Transcript of President Trump Remarks At Bill-Signing Ceremony – June 12, 2025

But we’re going to be paying more for debt. And all he has to do is lower it. Europe’s done 10 lowerings. We’ve done none. And nobody understands it. Actually, today, when the numbers came out, they were so good. You saw yesterday’s numbers — incredible. No inflation. Today’s numbers — — today just came out, same thing. No inflation. They’re all shocked. All these guys are watching from business, CNBC, and all of these different networks. Maria Bartiromo actually got it right. She’s been getting it right for a long time, that one. I hope she’s appreciated. And Joe Kiernan has been very good at CNBC, I must tell you. But other people aren’t so good.

But I will say that they are just — they can’t believe what’s happening. But if I could, because we can discuss — oh, we’ve got a lot of press, we’ve got a lot of cameras rolling right now. Not that I like doing it, because I don’t. But if we take — if we cut our interest by one point, for years, we save $300 billion. If we cut it by two points, we save — because it’s pretty equivalent, we’re going to save — we’re going to spend $600 billion a year, $600 billion, because of one numbskull that sits here. I don’t see enough reason to cut the rates now.

The problem he’s got is that — and I explained to him, look, if inflation went up, cut your rates now. There’s no inflation. We’ve got it down. We’ve got prices down. We’ve got gasoline down. And you’ll keep it going down. But gasoline’s down. We’ll drill. You know, it’s drill, baby, drill. That’s what — that’s why it’s going down. But we’re all that. But think of it. I said to him — he was in my office a couple of days ago. I said, if you think there’s inflation, let’s find out, because I think we’re going to keep it down. I think gasoline is going to be so far down. Oil energy is so much — we have so much energy, we don’t know what to do with it.

But let’s say there was inflation in a year from now. Raise your rates. I don’t mind. Raise your rates. I’m all for it. I’ll be the one to — I’ll be calling you. He’ll be too late for that, too. But raise your rates. We don’t have to keep them up here. If it’s going to go up, I’m okay with you raising, but it’s down. And we’re going out to financing. And I may have to force something. Somebody said, who’s the genius that thought of that? I said, it’s me. Unlike Biden, I stay awake at night thinking about how to save our country. He was much better at sleeping than me. He could sleep on a beach. He could sleep on a beach with cameras rolling. I can’t do that.

But I had an idea. I gave it. They said, this is really — we’ll go short-term for a year. Let this guy get out of office. Somebody will come and cut it a couple of points, so we’ll save ourselves seven, eight, maybe even $900 billion a year. What is he doing? Why doesn’t he lower these rates?

And with that, we’ll get on to the California standard, which is a disaster. Okay? So, Chris Wright, you’re going to get the numbers down. Thank you very much. Lee Zeldin, one of the most important men in this room, he’s the man I get nervous when I talk to. He’s doing a great job. Nuclear, I say, okay, you can take two weeks for that approval. It used to take 20 years. Then they wouldn’t approve it. Now I say, Lee, nuclear, I’ll give you two weeks for an approval. A coal-fired plant, you only get a couple of days. And oil and gas, we’ll give you a week. Okay? Something like that. But he’s doing it so fast. And we have so many plants being built right now, it’s so beautiful to see.

And one of the reasons they’re coming here is because we — They have to produce tremendous, especially the A.I. They have to produce beyond believable amounts of electricity. And they’re doing I said to them, I think this was more or less my idea. They didn’t have the idea only because they didn’t think a thing like this was possible. I said, as you build your plant, you’re going to become a utility and you’re going to build a separate plant right alongside of it. You’re going to build it. You’re going to build a plant that produces electricity and you’ll produce it through natural gas, coal, nuclear. We don’t want to produce it through wind because we don’t feel like ruining 50 miles of beautiful plains and beautiful vistas. And but we want to produce it.

You know, interestingly, China is opening up a coal plant every single week. But now I’m finding out it might be two plants every single week. And, you know, usually that’s a good gauge if they’re using coal. I guess we’re supposed to use coal. And, you know, we went to a coal standard and not that you have to use coal. You’re going to use whatever is best.

Congressional Leaders Recognition

I want to introduce also Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, who’s a tremendous guy, doctor. And he is a tremendous, tremendously talented doctor. When I have a medical situation for the country for myself, I haven’t used them, but I might have to. Maybe I’ll do that. It’s serious enough. I think I’d probably do that. But he’s a tremendously talented gentleman who happens to be a senator and one that’s very respected.

Chairwoman Shelley Moore Capito, and congratulations. I just endorsed your son. Did you know that I endorsed your son? I endorsed her son who’s running in West Virginia, and he’s great. In fact, he’s all Trump all the time. I think much more so than you, actually. You were his largest impediment. No, I’m only kidding. He’s he’s all Trump all the time and he’s going to win big. And so congratulate him. OK, he’s really been fantastic. So many people have told me. Thank you.

And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who’s a brave man. He went through a hell. Steve went through hell. And we have a lot of other people here that I won’t be able to because they don’t have your name down and I’m looking down. I see people’s names. I’ll do a couple of you. But thanks as well to Mark Wayne Mullen, Senator Mark Wayne. Thank you. Sit up, Mark. Don’t fight him. He’s a serious fighter in a lot of ways, and he’s a great guy, too. Thank you, Mark.

When Deb Fisher, Deb, thank you, Deb. Pete Ricketts, who’s going to do very well in the upcoming election. Thank you. Thank you, Pete. John Husted, who’s really moving along in Ohio. John, good luck. You’re going to do well. All endorsed people. John Curtis, who’s doing terrifically. John, thank you. Good job. They all say excellent. What can I say? Good job.

And Bernie Marino, who won a race that was not winnable. They all said it’s not winnable. He won in Ohio. They said, you can’t win that race. It’s a waste of time. You’re just wasting your time. Right, Bernie? Wasn’t a waste of time, was it? And he won by like five points to one by a lot, along with representatives Kevin Kiley, Vince Fong, J. Ober Nolte, Doug Lamafer. Darrell Issa, where’s Daryl? I haven’t seen you in such a long time. Look at you. How good you look, huh? Good when you have those big margins. John Joyce, great guy. John, thank you. Thank you, John. Dusty Johnson. Morgan Griffith. Troy Balderson. Troy from a place called Ohio. And he played very cute at one time. But then he got, boy, I tell you, he’s become a good politician. Where is Troy now? Where I haven’t seen him used for years. I endorse you early when he was early and younger. But you still look young and you’ve done fantastically good. Good work. Really good work.

Claudia Tenney, New York. Claudia. Thank you, Claudia. John James. John James. I don’t know. You know, he’s running for governor, but I’m not sure I’m happy about that. John, do we have somebody good to take your seat? Because otherwise we’re not letting him run for governor. We can’t. You have somebody good, right? Okay. As long as you like him, they’ll win.

