Transcript: President Trump Remarks at the Future Investment Initiative

He had no idea. You said to him, “The Iran nuclear deal, what’s that?” But there were four years of hell we had with this guy as our leader, I’ll tell you.

And then we hit them with the B-2 bomber. So we did it twice. But if they would have had a nuclear weapon, it would have been a whole big deal. And I wouldn’t be here right now, and probably you guys wouldn’t be too happy. You might be in an area — who knows where you would have been. But we did it twice.

Saving the Middle East

And I think — I really believe we saved the Middle East. We saved not just Israel. We saved the Middle East. And it was proven by all those rockets that fired down upon you. Saudi Arabia got hit a lot. You all got hit, and nobody expected any missiles to be wasted. You would have thought they were only going at Israel. They weren’t.

As President of the United States, I would never allow the world’s number-one state sponsor of terror to obtain a nuclear weapon. I said that for a long time. And I didn’t.

Annihilating Iran’s Military Capacity

To defend America and our allies over the past 27 days, the U.S. Armed Forces — most powerful in the world — have been annihilating Iran’s military capacity with force, precision, and skill like the world has never seen. It was violence, actually. Really, violence.

We’re crushing Iran’s — currently, as we speak, I just looked. We had another big day. We hit them. They don’t know what’s happening. Remember this — they lied about three days ago. I said, “Yeah, we’re negotiating with Israel.” We are not negotiating. They’re being hit so hard. Anybody would be negotiating. They are negotiating. They’re begging to make a deal. They’re begging to make a deal.

Turned out I was right. They were negotiating, which they admitted two days later. And in order to make up for their misstatement, they said, “We’re going to send you eight ships of oil.” And the following day I saw him. This is two days ago. I saw in one of the networks. Very strange. There were eight ships of oil coming out of Iran, and then they actually said, “We’re going to add an extra two,” and they added an extra two. So we had 10 ships, and then people realized we were actually negotiating.

We’re negotiating now and it would be great if we could do something, but they have to open it up. They have to open up the Strait of Trump. I mean, Hormuz. Excuse me. I’m so sorry. Such a terrible mistake. The fake news will say he accidentally said — there’s no accidents with me. Not too many. If there were, it would have been a major story.

The Gulf of America

Well, we had that with the Gulf of Mexico. Remember the Gulf of Mexico? And one day I said, “Why is it the Gulf of Mexico?” We have 92% of the area around it. They have 8% — really less than 8%. But for 350 years, it was good. You know, they were there 100 years longer than us. Mexico. They were 350 — were to 250. And I said, I’ve asked myself, “Why? Why don’t we call it the Gulf of Mexico?” It seems like we dominate.

Well, when I checked, it was more than 92%. So I announced — I wouldn’t say Mexico was thrilled — I announced that from now on, the Gulf of Mexico is going to be called the Gulf of America. And it took about one hour. It was done. Everybody. I mean, the president called me. She’s really a nice person, too. I like her a lot. She called up. In the most beautiful way — she’s a very elegant woman, has a beautiful, beautiful boy. She goes, “President, President, President, tell me this is not so.” “No, no, it’s so.”

And then Google Maps changed it. We won the court case in about one hour, and Google Maps changed the name. And it’s now the Gulf of America, which it should be.

Iran’s Military Destroyed

You know, we’re crushing Iran’s weapons stockpiles, destroying their missile and drone factories at levels nobody ever thought was possible, and turning their defense industrial base into nothing. Iran’s Navy is gone. It’s all sunk at the bottom of the Gulf and elsewhere.

Did you see the attack submarine that we have — one after one of their boats? It was called the Soleimani. It was the pride of their fleet. But this attack submarine goes like 60 miles an hour. I’d never saw anything like it. And it caught them in about two minutes. And that was the end of the Soleimani. Now, then they’re 100% dead.

They have 22 mine droppers — they go on mine droppers — and the mine droppers, all 22, are gone. So I guess they can drop mines, but they’re going to have to take them out by a rowboat because they don’t have any boats. Their Air Force is dead — totally, totally dead. It’s out of business. No planes left at all. Their anti-aircraft and communications capabilities are totally dismantled and dead. And their leaders are all dead.

Other than that, I think they’re doing quite well. Now, their leaders are dead. Their supreme leader is no longer supreme. He’s dead. His son is either dead or in very bad shape because nobody’s heard from him. I think he says, “Just keep me out of this.”

This is the only country where nobody wants to lead. There’s nobody who would like to lead Iran. Please raise your hand. A big audience — just saying — who would like to be our leader? Dead silence. Nobody wants to.

Now, we have an amazing military. We have the greatest intelligence apparatus that anybody’s ever seen. We could tell you everything that’s going on. We know everything that’s going on.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We’re achieving each and every one of the military objectives I laid out less than four weeks ago, and we’re doing it really well. I guess we’re two weeks ahead of schedule. We’re not into it very long. We knew it was going to be easy. We call it a military operation. We don’t call it a war. We call it a military operation.

On NATO’s Lack of Support

We’re very disappointed, by the way, with NATO. They didn’t come to our aid. I didn’t try too hard, actually, because I want to prove a point. I didn’t sell. They probably think I’m a lousy salesman.

I said, “Would you like to help us?” to President Macron of France. Nice guy. He is a nice guy. I said, “Emmanuel, would you like to help?” He said, “Yes, yes, yes. As soon as the war is over, we will send ships.” I said, “No, no, I don’t want them when the war is over. I want them before we start.”

And the U.K. — our longest ally. Nobody ever thought this was possible. I said to the Prime Minister, “Mr. Prime Minister, we’d like — you have two aircraft carriers. They’re little ones. They’re not very good. I know they don’t go fast, and I know they don’t work very well, but we could probably use them, maybe for helicopters.” And they said, “Yes.” So I said, “When will they be ready?” They said, “Maybe in a month or two.” I said, “Are you going to help us?” They said, “Yes, yes, we’re going to help you. When the war is finished, we will be there.”

This is NATO, and I’ve always said it’s a paper tiger. I always said we help NATO, but they’ll never help us. And if the big one ever happened — and I don’t think it will — but if the big one ever happened, I guarantee you they wouldn’t be there. And we learned from that.

Remember what I said? Because they made a big mistake — they were not there. The Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich — these are all friends of mine — the Chancellor of Germany said, “This is not our war. We have nothing to do with it.” Well, Ukraine’s not our war either, but we help them.

On the Conflict in Ukraine

I wouldn’t have helped if I were president — that war would have never happened. But we had a man of very low IQ as president, and he had no idea what the hell was going on. I was listening to him talk and I said, “He’s forcing an issue that’s going to be trouble.” It turned out to be trouble.

