Brief Notes: U.S. President Donald Trump joins White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt for a high-stakes briefing on surging global tensions over Greenland, Iran, and Venezuela, just one year into his second term. From Arctic sovereignty and NATO friction to Iran diplomacy and Venezuela’s oil leverage, Trump outlines his administration’s next moves on some of the world’s most volatile flashpoints. He also touts his economic record, border security crackdown, and “accomplishments book” while fielding combative questions from the press on immigration, crime, and trade. Watch this extended session for unfiltered answers, sharp exchanges, and real-time signals of where U.S. foreign and domestic policy is headed ahead of Davos 2026.
Opening Remarks: One Year Anniversary
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Wow, that’s a big crowd. That’s a lot of people. I think it’s like a record. So, these are accomplishments. We have a lot of accomplishments. And as you know, this is the anniversary, first anniversary, January 20th. And it’s been an amazing period of time. We have a book that I’m not going to read to you, but these are the accomplishments of what we’ve produced, all page after page after page. Individual things. I could stand here and read it for a week and we wouldn’t be finished. But we’ve done more than any other administration has done by far in terms of military, in terms of ending wars, in terms of completing wars. Nobody’s really seen very much like it.
Minnesota Immigration Enforcement
I think it’s appropriate that because Minnesota is so much in the fray, and I say to my people all the time, and they’re so busy doing other things, they don’t say it like they should. They’re apprehending murderers and drug dealers and a lot of bad people. And these are just some of the more recent ones that we have. And I can show you some of the people. Vicious. Many of them murderers. These are all out of Minnesota, just Minnesota. I say, why don’t you talk about that more? Because people don’t know. Do you want to live with these people? International murder. These are people that are living, were, if they’re apprehended, and either put in jails in their country from where they came, and the countries respect us, and so they actually put them there. In the old days, they didn’t respect our country. Biden wouldn’t do this because he let them all in. You know, if you didn’t have open border policies of Biden, none of this, all of the things that we all of the time that we spent talking about Minnesota and everything else, most of them are coming from out of the country. And it’s been caused by a previous administration.
Look at this, one after one. Boy, these are rough characters. These are all criminal, illegal aliens that, in many cases, they’re murderers. They’re drug lords, drug dealers. They’re the mentally insane. Some of them who are brutal killers, they’re mentally insane. They’re killers, but they’re insane. These are just in Minnesota and California. It’s worse. In other states, it’s worse. Now, Minnesota, the crime is incredible. The financial crimes are incredible. And the problem is because of the agitators and insurrectionists, whatever you want, troublemakers, but they’re paid agitators and insurrectionists.
Financial Fraud in Minnesota
Nobody talks about the fact that $19 billion, at a minimum, is missing in Minnesota, given to a large degree by Somalians. They’ve taken it. Somalians, can you imagine? And they don’t do it. A lot of very low-IQ people, they don’t do it. Other people work it out, and they get them money, and they go out and buy Mercedes-Benzes. And they come from here. They have no money. They never had money. They never had a life. They never had a government. They never had a country, because there’s basically no country. Somalia is not even a country. They don’t have anything that resembles a country. And if it is a country, it’s considered just about the worst in the world. They come here, and they become rich, and they don’t have a job. I was told that Ilhan Omar is worth $30 million. She never had a job. She’s a crooked congressman.
ICE Operations and Dangerous Criminals
So, here’s another one. And I have — oh, by the way, we just took out — these are all what ICE is doing. And it’s a dangerous job. These are rough. These are rough people. Weapons. This one here is very bad. I’m going through this because I think we have plenty of time. I’m going to a place — beautiful place in Switzerland, where we’ll be. I’m sure I’m very happily awaited for. In Switzerland, they don’t know about this. They don’t have this problem. They have other problems, but they don’t have this problem. Look. Killed somebody. And these are rough people. These are not — this was all allowed into our country through open borders.
These dumbest policies — you know, men and women, sports is dumb. But, to me, having an open border for the world to come in — drug dealers and prisoners. Venezuela, as an example, opened their prisons into the United States. That’s why — one of the reasons I felt so strongly against Venezuela now. I’m loving Venezuela. They’ve been working with us so well. It’s been so nice. And an unbelievably nice woman also did a very incredible thing. As you know, a few days ago, she’s — we’re talking to her. And maybe we can get her involved in some way. I’d love to be able to do that. Maria is — maybe we can do that. But we’re dealing with the people — invented the President — and all of the people in Venezuela. And we’ve been doing great. The oil companies are getting ready to make massive investments there. They have more oil than even Saudi Arabia.
