Transcript: President Trump Hosts a Press Conference with FBI Director Kash Patel – 10/15/25

He really is. He’s a great guy, too. And, of course, FBI Director Kash Patel. They have worked so hard on this and other things.

FBI Arrests and Crime Enforcement Progress

Since the start of the administration, the FBI has arrested over 23,000 violent criminals, more than double the number arrested in the final year of the Biden disaster. The FBI has also destroyed or severely disrupted more than 170 organized criminal enterprises and gangs, 1,600 of the most violent gangs, and confiscated over 6,000 illegal firearms. And they’ve tracked down and arrested four fugitives on the most wanted list, four of the most wanted. Actually, two of them were the most wanted fugitives in the world.

There’s still much more work to be done, which is why the FBI continues to work alongside the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of War to defend, and Pete Higgs has been fantastic, by the way, on this, too, on other things, but on this, too, to defend law and order and combat violent crime, arrest illegal aliens, and make American cities the safest in the world.

And when I campaigned, I talked about crime, but I never knew that we were going to get into it like we did. You know, I mean, I used to watch these cities with the murders. Chicago recently had one deal where they had 11 murders in one weekend. And they said, well, yeah, but it was a holiday weekend. They actually told me that was the reason. Like it was okay because it was a holiday. It was Labor Day. These people are the worst. They are, they really have to, they better, I tell you what. The people in Chicago and the people in places like that, that could be fixed. At some point, it gets to where you can’t fix it anymore. It’s too far gone. And we have some cities like that. But these are great cities that could be fixed.

San Francisco Recommendation

I’m going to be strongly recommending, at the request of government officials, which is always nice, that you start looking at San Francisco. I think we can make San Francisco, there’s, one of our great cities 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and now it’s a mess. And we have great support in San Francisco, so I’d like to recommend that for inclusion, maybe in your next group. You’ll get great support.

Every American deserves to live in a community where they’re not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted, or shot. And that’s exactly what our administration is working to deliver. I didn’t realize I was going to make this such a big factor in the, I didn’t really campaign. I campaigned on crime. But I never thought we’d go into every city and take a really safe city that we’ve all been living with for years and make them safe. And now it’s like a passion for me, and it’s a passion for the people behind me. So I didn’t get elected. I did get elected for crime, but I didn’t get elected for what we’re doing. This is many, many steps above.

And I want to thank Stephen Miller, who’s right back in the audience right there. I’d love to have him. I love watching him on television. I’d love to have him come up and explain his true feelings. Maybe not his truest feelings. That might be going a little bit too far.

But Stephen, thank you for doing an unbelievable job. And the people of this country love you, I’ll tell you. And they love what you say about crime and stopping crime. So now I’d like to ask Director — I’d like to ask Director Patel to say a few words, and then Pam and Todd also. And I just want to congratulate them. This is an amazing thing. And we’re just at the start. We’re going to go into other cities that they’re not talking about purposely. We’re getting ready to go in. And when they go in — like Cash, as an example, told me that people didn’t even know — five months ago, they went into Chicago, and they started doing a lot of work in Chicago. And we brought the numbers down a little bit. And but that really was just preparatory work for what we’re going to do with the surge. We’re going to have a surge of strong, good people — patriots. And they’re going to go in. They straighten it all out.

So, a lot of these cities we’re already working on, but we don’t do it with a big flavor. But in a little while, you’re going to see some numbers that you’re not going to believe. And I think you’ll probably start with Memphis, because I’m hearing the numbers are much quicker than we even thought possible. But, again, D.C. is — it speaks for itself. Chicago is going to be okay. We’re going to save Chicago. And I told you, and I told them, a very respected man, the head of the Union Pacific, said, “Sir, save Chicago. It can be saved.” And the way he said it was like, can you believe it? We’re trying to save Chicago. But I understood exactly what he wants, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to save all of our cities, and we’re going to make them essentially crime-free, like other countries have crime-free.

If you go all over the world, you go to the world, you hear Afghanistan, and you hear all these different places. Our crime in certain cities is worse than anything they can even imagine. And we’re not going to have that any longer. And it’s going to stop, and it stops right here. Kash, please.

FBI Director Patel Highlights Operation Summer Heat Results

KASH PATEL: Thank you, Mr. President. What I’d like to do is just highlight some of the outstanding work that the men and women of the FBI have been doing. And thanks to your brave leadership and the mandate you were given by the American people to not only defend the homeland but crush violent crime, you tasked us with our great partners at the Department of Justice and the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General to start making arrests and bring prosecutions and safeguard our cities.

And you said it. This is just the beginning. In just seven months, I hope the media takes a look at every one of these charts because these are the best numbers for fighting crime in U.S. history, and it’s only seven months in. And to do that, our vehicle to do it of choice was Operation Summer Heat, which the FBI architected to go after violent criminals.

And in just a three-month span, you had 8,700 arrests of violent criminals. You had 2,200 firearms seized off the streets permanently to safeguard our communities. You had 421 kilograms of fentanyl seized. Just to put that in perspective, that’s enough to kill 55 million Americans alone. You had 45,000 kilograms of cocaine seized. And thanks to our Department of Justice partners, you had 2,100 indictments in three months, from June to September alone.

Mr. President, that in and of itself would be historic for a four-year presidency. You did that in seven months because you let good cops be cops, and you partnered us with the right people in the Department of Justice to put the handcuffs on and bring them to court and put them in prison.

And if that weren’t enough, when you look at the year, for the entire seven-month period that we’re talking about here, if you look at the past four years of the Biden administration, 16,000, 17,000, 15,000, 15,000, that’s the number of arrests year-over-year of violent felons in this country for the Biden administration. Mr. President, in seven months, you have 28,600 arrests of violent felons in just seven months alone because of your leadership and the dedication of the men and women at the FBI who want to go out there and do the job they were prevented from doing because that department used to be weaponized and politicized. And this is what happens when you take out the fangs of weaponization.