Last week, 28,000 soldiers died. The week before that, 32,000 soldiers. I think we’re going to get it settled, but it’s a terrible thing. Worse since World War Two. I settled eight wars, and this should have been one of the easier ones. But the hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky is extreme. Hatred is a bad thing, never good — especially when you’re trying to settle a war.

Recognizing Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Nations

I want to thank the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — been very helpful. Unlike NATO, Saudi Arabia fought, Qatar fought, UAE fought, Bahrain fought, Kuwait fought — even though they shot down three of our planes with their finest missiles. We could have done without that. They didn’t know they were shooting at our friends. They wasted three great Patriot missiles.

And you have to say, there’s nothing like these Patriots. We had an attack of 101 missiles a few days ago — 101 missiles shot at a very valuable thing we had floating on the water, namely an aircraft carrier, the biggest in the world. They were shot — 101 missiles going 2,500 miles an hour. And out of the 101 missiles shot, 101 missiles were shot down and spread out all over the sea.

Pretty amazing. That’s called incredible technology, right, Steve? That’s called great tech. Think of it — 101 missiles going 2,500 miles an hour. You don’t have a lot of time. And these aren’t necessarily weightlifting shoulders.

These are very smart people doing that. And I watched them. I watched their performance. “Missiles launched. Missiles launched.” It’s almost like they’re bored by it. They have like nine seconds ahead of FIFA, the most powerful man in sports, Johnny. Johnny, you know, you never choked, right? These guys can’t choke, but they’re very smart. High IQs. We need high IQs. We have too many low IQ people.

But what happened is you have to see it. It’s very cool. “Missiles launched. Missiles launched. Missiles launching. They’re launching. Okay, we’re ready. There’s 101 missiles coming at them. All right, we have to have like 11 seconds to make a determination. And at seven seconds, fire, fire, fire.”

The most unbelievable thing. “Fire, boom, fire, boom.” One at a time, just knocked them out like they were nothing. Genius. It’s like unbelievable. I mean, to think — and we have the technology nobody has.

The Venezuela Comparison

Look at what happened in Venezuela. They had other equipment, not ours. They made the mistake of using other equipment. Didn’t work too well. And Venezuela was — you know, it took 45 minutes. It was a 45-minute war. This one’s bigger. It’s a bigger country, a lot more powerful. It’s a lot more powerful, but it’s not powerful anymore.

Within two days, I think the damage was done. But now it’s really done. Now we’re just going after targets. And, again, they have no anti-aircraft, so we’re just floating over the top looking for whatever we want. And we’re hitting it. And we have another 3,554 targets left. And that’ll be done pretty quickly. And then, you know, at some point, we’re going to have to determine what we do. But they’ve never seen anything like it.

A General’s Account

When we hit Venezuela — and, you know, that’s a very strong military country. They have soldiers. If you’ve ever been there, I’ve been there. They have a lot of soldiers walking around all over the place. Everyone’s a soldier. Very military kind of a place.

And the general — there was a general, professional general, really good. And he said we were all set for him. We knew there was a problem when we noticed at 1 o’clock in the morning, every 32 seconds, another airplane, a very fast plane, was coming off the deck of an aircraft carrier. That’s actually the biggest aircraft carrier in the world. And every 32 seconds, boom, boom, boom. And it was 1 o’clock in the morning. So we said, okay, I think we’re in trouble.

But they were ready for us, Johnny. And we were ready. He said we were ready. And then they hit us, and they came from 17 different angles. They were here. They were there. We ran for our lives. It was over. And it was over.

The Extraction

And then we took this guy. He was a very bad guy. And within literally minutes, he was in the back of a helicopter. He was in a house that was in a big military base with thousands and thousands of soldiers. The house was all steel with steel doors, steel everything. They had the small steel doors, the big storage. We were equipped for anything. Even the big, big one, it would have been opened within 30 seconds. They walked in with blowtorches. And within minutes, he was out of the house, being thrown into the helicopter, sailing away. And the soldiers just looked. “Bye. Bye. Enjoy your trip, sir.” It was amazing.

A Strong Country Brought Down

It was an amazing — but this is more amazing, what’s happening now, because we took a very strong country. I could see that, yes, sir, the problem you would have had. I mean, this was not a weak country. This was a strong country. They had over 10,000 missiles that they accumulated since October 2nd, if you think. Since the B-2s — really, since the B-2s, they accumulated them in a matter of months, six months. But they had well over 10,000. They had rocket launchers.

You know, rocket launchers are more important than the rockets because you take a rocket launcher out, that’s the end of that. People think you can take those big rockets and throw them out your window, like when you were a child with the paper airplanes. You say, it doesn’t work that way. You need those launchers. And we knocked out 97 percent of the launchers. That’s why you may be attacked, but you’re not being attacked with very heavy numbers of missiles, like at the beginning.

## Acknowledging Regional Allies

But in particular, I want to thank my friend, the Crown Prince Mohammed, who is a fantastic man and a great friend of mine, and a friend of all of yours, I think. And he’s a warrior. He’s a warrior. He was not afraid of this country that, frankly, he should have been afraid of because they’re very powerful.

I want to thank Tameem because Tameem is — these three people have been unbelievable. Tameem, and then UAE, Mohammed. These are three great people, and they were under tremendous attack, unexpected attack. And they weren’t thinking this was going to happen. Nobody was. And they turned against them and really became very powerfully aligned.

And they were with us, but they weren’t with us very obliquely. They were with us. But I think that I have to acknowledge their bravery because they were being hit pretty hard. All three of them, they were being hit pretty hard. The Amir, Mohammed, Mohammed. You had two Mohammeds, and Tameem, and they’re friends of mine.

And also, I have to say that Bahrain and Kuwait — they were — stand up — more so than NATO, I want to say. More so than NATO. Now, they’re a little closer to the action than NATO, in all fairness. But very disappointed with NATO. But I wasn’t disappointed with our allies in the Middle East and others. And others. We had tremendous support from countries that were not in the general area, but they were tremendously supportive.

I think Turkey was fantastic. Actually, fantastic. And they stayed out of things that we asked them to. And he’s a great leader. He’s a great leader. And Indonesia was great. So many — we had so many great — you know, you learn who your friends are. You really do. You learn who your friends are. And Indonesia, Turkey, and so many other countries. But the five were great.

## A Tribute to Crown Prince Mohammed

But your dear friend and my dear friend — he was an old man. He stood up and he wasn’t scared. Maybe he was. I don’t know. Maybe he was, but he didn’t show it. He was great. A great leader. Saudi Arabia can be very proud of your — because he’s got a lot of titles. He’s the crown prince. He’s the prime minister. He’s the future king. He’s got about seven other titles. I said, you have more titles than any human being on Earth. He’s everything. And he deserves to be because he’s a winner. So I just want to thank those people.

