a really good person who loves the country. One big,

TRUMP: …big, beautiful bill. You had indicated this week that there were some things you didn’t like about what had passed in the House. What changes do you want to see the Senate make? And you had also indicated there were things you didn’t like about the bill. What would you be suggesting he push senators to change in their version?

Well, I’ll tell you, I’ll go first. It’s an unbelievable bill. It cuts the deficits. It cuts, you know, it’s a huge cutting. But there’s things I’d like to see maybe cut a little bit more. I’d like to see a bigger cut in taxes. It’s got to be the largest tax decrease or cut in the history of our country. I’d like to see it get down to an even lower number. I was shooting for a slightly lower number. I would have liked to have done that.

But with all of that being said, when you look at the tax cut and the fact that the original tax cut, which made us so successful, we had the most successful four years in the history of our country, the economy. And this is going to be even better. And you see that by the reports that came out just yesterday or tonight. I guess they were released this morning at 8 o’clock. You see the kind of numbers where somebody that’s a pro is like, whoa, I haven’t seen numbers like this since I’ve been doing this. You know, these are human emotions of professionals that have never seen… We’ve just started.

The bill is a great bill. It’s going to be jigged around a little bit. It’s going to be negotiated with the Senate, with the House. But the end result is it extends the Trump tax cuts. If it doesn’t get approved, you’ll have a 68% tax increase. You’re going to go up 68%. That’s a number that nobody’s ever heard of before. You’ll have a massive tax increase. If it does get approved, you’ll have a large tax cut. The largest we’ve ever had. When you add the past tax cuts that we got you, the Trump tax cuts. They call them the Trump tax cuts. It’s an amazing bill. It does amazing things.

With all of that, it’s going to be adjusted a little bit over the next coming weeks. And I think it’s going to be passed. The Republicans want to pass it. With all of the great things it does, including an extension of debt, the extension. We have to extend the debt. If we don’t extend debt, we’re in default. Now, the Democrats might like our country to be in default, but in 250 years, we’ve never been in default.

That was handed to them by a very well-meaning man that gave it to them because he thought it was the right thing to do. It could have been their problem before the election, but this man thought it was the right thing to do, and he was well-meaning. I don’t hold anything against him for that, but that was put on our plate when it should have been on the Democrats. September 28th, a famous date. It should have been taken care of by the Democrats, but this person, a man of power, gave it to us so that in June that comes due.

Well, we have to take care of that because if we don’t take care of it, we have a country in default, and we don’t ever want to have a country in default. You know, I’ll tell you, a certain senator, Elizabeth Warren, said that she would never ever allow a default on our debt. She would never let it happen, and she would like to get rid of the debt ceiling, what’s called the debt ceiling. I call it the debt extension because we really need an extension.

She’d like to see that gotten rid of, and there are many people that agree. Many Democrats agree with that, but we gave that through… I don’t want to say that he did it well, meaning they gave that to us. It was a Democrat problem just before the election. It would have had a huge impact on the election, and to our benefit. We won anyway, but to our benefit. But felt that really for the good of the country, we should extend that.

But Elizabeth Warren and various other people would like to see that. Her whole career, she wanted to see it terminated, gotten rid of, not being voted on every five years or ten years. And the reason was because it’s so catastrophic for our country. And I always agreed with her. There was one thing I agreed with her on. Now, I haven’t spoken to her, but I would say that if you asked her that question now, she would say, no, no, it’s their problem.

But it’s a very unfortunate situation. It’s a very unfair situation, and she happened to be right on that. It should be gotten rid of, or it should simply be extended. But that’s one of the things that gets taken care of in this bill. That automatically gets extended for a four-year period, and it should be. But I agree with Elizabeth Warren on that. I think you should get rid of it. It’s too catastrophic. Yeah, please, go ahead.

Questions on International Students and Trade Schools

REPORTER: What message do you like to send to international students? Are they still welcome to study in the United States? And one question for Mr. Musk.

TRUMP: To students? Well, we want to have great students here. We just don’t want students that are causing trouble. We want to have students. I want to have foreign students. I think Harvard is close to 31%. That’s a lot. Our country has given $5 billion plus to Harvard over a short period of time. Nobody knew that. We found that out. I wouldn’t say that was a DOGE thing, but we found that out over a period of time. That was sort of a Trump thing. We ended up in litigation for other reasons, because they’re very anti-Semitic.

And in finding out, and in going through the books, we found out that the country gave them $5 billion plus. Much more than that, actually. And we’re having it out with them and let’s see what happens. I think we have a very good… Well, it’s a very sad case. It’s a case we win. We can’t lose that case, because we have the right to make grants. We’re not going to make any grants like that.

But I don’t think Harvard’s been acting very nicely. I think Columbia wants to get to the bottom of the problem. They’ve acted very well. And there are other institutions, too, that are acting, but Harvard’s trying to be a big shot. And all that happens is, every three days, we find another $100 million that was given. Two days ago, we found $200 million more. The money’s given to them like gravy.