This number is historic by every metric. 28,000 people have been arrested, violent felons alone. And when you go over there and look at some of these charts, if you don’t mind, I’ll just hop over here. Look at the metrics for not just violent crimes, but the homeless.

Mr. President, during your administration, the FBI has found and located 5,400 children. That is a 30% increase year-to-date over the last administration. Violent crimes against children arrests alone are up 10%. Gang arrests are up 210% in the last seven months alone. And transnational organized crime, which Stephen Miller has been a great partner in, is up over 12% alone. These numbers are historic just as a snapshot.

National Security Mission Strengthened

But just so people don’t think we’re focusing on violent crime alone, the national security mission, Mr. President, under your leadership has never been stronger. We have gone after espionage activities against our main counterparts in China, Russia, and Iran. In China alone, we’ve had over a 50% increase in espionage arrests alone in prosecutions. In Iran, we have had a 50% increase, again, in espionage cases. And in Russia, we’ve had a 33% increase in espionage cases alone.

When it comes to counterterrorism, year-to-date, we have 125 arrests this year versus 100 last year, year-to-date alone. And when it comes to the cybercriminal activities, which are some of the largest enterprises plaguing everyday Americans, we at the FBI have put out a mission to go after cybercriminals like never before. Last year, they had, in total, 191. This year, you already have 252 arrests, 52 arrests of violent cybercriminals who are stealing from senior citizens, who are violating our children’s rights and freedoms, and who are violating everyday Americans. These programs are record.

Combating Fentanyl and Capturing Most Wanted Fugitives

And two of the things I’ll finish with that I’m most proud of, Mr. President, at this FBI, fentanyl. As you know, it’s a scourge that is killing our youth, 100,000-plus a year. To date, the FBI has seized 1,900 kilograms of fentanyl. That’s enough lethal doses to kill 127 million Americans alone, to date.

And if that weren’t enough, Mr. President, you said we have to go after the worst of the worst. And you empowered our Department of Justice, Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, and the Deputy Director at the FBI, who led the charge, not just on summer heat, but he also led the charge at the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives. These people have been on the run for years. And in seven months, you captured not one, not two, not three, but four of the FBI’s most top 10 fugitives, four. And just to put that in perspective, Mr. President, the Biden administration captured four in all of four years. You’re on seven, and we’re going to get to 10. We’re going to get to 10 of 10.

This includes a lady who murdered her six-year-old handicapped child and fled to India. We got her in two months. This includes a narco-trafficker. This includes a sex trafficker. This includes another first-degree murderer and gangbanger. These people were on the run because of the prior administration’s reckless policies that destroyed our communities. And you came in and with a mandate said, go after the worst of the worst. This is just the beginning. This is what happens when you let good cops be good cops at the FBI.

Mr. President, I just want to thank you for your incredible leadership, our brave partnership with prosecutors who know how to bring cases and make sure these arrests stick. And that’s what the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General have led the charge across this country because arrests without prosecutions are meaningless. We are deterring criminals from doing this activity. We are preventing criminals from coming into America. And we are absolutely crushing violent crime like never before and defending this homeland, sir.

Abbey Gate Bomber Captured

And not to mention, I almost forgot this one. It took you, sir, two weeks to get the Abbey Gate bomber. Joe Biden had four years to look for it. You got him in two weeks, thanks to the interagency effort by the FBI and the CIA, went to Pakistan, and now 13 brave warriors who were sentenced to see murder because of disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. They have justice. Their families have a peace of mind. And we’re going to continue to find the others, Mr. President. On behalf of the FBI, sir, I just want to thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much, Kash. Great job. Very good. Any other questions? Pam?

PAM BONDI: President Trump, the men and women of law enforcement say two things to me repeatedly. First, you have taken the handcuffs off them and let them do their jobs. And you let cops be cops. That’s why all this is happening.

The director, the deputy director, are working around the clock. All of these great men and women in the FBI, they have families at home, and they are working during a government shutdown right now. Many of them have small children. Many of them, I was talking to an agent this morning, many of them have babies at home, and they are working around the clock to not only keep our country, but our world safe. And that’s what Operation Summer Heat did.

Thank you, director, and to the deputy director, for everything you did on behalf of the Department of Justice, and you’re going to continue to keep doing. And they set the stage for what we’re doing in Memphis. You’re going to hear a lot more about that, our joint task force next week, but they set the stage for Memphis. And last night alone in Memphis, there were almost 70 arrests, there were 12 guns seized, and there was a 70-year-old man arrested as a result of our operation in Memphis who raped a child under the age of three. That one case makes everything we’re doing worthwhile.

So thank you all for being here on behalf of both of us. Thank you, President Trump. Thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Doug, you want to say something?

DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL DOUG COLLINS: Sure, thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. So this is a great day, and I think there’s stats that the director talked about which are important, but I want to give two examples of what Summer Heat has done that actually will apply, hopefully, to everybody in this room.

Real-World Impact of Operation Summer Heat

The first is for over four years during the last administration, there was a hotel in a town, the middle of a town in Alaska, that was being run as a drug den. There were over 1,000 calls to 911 over four, four and a half year period. There were multiple violent crimes, drug dealers, overdoses, and murders at this one hotel, ruining a community. Summer Heat went in there, not only arrested all the participants that were controlling the hotel, but seized the hotel. And so that’s one example of what Summer Heat means to everyday Americans that just want to live in peace.

The second example is a large narcotics trafficking group that was selling fentanyl in the state of Washington. They were shipping fentanyl using commercial aircraft, putting fentanyl pills and powder in suitcases, flying them from the southwest border, mostly Arizona, all the way to Washington. It had been going on for an extremely long time, and the entire organization was arrested.