## The Future of the Middle East

So, the Middle East will be transformed, and the future of that region — I don’t think it’s ever looked brighter. We did the Abraham Accords. I hope you’re going to be getting into the Abraham Accords finally. Yeah, so will you please go back and explain? It’s time now.

You know, Mohammed said, “Oh, yes, as soon as we do this, as soon as we do that.” I said, “Mohammed, we did that.” “Oh, yes, but we have a couple of other things.” It’s now time. We’ve now taken them out, and they are out bigly. We’ve got to get into the Abraham Accords. And we hope all of the countries are going to be in the Abraham Accords.

We have some very brave countries that did it, you know, years ago. They went in, and you know who they are — the four, the early four. And they did a great thing in doing it, and it was great for them also economically.

But it was a great thing that they did it. But I think all the Middle Eastern countries are going to be joining now. And in some cases, I would say all the Middle Eastern countries and beyond. You have people not in the Middle East that want to be members. You’ll be seeing that soon.

## The Radical Left Democrats and the DHS Shutdown

In the meantime, the conflict in Iran also makes it absolutely vital for the radical left Democrats in Congress to immediately end their dangerous shutdown of our Department of Homeland Security. You know, they want to play games. That’s all they are. These people are lunatics. They sort of remind me of — they remind me, actually, a little bit of Iran. They’re deranged. They’re deranged. They’re deranged Democrats.

For 42 days, they’ve tried to completely eliminate funding for the number-one duty of government, which is keeping America safe. And they want no ICE. They want no Border Patrol. They want no protection of any kind — to be given reopening our borders and stopping all immigration enforcement in our country. They want to have our borders be open again.

## 25 Million Unvetted People Crossed the Border

We opened. We took in 25 million people. We’ve gotten a lot of them out. Tremendous numbers of people that should never have been here. Over four long years, before my election, these same radical, lunatic Democrats let 25 million people pour across our borders like they were nothing, like they were nonexistent. These people were totally unvetted, unchecked, including murderers, drug dealers, gang members, vicious criminals, even the criminally insane.

## A Mandate From the American People

In 2024, the American people voted in a landslide to stop the invasion of our country. And I won all seven swing states by millions and millions of votes. We won the Electoral College by a massive number. We won the popular vote by millions and millions. It was a big election. I loved every minute of it.

And for the first time — no Republicans have done anything like this in decades — but for the first time, we won the counties of America. That’s a big one. 2,700 to 525. 2,700 to 525. 87% of the vote. We won 87% of the counties.

In other words, it was a mandate like our country has not seen in many decades. It was a mandate for an ideology — which is an ideology, basically, of common sense. We want strong borders. We want a powerful military. We want good education. We want to have homes for people, low interest rates, and no inflation.

## MAGA Is Stronger Than Ever

And right now, my polls are better than they’ve ever been before. You know, I heard the other day — I think that he’s losing the MAGA base. I said, “Really, because of the war?” So you get into a war — of course, they call it a war. I call it a military conflict. But there’s a legal reason for that. But you get into a war or a military operation, a conflict — and then they say my base is eroding. I said, “No, no. MAGA is stronger than ever,” because MAGA is Make America Great Again.

But my MAGA people — which is the greatest phrase in the history of politics — it’s the most important movement, by far, probably in the history of the world. I mean, you know, there’s never been anything like this.

And in fact, just a few days ago — you have to understand the fake news right back there. Oh, that’s a lot of fake news. Yeah. So you brought a lot of fake news with you. They must know you’re going to make a speech at some point, because look at that.

But what happened is the fake news was saying — they hope, you know, it’s like, “Oh, we’ve got to get rid of this guy” — they say he may be losing his base. And that would be maybe the end of him. And then I happen to be watching CNN, which is terrible. They treat me terribly. In fact, just a few days ago, CNN had a poll that had me at 100 percent of MAGA voters. They said they’ve never seen anything like that. Can you put that up?

I actually said, if you could put it up, do you have the technology to put it up? Go ahead. Give it a shot. You know, sometimes you look at the polling data and there are numbers that just jump off the screen at you. And this is one of those.

Because just take a look here. MAGA GOP deal — Trump approved 100 percent, 100 percent. If you are a member of MAGA and the GOP, you approve of Donald John Trump. Zero percent say that they disapprove. You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to know you can’t go higher than 100 percent. He is the 1972 Miami.

Good technology. Thank you. I figured you’d have good tech. I said, I wonder if they could put that up. We just did it two minutes ago now. But I was watching this and I’m hearing them say, “Could he be losing the MAGA base?” I don’t think so. You know why?

Because MAGA wants to win — number one. Number two, they want our country protected. They don’t want another country out there that’s hostile and crazy to have a nuclear weapon. And number three, they like us protecting certain allies, whether it’s Israel or Saudi Arabia or Qatar or UAE, any of them. They want that. MAGA wants strength and they want victory. They want success. And that’s what we have. And we have been very, very successful.

## Cuba’s Next

You know, when I went into Venezuela, I said — because I campaigned on the fact, “peace with strength” — that you wouldn’t have to use it. I built this great military. I said, “You’ll never have to use it, but sometimes you have to use it.” And Cuba’s next, by the way. But pretend I didn’t say that. Pretend I did. Please, please, please, media, please disregard that statement. Thank you very much. Cuba’s next.

## Defending Borders and Allies

So despite the radical left Democrat shutdown, we will continue to defend the sovereign borders of the United States of America, and will defend our allies. Your ally. You didn’t know they were that tough, did you? You didn’t know they were pretty tough. Not tough anymore.

Now, we will continue to deport dangerous criminal aliens from our country. Just days ago, an 18-year-old girl in Chicago named Sheridan Gorman was gunned down by a savage criminal alien, let in by Sleepy Joe Biden and released in a Democrat sanctuary city — was an animal. The same month, an 83-year-old veteran, a highly regarded person, was shoved onto the subway tracks and murdered by an illegal alien with a long criminal history in New York City.

These are vicious criminal thugs, disgusting human beings that Democrats have defunded our airports to protect. They want our airports to be defunded so that these people can come into our country. Not going to happen. We’re not going to have it.

That’s why this week I deployed ICE to our airports to help reduce the delays. People there are doing a great job, but they didn’t want to pay them. The Democrats didn’t want to pay them. And a short time ago, I also ordered emergency funding to resume paying the TSA agents. Immediately, they’re getting paid.

Democrats must stop their dangerous and destructive shutdown and reopen the Department of Homeland Security without delay. And it’s time that they start thinking properly. That’s why they lost in such a landslide — and put America first. It’s time that they start thinking about America first.