Criminal Records from Minnesota
There you go. These are real. These are rough ones. This is all Minnesota. Every one of them.
You’re not getting bored with this right now. I hope you’re not. But these are people that you have to see. Strong-arm rape, aggravated assault with a weapon, and many other crimes. Gang member, known as one of the toughest people around. These are tough people. So this is what the people are trying to protect because all ICE wants to do is get them out of our country. Bring them to prisons and jails and mental institutions from where they came. That’s all they want to do. They’re patriots, and they have to be abused by guys like Don Lemon, who’s a, you know, loser, lightweight. I saw him the way he walked in that church. It was terrible. I have such respect for that pastor. He was so calm. He was so nice. He was just accosted. What they did in that church was horrible yesterday.
Look at this right here. Twenty-four convictions. Twenty-four times convicted. They’re not charges. These are convictions. So he comes from outside the country. Do you think he’s going to be good here? Convicted 24 times, he’s going to be good here, right? It doesn’t work that way. He’s a man of murder. He’s one of many. One of many. All they want to do is get him out. They want to take him out of our country.
Professional Agitators and Insurrectionists
And we’re met with paid agitators, insurrectionists, troublemakers. They’re paid. You know, when the woman was shot, and I felt terribly about that. And I understand both sides of it. But when she was shot, there was another woman that was screaming, “Shame, shame, shame, shame,” right? You saw it. So loud. Like a professional opera singer, she was so loud and so professional. She wasn’t a woman that was hurt, like, oh, my heart’s injured. She was a professional. “Shame, shame.” She’s screaming, “Shame, shame.” I said, that’s not a normal person. That’s a professional. These are professional agitators and professional people that want to see our country do badly. But that’s not happening because we have the hottest country anywhere in the world, despite this stuff.
Look at this. All top-of-the-line criminals. They’re not going to be good. They’re not going to be well-behaved here. I could do — I could do thousands. We had over 3,000 in the last fairly short while. Just in Minnesota. What’s the number, Carol? Ten thousand. Ten thousand. Ten thousand criminals arrested in Minnesota alone. Ten thousand criminals. And these are serious criminals. Now, how can a place with 10,000 criminals — how can you have a state? And yet they’re fighting us.
I like that guy. He keeps nodding to me. You’ll agree with me, I guess. I like him. I don’t know who he is, but I like him. He keeps nodding. He says, “You’re right.” He’s obviously a little on the right side.
These are rough ones. So we just took this off a stack. We have many stacks like this. I could go 30 times what I’m showing you now. Relations with Hezbollah. That’s nice. Why do we allow them in our country?
I’m just looking at these charges. It’s just pretty incredible. Many murderers. Many, many murderers. People that murdered. So what ICE does and Border Patrol is incredible, too. I mean, Paul Perez and that group is incredible. Mostly Hispanic, by the way. They’re like 60 percent Hispanic. You know, they talk about Hispanic. They’re mostly Hispanic. Right. And they’re unbelievable people.
Border Patrol and ICE: Largely Hispanic Workforce
And then they say, “Oh, we discriminate against.” I love Hispanic. They are unbelievable. Entrepreneurial. They have everything. I did great. I did the highest. Nobody ever got numbers like I got from the standpoint of being a Republican. But even if you look at Texas, I won the entire border along Texas between Texas and Mexico. It never happened before. Nobody’s ever done that before. I did it as a Republican. I did it. I love the Hispanic. And they accuse us of all sorts of things.
Sixty percent of the people we’re talking about, they’re the best people we have. And they’re Hispanic. The Border Patrol is largely Hispanic. ICE is largely Hispanic. They’re unbelievable people. I don’t know how they can take the abuse. They’re taking rough. They’re taking rough people like this, like all of them.
We have so we have 10,000 at least. I could have done 10,000 of them. You’re lucky I only did like 100. And this isn’t even the worst of the group. They have murderers. They have some people we can’t use their picture for legal reasons, but they’re up for murder in their own country. And we jeopardize their case.
When we send them back, we send them back and we coordinate with other countries. A tremendous amount of work. We’re all allowed in here by an open border policy of the worst president in the history of our country. A man that didn’t win the election, by the way, got so rigged election. Everybody knows that now. And by the way, numbers are coming out that show it even more plainly. We caught him. We caught him.