Tracy Mann. Tracy, thank you very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Michael Baumgartner. Michael. Thank you, Michael. Good. Good job. David Rouser. Rouser. Thank you. Glenn Grothman. Hi, Glenn. Thank you very much. Glenn. Brett Guthrie. Brett. Thank you, Brett. Rudy Yakum. Thank you. Thank you, Rudy. And I want to thank you all. And there’s some additional people in the room, but we have to get back to this. It’s like so big. This is a big one.

Previous Administration’s Policies

Under the previous administration, the previous administration, I could go point after point. Everything they did, open borders, men playing in women’s sports, transgender for everybody, everybody. Let’s go transgender. What a group of people you had over there. They must have hated our country. Under the previous administration, the federal government gave left-wing radicals in California dictatorial powers to control the future of the entire car industry all over the country, all over the world, actually. Because they have to build a car. They can’t build 19 different cars, call the same thing. And really, it was all over the world what was happening.

They approved Governor Gavin Newsom’s ridiculous plan to impose a 100 percent ban on all new gas-powered cars within a very short period of time. Think of this. You couldn’t buy any other car except an electric-powered car. And in California, they have blackouts and brownouts. They don’t have enough electricity right now to do the job. And countrywide, you’d have to spend $4 trillion to build the firing plants, to be able to — they go over a lot of things — charging plants, firing plants. Four trillion dollars you’d have to spend.

In the Midwest, they built nine of them. Nine individuals. Like a pump. Just like a pump, except instead of gas, electricity comes out. They spent — actually, they built eight of them. Nine billion dollars they spent for eight. Eight little hoses. Nine billion dollars. Now, I’m sure they could have done it for about, you know, one thousandth of that. But even if they did, it’s unaffordable.

They approved Governor Gavin’s ridiculous — it’s so ridiculous. By the way, you would — if I didn’t bring the military in, Los Angeles would be burning down right now. It would be burning just like his damn houses burned down because he didn’t have the water that he should have had. He had so much water. They have so much water. We had to send in the military to free up the water. And we did that right after the fires. We told them to do it in the first term.

Electric Vehicle and Trucking Industry Impact

But just like that ridiculous plan, this is a plan to ban — think of it — a plan to ban 100 — and they call it the 100 percent ban — on all new gas-powered cars and abolish 75 percent of the gas-powered trucks. Seventy-five percent. The trucking industry saw me. They said, sir, it doesn’t work. Number one, the trucks are so heavy. They’re two and a half times heavier than a diesel-powered truck.

So, one of the big truckers — it was 28,000 trucks. Big company. Tremendous company. And he said, I go out of business immediately. I’m not going to play games. I mean, he said, did you explain these things to the government officials? Like, the truck weighs two and a half times more — two and a half times more than a regular truck, a gasoline-powered diesel. And he said, based on that, we have to rebuild every bridge in the United States of America because it wasn’t designed to hold cars and trucks that heavy because the batteries are very heavy. They’re, you know, probably lead. They have a lot of things in those batteries that weigh a lot. But it’s two and a half times. It’s a simple number. Two and a half times. And if you — if you want to do this, you have to spend trillions and trillions of dollars on rebuilding every bridge in the United States — and I guess throughout the world, I think, because they do follow us.

And the big-rig buses and even cement trucks, they want to abolish certain categories of truck. But they want to go 75 percent. Of all of these trucks have to be abolished almost immediately. I mean, the time is just crazy. And they don’t go far. Another little problem. With a tank of diesel, you can go from New York to Los Angeles if you want to go to Los Angeles right now but New York to Los Angeles and you can go back a little bit with the electric truck you’ll stop approximately six times. Enjoy, you enjoy your stop and the truckers saw me and I said did you just explain this because this is like, you know if you explain it — if a person’s reasonable for that, he said we explained it they didn’t care they said we’re going all electric. They can’t be stupid because anybody that can cheat on elections like them is not a stupid person but they must hate our country.

Trucker’s Perspective on Electric Vehicles

But I said to this big truck they said sir, I’ve been buying trucks my whole damn life. He’s a rough guy smart guy, he said I got thousands of them, I’ve been buying them for 50 years and every single year they got better. They got more efficient they got bigger, they got stronger, I build apartments in my trucks now for the drivers. So what’s an apartment, that’s on the cab, they put the sink and so I know you like luxury but you wouldn’t mind living in one of these. I said maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. I mean it doesn’t sound too appealing but but I said so what’s the problem? He said so I noticed one thing for 50 years every single year one thing happened, they got better, they got stronger, they got more efficient, they got faster, they could carry any load. If we went to this standard we’d go back beyond 50 years, they wouldn’t go as far as a truck from 50 years ago, it would be too heavy and have all the other problems. He said we’d be going backwards, we’d be taking a truck in and she would be starting all over but actually it would be worse because it was better 50 years ago then.

So I said what are you gonna do if I don’t win this election? This was before the election. He said you don’t win the election, I’m gonna close up my business because I’m not gonna lose my — he said I’m not gonna lose my ass. I know exactly what’s gonna happen, it’s gonna be a catastrophe, it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, they’re making you buy stuff that doesn’t work, it’s no good, it doesn’t work.

Electric Vehicle Options and Hydrogen Concerns

And I’m all for electric if you want to buy electric. You can buy electric cars are great. If you buy the right ones your cars are great and you should be given the option: buy the electric car, buy a gasoline-powered car, buy a hybrid, probably not hydrogen because hydrogen has a tendency that when it blows up you’re gone. So it’s over, they find you 75 yards down the road you know where is he, well I think that’s him but I’m not sure. So you know they said we think we can solve the problem. I said that’s not good enough. when they think no. it sounds like it’s quite severe if it doesn’t work. Steve. it’ll work most of the time but if it doesn’t it’s over. It’ll make your accident look like peanuts compared, you wouldn’t be around. I’ll tell you because it’s been — it’s pretty but some people like it. I don’t know though, let’s see what happens but I would say it’s off to a bad start.

California Standards and State Compliance

But because of the size of California’s population and the fact that 17 other states follow California, that’s the problem. 17 other states follow California, they have the most ridiculous look, they have the most ridiculous laws I’ve ever seen for a lot of things, this is just cars but we’re and trucks and they have a lot of them for other things but we have it’s called the California car standards. And this horrible scheme would effectively abolish the internal combustion engine which most people prefer like so far I’d say about 90%.

General Motors Investment and Manufacturing Return

In fact, General Motors announced yesterday they’re gonna spend about six billion dollars on, because of tariffs and maybe because of my election on November 5th but because of tariffs I think more than anything they’re all coming back. They’re coming back from other countries that took them 25 30 years ago. They’re all coming back, we have now almost 15 trillion dollars, they had almost nothing last year and year before. They’ve very very little — nobody wanted to be back here, nobody wanted to come to our country anymore, because we were like stupid people, we look like stupid people, we were laughed at all over the world. Now we’re not laughed at anymore; I can tell you that.