And we’re honored to be joined tonight by many distinguished guests from around the world, including FII Institute Chairman Yasser Al-Rumayyan. Where are you? Yes. Come here. Stand up. Yes. Yes. Please. What a nice thing. What a nice thing. And his son Faisal.

And by the way, I’ve known him really well. But you know, I’ve never heard his last name. So I’m saying, “Who the hell is — yes, I know, yes, sir.” Said, “Who the hell is that guy?” But I know him as “Yes, sir.” I didn’t know it was his first name. You know, the more I know — he’s got a lot of power.

All I know is he’s got a lot of cash. And he’s another great leader, actually. And he’s a good friend of mine. So nice to be with you. And nice to be with your son. Son’s beautiful.

## Welcoming Distinguished Guests

Saudi Minister of Finance Mohammed al-Jadaan. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Nice to see you again. I mean, if you want to be a minister of finance, Saudi Arabia is a good place to do it. You don’t have any dirt. There’s no dearth of funds. Most places they say, “Where are we going to get the money? How about a tax increase?”

Minister of State Mohammed al-Sheikh Mohammed. Thank you very much. Great honor. Chairman of the Saudi Esports Federation is Royal Highness Prince Faisal. And, of course, please. Thank you. And, of course, the kingdom’s wonderful ambassador to the United States, Her Royal Highness Princess Rima, who’s great. She’s great.

Also, I want to thank the president of Sierra Leone, Julius Hadabi. Oh, my job. Bye. Oh, I love that name. Thank you. Great honor to have you. And chairman of the F.I.I. Institute Executive Committee, Richard Attias. Thank you, Richard.

## A Better Henry Kissinger

As well as Special Envoy — I call him Henry Kissinger, who doesn’t leak — because Henry’s a big leaker. Richard Nixon would beat him. Henry, somebody’s leaking on us. There’s somebody leaking. Henry would say, “We’ll get to the bottom.” It was Henry that was leaking. That wasn’t good. But we have Henry Kissinger better than Henry Kissinger. And he doesn’t leak. Special Envoy Steve Whitcuff. Thank you.

And he and Jared — Jared Kushner — they’re like a team. And the boy, I tell you, they’re a good team. High IQ. That’s a high IQ team. You want to find your high IQ people.

## Recognizing Dr. Oz

Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael Kratios, a Greek individual. Where’s Michael? He was at the Greek event. Hi, Michael. He was at the Greek event yesterday, so I know he’s Greek. They asked me, “Please, sir, would you introduce Michael?” CMS administrator — a phenomenal man, a brilliant man.

You know, he had a show on television for, like, 20 years. That was so great. I was on his show. He said, “Would you do me a favor? Would you go on my show?” I said, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll go on your show.” It’s a big show, very successful. And I went on his show, and he determined that I should lose weight.

This is what I went through. He said, “I think you should lose weight.” I said, “I don’t need you saying that in front of millions of people. You don’t have to tell me that.” But he’s a great guy, and I don’t know how he ever got the job after that. But it’s the most powerful man. Actually, medicine — him and Bobby. What a team. Bobby is great. He’s great.

Dr. Oz — you know that, Mehmet Oz — and they’re coming up with things that are amazing, a little out of the box. But the out-of-the-box guys are really finding things that are amazing. Autism — that’s so important to us. We want to find out, why is it happening in such large numbers all over the world? But why is it happening in our country? All over the world? And you’re coming up with some pretty impressive studies and answers.

## Using Tariffs to Stop Wars

A really good friend of mine, the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino — and Gianni is great. You know, when I didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize — I don’t care. Norway has lost so much credibility. I stopped eight wars. I even stopped India and Pakistan, and they were going at it for a week. Nine planes already shot down — they were in a war. I stopped them.

You know how I stopped them? I said, “If you keep fighting, I’m going to put a 250% tariff on each one.” “No, no, no. You cannot do that.” I said, “I’m doing it.” “All right, we won’t fight anymore.” That’s how I stopped them. I used tariffs to stop a war. You ever hear of anything like that?

It was too much for them to bear, but they were going to be in a war. And the prime minister — actually a great guy — the prime minister of Pakistan said, “President Trump saved 30 to 50 million people,” two nuclear countries. What happened? And I figured, I mean, if I don’t get the Nobel Prize for Peace, nobody will ever get it. I didn’t get it. I’m not surprised. I didn’t get it.

And the person that got it was shocked. She’s a wonderful woman, too, by the way. And she said, “No, no, no, I don’t deserve it. President Trump does. Nobody deserves it. Nobody ever deserves it.”

Stopping Eight Wars

I stopped eight wars, Yasser. Do you know what that is? Eight wars. You didn’t stop eight wars. You started eight wars, Yasser. I stopped eight wars. But it was a little early, because, in all fairness, it was for the year before, right? It was for ’24. But still, you thought they would have made an exception. But they didn’t do that. You watch what happens.

But it was sort of amazing. So she was so nice. And she actually came to the White House, and she presented me with her award. She’s a wonderful woman. But stopping wars is, I think, my most — it’s the best — I think I do it the best. I stopped wars that nobody thought possible.

President Putin called me. He said, “I can’t believe you stopped this one and this one, which are impossible.” Azerbaijan was an impossible war to stop. We stopped it.

Recognizing Guests in the Audience

But we also have a man who’s probably good at stopping wars. I know he’s good at being a tough guy. He is a tough guy. He’s been very tough on crime, and he’s done a great job. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is here someplace. Francis, hi. How are you?

And we have a great son. He’s got the best genes, I think, of any human being I’ve ever known. He’s my son, Don Trump. Don. He’s a great guy. And his fiancée, Patina. Good, Patina. Good.

Now, my son’s got the greatest genes in history. I’m a big believer in genes, by the way, I will tell you. My daughter, Tiffany, and her husband, Michael. My beautiful daughter, right? And they have a new child — the most beautiful, the most beautiful guy we’ve seen, right? Blows us all away, right? He’s great. Thank you for being here.

And countless other business leaders. We have so many friends of mine here, so many business leaders, but we can’t go on because we have a couple of moments more to discuss the world and the economy.

The Most Dramatic One-Year Turnaround in History

Over the past 14 months, the Trump administration has achieved perhaps the most dramatic one-year turnaround of any nation in all of history. A short time ago, a man that we just discussed — the king, the future king of Saudi Arabia — and I also love the king of Saudi Arabia. What a man he is.

When I was there, we bonded. He would grab me to get up. He was a little frail at the time, and this was a long time ago, and he’s still doing well. And he grabbed my arm to get up when I was sitting next to him. And they said that’s the only time he’s ever grabbed anybody. He would grab me all the time. And I said, I think he likes me. And he did like me, and he still likes me. And he’s a great man — say hello to him. He’s a great guy with a great son.