And I say those two examples because it’s easy to look at the board and see 1,000 arrests. How much different is our communities now compared to the past four years? But there’s actual life examples. Every one of these arrests means that our streets are safer, and that’s because of the work of this administration, of President Trump and Director Patel.

So I will tell you, Attorney General Bondi and I are together every day with Director Patel, figuring out ways that we can continue to do this work, and it’s not going to stop like the Attorney General said and like the President said. This is just the beginning or phase one or start, whatever you want to say, but it will continue on. So thank you, Mr. President, and thank you very much, Director Patel.

FBI DIRECTOR KASH PATEL: And, Mr. President, just one last thank you from the men and women at the FBI. You found a way to get these individuals paid during the government shutdown, our 1811 agents. On behalf of the FBI, it’s a great debt that we owe you, sir. They’re now allowed to pay for their families. So thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And the military.

FBI DIRECTOR KASH PATEL: That’s right. Thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Okay, thank you very much. Any questions, please?

Questions from Reporters

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Brian, go ahead.

REPORTER: Mr. President, first of all, I know the feedback I’m getting from the American people, they want to say thank you. Law and order is not an option in this country. It’s a mandate. So I know the American people thank you for that. In terms of the guns that have been taken off the street, do you have a number of how many guns were taken away from someone that had a prior felony or a previous crime that perhaps we can prosecute that? Because I know that wasn’t the case under Joe Biden.

DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL DOUG COLLINS: We don’t take guns off the streets of people that are allowed to have guns. So every gun that we’re taking off the street is because it belongs to somebody who is not allowed to have it. Could be a felon. Could be somebody who is here illegally. There’s all sorts of conditions.

But if there’s a gun taken off the streets by the FBI, it’s because the person who has it is not allowed to. It’s not somebody who’s lawfully allowed to have it. So every single one of those guns were taken off of people that aren’t allowed to have them.

PAM BONDI: And not including the FBI, all of the other agencies. ATF alone since January 20th has removed over 25,000 illegal guns off our streets just since President Trump’s been in office.

REPORTER: And Mr. President, if I could follow up on that, could there be any further conversation to have a national concealed carry applied to actual D.C.? Like if you had a driver’s license in Texas and you had a permit, of course, you could drive.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, as you know, they’ve been talking about that for a long time. It’s an interesting question. A lot of people feel strongly both ways. But we are talking about that, Brian. Thank you.

Venezuelan Boats and Drug Interdiction

REPORTER: Mr. President, on Venezuelan boats, I want to ask you, why not have the Coast Guard stop them, which it is empowered by law to do? This way, you can confirm who’s on the boat and ensure that they’re doing what they suspect they’re doing.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Because we’ve been doing that for 30 years, and it has been totally ineffective. They have faster boats. Some of these boats are seriously — I mean, they’re world-class speedboats, but they’re not faster than missiles. But we’ve been trying to do that for years. And so much of the drugs, 25, 30 percent, would come in through the seas. Right now, we have, I would say, none coming in through the seas. In fact, I don’t know about the fishing industry. If you want to go fishing, a lot of people aren’t deciding to even go fishing. We’ve almost totally stopped it by sea. Now we’ll stop it by land. But it never worked. It never worked when you did it in a very politically correct manner.

REPORTER: What’s the next step in this war on cartels? And are you considering options — are you considering strikes on land?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I don’t want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea very well under control. We’ve had a couple of days where there isn’t a boat to be found. And that — I view that as a good thing, not a bad thing. But we had tremendous amounts coming in by boats, by very expensive boats. You know, they have a lot of money. Very fast, very expensive boats that were pretty big.

And the way you look at it is, every boat that we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives. So every time you see a boat and you feel badly, you say, wow, that’s rough. It is rough. But if you lose three people and save 25,000 people — these are people that are killing our population. Every boat is saving 25,000 lives. And you can see it. The boats get hit. And you see that fentanyl all over the ocean. It’s like floating in bags. It’s all over the place. And it’s a tremendous — we’re saving tremendous amounts of lives.

Cities and Crime Cooperation

Yeah, please.

REPORTER: Mr. President, I know you’ve talked about — I have a question for you, and then I also have a question for Director Patel. I know you talked about having some duties for Boston recently. Is this one of those cities that you might be looking into? And can you give us a hint about other cities that you might be —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You’re saying for where? For where?

REPORTER: For Boston.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah. Well, Boston has a bad mayor who at least is a reasonable I.Q. person. You know, most of them are low I.Q. But — and they’re so bad. I mean, what’s going on in Chicago is just — you’d think the guy would say, hey, look, we have a problem here, Mr. President. Could you come in and straighten it out? I could have that — we could have that done in a month if we had their cooperation. It’s going to be done anyway. But we could have it done in a month. Yeah, Boston, she’s got four areas that are, you know, wrong.

And, you know, somebody said, would we take — would we think about taking the World Cup away from Boston if they don’t straighten it out? The answer is yes. We have the right to do that with FIFA. So if we think that L.A. is going to be bad, or we think — that applies a little bit to the Olympics, too, but we’ll talk about FIFA first. You know, FIFA is very hot. If we think there’s any reason that, whether it’s Boston or anywhere else, they’re not doing their job, we’re going to take that — those World Cup games and move them someplace else.

REPORTER: Thank you. And then, Director Patel, there’s been so many conspiracy theories swirling around about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Do you have any updates for us, especially in light of all the online content that everyone’s been talking about?

DIRECTOR KASH PATEL: The only thing we deal with at the FBI and the Department of Justice is facts. We delivered, at record speed, a manhunt to capture Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin in 33 hours. And if you put that in perspective to Luigi Mangione or the Boston bomber, they took him five days and the police officer lost their life in their manhunt. We are running on absolutely every single lead. And the best thing we can do to honor my friend Charlie Kirk’s life is to make sure that everyone involved is properly informed. And that’s what we’re going to do. Thank you.