But they wanted to shatter our domestic supply chains and literally grind civilization to a halt. We would have gone so far back, it’s hard to believe actually, hard to believe when you don’t have enough electricity to give a person a little air conditioning in the summer. And now they want you to take electricity and fire up all these cars but we’re not gonna let that happen.

Auto Jobs and Union Support

Meanwhile all of the auto jobs would be shipped to China because they’re very strong on electric and it lives off an estimated 200,000 American auto workers would be destroyed. It’s one of the reasons I did so well with the United Auto Workers and now I’m really doing well with them. I did phenomenally with them no Republican ever got any numbers like I got in the Teamsters to Sean O’Brien the head of the team says these guys they like Trump, they know that, everybody knew that, the auto workers knew better than anybody how good the tariffs were.

And the head of the auto breakers I don’t know him at all but he didn’t like me at all. Now he’s going around saying it’s unbelievable, he was very nice to me the last few months during the campaign no but if I’ve proven you know I’ve proven it. I’ve done what I said I was gonna do and we’ve brought back tremendous numbers of jobs and you’re having auto plants built all over the country, all over that there’s never seen anything like that they’re leaving from Mexico. They’re leaving from Canada, they’re leaving from other parts of the world. If they want a Mercedes-Benz you’re gonna have it made here. It’s okay to have a Mercedes but they’re gonna make it here, otherwise they’re gonna pay a very big tariff. They already are, that’s one of the reasons we have 88 billion dollars. It’s a lot of money but that’s peanuts compared to what we’re gonna be making in another few months, they haven’t even kicked in yet.

Congressional Support and Legislation Signing

But we’re not going to let any of these bad things happen, these stupid projections that I’ve been reading about for the last six months, I think these people either corrupt or really dumb. And they’re supposed to be economists. In the campaign I promised to end this disaster, and today our Republican majorities in Congress have delivered and I don’t know I can’t imagine did, it’s so obvious, it’s so good. Did we get any Democrat votes and did we get one two who 35… I think that’s great, you know I think that’s good. You got 35 Democrats, I think that’s great that as far as I’m one in the Senate on something that’s so good but who is the one — well I shouldn’t have asked I congratulate her, I don’t care I think it’s I think it’s great, it’s very interesting, why did I ask that question Mr. Smith?

But in a few moments I’ll sign three pieces of legislation that will kill — totally killed — can’t do anything about it, they can’t take us to court, they can’t do any of the things they can do with the executive orders and it’s permanent, sign three pieces of legislation that will kill the California mandates forever and they’re never coming back now.

Auto Industry Cost Reductions and Vehicle Efficiency

PRESIDENT TRUMP: The auto companies are the most happy because now they’re going to be designing and building one auto. It will be much cheaper, it’s a much less expensive. They were showing me — one of the most respected people was showing me that to save a little like a half a glass of fuel cost them thousands of dollars with new computers and stop it. The engine is to stop and then turn on and blah blah blah and I said does it work as well? No, it’s terrible, it’s terrible. And that’s to save a little bit of fuel, this much fuel that Chris Wright can produce with one extra little oil well someplace, right? One little, a small one, a very small one.

But think of it, your cars are gonna cost you three thousand, four thousand dollars less and you’re gonna have what you want. And again, you can get any car you want, you can get electric. A lot of people love the electric, they like Tesla. So do I, in all fairness I like Tesla and I like others too, but I also like combustion engines and I, you know, there are reasons for a lot of things.

Iowa Victory and Electric Vehicle Performance Issues

When I was in Iowa we had an unbelievable victory, if you remember. I remember I was nice, you won by it like so much nobody even talked about anything else, but that was a great victory. But it was unbelievably cold that night and I was going to watch my victory in the area where I was gonna make a speech and the whole place was littered with cars. I said what happened? There were electric cars and they don’t work in cold. I said I didn’t know that, and they don’t work in extreme heat either. Other than that they’re wonderful. But no, but if you’re in a cold climate, you know, how do you do that?

But there are electric cars and I noticed that and then I didn’t pay much attention because we won by about 65 points, so I was more interested in that. But I do remember that scene, I said what the hell is going on over here?

Economic Impact and Team Recognition

This historic action will also help us reduce inflation and bring down the price of automobiles and electricity very, very substantially. You know, we’re building massive electricity right now, it’s already started because of that guy right there, Lee Zeldin. By far the most important man in the room, Mr. Speaker, stand up Lee. He blows you guys away John, he blows the politicians away. I’m sorry, right now he actually, he’s a great politician though. He almost won for governor in New York, which is just missed by a few points and that was another race that was not winnable, but you, you almost got it. But I think what you’re doing now is even bigger if you want to know the truth. I think it’s actually more important if you can believe that.

Under the previous regime car prices skyrocketed as a direct result of the mandates, these mandates. This is nonsense that you had to do and they have so many other rules and regulations that the car companies who are here today appreciate that. And Susie Wiles is here today, stand up Susie. Most incredible woman, most powerful woman in the world they say. She’s the most powerful, she was rated the most powerful woman in the world, Susie Wiles. One phone call and a nation is destroyed, she destroys, she could destroy five nations with five calls and she’s doing a great job. More importantly right, doing a great job, nobody like.

Energy Policy Contradictions

Energy prices would likewise so is a radical left force more electric vehicles onto the grid while blocking approvals for new power plants. They want to block the approvals, they want you to have a car with electric but they block the production of the juice that runs the cars and all of them, all forms of cars. It’s just the craziest thing, we’re, we’re in a different sphere now, we’re in a whole different planet right now. The result would be rolling blackouts and a collapse of our power systems, would have a total collapse. You couldn’t do it, you couldn’t even do it.

Think of it, they’re forcing you to do something and they want you to do boats also. I assume boats are being covered by this and boats, they want you to go all electric and the batteries are so heavy the damn boat practically doesn’t float. I used to have a lot of fun talking about that one on the, on the tours would talk about it.

Electric Boat Story and Safety Concerns

I said what would happen if the boat sank? Is that we went to North Carolina, South Carolina, we visited boat factories, unbelievable guys, and they said sir, we have one problem, they’re forcing us to go electric for the boat. I said how’s it gonna work? The boat will not float sir, so heavy and it won’t go fast and lots of other. And I did ask him a question, because I have a lot of background, my, my uncle was a big shot at MIT, the smartest guy, he never had a smarter guy and I guess I have a little of that.

My first question was what would happen if the boat sank, do you get electrocuted? Remember? And I used to be decimated by these people back here, right? I used to be decimated, they’d say what kind of a crazy question is that? I’m actually serious, what happens if you’re an electric boat and the boat has gone down? You’re in trouble Susie. And I used to say remember, oh I’d get decimated, the audience loved it but the press would laugh at it.