But a short time ago, we were together, and he looked at me and he said, “You know, it’s amazing. One year ago, you were a dead country. Now you’re the hottest country anywhere in the world.”

He didn’t think this was going to happen. He didn’t think he’d be kissing my ass. He really didn’t. He thought he’d be just another American president that was a loser, where the country was going downhill. But now he has to be nice to me. You tell him he better be nice to me.

He’s got to be. But it was really something. I know he said, though. He said, “You know, it’s amazing, President” — he’s a very smart but a regular kind of a guy — “You know, it’s amazing, President. A year ago, in that case, it was a year and a half. It was six months ago. But a year ago, you were a dead country. Now you’re literally the hottest country anywhere in the world.”

And that was before we beat the hell out of Iraq. Now I think he’s got to say even better. I think we have to up it. But he’s fantastic.

Making America the Number One Place to Do Business

Everything we do, we’re working to make America the number one place on Earth to do business. We passed the largest tax cuts in American history, including no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our great seniors. We provided 100 percent expensing and bonus depreciation so that anyone who wants to build a factory can deduct the entire cost of equipment and the entire factory in the first year. That used to take 38 years to do it. Taking little drips, little drips. Now it’s done.

A lot of people remember that my first four years was the most successful time we’ve ever had financially in the history of our country. We had an unbelievable success, but this is much better. And by the way, when this war ends, it’s going to be like a rocket ship. I thought we were going to go down more, and I thought oil prices were going to go up higher than they are now. It’s not finished yet. I’m not saying it’s finished, but it’s not finished. It’s got to be finished.

Record Stock Market Highs

I thought that we would see a bigger drop in stock. It hasn’t been that bad. It’s sort of crazy. I hit 50,000 on the Dow. People said that wouldn’t be possible within four years. I did it in one year. And then we hit 7,000 on the S&P. People said that’s even harder than hitting 50,000 on the Dow. And I did that in less than one year, toward the end of the year. Both of them, we broke every record. Every stock record, we broke.

And you’re big beneficiaries because so many of you invest in the United States — keep doing it, because it’s going to be a rocket ship. You watch.

Taking Action Against a Nuclear Threat

But then I said, “All right, do I have to do this?” We have a country that’s sick and demented, and they have a nuclear weapon, or they want to have one. They were very close together. Remember, they were two weeks away. They were two weeks away. If we didn’t hit that — I call it the nuclear dust, I use the term “nuclear dust” — if we didn’t knock the hell out of them, they would have had a nuclear weapon within two to four weeks, and they would have used it on you and on Israel and on everyone else.

And I said, “We really do have to stop and go on a little different journey for a little while, and take them out, and then go back to life.” And that’s what we did. And we did it violently. We did it powerfully. We did it with the respect of the world. And we helped a lot of allies, and we learned about other allies. We learned that other allies weren’t there. We didn’t need them, but they weren’t there if we did need them. And that’s going to be very costly for them.

Economic Growth and American Workers

The stock market has set 53 all-time record highs since the election, adding $9 trillion in value to America’s savings and retirement accounts in 401(k)s. Everybody is benefiting by this. And more Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country — at any time. To me, that’s the number one stat. More Americans are working today, by far, than at any time in the history of our country.

And in 14 months, we’ve lifted 3.3 million Americans off of food stamps. That’s a record. And Biden and his allies wrecked our country. They wreaked havoc on our economy, and they gave us the worst inflation in American history.

Under Trump, during the last three months of 2025, we got core inflation down to 1.6 percent. And right now, the average tax refund for filers, because of the great, big, beautiful bill, has been close to $5,000. It’s a lot of money for a family.

And this — you know, when I’m talking to Saudi Arabia and I’m talking about $5,000, they’d look at me. Five thousand? That’s like a penny. Right, David? That’s like a penny. Saudi Arabia is not into $5,000, but it’s Saudi Arabia. I just want to ask, are the Saudis impressed by the fact that a family has saved $5,000? I know. They’re looking like, “What the hell is $5,000?” Their shoes cost them more than $5,000. But that’s the way it goes. We’re talking about — remember, we’re talking about the real world.

In his entire term, Joe Biden — I have two terms for him — Crooked Joe and Sleepy Joe. And I’ve never — it’s always been pretty — you know, I do sometimes a poll. Which is a more accurate term? Sleepy or Crooked? Pretty much even. I like Sleepy.

In his entire term, Sleepy Joe Biden got less than $1 trillion of new investment in the United States. A lot less. And in our first 11 months — the 12th month is coming. It’s going to be big. We did $18 trillion. Think of it. Less than $1 trillion for four years. In 11 months, we did $18 trillion.

## Historic Investment and Economic Growth

And we have factories being built all over the country at a level that’s never been seen before. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that I allow these plants and everything to build their own electricity. Well, we need big electricity. They’re all building their own electricity.

But a lot of it has to do with the tax bill. A lot of them — because it’s really the biggest tax-reduction bill in history. The great, big, beautiful bill. And a lot of it has to do with the one-year deductibility, where they — you build a plant, then you take the whole thing as a deduction. I did that in my first term also, but I had it for one year. Now I have it for 10 years. So it’s pretty amazing, and it’s pretty amazing what we’re seeing.

## Saudi Arabia and New Partnerships

But it all started with our historic visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. My first visit was to the future king. And on that first foreign trip of my presidency — maybe last May, the Crown Prince announced that Saudi Arabia would be investing an incredible almost $1 trillion in the United States, which he later increased.

As just a few examples of these new partnerships, Oracle will be building $14 billion worth of cloud computing and AI infrastructure in the kingdom. I didn’t know that, David. We have to talk to your father about that. Why isn’t he doing it here, David? I’m very upset with you.

And by the way, David has done a very good job. David Ellis said he just had a very big win. And your father is very proud of you because your father said, “That’s a tough one.” And you got it. You got it done. It’s going to be a great success. You’re going to be a great success. You’re going to blow away your father, and he’ll be very happy about that because he loves you. But it’s a great family. Great family. Go to him, okay? You’re going to have a big, big success with the deal he made.

Boeing is selling dozens of 737 airplanes in a deal valued at $4.8 billion and supporting approximately 20,000 U.S. jobs. And during our trip to Saudi Arabia — and I must say also Qatar, we visited. They were fantastic. In UAE, we visited. They were fantastic, all three of them.

We took in a total of almost $3 trillion from just those three countries. But Saudi Arabia signed the largest defense sales agreement in American history, nearly $142 billion of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world. We make the best military equipment in the world, by far.

Nobody’s ever figured out the Patriot. I mean, when you can shoot down 101 out of 101, that’s good stuff, right? And those suckers are traveling at 2,000, Mr. Minister, 2,500 miles an hour. You better hope you don’t have chokers sitting behind that desk, because if they’re about one second late, that’s the end of it. You know? You say, “Well, we missed them.” They’re coming.