Accomplishments Book
So I just want you to know that it’s a terrible, it’s a terrible thing. Here’s the book on accomplishments. And this is something I’m glad my finger wasn’t in that sucker. That could have done some damage. But you know what? I wouldn’t have shown the pain. I would have gone back. What did you hear that? That was nasty. But I would not have shown the pain. I would have acted like nothing happened as my finger fell off. That was nasty.
I think somebody did that. I think it was him. It was my man. How are you? You didn’t do it. I know you did. I know you did.
So but here is the here’s the book. These are all things we have. I’m going to read a few of the samples. But look at this. These are all each line is something that we did. Nobody did that before. And it’s big stuff, too.
Economic Achievements
Look, we have the hottest country in the world. So I will read you a few. We ended Biden’s stagflation. We were in stagflation. That’s a disaster. That’s far worse than inflation. As you know, he had the biggest inflation in the history of our country. They say 48 years. Pick your choice. But they had the biggest inflation in the history of our country.
We have it right down to a normal number. Now we’re going to get it even a little bit lower. Created super high. What we’ve done with growth is incredible. We created super high economic growth and America is booming. It’s booming.
There are thousands of businesses right now that are being built. Many of the biggest factories in the world are being built right in our country. They’re not going to other countries. They’re leaving other countries. Fourth quarter GDP is on track to pass perhaps much more than five percent growth. And that’s despite the fact that we had a Democrat shutdown. They shut down our country and we had five percent. Nobody in this room has ever heard about five percent. I think it could be 20 percent if we do it right. If we don’t every time we have good numbers, they raise interest rates. You shouldn’t do it in the old days. If you had good numbers, they’d lower interest rates or they wouldn’t do anything here. They try and kill it. They always try and kill success over the last 20, 25 years. That’s the way in the old days. If you had good numbers, the market would go through the roof today. If you have good numbers, the market goes down.
But by the way, we’ve had the best stock market in history, the best 401ks in history. And we inherited a mess. The numbers that we inherited are way — were way up, and now we brought them — almost all of them — way down. We brought them way down. I mean, I’m not getting — maybe I have the bad public relations people, but we’re not getting it across. We inherited high numbers and we brought them way down.
Gasoline Prices and Economic Relief
And look at gasoline. They have places in the country now $1.99 a gallon — $1.99, $2.30, $2.50. I guess the average now they’re saying is $2.31. I mean, he was at $4.50 and $5 for periods of time. And he went back to the Trump formula, but he didn’t do it properly, and he really went back to parts of it because they were — you would have had $8 gasoline if they didn’t. But he didn’t do it properly. He had people that didn’t know what they were doing.
Terracore inflation for the last three months is 1.6 percent — 1.6. Terracore inflation was so high that nobody could even calculate it. Under Biden, real incomes declined $3,000. Think of that — $3,000. That’s a year. In 12 months, Trump real incomes went up by $2,000 and $3,000, and even, in some cases, $5,000. It’s a tremendous difference.
Stock Market Records and Retirement Accounts
Stock market has set 52 all-time record highs during the course of the — actually, the 11 months, because this was done on 11 months. Now we’re — now we are actually officially 12 months as of today. Fifty-two all-time record highs. That means 401ks did great. I have — people see me all the time — policemen that guard us really well, and got to know them a little bit. And they said, “Sir, you’re making me look so good in my 401ks, through the roof. My wife thinks I’m the greatest genius, that I’m a financial genius, like Warren Buffett.”
He told me that. He said, “I think they have better returns than Warren Buffett right now.” But he said, “All my life, my wife has been criticizing me for not being smart financially. Now, all of a sudden, she loves me more.” But we added $9 trillion in value to retirement accounts, saving — saving many people. I mean, they were going out of business. Think of it. We added $9 trillion of value to retirement accounts, savings accounts, and 401ks. That’s during a course of 12 months. And I think it’s probably 11 months, because I don’t think they have it for the 12. They have it for the 11. Added $9 trillion of value.
Food Stamps and Economic Investment
Lifted more than 1.2 million Americans off food stamps in one year. They would have had another 1.2 million. We would have had — welfare would have gone up. And instead of investing $18 trillion in our country — now it’s probably more than that — but $18 trillion, and having thousands of plants being built all over the country, you would have had thousands of plants closing all over the country.
And you would have had disinvestment, and you would have had welfare going way up. You know, if you look at SNAP, take a look at SNAP. What happened with that? It was at $7 billion, and it came out to over $51 billion. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.