I said so if I have my choice of going down, we’re jumping five or six yards away from the boat but there’s a shark there, what do I do? You know what I said? I’d rather be electrocuted. I said I’ll take electrocution every single day. But actually he said nobody’s ever asked me that question sir, he makes boats, nobody ever asked me that question. This really an unusual question he said and honestly I don’t have the answer. He wasn’t able, I said don’t worry about it, if I win you won’t have to worry about it.

Saving California and the Nation

But today we’re saving California and we’re saving our entire country from a disaster. Your cars are going to be thousands of dollars less money and even the ones that if you buy electric, we’re not going to make you do certain things that are just a waste of money and just time-consuming waste of money. They make you do things that are no good for anybody, make the car worse and make it much more expensive.

Over the past five months our administration and Republicans in Congress have fought for the American autoworker and for Teamsters and for, by the way, right to work, we have, we have them all, we have, you know, we just call them just workers. We fought for workers like no one has ever fought before. I understand that, it’s why we won. We won with workers, we won with young people. I just saw with TikTok I was number one on TikTok and it’s history, can you believe that? So I guess I like TikTok, that’s why they’re saying are you saving and we probably will save TikTok actually.

Green New Deal Abolishment and EV Mandate

But in my first day in office I ended the Green New scam and abolished the EV mandate at the federal level. We abolished it, which is basically that everybody will be driving an electric car within a very short period of time. Now we know why Elon doesn’t like me so much, which he does actually, he does, and he never had a problem. You know it’s very interesting, this was, this is not something new, this has been there from day one, Speaker, right? We’re gonna abolish the EV mandate and Elon still endorsed me because honestly he never ever spoke to me about that.

And I used to say I’m amazed that he’s endorsing me because that can’t be good for him. I’m abolishing the EV mandate and I once asked him about it, you never talked to me about that. He said well as long as it’s happening to everybody I’ll be able to compete. It’s very interesting answer, I thought it was a very honest answer to be honest with you. And I talked about it that incredible, you know, you would have thought he would have been from day one, you gotta make sure you don’t do the EV mandate, the abolishing, and never did. Very honest in that sense.

And he did say to me, I actually asked him because it was like really strange how I’m with him, he’s very you know a friend of mine and he makes electric cars and we’re saying you’re not gonna be able to make electric cars or you’re not gonna be forced to make all of those cars you can make them but it’ll be by the market judged by the market. And that’s what he said he said as long as I’m on the same plane as everybody else we’re gonna do good we make a better product I said that’s very cool it’s very good that was my answer. After that he got a little bit strange but I don’t know why over much smaller things than that as part of the one big beautiful bill will also further slash the funding for the green new scam as you know it’s greatest scam in history saving American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

The windmills are killing our country by the way. the fields are littered with them, junk, they’re littered with them, and they get older and they get rusty and they get bad and they get this is other countries. Also it’s greatest scam in history, it’s most expensive energy you can buy. They’re ugly, a friend of mine comes from Minnesota, he’s been in New York, he hit it big. He’s a very successful guy actually, and he wanted to go back see his mother who’s not well and went back to Minnesota, hasn’t been back there in 20 years. And he said it’s unbelievable what happened. He said I’m driving down a highway and up a certain road and the most beautiful fields, I remember him so well. And I was so looking forward to seeing him again and I looked at him and had windmills all over him, these horrible horrible structures, a very smart guy, this guy. He said he’s ugly built, these ugly horrible things.

And he said it was so bad I actually drove back to see it, because I couldn’t believe it. Before I even got to my mother I drove back, I said how much do you like your mother, but no it hurt him to see it. He said I looked at this field, that was one of the most beautiful places in my own mind and imagination that I’ve ever seen. And I said it’s littered with these this garbage, it looked like a junkyard. He said and some you know, so then you get different manufacturers, and they don’t look alike. And they’re not painted alike, different colors. You have even, if they’re white one’s a beigey white, one’s a darker white, one’s a lighter white, and then they start to rust after four or five years. And then they start to wear out and nobody takes them because you’re not allowed to bury the propellers, the props right. You can’t bury the props for some reason. I don’t know why but they say that you can’t burn certain type. What they do is they leave them up.

If you go to Palm Springs, California, take a look, you won’t go into this beautiful community before you go, it’s like you’re riding through a junkyard windmills all over the place, tall one, short ones, dead ones. They’re all dead, some are hanging over by a thread, they never take them down, they just leave them there. And they start to rust, it’s one of the greatest scams. And it’s also the most expensive energy and the environmental, so we love wind, it sounds so good. But it’s a horrible thing environmentally, it’s a horrible thing. I say that to you, it’s wind and we are gonna have virtually no one mandate, we have — we’re going to natural gas, nuclear, we just — we’ve had a big signing with nuclear, making it easier and safer and better. It’s really, I would say probably more than any other form of energy that’s come about. It’s been amazing what’s been done. It’s very safe, very good, and very inexpensive.

But we’re not gonna let windmills get built because we’re not gonna destroy our country any further than it’s already been destroyed. You go and look at these beautiful plains and valleys, and they’re loaded up with this garbage that gets worse and worse. Looking with time, it starts when the rust comes. 4.5 years, it starts to rust. And it’s very expensive to paint them. So they don’t paint them, and they’re horrible. What’s happened is horrible. So we’re not gonna approve windmills unless something happens that’s an emergency. I guess it could happen, but we’re not doing any of them.

Legislative Timeline and Auto Industry Tariffs

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I hope the Senate will soon pass a bill. The House can quickly approve and get to my desk. By the 4th of July, we’ll have this done. And to further defend our auto workers, I imposed a 25% tariff on all foreign automobiles, investment in American auto manufacturing, a surge in because of it. They have Mercedes all over. They pay 25% if they don’t make the car in the United States because of that. And this could have been done long before Trump. This could have been done by any one of the presidents. I did it with China. The reason you don’t have Chinese cars here is because I imposed it my last term. I actually asked a question.

I said, do we have any Chinese cars? You know, why? Because you imposed a 25 or 27.5% tariff on Chinese cars. So they’re not coming here, but they are going to Europe all over the place. But I love China. We just made a deal, and I respect presidency a lot. And we made a deal that’s good for both countries. The deal we made with China is good for both countries. It’s going to be a lot of money made, and it’s going to ultimately open up China, which is the ultimate thing. And I’m going to be working with President Xi. We had a long talk about it. And that’s going to be good for China. It’s going to be good for us. But we’re going to be opening up China. That’s bigger than what we signed. And I think had we not signed it, that wouldn’t be happening. It’s going to happen. It’s going to happen fairly soon.

Manufacturing Investment Announcements

PRESIDENT TRUMP: But to further defend our autoworkers, I impose this 25% tariff on all foreign automobiles and investments in American manufacturing and auto manufacturing. All manufacturing is surging. And I might go up with that tariff in the not too distant future. The higher you go, the more likely it is they build a plant here. Ford has just announced that it’s going to invest $500 million in some of the things involved in what we just did. General Motors is going to spend $4 billion. They just announced that yesterday.