India Agrees to Stop Buying Russian Oil

REPORTER: Thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You know, he’s a friend of mine. We have a great relationship. He just said that two days ago, as you know. We have a great relationship. No, we were not happy with him buying oil from Russia because that lets Russia continue on with this ridiculous war where they’ve lost a million and a half people. By the way, Russia has lost a million and a half people, soldiers, mostly. This is a war that should’ve never started, but it’s a war that Russia should’ve won in the first week, and they’re going into the fourth year. And I want to see it stop.

So I was not happy that India was buying oil, and he assured me today that they will not be buying oil from Russia. That’s a big stop. Now I got to get China to do the same thing. You know, that is relatively easy compared to what we just did over the last week in the Middle East. Middle East was 3,000 years, and we got it done. This is three years, and I think we’ll get it done. I think that Putin — President Putin, I think, is going to — I think he wants to get it done. We’ll see. There’s a great animosity between him and Zelensky. You probably have noticed, right? And it’s — I think it’s hurting the process. Yeah.

CIA Authorization in Venezuela

REPORTER: Yeah, please. Mr. President, thank you. I’m curious. Why did you authorize the CIA to go into Venezuela? And is there more information you can share about these strikes on the alleged —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I can’t do that, but I authorized — for two reasons, really. Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America. They came in through the — well, they came in through the border. They came in because we had an open border policy. And as soon as I heard that, I said, a lot of these countries — they’re not the only country, but they’re the worst abuser. And they’ve entered their — they’ve allowed thousands and thousands of prisoners, mental institutions, people from mental institutions, insane asylums, emptied out into the United States. We’re bringing them back. But that’s a really bad — and they did it at a level that probably not — many, many countries have done it, but not like Venezuela. They were down and dirty. And the other thing are drugs. We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela. And a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea. So you get to see that. But we’re going to stop them by land also.

REPORTER: Does the CIA have authority to take out Maduro?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, I don’t want to answer a question like that. That’s a ridiculous question for me to be given. Not really a ridiculous question, but wouldn’t it be a ridiculous question for me to answer? But I think Venezuela is feeling heat, but I think a lot of other countries are feeling heat too. We’re not going to let this country, our country, be ruined because other people want to drop — as you say, they’re worst.

They have given us their worst. They’ve loaded up our country with prisoners, with mentally ill people that are seriously ill, criminally ill. And we’re not going to take it. So, I mean, it’s just one of those things. And I can tell you, we’ve taken care of the sea. There’s nobody — and we’re watching. We’re watching. And if we see it, we’ll save it. Yeah, please.

REPORTER: On the ships, though, sir, there are Republicans and Democrats up on the Hill concerned that in the briefings they’ve gotten about those attacks, they’re not necessarily getting information about who was on them and what exactly was on those ships. Can you ensure that at least part of the Republican —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, but they are given information that they were loaded up with drugs, and that’s the thing that matters. When they’re loaded up with drugs, they’re fair game. And every one of those ships were — they’re not ships, they’re boats, they’re speedboats. They’re extremely fast, record-setting-type speedboats that cost a lot of money. And they have a lot of money because they’re drug sellers. But they know one thing, and they all have the same thing in common. It’s drug dust. They call it drug dust. They call it fentanyl dust. All over the boat after those bombs go off. And you can take a long —

REPORTER: How do you protect them, though, that there are —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We know. We know before. We know when they go out. We know. We have much information about each boat that goes out. Deep, strong information. Yeah, please.

Ukraine War Discussion

REPORTER: Sir, you have one of your colleagues here this week. What is your message at this stage of the war for him? And short of total land for Ukraine. Are you considering other options?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: To who is it?

REPORTER: For Zelensky. And short of total land for Ukraine. Are you considering other options? And will you speak with Vladimir Putin about it?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. We’re looking at other options. We are. President Zelensky is coming in. I’m not a fan of the war. I’m not a fan of the way it started. It should have never happened. It wouldn’t have started if I were president. The election was rigged. And because of that, a lot of lives have been lost because of that war. Not American lives. I want to save lives. I’ve had eight wars.

The Prime Minister of Pakistan got up the other day, said so beautifully, he says, “You saved millions of lives.” He told that to a group of people right in this office. He said the President saved millions of lives. And I think what he’s referring to is the fact that that would have been with India nuclear war. That was getting very close. There’s seven planes. They don’t talk about it. But seven aircraft were shot. In fact, we have the new ambassador to India right here. They’re well represented. You better represent us, not them, OK? But Sergio is going to do a great job. He’s going to do a great job.

But no, we’ll be talking about the war with him, and we’ll be talking about I mean, they want to go offensive. I’ll make a determination on that. But they would like to go offensive. You know that. And we’ll have to make a determination.

Questions About Jack Smith

REPORTER: I have a question for you about the FBI director and Attorney General here today. Jim Jordan has asked Jack Smith to appear in front of the House Judiciary?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You mean deranged? Yeah, he’s a deranged individual. Yeah.

REPORTER: Well, they should. I’m surprised it takes so long. You know, we’re talking about violent crime. What about the crime against a political opponent? That’s what we have to talk about to understand the full extent to which the Biden-Harris Justice Department weaponized federal law enforcement. What do you think the committee will find out?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think it was the worst weaponization of a political opponent in the history of the world, let alone this country. And I hope that everybody’s you know, they’re involved in it. I’m not. I’m the one that have to go through it and ultimately win. But what they did was criminal. Judge Jack Smith, in my opinion, is a criminal. And I noticed his interviewer was I think that was Weisman.