The past administration, they had no clue, or they were really bad, but they basically had no clue. But they did have a concept. I mean, they’re still trying to sell the idea of men playing in women’s sports. You saw that in the Supreme Court. I mean, some of those justices were fighting for them, too. They were fighting for them. But you saw that just the other day in the Supreme Court. Men playing in women’s sports doesn’t work.
Record Investment Commitments
Secured a record-breaking $18 trillion in commitments for new investments: Apple, NVIDIA, SoftBank, Oracle, TSMC, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly & Company, Micron, AstraZeneca, General Motors, Hyundai, Ford, Honda, GE Aerospace, many, many others.
I left a Ford plant a week ago in Michigan that they were going to close two years ago. And now they just announced that they’re going 24 hours around the clock, making cars. Tariffs did it.
Supreme Court Tariff Case
I don’t know what the Supreme Court is going to do. I think, to me, it reads so plainly. It couldn’t be plainer. You’re allowed to do a license. Tariff is probably less severe than what a license could be. But think of it. You’re allowed to do a license. And then they have a clause at the end, something to the effect, “or what is necessary,” something to that effect. And what is necessary with tariffs. I don’t know where there’s a case even there.
But we’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars. And if we lose that case, it’s possible we’re going to have to do the best we can in paying it back. I don’t know how that’s going to be done very easily without hurting a lot of people. But we’re waiting for that case anxiously.
We have tremendous national security because of tariffs and tremendous income. You know, we have, and, by the way, no inflation. So everyone said, “Oh, tariffs will cause inflation.” We have no inflation. We have very little inflation. Biden had inflation and he didn’t do tariffs. We had a huge problem.
Trade Deficit Reduction
We have a 62 percent reduction in our trade deficit. So if you had a 1 percent reduction, a normal President would have a 1 percent, 2 percent reduction. Everybody would be high-fiving. Had a 62 percent reduction. Next year, we won’t have a trade deficit.
Drug Price Reductions
We secured most favored nations agreements to slash drug prices by as much. And to me, I think this might be the biggest thing of all. We get zero talk about it. The New York Times had a story way in the back of the paper, a little story about it. I think it’s the biggest thing there is.
When you talk about healthcare, drug prices will go down more than ever before for any country, because we were priced at such a level that we were subsidizing the entire world. Big place in the world. We were paying 10, 12, 13 times more than other countries. Thirteen times. We’re not 13 percent, 13 times more. A pill that was selling in London for $10 would sell in New York for $130. It’s 13 times. More than that, even.
But we secured most favored nations agreements to slash drug prices by as much as 300, 400, 500, and even 600 percent, including with Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Gilead Sciences, EMD Serono, and many others.
If you look at some of the prices that are coming down, where a price would come down $1,300, coming down to $87. Think of it. So something that was costing $1,300 is now costing $87. And the fake news doesn’t want to write about it. That’s why I do this. I don’t like to do this, to be honest with you. But I do it because you got to get the word out.
We signed one big, beautiful bill. I call it the great, big, beautiful bill delivering the largest tax cuts in history. No tax on tips. No tax on Social Security. No tax on overtime. We made interest on car loans, tax deductible for U.S.-built automobiles only. So if you buy an automobile built in the United States, we’re not doing it for Germany and Canada and different places. We’re doing it only if it’s built here. We want them to be built here.
A lot of the Canadian auto plants are closing and they’re moving into the United States. Same thing with Mexico. Same thing with Germany. And same thing with Japan and other countries. They’re moving into the United States because of tariffs because they don’t want to pay the tariffs. It’s too much. They can’t pay the tariffs. So they’re coming here.
Nothing different than what other smart countries did. But it works better for us. Under my leadership, it’s not done properly, but it’s done properly. We have, again, more plants being built than at any time in the history of our country.
Historic Spending Cuts and Deficit Reduction
Passed the largest spending cuts in American history. And that was true on my first, you know, we had a tremendous first term also. We rebuilt our military. We had one of the best, we had the best economy in the history of our country. But we’re blowing it away now. This, when this stuff starts opening up, you’re not going to see anything like it probably ever again.
We slashed the federal budget deficit by 27 percent in a single year. Think of that. Twenty-seven. You know, you could do it, 2 percent, 1 percent, a half a percent. Twenty-seven percent. And that’s with all of the things we have to do, all of the people we have to put on the payroll to get rid of people that are murderers.
Again, when you see people in Minnesota that are murderers, these people are fighting to keep them there. And I say to Christie and to Tom Homan, the great people, they’re working so hard.