Stellantis announced that it’s going to reopen its Belvedere assembly plant. That’s good. I know the plant very well. Had a lot of problems. They’re going to spend $5 billion. And Hyundai announced that it will invest $21 billion in America. They wouldn’t have invested 10 cents if we didn’t have tariffs, including for manufacturing American steel, which is doing great. American steel is doing great now because of what we did. You wouldn’t have, if I didn’t put tariffs on steel, they were dumping steel. China and a lot of other countries were dumping steel in our country. Garbage steel, dirty steel, bad steel, not structurally sound steel, real garbage, but it was still there, lots of it. And if I didn’t put tariffs, I put 25 and 50% tariffs on steel, right? John James would put tariffs on steel and we were doing great with steel. Now we’re really doing great. Big investments being made in Pennsylvania. You’ve been reading about it. They’re going to spend $17 billion on US steel and all the steel workers wanted it.

Steel Industry Partnership Details

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And we have a golden stock. We have a golden share, which I control or president controls. Now I’m a little concerned about whoever the president might be, but that gives you total control. It’s 51% ownership by Americans. And we have a company, a great company, Nippon. They’re coming in from Japan. They’re going to spend $17 billion. And somebody said, well, what about, what happens if it doesn’t work out? I said, they spent $17 billion. We can’t put it on a trailer and drive it to Japan. This is still, you know, some businesses you can move. You move your office and that’s where the business is. With this business, they’re spending 17. Think of that, 17 billion. They’re going to have them all over the country.

I want to introduce several of the great Americans representing the millions of people whose livelihoods we’re saving with today’s action. I just can’t tell you how incredible this action is because nobody thought. This was one that I wasn’t so, I would have rather had it than almost anything, but I was told by everybody, except that guy right there, that you couldn’t, you couldn’t get it. Bill Kent runs a chain of family-owned convenience stores that opened in West Texas in 1957, known as Kent Quick. And Bill, if you could come up and say a few words about what the signing means to you, please.

BILL KENT: Thank you, Mr. President. Wow. You’re probably wondering why I’ve called you all here today, right? What a great day. From my perspective, I’m in the convenience store and trolley marketing business. And what this does is it gives us freedom. It gives the consumers freedom to pick what kind of car they want. But more importantly for us, it gives us the ability to plan going forward because with mandates, we were forced to have to look at putting in infrastructure that frankly is extremely expensive and doesn’t give you any return. So this allows us, it’s gonna free me up and our companies up to invest in what people want in the cars they want. And it’s a great day. So Mr. President, Congress, thank you, Steve, everybody, thank you so much.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you. And a friend of mine for a long time is John Hess. He’s one of the top CEOs in the country. And he’s now the CEO of Hess Corporation, one of the biggest oil producers. And he’s a fantastic person with a great knowledge of the subject matter. Can you say a few words, John? I see you in the audience. Come on, thanks.

JOHN HESS: Thank you. Hi, I’m John Hess, CEO of Hess Corporation, a proud producer of oil and gas in North Dakota and the Gulf of America. And so you all know. I was born in New Jersey, grew up in New York. And my father started our company by driving a secondhand oil truck. So Mr. President, it’s an honor to be before you today. And thank you for that.

Mr. President, during your campaign, you made a commitment to the American people to repeal unworkable and costly mandates for cars and trucks and let the consumer choose what type of vehicle they drive. Today, with the bipartisan support of Congress, you’re making good on that promise. I’d like to recognize Speaker Johnson, Leader Thune, other members of Congress whose tireless efforts were critical to the outcome we’re celebrating today. And a special thank you to Senator Capito for her leadership.

This announcement today is about consumer choice and affordability for American families. It’s also about making our country auto industry more competitive, Mr. President. And you said that very eloquently. As you know, Mr. President, one size fits all policies like those adopted in California do not work. America, in every state, every American should be able to choose what they want to drive, not the government. We as a country would be basically leaning into our competitive advantage with this repeal on oil and gas. Oil and gas are a strategic industry for our country, underpinning energy dominance, economic prosperity, and national security. We are truly energy independent. So, Mr. President, on behalf of Hess Corporation, on behalf of the oil and gas industry and every family across our country, thank you for your courageous leadership and your commitment to consumer choice and energy affordability. Thank you very much.

Impact on Trucking Industry

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Very respected guy. The California EV mandates would also have devastated our nation’s incredible truck drivers and the trucking industry. And I gave you a little bit of a rundown on that. But a diesel-powered semi-truck can drive from Reno, Nevada. I’ll give you some other locations. Nevada to Los Angeles. Los Angeles, California, and back on a single tank of diesel oil, diesel fuel, but the same exact journey would require an electric truck driver to stop also six times at recharging stations, adding an estimated nine hours to the trip. I don’t know too much about the trucking industry, but this is not sounding good. Here to discuss a little bit about the trucking industry, Gina Jones, and Gina, a real expert on trucks, I can tell you that. She’s gonna come up and tell us about trucks. Thank you, Gina.

GINA JONES: Thank you, Bob. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very much. And thank you, members and Congress. The trucking industry has America’s back, and we are grateful that a president and the administration that have our back too. Today, trucks are 99% cleaner than a generation ago. We need great partners in government to continue that process. We cannot allow one state’s regulations to disrupt our entire nation’s supply chain, allowing California to do so would have negativity impacted the hundreds and thousands of truck drivers who deliver critical goods across the country each and every day. In order to deliver for American families and businesses, we need realistic national standards. With the signing of this resolution, Mr. President, you have delivered the leadership that trucking industries need. Promises made, promises kept. On behalf of the eight. On behalf of the eight and a half million Americans who work throughout the trucking industry, I thank you.

Presidential Closing Remarks and Bill Signing

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Great job. Great job. Great job. So just to wrap it up, I say under the Trump administration, we will restore the full strength, might, and glory of the American auto and trucking industry. We’ll protect our truck drivers, autoworkers, small business people, and manufacturers all over our country, and actually all over the world. And that’s okay, too. They’ll be doing a product that works, a product that’s much more efficient, that’s better. It’s much better, less expensive.

And we’ll put affordable energy and affordable car ownership back on the center of the American dream as we make America great again. And that’s what’s happening. We’re making America great. You know, when I went over to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, just a couple of weeks ago, the leaders of those countries, and they’re very smart people, they said, you know, you’ve made in a short period of time America the hottest nation in the world. It’s the hottest, you’re the only one we talk about now. And six months ago, it was a laughingstock. They said that to me, those words, it was a laughingstock. And it was, it was an absolute laughingstock. You’ve got the hottest nation right now in the whole world and the numbers are reflecting it too.

