Transcript of President Trump Hosts Italy’s Georgia Meloni in the Oval Office

You know, Italy’s been one of the nations that made a plan against fentanyl, for example. But we have been talking about many bilateral topics and things that we can do together about defense, about economic, about economy, about space, about energy.

Italy will have to increase its LNG imports, and also nuclear that we are trying to develop. I think there can be ways to work together. And the Italian enterprises will invest, as they’ve been doing for many years. As you know, in the next year is, I think, around 10 billion. That shows how interconnected our economies are. And that’s very important, Mr. President.

It’s not only about Italy. It’s about the entire Europe. The exchange between us is a very big one. Investments, trade, that is the topic that we are discussing in this meeting. But at the end of the day, look, somebody told me, I was saying it before, such a Western nationalism. I don’t know if this is the right word, but I know that when I speak about West, mainly I don’t speak about a geographical space. I speak about a civilization. And I want to make that civilization stronger.

So I think even if we have some problems between the two shores of the Atlantic, it is the time that we try to sit down and find solutions. So I want to thank President Trump for having accepted an invitation to pay an official visit to Rome in the near future, and consider the possibility in that occasion to meet also with Europe. The goal for me is to make the West great again. And I think we can do it together. And we will keep on working on that.

I’m going to close. I want to say only, I’m proud of sitting here as Prime Minister of Italy, that today, as a very good situation, despite the difficulties, a stable country, a reliable country, one million more jobs in the last two years than now. Inflation is going down. So you’ll forgive me if I promote a bit my country, but you’re a businessman and you understand me. So migration flow is going down 60%. So we are trying to do our best. But I think we can do it even better together.

Also, on Ukraine, I will close. Together, we’ve been defending the freedom of Ukraine. Together, we can build a just and lasting peace. We support your efforts, Donald. Thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much, and I think we’re doing well in that effort, but we want to get it done. And we’ll see if we can, and we want to save. On average, think of it, every week, 2,500 people are being killed, mostly soldiers, Russian, Ukrainian soldiers. And if we can save those lives, that would be a very good thing. And so we’ll see what we can do. And I think we’re getting close, but we’ll let you know very soon. And you’ve been very helpful. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Questions From Reporters

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Any questions?

REPORTER: Mr. President, on Russia, Mr. President, how much longer does Vladimir Putin have to respond to your ceasefire proposal before you put secondary terrorists or stations on Russia?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’ll see what that will be. We’re going to be hearing from them this week. Very shortly, actually. And we’ll see. But we want it to stop. We want the death and the killing to stop.

REPORTER: Mr. President, on Jerome Powell, you said that determination of Jerome Powell did not come fast enough. He said he won’t leave even if you ask him to.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, he’ll leave if I ask him to. He’ll be out of there. But I don’t think he’s doing the job. He’s too late, always too late, a little slow, and I’m not happy with him. I let him know it. And if I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast. Believe me.

REPORTER: Are you trying to remove him as a president?

REPORTER: Mr. President, when the judge voted for a case against your administration’s custody, it does not tolerate willful disobedience of judicial order. Do you agree with that case?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, you’re going to have to speak to the lawyers. We have great lawyers. I can tell you this. We’re doing a fantastic job of getting criminals out of this country who Biden allowed into the country, hundreds of thousands of criminals, murderers, and drug dealers. And I was elected because of the fact, I would say maybe that was the number one factor, a lot of reasons, the economy, a lot of things. But one of the primary reasons I was elected is because I said, I’m going to get the criminals that he allowed to come into our country so stupidly through open borders. I’m going to get them out. And I got a lot of votes, record-setting numbers of votes, as you know. We won everything. The popular vote, all seven swing states, we won everything. And that’s what the public wanted. That’s what I’m doing. But you’ll have to speak to the lawyers, because it’s up to them.

REPORTER: Mr. President, what do you think of the proposal from France and the UK of a peace mission? In Ukraine, with soldiers, do you think that Italy should take part in it?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I think Italy will have to make that determination. But peace missions are always good with me. I’m okay with peace missions.

REPORTER: Mr. President, have you discussed what are your cooperation and discussions with the Foreign Minister between Italy and the United States in Europe? And with China?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We discussed it very briefly. No, we’re doing very well with negotiations, I think, with all countries. And Scott could tell you a little bit, but we are doing very well. We have a lot of countries that want to make a deal. Frankly, they want to make deals more than I do. Go ahead, Scott. Would you say something, please?