And I hope they’re going to look into Weissmann. Weissmann’s a bad guy. And he had somebody in Lisa, who was his puppet, worked in the office really as the top person. And I think that she should be looked at very strongly. There was tremendous criminal activity having to do. If we don’t have fair elections in this country, we’re not going to have a country. And I’ve said it from the beginning, fair elections and borders. And we need also fair press, because if you don’t have fair press, it’s very tough. And we’ve got the strongest border of anybody. Nobody has a border. We have a border where the numbers just came out again. You saw zero people came in illegally. Now we do take people into our country legally, but zero people.

Political Crime Investigations

But you know, you’re talking about a different subject. You’re talking about political crime. They have committed massive political crime. I hope they’re looking at Shifty Schiff. I hope they’re looking at all these people. And I’m allowed to find out. I’m allowed to. You know, I’m, in theory, the chief law enforcement officer. But I have a very good, talented group. This is about something else. But I hope they’re looking at political crime, because there’s never been so much political crime against a political opponent as what I had to go through.

They raided my house in Florida. It was an illegal raid. I have a lawsuit that was doing very well. And when I became president, I said, I’m sort of suing myself. I don’t know what to do. And he has settled the lawsuit. I’ll say, give me X dollars. Right. And I don’t know what to do with the lawsuit. It’s a great lawsuit. And now I won. It sort of looks bad. I’m suing myself. Right. So I don’t know. But that was a lawsuit that was very strong, very powerful.

They raided illegally my house in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. They went through the drawers of my young son. They went through all of the cabinets and drawers of the first lady. She walked in. She said, “Wow, what happened?” Because she’s very meticulous. And this wasn’t so meticulous as she looked into the drawers and she saw everything, a mess. It’s what they did against the person that just got out of office. And then you look at these corrupt people. You look at Hunter Biden. You look at the signature as an example, the pen.

Senate Confirmations Progress

I just signed so many different things. An admiral, a four star general that I’m signing, I’m left and right the commissions. And by the way, I want to compliment John Thune and also Mike, our great speaker. But John Thune, all of a sudden I’m getting these things by the hundreds. I was getting one every two weeks. It would have been four years before you got him in. You would have some that didn’t even get in all because of Democrat obstruction. So John Thune did a great job. I said I must assign 200 into the administration. We’re just about caught up. It’s amazing. And so compliments to John. He had to do some things that were very tough to do that he didn’t want to do, but he was forced to do it by the Democrats.

And as far as the shutdown is concerned, this is a Democrat Schumer shutdown. And he’s trying to do it to get relevance back into the party because he’s a loser. I’ve known him all his life. He’s always been sort of a loser, but an intelligent one. I think he’s losing IQ points with time. I think that happens. I hope it hasn’t happened with me. I know if it did, you guys will let me know about it very quickly.

D.C. Judicial System Concerns

Here in D.C., a judge has given the two teenagers that beat up ex-judge staffer Big Ball’s location. That’s incredible. No jail time. I still guess Jeanine Pirro is doing a fantastic job and she is beside herself because you have these radical left judges that they beat the hell out of this guy. And it was many people against this one guy who was really trying to protect his girlfriend. He didn’t want his girlfriend hurt or anything, but they really beat him up badly. That just happened. Right. Wow. That’s terrible. I think the judge should be ashamed of himself. That’s a big problem. You know, they can do their job and then they go into a court and the people are protected by this. I don’t know where they come from. I don’t know where these people come from, where the judges come from.

I want to compliment on behalf of Pam and Todd and all of us, because I think that Jeanine has done a fantastic job. And the case I heard was like flawless, a flawless case. They have them on tape. They have everything. And then a judge gives them a little probation. These are rough guys. And they’re young. And if that happens, they’re going to grow up. They’re going to be real bad. They’re going to cause a lot of problems.

REPORTER: He’s just gotten back from India. What were the conversations like with Prime Minister Modi?

Discussion on India and Prime Minister Modi

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think they were great. He reported to me that you’re great. You’re great. He’s a great man. You know, Modi is a great man. He loves Trump. Now, I don’t know if the word “love” — I don’t want you to take that any different. I don’t want to destroy his political career, okay? But you have to understand, I’ve watched India for years. It’s an incredible country. And every single year, you’d have a new leader. I mean, some would be in there for a few months. And this was year after year after year. And my friend has been there now for a long time.

And he’s assured me there will be no oil purchased from Russia. I don’t know. Maybe that’s a breaking story. Can I say that? Would you say there will be no oil? He’s not buying his oil from Russia. It’s started. You know, you can’t do it immediately. It’s a little bit of a process. But the process is going to be over with soon.

Ukraine-Russia Conflict and Settlement Efforts

And all we want from President Putin is stop this. Stop killing Ukraines and stop killing Russians because he’s killing a lot of Russians. Again, it doesn’t make him look good. It’s a war that he should have won in one week. And he’s now going into his fourth year. That does not make this big so-called war machine look good. But he could make a settlement. We’re willing to settle. I thought we had a deal.

The hatred of the two leaders is very — it’s an obstacle. It’s an obstacle. There’s no question about it. But I thought we had a deal two months ago. Who would think I created peace in the Middle East and can’t get the two guys to settle? But I think we’ll get them. But if India doesn’t buy oil, it makes it much easier. And they’re not going to buy it. They assured me they will — within a short period of time, they will not be buying oil from Russia. And they’ll go back to Russia after the war is over.

REPORTER: On the shutdown, sir, are FBI officials being paid right now? Are all the FBI employees being paid?

Government Shutdown and FBI Payments

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, that’s what I understand. I hope so. Thank you, everybody. Thank you.

REPORTER: Great work, Mr. President.

REPORTER: Do you think you’ll have special aides at the FBI are going to receive their paychecks?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Got a lot of people paid, actually. We got the people that we want paid, paid. Okay. And we want the FBI paid. We want the military paid. We got the people that we want paid. And I’ll tell you, the Democrats, they don’t talk about this. You know, we’re getting rid of programs that we didn’t like, but that were negotiated in, but we didn’t like. We’re terminating those programs, and they’re going to be terminated on a permanent basis. And it’s thousands of people, and it’s billions of dollars.