So I just think it’s great. And what I’ll do is I’ll sign this, then we can take a couple of questions if you want. And we will be finished and you’re going to go off and you’re going to build the most beautiful automobiles for 20% less money. And I want to thank you, man. You have done some job. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, everybody. You guys want to come up here? Come on, sit around here. Come on, sit around here.

Okay, we’re going to sign three bills that do everything I just said. No auto pens allowed. That’s for you. Keep that, Mike. Yeah, that bill was so good, give it back to him. That was a good one. Now I’ve signed all three of them. You never know what you get with the door. Number two. Very steady hand. It’s very important. Only a steady hand can sign like that, right? I’ve been told that, actually. And here’s number three, and it all goes into effect. Everything I said goes into effect. Lower prices, better cars, and choice. You can say choice. We have choice for education and you have choice for cars now. Common sense is right. You’re right. Common sense is right. Okay, now I can give you the pen.

All right. Congratulations, John. Thank you, Mr. President. I pray you’ll take these, pass these around to us. With John James’s father. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have one, John? Yes, sir. Pass them around. Okay, everybody. There’s a few extra. You’re going to take them, I’m going to give some of them to you. Go ahead, please.

Questions from Reporters

REPORTER: Mr. President. Mr. President, help. Brian, yeah, please. I have some very close friends who run some of the largest auto dealerships in Southern California. What’s that? Automotive Group. Good. Their message to you, they’re 100% behind you right now. They know they’re going through some soft sales periods. They’re in it for the long haul. What’s your message to thousands of auto dealers across this country that are kind of navigating through this terror?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah, they’re going to do better than ever before. They’re going to sell cars in America at levels that they’ve never even thought of before. And they’re going to make more money than they ever made before. It’s going to be great. They’re going to be selling a better car, too. It’s going to be a better product. And they’re behind you 100%. I know that. They have been behind me. They knew it was right. They’ve been asking for this for 25, 30 years, in all fairness. No, they’re very happy. I told you the Auto Workers Union what they did on Election Day on November 5th because they see the results now. They’re all happening. And they have plants moving in, Brian. A lot of plants are moving in. Thank you very much for that question. Yeah?

Criticism of Governor Gavin Newsom

Senator Gavin Newsom trying to kill the auto industry. Oh, who’s killing the auto industry? I don’t think he knew it. I think he’s a guy who he’s just got a faulty thought process. You look at that train. I’ve seen people stupid people with cost overruns for years I’ve watched where something would cost twice as much or three times. But this thing is costing 20 times more. It’s the most incredible disaster I’ve ever seen. That’s one. The cars are just as bad. Everything’s bad.

And now you have this situation. I was in Los Angeles three days ago that we could not have done this without the military. They were going to take over this whole… They couldn’t have done it. Now today they got him to change his tune. He said, Oh, I think we could have handled it. So sad. He was so honest. I was using his quote all over the place that they got him to change. But he knows.

They had a fire that they should have never had because they should have listened to me in the water. Eventually we broke in and we had the water come down from the Pacific Northwest. I can show you pictures now with the big half pipes coming all the way down California. So much water. They don’t have any droughts. They sent it all out to the Pacific Ocean It’s time to take it now. But what they do they’re doing, this is a big problem. And what they really want to do is keep criminals, because they’re trying to protect criminals.

Sanctuary cities are a disaster in this country, and most of the voters don’t want them. Politicians like them for whatever reason, but I think the politicians are wrong. That’s why we won in such a convincing fashion. We won all seven swing states. We won by millions of votes. We won 2,750 districts, as opposed to 505. That’s why when you look at the map, it’s almost all red. It’s got two little blue stripes on each side of it. It’s almost all red.

But now you have to, I always got along with Gavin. I like Gavin. I’ve liked him, always. He said I never called him. They asked him a question on Fox, I guess. I never spoke to him. He doesn’t remember the call. He doesn’t remember. I never spoke. And then I produced a phone call. I had it. It took me about two minutes. I said, well, here’s the call. It lasted 16 minutes and four seconds, and it was at 1230 in the evening.

I actually made a call. It didn’t pick up. I called him a second time, and he picked up. And I told him, I said, you have to get your ass in gear, because you’re going to have a problem there. And he would have. If you bring the military in, he would have had you would have right now something. And I went through it because I follow the rules 100 percent.

And I watched in Minnesota where you have the man who ran for vice president of the United States. Fortunately, he was a disaster, but he wouldn’t call in the National Guard. And I eventually called in the National Guard, but it was seven, seven days late. I said, I’ll never do that again. I’m never going to. If I see problems brewing, if they’re not going to do the problem, I’m not going to wait two weeks because that city, Minneapolis, burned down. Do you remember the CNN anchor? He was standing there saying, yes, this is a peaceful rally. And behind him, the entire city was on fire. Looked like World War Two. And I appreciate the question. Thank you very much. Thank you.

India Plane Crash Response

REPORTER: Two questions, if I may, sir. First, the terrible, horrific plane crash in India today. I’m sure you saw the images on TV. Your reaction to that first. And will you speak to Prime Minister Modi?

TRUMP: The plane crash was terrible. I’ve already told them anything we can do as a big country, a strong country, they’ll handle it, I’m sure. But I let them know that anything we can do, we’ll be over there immediately. But it was a horrific crash. It looks like most are gone. They actually maybe have a couple of survivors, which is just heard. But that was a horrible crash. Nobody knows. Nobody has any idea what it might be. I gave him a couple of pointers. I said, maybe you’ll look at this or that. You know, we saw the plane. It looked like it was flying pretty well. It didn’t look like there was an explosion. Just looked like the engines maybe lost power. But boy, that is a terrible crash. It’s one of the worst in aviation history. Yeah.

Iran Conflict Discussion

REPORTER: Second. How confident are you, sir, that conflict with Iran can be avoided?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I’d love to avoid the conflict. Iran’s going to have to negotiate a little bit tougher, meaning they’re going to have to give us some things that they’re not willing to give us right now. I’m the last person. I’ve kept us out of wars. We defeated ISIS completely, 100 percent. And I haven’t had a peace through strength. I believe in peace through strength. We’re the greatest military in the world. I rebuilt the military, as you remember, for four years. I rebuilt the military. And then we gave a chunk of it away. But it was still peanuts. It was a lot, but it was peanuts compared to what we rebuilt. Gave it to Afghanistan. One of the most embarrassing moments in the history of our country with the total withdrawal, the way they withdrew, was very embarrassing.

But we rebuilt the military. We have the greatest, strongest military. We defeated ISIS. We defeated ISIS. We defeated ISIS in four weeks, it was told, to be five years. It was going to take five years, anywhere from four to five years. We did it in four weeks, with, by the way, headed by the general, who’s now the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That’s why he’s there. He said it would take four weeks, and he did it in four weeks. He did, actually, a little bit faster. So we have a great country, and we’re going to keep it that way.