SCOTT: Yeah, we’ve got a process in place. We’re working on the big 15 economies. First, we had a fantastic meeting with Japan yesterday. I believe there’s been calls with the EU already. And then we have South Korea coming in next week. And I believe India is also talking. That’s moving very quickly.

REPORTER: Mr. President, do you have any evidence that China is supplying weaponry or ammunition to Russia? Do you have any evidence on those lines? And also, you said we could see a minerals deal signed next week.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we have a minerals deal, which I guess is going to be signed on Thursday, Scott, next Thursday. Soon. And I assume they’re going to live up to the deal. So we’ll see. But we have a deal on that.

No, I have no comment on that. I have no idea. That’s his statement, not mine.

REPORTER: Mr. President, there was a question about the Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Did you comment on that? Was that accurate? And they said the attack is what?

REPORTER: That you waived off an Israeli plan to attack Iranian nuclear systems.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I wouldn’t say waived off. I’m not in a rush to do it because I think that Iran has a chance to have a great

PRESIDENT TRUMP: …country and to live happily without death. And I’d like to see that. That’s my first option. If there’s a second option, I think it would be very bad for Iran. And I think Iran is wanting to talk. I hope they’re wanting to talk. It’s going to be very good for them if they do. And I’d like to see Iran thrive in the future.

I know the Iranian people. They’re incredible people. Always have been very smart, very energetic, very successful people. And I don’t want to do anything that’s going to hurt anybody. I really don’t. But Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. It’s, you know, pretty simple. It’s really simple.

We’re not looking to take their industry. We’re not looking to take their land. We’re not. What we’re saying is you can’t have a nuclear weapon. The deal that was made, the deal that was made with Obama, that deal would have expired already. It was a terrible deal. It would have expired. And that gave them a clear path to a nuclear weapon. I wouldn’t have accepted. That’s why I terminated the deal.

Number one, it was way too short. You know, when countries are involved, you don’t make short-term deals. These are countries with long lives. And I terminated that. And it was a great termination because it didn’t allow us to do anything. Once it terminated, you know what the deal was. It was a terrible deal. Really. One of many terrible deals made by the U.S.

But, no, I want — I’d like to see Iran thrive. And they can do that, I think, very easily. Or they can do it the other way. The other way is not going to be good for them. It’s going to be really bad for them.

Questions from the Press

REPORTER: Mr. President, how do you make up an idea of CEO going to China for the Secretary of Civil Affairs?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, Jensen’s an amazing guy. He’s become a friend of mine. And, I don’t know, he’s a person that’s very proud of our country. He loves our country. I’m not worried about Jensen at all.

REPORTER: Mr. President, at what point in time will you take steps to return Kilmar of Regal, Virginia, to the United States and put him in front of a judge?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I’m not involved in it. I’m going to respond by saying you’ll have to speak to the lawyers, the DOJ. I’ve heard many things about him, and we’ll have to find out what the truth is.

On Immigration and Border Security

PRESIDENT TRUMP: But I will say this, you know, we were inundated by millions of people, many millions of people, during the Biden administration. They say 21 million. And a big percentage of those are criminals, serious criminals. I’m not saying just criminals because they came into the border illegally. I’m saying they’re criminals at the highest level — murderers. Many of those people murdered more than one person, and they’re on the loose.

And I was elected to get rid of those criminals, to get them out of our country — or to put them away, but to get them out of our country. And I don’t see how judges can take that authority away from a President.

We’ve done an amazing job. Tom Homan, Kristi Noem. We have done an amazing job. Nobody can believe the job we’ve done. Far greater than what I said. I mean, I got elected on that, but we’ve done much better.

We have, right now, 99 percent border. It’s at 99 percent. Nobody thought that would even be — nobody is coming through our border, practically. Two weeks ago, we had nine people come through, all for medical reasons. We allowed them. We brought them through because one had a heart attack, one had something else. All for medical reasons.

We have a great border. We had a great border four years ago, but we have a border now that’s even tighter. And we did that in a matter of weeks. And, no, we have to — we need to get murderers and drug dealers and people that were in jail for horrible — you know, they released jails, Georgia, from all over the world and released them — not just South America, all over the world. The Congo and Africa. Many, many people come from the Congo. I don’t know what that is, but they came from the Congo.