Border Security Without Legislation
Look at the border. The border is now secure. First time. You know, Biden said you couldn’t do it. You need legislation. I had no legislation. I said, “Close the border.” Within one month, we had almost nobody coming in. Now, for the last eight months, nobody came into our country illegally. And I find that hard to believe because you’d think somebody, because it used to be millions of people just poured into our country.
And the people that do that are Democrat, sort of aligned. So, I mean, they’re not doing me any favors. We had nobody come in. We have a very strong border. We have very few people coming up. They’re not going to make the trek because they know they probably won’t be coming in. So it’s not as hard as you think. But I didn’t have to go back. Remember, they said, “We need legislation to close the border.” They had millions of people coming in a month. We have nobody coming in.
Focus on Criminal Deportations
And we’re getting the murderers out. Murderers, people from prisons and jails. Many countries opened up their prisons and dropped them into the United States. Those are the people we’re getting out. And we have a lot of heart. And I said, “You got to lighten up on this.” We have a lot of heart for people. They came in illegally, but they’re good people and they’re working now on farms and they’re working in luncheonettes and hotels and all. And we’re not looking. We’re looking to get the criminals out right now. The criminals. And I think it’s very important.
I mean, every once in a while, you see a story. We take somebody. He should be out because they came in illegally. So, in theory, they should be. But we’re focused on the murderers, the drug dealers, the mentally insane. We have a lot of mentally insane killers. I mean, you can’t even talk to them.
It’d be nice if you could have a little reason, but you can’t even reason. These are seriously ill people. You have a couple of countries where they were loaded up. Their mental institutions and insane asylums were loaded to the gills. They couldn’t get — they’re empty now. But they’re filling up because we’re bringing them all back. We know where they came from. And every country accepts them. You know, under Biden, they wouldn’t take — they had so little respect that they’d bring them there and they wouldn’t take them. They’d say, get the hell out of here. They would be bringing a plane in to land in a country, and they’d put five planes on the runway so you couldn’t land the plane. So they’d come back with the people that they were bringing back. They don’t do that with me. They do that with me. They have problems. They don’t do it. They accept them back. They’re not happy about it, but they accept them back.
Record Regulatory Cuts
Cut a record number of regulations. I promised to eliminate 10 old regulations for every one new regulation. Instead, we cut 129 old regulations for each one added. Think of that. I want to do 10. Last — my first four years, I did — when we put on a new regulation, you had to cut eight. This year, I said, you have to cut 10. Instead, we cut 129. So, every time — so far, can’t remain like that, I don’t imagine. I hope I can, because we have so much wasted regulation, stupid regulations. Regulations where they go by California, which is a disaster state, with a governor that truly is doing a bad job. It’s killing that state. If he ever ran the country, this country would be Venezuela very quickly.
Trade Deficit Slashed by 77 Percent
Using tariffs slashed the U.S. trade deficit by an incredible 77 percent. The trade deficit is down. And that doesn’t include the last month, where we had our best month. We slashed the trade deficit by an incredible 77 percent in one year, with no inflation — something that everyone said could not be done. So we had, essentially, no inflation. In fact, the last month, we had very — almost no inflation. But we slashed the trade deficit by 77 percent. If you slashed it by 1 percent, that was good. Again, we did that with tariffs and intelligence. We did that with November 5th. Great election.
We secured historic trade deals to reduce barriers on U.S. exports, with countries covering 40 percent of all U.S. trade. Think of that. American exports are up by more than $150 billion this year. People said, oh, we’re not in exporting. All we do is buy. If you keep buying, you’re not going to have a country for very long. So we increased exports by more than $150 billion. Investment in American factories is up 41 percent. That’s a record. Nobody goes 41. 41 percent up. You go 2 percent up, 1 percent up. You go down by 3 percent. If Kamala got elected, the 41 percent up would be 41 percent down.
Federal Workforce Reduction
We removed over 270,000 bureaucrats from the federal payroll. That’s another thing. So we have — you know, we announced our unemployment numbers. Call it unemployment or employment. And they were very good. But we could make them great. But we’ve slashed tremendous numbers of people off the federal payroll, because, ultimately, if you’re on the federal payroll — I mean, we have jobs where they had 10 people for every job. So we cut. Now, if you want to see some good numbers, I’ll put — I’ll hire a million people. We cut millions of people off the federal payroll. I don’t like doing that, but the good news — I don’t feel badly because they’re getting private sector jobs, and they’re getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money. They’re getting factory jobs. They’re getting much better jobs and much higher pay. But all I have to do is say, like, you know, what the Democrats do all the time.