Investigation of Professional Agitators

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And when it comes to Los Angeles or other cities, if we see other cities are gearing up, and these people are agitators, they’re paid, they’re professionals, they’re insurrectionists, they’re troublemakers, they’re all of those things, but I believe they’re paid, and we’re going to find out through Pam Bondi and her great staff, her great people at Justice, who they are. And Mike, I think you’re doing some investigations in that in Congress, but we’re going to find out who they are, because they’re really, I think what they’re doing is unbelievably illegal.

One, just one thing. So they took the bricks away from people. They’re walking in with satchels of bricks. Now, why do you have bricks? You have bricks because you throw bricks. They’re very potent. If they hit you, they kill you. And they took them away. The military took them away. They saw them. What the hell is this? The guy could hardly carry many bricks. He’s a strong guy, couldn’t carry them. And they saw that, and they took them away. Then they found others with bricks.

But they’re ingenious. They also brought hammers along, very heavy hammers. And I saw them pounding the curb and pounding the sidewalk. And it was like a military operation. This guy’s pounding strong, boom, big shots. And it was breaking up granite, the granite curbs. And the granite was breaking up, and the concrete was breaking up. And there was lines of people standing there, and they’re handing them. And then he stopped handing them. They just went down and picked them up. It was so professional. I said, that’s a professional organization. This is not like people at random. This guy’s breaking up because they couldn’t use the bricks. So who would think of this, even? Did a lot of damage. A lot of curbs are broken. A lot of sidewalks broken. But I never saw that before. That’s one I haven’t seen. I thought I saw it all. And they have it on tape. And with that, people get killed. You know, they go to the bridges,

and they drop the concrete off the top of the bridge with a car coming along at 70 miles an hour, and the person dies. We had a lot of car problems. You saw that. They were all over the road. They were littered all over the road, where the cars got stopped by concrete going through the front windshield. Now, these are bad people. If we didn’t go, Los Angeles right now would be on fire. It would be a disaster. And we stopped it. And last night was very good. Nobody showed up. You know why they didn’t show up? Because we were there. If it was just the police, because the police are great. I know those police. They’re great. But they’re told not to do anything. They’re not allowed to act.

Thank you.

REPORTER: Mr. President. Mr. President. How imminent is an Israeli strike on Iran?

TRUMP: Well, I don’t want to say imminent, but it looks like it’s something that could very well happen. Look, it’s very simple, not complicated. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Other than that, I want them to be successful. I want them to be tremendous. We’ll help them be successful. We’ll trade with them. We’ll do whatever is necessary.

You know, I stopped a war between India and Pakistan, and I stopped it with trade. Nobody. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a story written about it, but it was pretty, pretty cool. They were getting ready. Pakistan was now it was their turn to hit, and eventually they’re going to go nuclear. And I stopped it. I called each. I respect each leader greatly and know them. And I spoke to them and I talked about trade. I said, but you’re not trading with us if you’re going to go to war, if you’re going to start throwing nuclear weapons around. And I said it to both of them, and they were both unbelievable, actually. They understood it. Exactly. They stopped.

I stopped that war with phone calls and trade. And India’s here right now negotiating a trade deal. And Pakistan’s coming, I think, next week. And I’m very proud of that. Nobody died. They the nuclear weapons, they each have very severe, very, very substantial numbers of nuclear weapons. And I think we should get some credit for that. You know, the whole Republican Party should, because that’s their mindset.

Please, Mr. President.

Yes, ma’am.

REPORTER: What are you trying to do, Mr. President? Are you still concerned about the national security issues with Chinese students studying in the United States?

TRUMP: I’ve always been in favor of students coming in from other countries. That includes China. And we have 500,000 Chinese students coming in. I’ve always been in favor of it. Does it mean you that you have to watch people? Yeah, you have to watch students, but you have to watch other people also. I’ve always been strongly in favor of it. I think it’s a great thing. It’s also it’s good for our schools. It’s good for I think it’s good for our country.

I’m also in favor of having them stay. I’ve been in favor of letting them say, if you get educated for four years, you’re willing to get educated for four years. I like people being able to say, you know, they have some great students. You have some. Yeah. That’s these are Republicans. You know, because a lot of Republicans don’t like that idea. I happen to like it. I’m a real Republican, believe it or not. But I like the idea they go four years. To me, that’s almost like, you know, getting your just buying your way in in a very legitimate way.

And, you know, you have stories where Apple wants to hire somebody and they can’t hire because he can’t say he went to a great school. He finished first in his class. They made him a big offer and everything’s done, but he has no idea whether or not he’s going to be able to stay. And I’m all for making sure that people like that can go to work for all of our great companies.

And you know what they do? They go back to their country and there are stories that are all over the place. They go back to their company and they start a company just like they were going to start here. They end up starting it in China or India or someplace else. And now they’re among the richest people in the world. They’ve got thousands and thousands of employees that make a great. This is happening all the time because they’re not allowed to stay. And I think we’ll probably end up doing something about that.

Right. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. You in the blue light blue.

REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. How close are you to step back between Ukraine and Russia? We see a very bad escalation. Are you going to keep it in the hands of the European?

TRUMP: I’m very disappointed in Russia, but I’m disappointed in Ukraine also because I think deals could have been made. And, you know, we’re losing five, six thousand people a week, soldiers mostly, but also people living in towns because they’re getting hit by missiles again. How’d you like to live in a building and you think a missile is a good chance of hitting your building during the evening? It’s horrible. Must be horrible to live like that.

But I mean, we’ll get it. But but it’s I’m disappointed that it’s not done. We did great with India and Pakistan. We did very good with Israel. I thought, look, October 7th was a disaster. People forget, you know, they like to forget as a horrible thing. But, you know, none of these things would have happened if I were president. If I were president, none of it would have happened. You wouldn’t have the Israel problem. Iran was broke. Had no money. We had big sanctions on them. Biden immediately let them get rich. Three hundred billion dollars they have right now. But they had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah. They had no money for anything. It was perfect.

We wouldn’t have had inflation that was caused by oil. Chris, the oil price went through the roof. It was also caused by their spending, but it was caused more by oil than anything else. The oil went so high, got close to one hundred dollars a barrel. And that caused and that also kept the war going with Putin, because at one hundred dollars a barrel, that was a big money making experience. But now it’s down to where it’s not so good for them anymore. No, it’s very important to get that. So that’s a bloodbath. That’s a terrible bloodbath that’s going on.

Yeah, please go ahead.

REPORTER: India says that they cannot talk to Pakistan unless Pakistan takes actions against Jairus.

TRUMP: We’re going to get in a suit getting together. I know them. I know them. India and Pakistan. They’ve had a long time rivalry over Kashmir. And I said, I can solve anything. I’ll win your arbitration. I can solve anything. And I started first question, how long is it going to go on? They said two thousand years. I said, oh, thank you, Mr. President. When I heard two thousand years, I said maybe I’ll have to ask myself that question.