We’re getting rid of a lot of things that we never wanted, because of the fact that they made this stupid move. And they don’t want to talk about it. You know, they have their day coming up. I hear very few people are going to be there, by the way. But they have their day coming up, and they want to have their day in the sun. But they should really make a deal.

So what we’re doing — I mean, they call him Darth Vader, but he’s actually a very nice person — Russell Vought. But Russell Vought is really terminating tremendous numbers of Democrat projects. This is not only jobs — I mean, the project in Manhattan, the project in New York, it’s billions and billions of dollars that Schumer has worked 20 years to get. It’s terminated. Tell them it’s terminated, Jennifer.

REPORTER: Mr. President, on Hamas, sir, what is your understanding of the pace of returning the deceased hostages? Are you pleased with that?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, they’re looking for them. Absolutely. They’re looking.

So we have the living hostages all back. They returned some more today. It’s a gruesome process. I almost hate to talk about it. But they’re digging. They’re actually digging. There are areas where they’re digging and they’re finding a lot of bodies, and then they have to separate the bodies. You wouldn’t believe this. And some of those bodies have been in there a long time. And some of them are under rubble. They have to remove rubble.

But there are graves, and some are in tunnels that died in tunnels that are way down under the earth. And the tunnels are like three — can you believe it? — three feet high. They lived like this for a long period of time. It’s a horrible atrocity.

At the same time, we — meaning Israel, but I knew everything they were doing, pretty much. I knew most of the things they were doing. But they’ve killed probably 70,000 of these people, Hamas. And I said, it’s time now. So we’ll see what happens. We’ll also see what happens. Your next question is going to be the weapons. We want the weapons to be given up, sacrificed. And they’ve agreed to do it. Now they have to do it. And if they don’t do it, we’ll do it.

Potential Military Engagement

REPORTER: We had the head of CENTCOM today suggest that Hamas needs to hurry up and disarm, and follow your comprehensive plan.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah.

REPORTER: That it was the head of CENTCOM saying that. Is that not a signal to Hamas, to the rest of the world, that at some point the U.S. military may be more directly engaged?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We won’t need the U.S. military.

REPORTER: But then why have —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We won’t need it. We’ll get out of here —

REPORTER: Why not just —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Because we’re very much involved in it. If we weren’t involved, there wouldn’t be peace. And if we didn’t destroy the nuclear capability of Iran, that deal would have never happened for two reasons. The Arab nations would not have felt bold enough to do it because you have a very powerful — at that time, Iran is not powerful anymore — between what we — what Israel and us did.

Because, you know, the attack was — if you look at it, we helped them very much. They will be the first to tell you, including shooting down thousands of drones that were coming into Israel. You know, we shot them down. We were shooting them down like it was target practice. But we shot down thousands of drones and missiles also going into Israel.

The B-2 Bomber Strike

But between what we did to Iran that way, with the — you know, conventional, we will call it, and what that — do you see that beautiful plane, that B-2? I noticed it on the desk. I always said it was beautiful, but I never understood it. Now I understand it took hundreds of thousands of bombs in the form of two, but hundreds of thousands of pounds of bombs. And every single bomb hit perfectly. Then they sent tomahawks, and they sent 30 tomahawks on top of it.

And that was totally — you know, CNN said, “Well, maybe it wasn’t as bad as, you know, as Trump said,” because I said obliterated. Obliterated is not a strong enough word, actually. And you saw the Atomic Energy Commission came out and said the word “obliteration” is very — think of it.

They came in under potential fire. They entered Iran airspace late at night, in the dark. No moon. The moon was low for a reason, was the time we picked it. Couldn’t see anything. And they hit every target, and they weren’t hit. Nobody saw that plane. That plane is stealth. Nobody saw it. The problem with that is it may be stealth today, but tomorrow it won’t be. And we just ordered about 20 brand-new B-2 bombers. It’s unbelievable as a weapon.

I know Putin, when I was riding with him in Alaska, we passed a lot of them. And he said, “That really did the trick.” I said, “Yeah, it did. It’s amazing. The flying wing.”

REPORTER: But you see no reason for the U.S. military to get involved in Gaza?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I don’t see that, no. I think we’re going to handle it very well. We’ll be helping Israel. But we have other countries that are now — you know, we signed — many, many countries signed. And many of those countries, relatively, are very strong military powers. And Hamas has no support.

You see, Hamas had the support of Iran, and now Iran says, don’t get us involved. The last time they got them involved, it didn’t work out too well. So they used to have the support of Iran. Today, Iran is, they’re trying to survive, you know. When I heard the reports two weeks ago, Iran is looking to build a nuclear weapon, I said, don’t worry about it. They got a lot of things they want to do before nuclear weapons. I said, the last thing they want to do is a nuclear weapon. It didn’t work out. If they did a nuclear weapon before they got even close, that site would be attacked and it would be wiped out.

REPORTER: Mr. President, you’re meeting with President Xi in a few weeks. If you can’t come to an agreement or a deal at that meeting, are we in for a sustained trade war with China?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, you’re in one now. Look, we have 100 percent tariff. If we didn’t have tariffs, we would be exposed as being a nothing. We would have no defense. You know, they’ve used tariffs on us, but we’ve never had anybody sitting in that chair that felt the need to do it. And they’ve allowed us to be $37 trillion in debt, et cetera, et cetera. We, tariffs are a very important tool for our defense, for our national security. If we don’t have tariffs, we’re not going to have national security.