And all over the world, they came in, opened their jails — Venezuela. Practically all of their prisoners released into our country. And we took them because we had an incompetent administration called the Biden administration. And to think what they’ve done to our country.

And I was elected to straighten that out, and I’m doing that. But we have activist judges that don’t want murderers to be sent out of our country. They don’t want killers and drug dealers and drug lords and people from mental institutions. They want them to stay in our country, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe that’s the liberal way, or as they call it nowadays, the progressive way. But I don’t think it’s the way that our country believes, and that’s why I won in a landslide. Okay.

REPORTER: [QUESTION INAUDIBLE]

REPORTER: So Americans are seeing prices rise. They’re seeing it on their bills. How long can they expect vaccines to last?

On the Economy and Inflation

PRESIDENT TRUMP: So they’ve already seen it get much better, because, if you were truthful, which you’re not, I know you very well, you have gasoline that hit a dollar and ninety-eight yesterday in a couple of states. You have gasolines way down. The price of oil has dropped substantially. The price of groceries are substantially down. The price of eggs.

You know, when I came in, they hit me with eggs. I just got there. I was here for one week, and they started screaming at me, eggs have gone through the roof. I said, I just got here. I was there for seven days, and I hear that eggs have gone through the roof before I got there. And they were screaming at me, the press. It’s the fake news, like you, you’re fake.

And the fake news is screaming at me, like, about eggs. I said, I’ve only been here. I just — this is my seventh day. And they were right. They went up 87 percent, and you couldn’t get them. They said, you won’t have eggs for Easter, which is coming up. Happy Easter, everybody. You won’t have eggs for Easter. And we did an unbelievable job. And now eggs are all over the place. And the price went down 92 percent. And our Commissioner of Agriculture, Brooke, has done a fantastic job. They’ve really done a fantastic job.

So prices haven’t gone up. The only thing that’s gone up, actually, is interest rates, because we have a Federal Reserve Chairman that is playing politics. Somebody that I’ve never been very fond of, actually. But he’s playing politics. Interest rates should be down now. They should be coming down.

In Europe, as you know, they reduced them, I guess, seven times. It looks like they’re going to reduce them again and again and again. But our guy wants to play cute. But interest rates are pretty much even. Maybe they went up just a slight bit, but that’s the only thing. But that’s because of the Federal Reserve, because they’re not very smart people. Go ahead. Yes, sir. Please. Go ahead. Please.

REPORTER: [QUESTION INAUDIBLE]

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Look, in the first — in the first four years, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country. The stock market went up 88 points. I think he’s terrible, but I can’t complain because we had the most successful administration economically in the history of our country.

I think we’re going to do even better this time because you will see that the numbers that we’re taking in are astronomical. We’re taking in tremendous amounts of money with the tariffs. We were treated very unfairly on trade. And the countries are having a hard time getting used to the fact that they can’t do that to us anymore because we have a real President. We have a President that understands what it’s all about.

We had Presidents that, in some cases, were smart, but they didn’t understand business, or they didn’t like business, or, you know, it wasn’t like a priority. And then you had, like, the last administration. The only thing they were good at was cheating in elections. That’s about all they could do. They couldn’t do anything. They were useless. They were incompetent. Worst administration in the history of our country. Worse than Jimmy Carter. Jimmy Carter died a…

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Happy man. You know why? Because he wasn’t the worst President. Joe Biden was. So, I think you’re going to see some fantastic numbers when this all happens. It’s happening now. I mean, everybody wants to make a deal. And if they don’t want to make a deal, we’ll make the deal for them because that’s what’s going to happen. We’re just saying this is what it is. But we want to listen to everybody. And I think I can say for Scott and the other people that are working on it that we’re listening and we’re going to be very fair to people. But, you know, we’re the one that really sets the deal. That’s what we’ll be doing. Please.

Oh, you have a great prime minister. Yes. Oh, yes. Okay.

I’m not sure that was me.

REPORTER: [QUESTION INAUDIBLE]

GEORGIA MELONI: [INDISCERNIBLE]

PRESIDENT TRUMP: That sounded absolute. That was so beautiful. What did you say? Please. No, I mean, it sounded great. It was beautifully presented. Maybe I could hear what you said.

Thank you. No, no, wait. I want to hear what you said. Go ahead.