REPORTER: Mr. President, what made you change your mind about targeting in California farmers and people in the hotel and leisure business?

TRUMP: Well, we’re not targeting. In fact, if you look today, I put out a statement today about farmers. Our farmers are being hurt badly by, you know, they have very good workers. They’ve worked for them for 20 years. They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be, you know, great. And we’re going to have to do something about that. We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have maybe what they’re supposed to have. Maybe not. And, you know, it’s going to happen.

And what is happening, they get rid of some of the people because, you know, you go into a farm and you look and people don’t. They’ve been there for 20, 25 years and they’ve worked great. And the owner of the farm loves them and everything else. And then you’re supposed to throw them out. And you know what happens? They end up hiring the people, the criminals that have come in, the murderers from prisons and everything else. So we’re we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon. I think we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure to hotels. We’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.

And my other question about the Middle East, as the Israelis apparently gear up for some kind of an attack, a possible attack on

Iran, are you trying to talk Netanyahu out of doing that or are you so against Iran having a nuclear weapon that you’re OK? He does this thing because it is not an American war. Yeah, it’s a very fair question. Look, I want to have an agreement with Iran. We’re fairly close to an agreement. We are fairly close to a pretty good agreement. It’s got to be better than pretty good, though, but it’s got to be much prefer an agreement. As long as I think there is an agreement, I don’t want them going in because I think I would blow it might help it actually. But it also could blow it. But we’ve had very good discussions with Iran. Whether or not we get there, I can’t tell you, but it’ll it’ll happen soon. I say this, Peter, very strongly. They can’t have whether it’s going in or not going in. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I’d prefer I’d prefer the more friendly path.

REPORTER: Can you tell us what the Israelis told you when they started evacuating the dependents of servicemen and women who are stationed in the Middle East?

TRUMP: Well, they didn’t tell me anything. But I said, look, there’s a chance of massive conflict. We have a lot of American people in this area. And I said, we got to tell them to get out because something could happen soon. And I don’t want to be the one that didn’t give any warning. And missiles are flying into their buildings. It’s possible. So I had to do it. You know, I had the choice. Do I do it or not? Doing it has its downside, but it also has its upside. Like you’re going to save a lot of lives if it should happen. Hopefully that doesn’t happen. Right.

Military Strength and World War II Commemoration

REPORTER: Thank you. Mr. President, for Americans that are coming to Washington on Saturday, the military is ready. What would you like folks to take away from that day? What would you hope that they would remember?

TRUMP: And also, how great our country is and how strong our military is. We have the strongest military in the world. You know, it’s very interesting. Three weeks ago, it was the end of world anniversary, end of World War Two. And I called France and Macron was a good man. I said, what are you doing? He goes, we’re celebrating World War Two, our victory. I said, your victory, your victory. Tell me about that. And then I called somebody else and I happened to speak to President Putin at the time.

Now, in all fairness to him, he lost 51 million people and he did fight. Russia fought. Sort of interesting. He fought with us at World War Two and everybody hates him. And Germany and Japan, they’re fine. You know, someday somebody will explain that. But I like Germany and Japan, too. But Putin is a little confused by that. You know, he said we lost 51 million people and we were your ally. And now everybody hates Russia and they love Germany and Japan. I said, let’s explain that sometime. OK, but it’s a it’s a it’s a strange world.

But I will say this. Look, I want them to go away saying how great our country is and how great our military is. And I was making all these calls. And for some reason, I spoke like four different places. Sir, you’re celebrating. And I said, you know, we won World War Two and World War One. Right. We won them. And yet we’re the only country that doesn’t celebrate. Everybody celebrating except us. And I said we should celebrate, too.

Response to Protests and Presidential Powers

REPORTER: There are several no kings protests planned across the country on Saturday as well. What are your thoughts on those?

TRUMP: What are they? No king. No kings. I don’t feel like a king. I have to go through hell to get stuff. A king would say, I’m not going to get this. A king would have never had the California mandate to even be talking to him. He wouldn’t have had to call up Mike Johnson and Thune and say, fellas, you got to pull this off. And after years, we get it done. No, no, we’re not a king. We’re not a king at all. Thank you very much.

Senator Rand Paul and Legislative Challenges

REPORTER: Go ahead. Mr. President, sir, you made a lengthy posting today on True Social about Senator Rand Paul. Do you expect to see him at the picnic tonight, sir?

TRUMP: I do. I look forward to seeing him, actually. I like him. He’s the hardest vote in the history of the Senate to get. Probably won’t get him. But he’s very tough vote. I mean, he’s a very tough vote. He’s always been a friend of mine. You know, I endorsed him and got him elected. I got him elected twice. But I don’t think he understands how great this bill is. This is a great bill. No tax on tips, no tax on, you know, the Social Security payments. It’s unbelievable what happens. No tax on overtime. You work overtime. No more taxes. So those are those are big, but they’re minor compared to the big things. Taxes reduced.

Tax Bill Consequences and Democratic Opposition

And let’s look at the other side. If it’s not if it doesn’t get approved, a 68 percent tax increase, 68 percent, including the fact that the Trump tax cuts kick in. But it’s a 68 percent tax increase and many other bad things. I don’t even want it. Some of them are so bad. I don’t even want to talk about them. I think it’s one of the greatest bills will ever pass in this country. And I think that Leader Thune and this gentleman right here, what he’s gone through on this with, you know, we started off with a majority of one. Now, I guess we have seven. So it’s like easier, but it’s really sort of three. It’s seven, but it really equates to three, right? And we have great support. I mean, I can’t tell you, I can’t guarantee, but when you have a majority of essentially three, where you can’t lose anything more than three votes and you get it passed, it’s pretty amazing.

And I think it’s gonna haunt the Democrats because most of the bill is common sense. It’s tax cuts, it’s border wall funding, it’s military funding properly spent. It’s all things that are like common sense. They’re all good. There’s nothing tricky about it. It’s basic stuff. And we don’t intend on getting one, think of it, not one Democrat vote in the house, Mike, not one. Maybe somebody will come along. I don’t know how they can run for office. So many different things.

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security Protection

We’re gonna, very important, Medicare and Medicaid are gonna be strengthened, not hurt. You know, they’re using fake narrative. Oh, we’re gonna, no, they’re gonna be strengthened. We’re gonna strengthen them. They’re gonna destroy them because under their policies, Medicare and Medicaid go away. Social security under them is gonna be devastated. With us, it’s gonna be kept, but much stronger than before. And very interestingly, I saw this and I proved it because for four years, I never heard Medicare, Medicaid, or social security. I’ve already been there, but they’re gonna destroy Medicare, Medicaid, and social security. They’re gonna wipe them out, in my opinion, because their policies are so bad, the country will have no money to pay for them. We’re gonna make them stronger than ever before. Thank you very much, everybody.

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