I’d like to see the money go to trade schools, where people learn how to fix motors and engines, where people learn how to build rocket ships, because, you know, somebody has to build those rocket ships. And I’d like to see trade schools set up, because you could take $5 billion plus hundreds of billions more, which is what’s spent, and you could have the greatest trade school system anywhere in the world.

And that’s what we need, to build his rockets and robots and things that he’s doing, and to build lots of other things. And, you know, I went to school with people. In some cases, they weren’t good students, but they could fix the engine of a car better than anybody I’ve ever seen. They could take it apart, blindfold it. They had an ability at that. And they did very well. They made a lot of money. You know, it’s a very skilled job. It’s great. But I’d like to see a lot of money going into trade schools. I’ve always felt that. And we probably found our pot of gold, and that’s what’s been wasted at places like Harvard. And the money’s been wasted. Yeah, please.

Question About Elon Musk’s Eye

REPORTER: Well, I wanted to ask quickly, Mr. Musk, is your eye okay? What happened to your eye? I noticed there was a bruise there.

MUSK: Well, I wasn’t anywhere near a prince.

TRUMP: What did that mean?

MUSK: I didn’t notice it. Of course, maybe a prince.

TRUMP: I didn’t notice.

MUSK: So, yeah, no, I was just horsing around with little X, and I said, go ahead, punch me in the face. And he did. It turns out, even a five-year-old punching you in the face actually does.

TRUMP: That was X that did?

MUSK: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

TRUMP: No, I didn’t. I wasn’t going to do it. I didn’t feel like it was

DONALD TRUMP: …going to do it. I mean, X could do it. If you knew X, he could do it. I still have a swab right now. But I didn’t really feel much at the time. I guess it bruises up. But I just was horsing around with the cute face. I didn’t notice it, actually.

I know that you tried to stay pretty neutral because, not your war, but. By the way, not my war. I just want to solve the problem for people. This was not a war that was going to happen if I were president. Right, and so, not your war. But, as you try to fix it, and as you survey this hellscape of the Ukrainian front lines. It’s horrible.

And you guys, you and your team, deal with a very stubborn Vladimir Putin. Yes. And Zelensky. But do you look at this conflict. Very stubborn Zelensky, too. Any differently now. Like, do you look at this and see Putin as the good guy or the bad guy?

So, I’ve known him very well, and I went through a lot of things with him because Russia was, you know, the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax turned out to be a total hoax. New York Times, they got a Pulitzer Prize, they have to give back the Pulitzer Prize. That’s my lawsuit. And they’re doing very poorly in that lawsuit, but, you know, they wrote stories about how it was true and it was false, and, you know, a lot of Washington Post also.

I have gotten to see things that I was very surprised at, rockets being shot into cities like Kiev during a negotiation that I felt was maybe very close to ending. We were going to solve a problem, and then all of a sudden rockets got shot into a couple of cities and people died. I saw things that I was surprised at, so, and I don’t like being surprised. So I’m very disappointed in that way.

With that being said, I’d like to see it end. Five thousand people. I think there are numbers that even more than that, but five thousand people a week are being killed, mostly soldiers, but also people that live in little cities and towns throughout Ukraine. And I’d like to see that stop.

Trump on Judicial Overreach and Executive Power

REPORTER: And I asked Caroline this yesterday, but I want to ask you directly. So many of the things that you’re trying to do are held up in court right now. If the courts are going to have so much influence over U.S. policy, do you wish you would have just become a judge instead?

DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, well, look, it wasn’t meant to be that way. If you look at the founders, the president had certain powers, and you have your three groups and they all have supposed to be equal, pretty equal powers. But you can’t have a judge in Boston running foreign policy in places all over the country because he’s got a liberal bent or he’s a radical left person. That’s what the executive branch is for.

We have checks and balances, but we had millions of people pour into our country. Many, many criminals poured into our country, murderers, murderers, mental institutions from all over the world being emptied out into our country. And if we don’t get them out and get them out quickly, we’re going to lose your country very easily. This is a bad that anybody would allow this to happen to our country.

You know, with all of the things we took over inflation, we took over some wars, we took over a lot of problems that didn’t exist when I was president. None of it existed. We wiped out ISIS. Other than that, we had no wars. Putin was never going to hit Ukraine. Israel would have never been attacked. That attack, as you know, Iran had no money. They didn’t have money for Hamas, they didn’t have money for Hezbollah, they had no money whatsoever. That wasn’t going to happen. All of these things that happened weren’t going to happen. You wouldn’t have had inflation. So it’s very sad when I came back.

Trump on Immigration and Border Security

But the thing that is the hardest is that they allowed 21 million people into our country. And many of those people are so-called criminals. They moved their criminal population into the United States. And of all the things that, you know, are bad, I solved inflation, I believe, already. I got the fuel prices down, the fuel prices came down. That’s one of the reasons they screwed up the energy. They screwed up the cost of gasoline and oil and gas. And you had tremendous inflation, the greatest inflation probably in the history of our country under Biden.