They hire a million people, and then they hire another million, another million. They load it up, and it says, oh, they only have a 3 percent unemployment rate. It’s a fake rate. So with us, we’re proud of the fact that we cut so many because, again, I don’t want to cut people. But when you cut them and they go out and get a better job, I like to cut them. And sometimes they have to be forced to do that because, you know, it’s like they want to stay where they are. They don’t know. And then, all of a sudden, they end up — we have many cases, Caroline, where people were devastated. They hated Trump. I got caught from my very boring federal job where they had, again, sometimes 10 people to do one job. And they were very upset. And now they ended up with a job where they get paid three times more money. They’re ending up buying houses. It’s like crazy. So they went from not liking me to liking me a lot because they’re — it’s hard to get — we need people. We need people. It’s one of the reasons — I mean, I want to — when you have good people on the farm or good people in hotels and everything else, we want to work with them as much as we can.
After Biden, one out of four jobs added was a government job. Think of that. So 25 percent of the jobs added. That’s — when you know that, that’s 25 percent of the jobs aren’t real jobs. But again, I could do that. I could add — 2 million jobs right now would have an — I could say, “Just hire some more people.” I do the opposite. I say, “Get rid of everybody that’s unnecessary,” because that’s the way you make America great again. When you have, you know, all these jobs where people are sitting around doing nothing and they get a lot of money by the government, it’s no good. But that’s what the Democrats do. They show, “Oh, we were at 4 percent unemployment.” That’s a good number. But they just add jobs, or they wouldn’t cut — they would never cut jobs.
Private Sector Job Creation Under Trump
Under Trump, 100 percent of all new jobs created have been in the private sector. Think of that. Not one percent has gone to federal. So, under Biden, one out of four was a government job. Under Trump, 100 percent of the new jobs created — 100 percent — came from the private sector. That’s how you make your country wealthy and strong and good.
Border Security Achievements
We inherited the worst border in history and turned it into the strongest border in history. Illegal crossings have plummeted to the lowest level ever recorded, down 99.999 percent. That means down 100 percent. Ninety-nine point nine nine — now, I want to find out who that one person is. For eight months in a row, zero — and these are government numbers, these are not my numbers. For eight months in a row, zero illegal aliens were admitted to our country. Zero. Nobody came in unless they came in legally. We have a big process for having people come in legally, by the way. A lot of people are coming in legally. They have to prove they love our country. They have to prove that they’re not going to need welfare. A lot of things they have to prove.
For the first time in 50 years, we are now seeing reverse migration, where we’re getting — because we’re getting all of these illegal people out. People that came in illegally. Many cases, they’re criminals in many, many cases. Remember when they used to say that the people that come into our country as immigrants are very nice people, they’re wonderful people, they don’t commit crime? No, they make our criminals look like babies. They make our Hells Angels look like the sweetest people on Earth. The Hells Angels are now considered a nice, high-quality person. I like the Hells Angels. They voted for me. They protected me, actually, believe it or not.
But they make our criminals look like babies. These are some of the most vicious people anywhere in the world. They came from the Congo. The prisons — I know the Congo because I ended the war with the Congo and Rwanda. Tough group. Very tough group. They came from prisons in the Congo. Some of the toughest, meanest people you’ll ever meet. Thank you very much. They allowed them to come into America. These are tough people.
Before my election, 100 percent of net job creation was going to foreign migrants. Since my inauguration, 100 percent of the net jobs created have gone to American-born citizens. That’s a big thing. In other words, we’re now taking care of our people. One hundred percent of net jobs created have gone to the American-born people. Before that, we didn’t care.
Gang and Cartel Designations
Designated Tren de Aragua, MS-13, and the Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations. And we’ve hit them hard. You’ve seen what we’ve done on the water. We’re starting to do that on land. The land is much easier, actually. Water is incredible. We did that on the water so that when you do it on the land, they don’t go to the water. Nobody is going into the boat business right now, I can tell you.
Ninety-seven percent down, drugs coming in by water. There you go. Ninety-seven percent. Nobody ever heard of that before, 90. They heard 2 percent, 1 percent. It went up 2 percent. Ninety-seven. And we’re looking for the 3 percent. Who the hell are the 3 percent? They’re crazy. But we’ve taken out almost 100 percent of the drugs coming in by water. Now we’re going to be very shortly starting drugs coming in by land. We know exactly where they’re coming from.