The F-35 Deal and Fighting to Win

When I hosted the Crown Prince at the White House last fall, we officially designated the kingdom as a major non-NATO ally, first time. And for the very first time, we agreed to sell Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most capable fighter jet ever built, the F-35. The F-35 is amazing. And we sell them very sparingly. We don’t want other people to have them.

I’m confident that this partnership and so many others around the world will continue to grow and thrive because, under President Trump, America once again fights and competes for one thing. We fight to win. We fight for justice, and we fight to win. But we don’t fight to be politically correct, like we did under other presidents, where we fought to just keep fighting and fighting and fighting.

General Razin Caine and the Defeat of ISIS

And you know, when I took out ISIS, I was told by generals it would take four to five years. And I met General Razin Caine, who’s our top person, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I said, if I ever do this thing again, if I ever get in, I’m putting that guy as the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

I went to see him in Iraq, and I said, “Why is it taking so long to destroy ISIS? We have the best weapons in the world.” And I understood why. But I had generals — I call them the television generals. They weren’t any good. Mattis, Milley, they weren’t any good. They were lousy. But they said, “Sir, it would take about four years.”

When I went over and I met General Cain, I said, “How long will it take?”

“Four weeks, sir. You’ll have a lot of time left over.”

He said, “Wait a minute. Did you say four weeks?”

“Four weeks, sir. It’ll take four weeks. You’ll have a lot of time left over.”

That’s our new head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he said, “How do you do that?”

“Well, sir, we were only able to fight from this one very faraway location because nobody wanted to use all of our portable runways that we have all over the Middle East.” We have portable runways. Can you believe it? We have everything. But nobody wanted to use them because they didn’t want to insult the country where the runway was located.

I said, “They wouldn’t even know. Do you think some country is going to know when we have jets taking off? They don’t know.”

He said, “Well, I agree with you, sir. But whether they know or not, who cares? Sir, we have about 17 locations that we could take off from. This one took eight hours to get to the destination. By the time we got there, we had to refuel all the time and we had to come back. But we have 17 different locations, sir. We’re going to hit him from the left. We’re going to hit him from the right. We’re going to hit him from the east and the west. We’re going to hit him from above.”

And you could see he was getting fired up. And I said, “What’s your first name?”

He said, “Razin, sir.”

“What do you mean, Razin?”

“My name is Razin.”

“You mean your name is Razin Caine?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re the guy I’m looking for. I’ve been looking for you for four frickin’ years. I found Razin Caine.”

A General Born for the Job

**PRESIDENT TRUMP:** His first name is Dan, but his nickname is Razin. And I love that. I loved Razin Caine. And I said, “If I ever get in” — this is before I decide to even run — “if I ever run and if I win, that guy’s going to be the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” That’s exactly what happened. Then he was all for me and I’m all for him. But he’s a great general.

He’s like one of these football coaches that’s great. You know, there’s some great ones, Johnny, right? And all they do is they sit. Their wives are complaining. Everyone’s complaining. They never go out. They don’t see anybody. They just go into the room and they study film and tape. Then they go out and win. And everyone says, “OK.” And other guys are out there playing golf — they’re not winning. And he’s been great.

And Pete Hegseth has been amazing. He’s been amazing. Pete has done a great job. He was born for it. I really believe he was born for it.

Building the Right Team

We have a lot of great people. We have a lot. We had a great first four years. But the people we have now — you know, look, when I won, I’d never done it before. I ran. Everyone thought I was doing it for fun. Even Steve Witkoff. He said, “You’re doing it for fun, right?” I don’t know. I didn’t know what I was doing it for. Maybe. But they all said, “No, he’s going to run, and in September he’s going to have a lot of fun. He’ll drop out.”

Then the debates came. And I did go to the debates and started knocking people off — all senators, governors, mostly senators and governors, all professional politicians, smart guys. You can’t be stupid and be a senator or a governor. It doesn’t work that way. Other than Biden — he got lucky. He was in a room. They locked him in a room and he never got to talk. So that’s a whole other story.

But I ran, and then all of a sudden there were 18 people, including me. Then there were 15. Then there were 12. Then there were nine. Then there were six, five — it’s like a rocket ship — four. Then all of a sudden I won.

Learning Washington From the Inside

But I never did it before. I went to Washington. I said, “I’ve only been here 17 times and I’ve never slept over.” I didn’t know anybody. So I had to take recommendations from RINOs and some good people. I mean, there were recommendations, and some were really good. I mean, I had some great people.

Look, I rebuilt our entire military in the first term. We got the largest tax cuts in history, the largest regulation cuts in history, in the first term. We did good. But I didn’t have the same people generally.

But I went home and I watched things closely. And by that time, I knew the good, the bad, and the ugly. I knew the good ones. I knew the bad ones. And when I came back, I picked great people.

We have an unbelievable group — we’re talking military now — but we have an unbelievable group because I got to know it. I was never in Washington. You know, it’s hard. I never ran for class president. All of a sudden, “Ladies and gentlemen, your next President of the United States — Donald Trump.” I said, “Really? I never did this before.” Johnny, I said, “How the hell did this happen?” Right.

The Second Term Is Blowing It Away

But it did happen. And we had a great first term. But the second term is blowing it away, to be honest with you. It’s really blowing it away.

And when we decide to leave — they, you know, regime change, I guess we change the regime. The regime keeps getting blown up every two days. Everybody’s afraid to announce who’s the head. We don’t even know who the hell the leader is. So I think we have regime change already. But we’re going to be — at some point we’ll be leaving.

And I think you’re going to see a rocket ship because we won’t have that dark cloud hanging over our head, Steve. Right. That we did before, which was a nuclear armed sick country of Iran, because it might have affected your country, Saudi Arabia and the others. And it certainly affected Israel more than anybody. The hatred they have for Israel. But it also affected us because with modern day equipment, they can fly. And how about the fact that they flew a missile two thousand seven hundred miles the other day? They didn’t say they had that. Nobody knew they had that — two thousand seven hundred miles. So we learned a lot.

AI Leadership and the Future of Technology

But we’re determined to have the best technology, the brightest minds, the greatest businesses, and the strongest economic and security partnerships of any nation anywhere in the world. And for this reason, we’re also committed to ensuring the United States remains number one in artificial intelligence. We’re doing great. We’re leading China by a lot. And I’ll not allow radical left maniacs to sacrifice American leadership to red tape or political correctness. It’s going good. We’re doing really well.

We’re building factories all over America, the biggest in the world. And in America, we don’t fear the future. We invent the future. We’re really inventing the future. We have the most brilliant minds, and we invite all nations to join us in building the most powerful AI ecosystem on the planet.