And when people said, oh, but the economy is no, the economy was terrible for the people because they couldn’t afford the energy and the energy brought everything else up. Energy is the big deal. But with all of that, we solved that already. In four months, we solved it, $1.99, $1.98 gasoline. First time people have seen that in a long time since my term.

But the hardest thing to solve is millions of people pouring into our country, many of whom are criminals. Because remember, these countries are smart. Their leaders are very street smart. They’re sending the people that they don’t want. They don’t want the people that are there, that are law-abiding, that are productive, that are working hard. They want people that are in jails. We have them. They allow them to come in.

And I always look to the other side, like, why would somebody do something? You know, in business, I try and study, why would they want to do this? Why would they want to sell it? Why would they want to buy it? One thing I can’t figure out is what would an administration, what were they thinking when they allowed millions of people from prisons all over the world, not just from South America, Venezuela, all over the world, from the Congo in Africa, hundreds of people, thousands of people from the Congo, rough, rough prisoners, from Asia, from Europe, rough parts of Europe. Why would they allow them to come into our country? Why would they do that? It’s the one thing I can’t figure out.

And I don’t believe it was Joe Biden. I really don’t. He’s been a sort of a moderate person over his lifetime, not a smart person, but a somewhat vicious person, I will say. If you feel sorry for him, don’t feel so sorry because he’s vicious. What he did with his political opponent and all of the people that he hurt, he hurt a lot of people by, and so I really don’t feel sorry for him. But he wasn’t a person that would allow murderers to come into our country. He wasn’t a person that was in favor of transgender for anybody that wanted it. Take kids out of families, et cetera, et cetera. So I just don’t understand why, why a thing like this, how a thing like this could have been allowed to happen. Very sad, very sad, very sad for our country.

ELON MUSK: I think the fundamental moral flaw of the left is empathy for the criminals and not empathy for the victims. Empathy for the criminals, but not empathy for the victims. And there’s been way too much of that. That needs to stop.

To the President’s point, there’s been immense judicial overreach that is unconstitutional, that was never intended, and it’s undermining the people’s faith in the legal system. It needs to stop. It’s gone too far.

DONALD TRUMP: And yesterday we had, just a couple of hours ago, we had a great decision from the Supreme Court, thank goodness, that was very important. We had two important decisions yesterday on the tariffs because, again, we have to be able to fight a fair fight with other countries. However you say it, we have to be able to use tariffs to fight people that use tariffs on us. I mean, if we didn’t have that power of tariffs, we would, we would economically be destroyed as a country because they will destroy us. Other countries will destroy us with unchecked tariffs. We can check them when we have the ease. They tried to take that power away from us. And if you take that power away, we’re not going to have a country. We won’t have an economy. economically viable country.

But it’s very important on immigration that we be able to get people out without having to go through our law and court case. I mean, it was up to some of these judges. Every single one of these millions of people, millions of people, criminals, prisoners that were let go from jails because they saved a fortune when they did. They brought them into the United States. You know what they’re saving?

TRUMP: The money they’re saving? But some of the murders, it’s very important that we’re able to get those people out of here fast, bring them back to their country where they belong. And those countries take them, because if they don’t take them, they have to go through the wrath of the United States, and they take them. But we have judges that don’t want that to happen. And it would be — it’s a terrible thing. That’s going through the court system right now, that whole situation.

But when ICE and Border Patrol, they’ve done an incredible job. When they do this incredible job, and they capture 100 killers and drug dealers, we can’t keep them for years here as we go through trials. We have to get them out rapidly. And we know who they are. We know who they are. And we’re very careful about who they are. But we have to get them out rapidly, or, again, we’re not going to have a country. Okay?

Maybe one or two more. Go ahead.

Final Questions on Tariffs and Manufacturing

REPORTER: Are you concerned that tariffs may also affect companies like Tesla, which have parts manufactured offshore? And this is also to you, Mr. Musk.

TRUMP: Well, he’s going to end up building his whole car here. I mean, I thought he built his whole car. Pretty much, he does. He’s got incredible factories. And, like, I looked at one in Texas. It’s unbelievable. And, no, all of the manufacturers will build their parts here, too. I mean, I — it used to bother me. They make a part in Canada, a part in Mexico, a part in Europe, and it’s spent all over the place, and nobody knew what the hell was happening. I think it’s ridiculous. You build a car, make it in America.

And I gave them a little leeway on that. You know, I gave them some leeway. But over the next year, they’ve got to have the whole thing built in America. That’s what we want. We want — we want America to buy American-built cars.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Related Posts

• Transcript: VP JD Vance’s Press Conference on Anti-Fraud Initiatives
• A Fireside on U.S.-China Relations with Kevin Rudd and Ian Bremmer (Transcript)
• Tucker Carlson Show: w/ Iuliia Mendel, Zelensky’s Former Press Secretary (Transcript)
• Transcript: President Trump Remarks at Maternal Healthcare Event
• Diary Of A CEO: w/ Pulitzer Prize Historian Anne Applebaum (Transcript)