Removal of Criminal Elements
Removed tens of thousands of illegal alien gang members, drug dealers, murderers, child predators, human traffickers, fraudsters, savage criminals, and others. We removed them from our country. They’re out. They’re gone. In some cases, they’re so dangerous that we put them in jail because we don’t want to give them to their country, their country doesn’t do anything, and they end up coming back. We have some that we’re just — they’re so bad that we don’t want to really release them. We want to put them in a jail where we know they’re properly ensconced.
Think of that. Removed tens of thousands of illegal alien gang members, drug dealers, murderers, child predators, human traffickers, fraudsters, and savage criminals. Why wouldn’t you want them removed? The reason is because these are insurrectionists that are doing this work. And you know, they’re going to make mistakes sometimes. ICE is going to be too rough with somebody or — you know, they’re dealing with rough people. They’re going to make a mistake sometimes. It can happen. We feel terribly.
I felt horribly when I was told that the young woman who was — had a tragedy. It’s a tragedy. It’s a horrible thing. Everybody would say — ICE would say the same thing. But when I learned her parents, and her father in particular, is like — I hope he still is, but I don’t know — was a tremendous Trump fan. He was all for Trump, loved Trump. And you know, it’s terrible. I was told that by a lot of people. They said, oh, he loves you. He was a — I hope he still feels that way. I don’t know. It’s a hard, hard situation. But her father was a tremendous — and parents were tremendous Trump fans. That’s so sad. It just happens. It’s terrible.
Refugee Admissions and Somalia
We halted all refugee admissions to the United States, including from Somalia, which is a terrible, terrible place and other dangerous places. And we also stopped the pirates because they get the same treatment as the drug boats. So when Somalia — the Somalians, you know what they’re good at. That’s about the only thing they’re good at, is — they’re good at pirating ships at sea. Big ships. A huge oil tanker with millions of gallons, millions of barrels of oil.
And if it gets hit by a big weapon, the whole thing blows up. And they don’t want to fight because if they do — they’re told by their insurance companies, do not hand over the ship. And they’re not allowed to have any guns on the ship. They’re literally — you have these massive ships being taken over by a Somalian small boat with a big weapon. Because if they hit the side of the ship, the ship can blow up. I mean, you talk about a blow-up. Bad — we’ve seen some bad things happen.
And the insurance companies — some of these ships cost more than a billion dollars to build. And the insurance companies say, “Look, we’d rather give them money than take a chance on a billion-dollar insurance policy.” But they don’t have to worry about it because we hit them the same way we hit the people with the drugs in their boat. They don’t know what the hell happened. But all of a sudden, there are no pirates at sea. Do you notice? We haven’t had a boat taken in a little while.
Somalia and Corruption
Came out of Somalia. Really corrupt place. It’s not a country. They don’t have government. They don’t have anything. I always hate to see this. Ilhan Omar, she comes from Somalia. A backward country. Probably the worst country. They say it’s the worst country in the world, if it’s a country. I don’t even think it’s a country. There’s no organization on it. They don’t have police. They don’t have military. They don’t have anything. They just have people running around, killing each other and trying to pirate ships. But she’ll come here. Comes. And then she wants to tell us how to run our country. “The Constitution says that I am entitled to this.” I can’t stand her.
Cutting Illegal Benefits
Terminated all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens that kicked 275,000 illegals off of Social Security. They were illegally getting Social Security. Two hundred and seventy-five thousand people. I’m telling you, it’s not that this is pleasurable, but if I were an elected president, this country was going to be destroyed quickly. Very quickly. I think within a year. If you had Kamala or a Joe type — I mean, Joe was a disaster. But if you had Kamala, he was the replacement.
I was up by, like, 25 points on Joe, and they said, “Hey, let’s get somebody else.” This never happened. I had so many firsts. You’re leading somebody by a lot. And they said, “Oh, let’s take him out. Let’s put somebody —” that’s like I said to Dana White the other night. I said, “You know, Dana, it’s like you have a fighter — two fighters, one guy is winning by a lot. And they said, ‘Oh, let’s take this guy out. Let’s put a new fighter in the ring with him.'” That’s what happened to me. I was doing great with Biden. The whole campaign was against Biden. All the money was spent against Biden. And all of a sudden, I got Kamala. Everyone said, “Who the hell is she?” But that didn’t work out too well for them. But never happened before. We are about lots of firsts.