The Power of Tariffs in Preventing Nuclear War

As an example, if you look at Pakistan and Iran, I told them, I was in the midst of negotiating a trade deal with, actually, with Iran, and Pakistan was going to be in line. And because of tariffs, they all want to negotiate much differently, and we’re making a good deal. And then I heard that they’re shooting at each other. And I said during one of my conversations, are you guys going to go to war? Two nuclear powers. We are thinking about, I said, here’s the deal. You go to war. I’m going to put a 200 percent tariff. I’m going to stop you from doing any business in the United States. I said it to both of them. Within 24 hours, the war ended.

That would have been a nuclear war. And again, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, who was here two weeks ago, said that “that man saved many millions of lives” in front of a whole group of people because he thought it was going to be war. But when it came to war or having to pay massive tariffs, the tariffs overrode. That’s why it’s so important. Not only the money, we’re taking in trillions of dollars. Not only the money. The power to keep peace, the power to be used for good, is enormous.

Supreme Court Case and Economic Implications

But a lot of people didn’t understand tariffs. It’s also made us very rich. We have a big case coming up in the Supreme Court, and I will tell you, that’s one of the most important cases in the history of our country. Because if we don’t win that case, we will be a weakened, troubled financial mess for many, many years to come. I don’t even know if survivable, you know, survivable is a good term. And if we do, we’re going to be the most powerful economic country in the world. And all we’re doing is using them as a defense against what took place for many years. China would charge us tariffs. It was incredible. But we weren’t allowed to charge, we were, so we’re allowed to do whatever we want. We just had presidents that didn’t want to do it, for whatever reason.

And it was nothing. Of the eight wars, I was saying seven, of the eight wars, I would say tariffs are directly responsible for me ending six of them, five or six. Without the tariffs, you have wars raging all over the world. With the tariffs, other than Russia, we have no wars out there. And we’ve made a lot of good friends, too. Tariffs are so important to our national security. If we don’t have tariffs, we don’t have national security. Our country would suffer a lot because they use so strongly on us.

Trade Imbalances with the European Union

As an example, the European Union, they won’t take our cars, they won’t take our agriculture, they won’t take anything. But they send their cars in, Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, by the millions. We don’t send any cars. They don’t take them. They were tariffing us out. They don’t take our products. They don’t take our agriculture. They want their farmers to do it. I understand that.

But it was very unfair. And they were tariffing our product. They’re keeping it out by using tariffs. And we didn’t use them, but I used them. And now we made one of the great deals with $650 billion they pay us. We’ve evened it out. It’s really a good thing to see. And you have to understand, they’ve all signed — Japan, South Korea. I mean, South Korea, $350 billion up front. Japan, $650 billion. And they’ve all agreed to it. They’re all happy. But before, it was a total ripoff. And if we don’t have the use of tariffs, we have no national security. This country will have no financial security. We will not have national security. And the people that brought the lawsuit are people that are aligned with foreign nations that are now being treated fairly, as opposed to just ripping us off and ripping us asunder.

So if we don’t — if we are not allowed to use what other people use against us, there’s no defense. It’ll be a disaster for America. That’s why I think I’m going to go to the Supreme Court to watch it. I’ve not done that. And I had some pretty big cases. I think it’s one of the most important cases ever brought, because we will be defenseless against the world. Okay?

Did you have one? Yes, please.

REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. I want to ask you about the Georgia Senate race. I know it’s very early, but there’s several Republicans in that field that are vying for your endorsement.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: A lot of good people in that field. Yes. I know all of them, actually. I haven’t made a decision on that, but you have some very good people in that field.

REPORTER: Well, the governor has endorsed —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I know. The governor has. And he’s talking to me about it a lot. He likes that candidate a lot. And I understand that. I haven’t made a decision yet. Okay.

REPORTER: Are you going to —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: But I’m following that race very carefully. I think it’s very important for Georgia to get a real senator, because the senator they have now is a horrible senator. He allows all the crime, all the borders. You have open borders. I mean, his whole philosophy is a disaster. That’s not representative of the people of Georgia. I know the people of Georgia. I won Georgia three times, but they say twice. Okay? And I won it very big the last time. And I won it big the first time. And I won it big the second time.

But we had criminals that didn’t allow — I mean, they — I hope they’re going to go into that. I hope they go into the votes, which are being stored in Fulton County, and take a look at — a real look at those votes, okay? Because I won it the second time, too. But I know Georgia very well. I love Georgia. Those people are great. And they deserve a good senator, because the man they have now is a weak, ineffective person. Okay.

Exchange About Georgia Election Results

REPORTER: Mr. President, I wonder if you could —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: By the way, you won Georgia three times.

REPORTER: Yeah, I agree. Do you agree with me?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I do. He’s the media. For someone that spends a lot of time in Georgia, I believe you won that. I really have a question about —

REPORTER: You know, the word believe isn’t strong enough, right? You know —

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I know. There you go. It’s true. I know I won, too.

Oh, we have the great Newt Gingrich. Newt, you agree with us? Good. Otherwise, I’d have him dismissed immediately. You know, his wife, as you know, is becoming an ambassador to a great country, Calista. So congratulations. And we’re going to take a picture. And the only reason I’m doing — he speaks so well of me. He said, “I’ll go down as the greatest president in history.” And then he blew it. He said, “I’m not sure if I put him above Washington or Lincoln.”

So I’m not that happy about that, dude.

REPORTER: I’ve got a question about the weaponization of the DOJ. The media often says your department is weaponizing the DOJ.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah. That’s the opposite. That’s the opposite. Todd, you represented President Trump in probably the greatest weaponization of the DOJ by Alvin Bragg. You know firsthand, if you can describe what you saw under the Biden administration and how they weaponized the DOJ.

ATTORNEY GENERAL BLANCHE: Well, I mean, I think it’s hard to describe what happened in those last four years against President Trump. Alvin Bragg, a local prosecutor, his office staffed by somebody from the DOJ. Jack Smith, picked as a special counselor, staffed his entire office with DOJ prosecutors. And then there are countless things that happened, all in writing, most of them on the docket, that require no explanation except for a complete abomination of the place that the attorney general and I run now and Director Patel.