TRANSLATOR: What do you think about the fact that President Trump holds Zelensky responsible for the war in Ukraine? And Prime Minister Meloni answered, well, actually, we have no—and also if you talked about the military spending, how and the raising of the military spending and the first thing that Prime Minister Meloni said is that no, actually, we didn’t talk about the raise in military spending. Of course, Italy will keep its commitment with 2 percent. And then we will see, because we are absolutely aware of the fact that it is very important to defense is very important.

PRIME MINISTER MELONI: Well, I will do that. Wait, wait, wait. I will do that.

They’ve been asking if we decided not to spend a certain stage about this because of spending. And I said, yes, NATO. And I said that Italy is reaching the 2 percent as it was already decided. We didn’t speak about the specific percentage, but we are aware of the fact that defense is important for the future. And we see what also the work that we are trying to do at the European level. And I don’t know.

Trump on Ukraine War and Zelensky

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I don’t hold Zelensky responsible, but I’m not exactly thrilled with the fact that that war started. That was the war that would have never started. If I were President, you’d have millions of people living right now that are dead. You’d have cities that would be open and thriving, and they’d have their beautiful terraces. Those terraces are the most beautiful in the world, but they’re not with us any longer. They’re smashed to smithereens, laying on the ground in a million pieces, getting hit by rockets, bombs, and bullets.

And so I’m not happy with him, and I’m not happy with anybody involved. I think it’s a war. I know it’s a war. It didn’t happen for four years. It was never close to happening. It was never even a thought. And I spoke to President Putin about it a lot. It was the apple of his eye, but there’s no way he would have ever gone in if I were President.

Now I’m trying to get him to stop because, as you know, Russia is a lot bigger. It’s a bigger military force. And if you’re smart, you don’t go involved and get involved in wars that you can blame the man that was sitting in this seat, Biden. He didn’t know what the hell was going on. But I can guarantee you that—and everybody agrees to it—if I were President, that war would have never taken place.

I’m not blaming him. But what I am saying is that I wouldn’t say he’s done the greatest job. Okay? I’m not a big fan. I really am. I’m not a big fan. Go ahead.

REPORTER: Mr. President, are you sure about the definition of the parasite of Europe? Would you say again that the Europeans are parasites? Have you said that the Europeans are parasites? Have you said it?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I haven’t said—I don’t know what you’re—I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Go ahead, please. Go ahead. No, no, wait, wait. Next, next, next. Go.

On Making Europe “Great Again”

REPORTER: President, Meloni just said we want to make Europe great again, and we want to do it together—together with the United States. Did you—I guess that’s what she said, Mr. Prime Minister. How are you going to do that? And are you looking to do it to counter China, who is really trying to gather influence against the United States? Do you look to help the United States?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I hope that Europe is going to be great again. Europe has gone through a lot of problems, and a lot of it is having to do with immigration. And I’m not a big fan of Europe and what they’ve done with immigration at all. And I think they’ve got to get smart, because Europe is being very badly hurt by what they’ve done with immigration.

Now, I’ll say this, that the Prime Minister has taken a very tough stand on immigration. And I commented to her before. I said, I wish more people would be like you, having to do with that subject. But they’re not. Europe is very important to me. Europe is very important to the world. I want Europe to do very well. I think they have to get a lot smarter on immigration.

PRIME MINISTER MELONI: But we are beginning to do it—doing it. You’ve seen—you will see now that the policies of the European Union in the last, let’s say, two and a half years have been changing. Okay? At the beginning, we were talking only about how we were redistributing illegal migrants coming to Italy. Now we are talking mainly about how to stop illegal migration, work with the countries of origin and transit, and to return people.

The European Commission just did the new rules about repatriation and things like that. So things are changing, thanks also to the example that Italy brought in lowering the rates of illegal migration. So they—we are working now together. So I’m optimistic on that.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Good. I hope so. Go ahead, Glenn. Go ahead.

REPORTER: I’d like to ask, because in Germany, you should have this top option of parties in the European Union on telecommunication. And President Trump, do you want to see the Google Company growing up?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: The Google what?

REPORTER: The Google Company.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: What about it? Go ahead, please.

PRIME MINISTER MELONI: Oh, well, we didn’t discuss about Starlink. We’ve been discussing about defense space. We are—we will work together also in the Mars missions. So there are big, big things to do together, but we didn’t discuss it.