Tariffs Driving Auto Manufacturing Back to America

We’re building more automobile plants than any time in the last 50 years for a lot of reasons. I think number one may be the election, but number two — and a close number two — is tariffs. The tariffs are driving people in from Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, South Korea. They’re coming in. We’re building auto plants all over the United States. Tens of billions.

I met Mr. Toyota in Japan. I said, “What’s your name?” He’s about 92 years old. Sharp as a tack. “What’s your name?” Toyota. I said, “You’re rich.” I said, “Do you have anything to do with automobiles?” “Yes.” “What do you have to do with Toyota?” “I own it.” And I said, “Well, do you want to make an investment?” “Yes, we’re going to spend $10 billion” — spending $10 billion right now on building five plants.

Everybody is. They’re all coming into America. We’re going to be hotter than we were 70 years ago when we dominated the automobile. We made all of the cars.

America as the Crypto Capital of the World

My administration has also worked tirelessly to ensure that America remains at the bleeding edge of the crypto revolution, and we’re really doing great. And if we’re not going to do it, then China is going to take it over. They want to do it. We’re going to be the undisputed crypto capital and Bitcoin superpower of the world. Bitcoin’s very powerful. It’s all becoming powerful. So many people now — they want to pay you in crypto. They want to pay you in Bitcoin. And we have to be at the top of it in all of these — call it an industry.

Last year, I signed the landmark GENIUS Act into law, creating a clear and simple framework for dollar-backed stablecoins. And this was a historic achievement. And I’ll not allow Democrats and their big bank donors — although they’ve had a lot of support for crypto. They will say that the Democrats have been very strong on crypto. They want to see it, too, which is shocking, if you want to know the truth.

But we don’t want any pointless regulations or needless restrictions. We want to have free enterprise open. America became the world financial capital because we were the strongest and the freest nation on Earth. And the Trump administration is going to keep it that way. We’re very open. And I tell people, “If you have problems, call me.” And some of them are amazed. I actually take their call and get their problem solved.

For four long years, our country was pushed to the brink of destruction by radicals and thugs and stupid people who punished success, pillaged our economy, dismantled our borders, and surrendered our strength. But today, all of that is behind us. Our country is prospering again, I think, like never before.

I would say, you know, it’s amazing. I thought I knew I’d do it. I didn’t know I was going to do it. I knew I had no idea it was going to be this fast. But you never know. I had no idea I’d be going into Iran. I didn’t think we’d have to do that. But it turned out we did because they became more and more radicalized and more and more threatening.

Our economy is booming again and America is respected again all over the world, perhaps like never before. With the help of business leaders, innovators, allies and partners like those in this room — incredible people in this room, incredible successors, the most successful people in the world — we will seize every opportunity, overcome every challenge, defeat every threat. And America and our allies will thrive and prosper and win like no nations have ever won before. You’re going to win like you’ve never had before.

So I want to just thank everybody very much. And I am asked to take a few questions. And unlike other politicians, they would like the questions screened. I don’t ask for screening of the questions. You can ask me anything you want. You can talk sex. You can do whatever the hell you want. I’m here for you. Whatever question you want, you can ask. So do you want to do that? Do we have some people handling this? Here he comes. Look at this man. Very powerful man coming up, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll take some questions.

## Q&A Session

REPORTER: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you so much. And thank you for accepting to take five questions. We don’t want to take too much of your time. So let’s talk about business. In one sentence, where should the world invest in America right now?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Where should the world invest in America right now? Well, look, the one that they’re going crazy about is A.I. Now, sometimes you’ll say, let’s go the opposite, because I’ve seen it. You know, everyone goes. But A.I. is going crazy. A.I.

So my family — we made Don, the whole family, Eric is doing a good job, all of us, Ivanka — we like real estate. When you can make money in real estate, it’s a great business. But I see some of these guys come into my office. They’re wearing a T-shirt and they’re 24 years old. And he’s got a net worth of 24 billion dollars. I said, “You’ve got to be kidding,” off a little contraption.

So the money seems to be right now — and also, if you’re in school, like you’re going to the Wharton School or the Stern School or any of these great schools — I mean, the numbers that they’re paying to go into that business is incredible, where you see people getting a 10 million dollar bonus to sign, like baseball players or football players. “We’re giving you a 10 million.” I mean, I hate to say it because it sounds ridiculous, but there have been some 100 million dollar bonuses paid to sign.

So I think probably if you’re going to say one thing: A.I. And just hope that it works right. You better hope.

## On Leadership

REPORTER: So, Mr. President, what is the one leadership trait the world is missing right now?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: What is missing? Well, it’s winning. You’ve got to win. You know, I’ve watched a lot of people — leaders, great leaders. And, you know, the one thing about sports is you break it down into a two-hour period, something nice. You don’t have to wait a lifetime to find out if somebody is a winner or a loser. You’ve got a lot of losers — mostly losers, fortunately. It’s a good thing to have a lot of losers. I always like to hang around with losers, actually, because it makes me feel better.

I hate guys that are very, very successful and you have to listen to their success stories. I like people that like to listen to my success. But I find — and I found this — and I’m only kidding. I want to say that sort of. But I find that people that win, it’s much easier to lead when you’re successful and you win.

You know, Vince Lombardi was a very tough person, a very tough football coach. He was sort of a violent guy, actually. But he won and he got away with things because he won. You know, I say if you win, winning helps you to become a better leader. People follow you if you win and not everybody can win. Some people win and some people don’t win. But when you win, it’s a lot easier to lead.

Winners and Losers in the New Economic Era

REPORTER: Talking about winning, Mr. President, the world is entering a new economic era. Who do you think are the winners and who do you think will be the losers?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Are you talking about as nations?

REPORTER: Yes. Well, sectors.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: The United States right now is the hottest country anywhere in the world by far. And we’ve done it very quickly because we have a good system. Now it’s somewhat radicalized because the Democrats are really holding us back. And you better hope they don’t get in because they’ll destroy a lot of what we’ve built.

But right now, the United States, as the future king of Saudi Arabia said, is the hottest country anywhere in the world. I must say I respect China greatly because it’s amazing that with a system that in theory shouldn’t work — you know, we go to school and we go to the best business schools and we do well in those schools. And we read about free entrepreneurship and we read about all of these different things. But you look at China, how well they do, how well they manufacture. I mean, they manufacture cars — so many — that they actually have a contest for who can manufacture the least cars because they have so many cars. You have to have great respect for China for the job they do. Like them or not like them, you have to respect them.

On the TikTok Deal and Relations with China

REPORTER: So precisely, you would be going to China in May?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes. Yes, I’ll be going. We had a meeting and I called the president. I get along really well with him. He even approved the TikTok deal. He said, “I will not approve that deal” to other people, not to me. And I thought it was good if we could keep it going.