So when people talk about this department weaponizing him, it’s embarrassing. Because there’s no scenario in which you can look at what we’re doing, restoring justice, doing the right thing in every single case, and say that that’s weaponization, and yet remain eerily silent about what happened for the past three years. I mean, you read these articles and giggle, because it cannot be true that people really think that what they did to him, not once, not twice, I’m still counting three, four times, but we’re the ones that are weaponizing.

This man is not weaponizing the Department of Justice. We’re not weaponizing the Department of Justice. It’s the office. And also, nobody questions what I’m saying, because it’s true. Because we all lived the past four years. So, listen, they never want to bring up the details, but I watch the fake news, and oh, he’s weaponized, and he wants to send them to prison, he wants all this.

The Mugshot and Political Persecution

PRESIDENT TRUMP: They indicted me like five times. I took a mugshot. Who would have thought it turned out to my favor? Because it was a good shot. But I had to take a mugshot. It’s right out there on the door, New York Post, front page of every paper in the world. I had a mugshot. They wanted to send me — nobody says that. They say, he’s acting very, very tough. He’s acting unfair. Let me tell you, if they’ve been nice to anybody, it’s to those criminals, because they are so good having to do with all of the things we’re talking about today with violent crime.

But if anything, I think this Justice Department has been so respectful of law, because the other Justice Department, with Rita or Lisa and all of that scum, real scum, what they did to the political opponent of a guy that has a seriously low IQ — now, in his case, it was low based on his career, but it got real low, OK? It was descending rapidly. But what they did to go after his political opponent is legendary, worse than any third world country, banana republic. And what we’re doing is nothing. Are you kidding? Nothing. They write stories. Why aren’t they doing this, this? And we’ll leave. I don’t have to leave it up to them, but I choose to at this moment.

Historical Treatment of Presidents

But there’s never been anybody treated in the history of politics. You know, they say the two worst treated presidents by the media, etc. Was that man right there? The late, great Abraham Lincoln and this guy right there, Andrew Jackson. They say Andrew Jackson was treated terribly. They give him number one and number two. But that was before I came along, Newt. I say I have number one times 10. Nobody’s been treated like I’ve been treated.

And I did a great job. You know, we had a great first term and we had one of the most successful economies in history, etc. I rebuilt the military. We did a tremendous amount. The last part, we had a horrible thing called COVID, and we handled that well. We made ventilators for nations every all over the world. I mean, we did a great job. Probably never get credit for it. Look at the therapeutics, the Regeneron, all the different things, the vaccines, all the things we did. We did a great job, but we had to focus on that.

Economic Success

But we had this. We had the best economy in the history of our country. We’re blown away. The stock market hit another all time high today. That’s 48 days out of the few days that I’ve said 48 days have already hit record highs. And we have maybe most importantly, the number we have now, I was saying 17.

Economic Investment and Tariff Policy

It’s over 18 trillion dollars is being poured into our country is because of the election and because of tariffs. Without the tariffs, you wouldn’t have probably 18 cents. It’s because of the tariffs, because there are no tariffs if they build in our country, in our country. And they understand that. So we have medical companies coming over. We have the A.I. We’re dominating China in A.I. Everybody said that’s impossible. We’re dominating.

I’m letting these massive plants build their own electric generating plants. They’re becoming utilities in addition. Maybe they’ll make more money with that. Who knows? But they’re building their own electric because we have an old grid. You wouldn’t be able to do that. And we’re dominating China. We’re dominating with A.I., which seems to be the big thing. That’s the new Internet. That’s the new whatever. So we’re very happy with the job we’re doing. I’m very happy with the job they’re doing.

Treatment of Political Opponents

But when you tell me about attacking a political opponent, there’s never been. And I’m a legitimate opponent. I watched my son. He’s got the number one bestselling book now. My son, Eric, is a wonderful kid. That guy spent so much time with subpoenas. He got more subpoenas than anybody in the history of our country. Think of it. And he’s an innocent, good boy. He’s a good kid. He’s always been a good kid. All of my children are good. They went through hell. My children went through federal grand juries on a hoax. Think of it.

Russia Hoax and Congressional Investigations

You have Adam Schiff and Hillary Clinton and others make up a hoax and then wanting to put so they know it’s a hoax and they go before the press, say Donald Trump Jr. will go to jail because of what he’s done with Russia. I’ll never forget. I get a call from my son, Don, and he said, “Dad, I’m being accused of something with Russia. I don’t know anything about Russia.” He didn’t know anything about. Think of it, how bad they are. They say he’ll go to prison for the rest of his life. He knew nothing about it on a hoax. The Russian hoax, Russia, Russia, Russia, hoax on a story that they made up. And they made it up in order to explain why Hillary Clinton lost an election that she lost by pretty good numbers. The second one that this one, actually, the second one was even better. But the third one, this one was too big to rig. It was just too big to rig. They would have rigged. They tried to rig it.

But think of it. They want to send my children to jail. But they were after Don in particular. I’ll never forget Adam Shifty Schiff, a total crooked guy, lying in Congress, making up a phone conversation that I have with you. Totally made up when he heard it was taped. He wanted to disappear. And Nancy Pelosi went crazy because they wanted to impeach me based on the conversation that was made up when they heard the tape. Everybody, you know, I won unanimously the Republican Party. I got every single vote, something that never happens. And I beat it.

Closing Remarks

But think of it. They want to put my son in jail for something that they made up. So they know they made it up. And they say he will serve the rest of his life in prison. These are sick, bad people. And don’t tell me about us going after them. If anything, where we’ve been very, very soft. I wouldn’t be that soft. I’ll tell you that. Thank you very much, everybody.

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