Trump on Tariffs and Trade

REPORTER: [QUESTION INAUDIBLE]

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, tariffs, they’re making us rich. We were losing a lot of money under Biden, trillions of dollars, trillions on trade. And now that’s—that whole tide has turned. We’re making a lot of money. We’re taking in a lot of money.

Don’t forget, we’re taking in 25 percent on cars, 25 percent on steel, 25 percent on aluminum, 10 percent baseline. We put penalties on China for sending us fentanyl. We put penalties on Mexico and Canada—25 percent—for allowing fentanyl and allowing the borders to be weak.

Now, we’re taking in billions and billions of dollars while I sit here and talk to you. And we didn’t do—we didn’t take in anything before, other than the tariffs that I put on previous to Biden, which were the tariffs I put on China, where we took in, up until this point, probably $700 billion. They were Trump tariffs. He tried to weaken them. He did everything he could.

You know, he got paid money by China, right? The family got paid money. He did. And so, I don’t know, maybe that was the reason, or maybe it wasn’t. But he tried to weaken them, but he couldn’t because it was so much money that his budgets—you know, they couldn’t stand not doing it. But I took in, in the—up until this point, my tariffs on China, nobody ever took in 10 cents from China. No other President took in 10 cents. I took in more than $700 billion from China.

So, we’re doing very well. I mean, our country is doing very well. They had a bad report today from one of the healthcare companies that had an impact on the stock market. But this is… This is really — we’re building a base. We’re building a country like no other. And again, I had the strongest economy in the history of our country by far — history of any country, probably, but the history of our country in four years. And I think this has a chance to be much better.

Discussion on Upcoming Agreement

REPORTER: The Press — Exactly.

TRUMP: I’m going to leave that to Scott. What do you think? Where would it be signed, and when?

SCOTT: We’re still working on the details. We’re shooting for around April 27th.

REPORTER: Is there any more detail that you can tell us about what’s been — that deal and how it came together?

SCOTT: It’s substantially what we’d agreed on previously. When the President was here, we had a memorandum of understanding. We went straight to the big deal, and the — I think it’s an 80-day agreement. And that’s what will be signed.

Trump on Interest Rates and Inflation

REPORTER: Question from Ron. Ron, can you clarify — can you clarify, do you intend to see Powell firing if he doesn’t change his stance on rate cuts? Or is that on the table, or is it out of the question?

TRUMP: Well, I think we should do the rate cuts, because I think — if Europe has done it, it puts us at a disadvantage to Europe. He plays right into their hands. So I think he should do the rate cuts.

We don’t have really inflation now. I just said the major things are going down. Oil is great. Oil is way ahead of schedule. And that’s because of our policies. But oil is down into the $60, $65 range now per barrel. And I told you, in certain states, we have less than $2 for gasoline. And food is down, groceries, as we call it, are down.

Other than interest rates, everything is down. Interest rates are pretty flat. It’s not that they’re up, but we should be better than flat. If he would lower the interest rate, I think it would have a good impact on that, too. But the costs are down. We have very little inflation. I would say we have essentially no inflation. Hard to have inflation when oil goes down.

And oil goes down. When Biden came in, oil went through the roof. That’s what caused our problem. That and his very dumb spending. But when the oil prices go down — and they have gone down a lot. We’ve opened it up, and we’ve gotten them down. And that means that people driving cars are going to be paying $2 and $2.50 instead of $4.50.

And, you know, even at the end, they tried — they tried just for the purpose of the election to get it down, but they had really lost that sucker. That was really — it was not good. But if they had won, oil right now would be at $7 or $8 because of their policy. And we’re going to be at about $2. Could be even a little bit less than that. And you’re starting to see it.

So I don’t know how you can have inflation when oil has come down quite a bit. And I would say the Fed really owes it to the American people to get interest rates down. That’s the only thing he’s good for. And he would have an effect on that if he lowered them. And I think at some point he will. He’s going to have a lot of political pressure. You know, they are political also. And I think there’s a lot of political pressure for him to lower interest rates.

Comments on Prime Minister Meloni

REPORTER: [QUESTION INAUDIBLE]

TRUMP: Only if the prime minister remains the prime minister can it be our best. She’s doing — no, she’s doing a great job. And yeah, it’s certainly one of our great allies, not just in Europe, anywhere. She’s a fantastic person and doing a great job. And our relationship is great. And we have a lot of Italians in this country, if I tell you. And they like Trump. And they voted for Trump.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

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