I like it because I’m the number one person on TikTok. Can you believe it? I put a chart up there — another chart. You want to put another chart up like we did with Fake News CNN? So we got a group of very big investors, the biggest investors, and they really wanted to buy TikTok. And I did very well on TikTok in the election. I won the youth. I did tremendously well with youth because of TikTok and other things — certain interviews, et cetera.

But I did very well and I sort of developed a liking for it. And I was told that it will never be approved by China — you had to get approval. And I didn’t really care. And then it got to a point where all of these very successful people who were willing to pay a lot of money for TikTok.

And I called up President Xi. I said, “Do me a favor, will you approve it, please? It’s good. It’s good for China. Good for us. Good for everybody. Would you do me a favor? I know you said it was a hard no. And I know you said no to everybody, but you haven’t said no to me. Would you do me a favor? Would you approve it? It’s good for China. It’s good for us. You have a lot of big investors. They’re investing in China also.”

They have a lot of money in China. I would appreciate it. He said, “OK, I’ll do it.” Nice. It was very nice. And they bought TikTok and it’s going to do good. And it was done with the consent of China.

## U.S.-China Trade Relations

We get along well with China. You know, China used to take big advantage of us, but they don’t take advantage of us anymore. Now we compete very nicely with China. We put tariffs on China. The tariffs got too high. At one point, they were up to one hundred and forty-five percent.

And I was saying, “No, put tariffs on that. Put tariffs on fentanyl at 20 percent.” And then when they said, “What’s China paying now, sir?” — they’re paying one hundred and forty-five percent. I said, “One forty-five. That’s crazy. I got a little carried away.” So I got them down to one hundred, and I took them down a little more.

I’ll never forget — I took them down a little bit from one hundred and forty-five to one hundred. And the fake news said that Donald Trump collapses on China. They’re paying a hundred percent. Nobody pays a hundred percent. So anyway, we got it done. And now we have a great business relationship with China.

I’ve always had a good relationship with President Xi, except for the COVID situation, because I wasn’t thrilled about that. He wasn’t thrilled either, by the way, but I wasn’t thrilled. But I have great respect for him as a leader.

And we had a deal — I was going there and I didn’t want to go during the war. I said, “Look, you know, we have a thing called a war, or as they would rather say, a military operation.” It’s for legal reasons. I say military because it’s a military operation. I don’t need any approvals — as a war, you’re supposed to get approval from Congress, something like that. So I call it a military operation. But we have that going along, and I’d like to delay it. So we delayed it a few weeks. So I’ll be going very shortly.

## Africa’s Potential

REPORTER: Mr. President, we have a few leaders here — business leaders from Africa. And of course, we have His Excellency, the President of Sierra Leone. What is your vision about Africa today?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I tell you, it’s got tremendous potential. Now, I’ve been hearing about this for a very long time. And I have a lot of friends that have bet the ranch on Africa. They’re very smart. It’s got tremendous earth. It’s got tremendous value underground, which is very important.

So do we — so does America. We have the biggest — the most oil, gas, and coal and everything of any nation on Earth. It’s a big advantage. But Africa has tremendous value on its land. And if they can unify and get together, I think it’s got tremendous potential. I have a lot of very smart friends that are putting everything into Africa.

## Leadership and Mistakes

REPORTER: What do you think, Mr. President, is today the biggest mistake that leaders are making right now?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Not sticking together. I think that NATO made a terrible mistake when they wouldn’t send a small amount of military armament — when they wouldn’t even acknowledge what we were doing for the world and taking on Iran.

I never considered it very risky, but war is always a risk. You know, a lot of strange things happen in war — very bad things. But I didn’t consider it a big risk. I know how great our military is — the greatest military by far anywhere. There was nobody close. I didn’t think there was a big risk, but there’s always surprises with war. They can be very bad surprises.

I mean, wars are lost. Many wars are lost. You think a country is going to wipe somebody out and they end up getting wiped out themselves. So it’s always risky. But I think a tremendous mistake was when NATO just wasn’t there. They just weren’t there.

It’s going to make a lot of money for the United States because we spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on NATO, hundreds of billions protecting them. And we would have always been there for them. But now, based on their actions, I guess we don’t have to be doing that.

REPORTER: Mr. President, it sounds like a breaking story.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes, sir. That is breaking news. I think we just have breaking news. But that’s the fact. I’ve been saying that. Why would we be there for them if they’re not there for us? They weren’t there for us.

REPORTER: If you had one bet on the future, what would it be?

A Bet on American Leadership

PRESIDENT TRUMP: That the United States will, with good leadership, remain the dominant country anywhere in the world. But you still need leadership. I mean, look at the last four years — they were so bad with bad leadership. You need leadership. And, you know, in theory, you need to have that. You need open, fair elections. You need a free press.

On Media Credibility

We have a terrible press. We have a very corrupt media. Think of it. I got 96 percent negative stories, and I won in a landslide. And you know what that means? That means that the media has no credibility. You can’t get mostly bad stories — fake stories that were fake. The polls are fake. That’s why I appreciate that one poll that I saw up there at 100 percent. She’s never seen 100 percent. Nobody has.

But you have to have a free and open media. And when a media can give you 96 to 97 percent bad stories, they write stories about it — “Trump received 97 percent bad stories” — and I won in a landslide. And that means very simply that the media has no credibility, because that can’t happen.

Now, I also have a voice more than most people. I can come up and talk about it and convince people without necessarily reading The New York Times, which is fake. I mean, if you read The New York Times, you would think we’re doing badly against Iran. Remember, they have no Navy — wiped out. A hundred and fifty-nine ships at the bottom of the sea in three days. They have no Air Force — all wiped out. They have very few missiles left. Their drones are at a minimum. Their factories are gone. Their leaders are gone. Their leaders are all dead. They’re all dead. Nobody ever heard of the people that are left.

And if you read The Times, you think we’re doing poorly. It’s almost treasonous, I have to be honest. It’s almost treasonous. Unfortunately, we have other media that’s fair and honest and honorable. And you have to go out and do some of your own talking because nobody else will. You know the expression — I have to sell myself because nobody else will.

A Legacy of Peace

REPORTER: My last question, Mr. President, is the same question I asked you last year. What do you want your legacy to be?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I’ll tell you what. I told you that I settled eight wars. That means millions and millions of people. Some of those wars were going on — one was 34 years, one was 32 years, one was 29 years, one was 22 years. They were long-term wars, and a lot of people were being killed every year. So I’ve saved millions and millions of people.

And I know it doesn’t sound right for me to say this, but I’d love my legacy to be that of a great peacemaker, because I really believe I’m a peacemaker. It doesn’t seem like it right now, but I think I’m a peacemaker.

MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump.

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