English as Official Language and Gulf of America
Designated English as the official language of the United States of America. We did that very powerfully. And while we’re at it, we also took the Gulf of Mexico. And now it’s the Gulf of America. Because we have 92 percent of the shoreline. It always bothered me. I’d say, “You know, we have most of the shoreline. Mexico has a small percentage. It talks about 8 percent. We have 92 percent.” And I said, “Why? Why is it the Gulf of Mexico? It should be the Gulf of America.”
I was going to call it the Gulf of Trump, but I thought that I would be killed if I did that. I wanted to do it. I wanted to. My people worked so hard. “Sir, I don’t think it’ll look too good.” I’m telling you, it’s a good thing.
And it’ll be hotter than ever, I said. No, but I decided not to do that. I’m joking, you know, when I say that. I was not going to call it the Gulf of Trump. Because tomorrow I’ll be, Trump wanted to call it the Gulf of Trump, but he was rebuffed by his people. My people don’t rebuff me too much. The Gulf of Trump, that does have a good ring, though. Maybe we could do that. It’s not too late. No, we have the Gulf of America now. It’s great. It’s our country is proud.
Military and National Security Achievements
The attack on Venezuela, the attack on the Iran nuclear capability, wiped it out. I mean, the first administration, Soleimani, the father of the roadside bomb, al-Baghdadi, the father of ISIS, who was rebuilding ISIS. We wiped them out. We’ve done a great job.
Birthright Citizenship Executive Order
Signed an order that will end birthright citizenship for children of illegal migrants. You know, that case is in court right now. That case was meant for the children of slaves. All you have to do is look at the years. Look at the years where the cases were filed and where the decisions were made. They were right at the end of the Civil War. They’re trying to say that, you know, and China is making a big business out of that. They come to the country, they have a child, the American citizen, they get all the benefits. It had nothing to do with that. That was for the children of slaves. And I hope the Supreme Court so rules.
Fentanyl Designated as Weapon of Mass Destruction
Designated fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. It is. We lost, I believe, 300,000 people last year, this year. Three hundred thousand people. That’s like filling up one of those big football stadiums five times. It’s not even believable. I mean, you could be in a war and you wouldn’t lose that many people. So we designated fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.
Military Strikes Against Narco-Terrorists
Conducted numerous successful military strikes against narco-terrorists operating in our hemisphere, including the water strikes. Drugs brought in by ocean. So I told you that we’re down by, I mean, close to 100 percent. It’s hard to get somebody to pilot those boats. They have to be people that don’t watch television, don’t read the news. And we just blew up their facility. They had a docking facility where the drugs were stored. And now we have a great relationship with Venezuela. We’re getting along fantastically with their leadership in Venezuela, so we wouldn’t have to do that. This was done before the attack.
But we captured and brought to justice the outlaw dictator of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, who, through drugs, killed millions of people in our country. Tremendous drug dealer. Also sent millions of people into our country, including Tren de Aragua, the worst gang. They say it’s the worst gang in the world. They took over parts of Colorado. They just take the apartment building. They just took it away. Just took it away. Like, “We’re here.” They cut the hand off one man because he called the police. “Who called the police?” “I did. You took my apartment from me.” Boom. No hand. This is what they said to us.
Restoring Law and Order
Restoring law and order. New category. D.C. and Memphis federal task forces deployed massive numbers of federal law enforcement officers and National Guard to restore safety. Crime down in D.C. is almost down to nothing. D.C. was a very, very dangerous place, and I think you probably know better than I do. I have a lot of people in the media thanked me for that, but some of them found it hard to thank me. But, you know, D.C. is now, look how beautiful. D.C. is now, you can walk right from here to a restaurant, right through the center of town. You can be with your child, with your loved one, with your lover. Your lover is not going to be killed anymore, so you can act like a real lover.
But you can walk right through the middle of the town, and D.C. is beautiful again, too. You know? Did you notice we took all the fences down? Almost all the rest are coming down. We took, got the graffiti all off. National Guard has been amazing. You know, we didn’t tell them to do that. That’s not their job description. But they were picking up garbage and everything. They were great. And I don’t know, to me, a town, it looks better when you have military people. These are big, strong guys. The bad guys look at them, and they say, “we’re not going to mess around.”
But what they don’t know is that we took over 2,000 people out, permanently out of D.C. These were career criminals. But I feel much better seeing those people there. I went in a couple of times and had dinner in D.C. I walked right down the middle of the street. I felt very safe. A year ago, I couldn’t have done that. I would have been crazy to have done that. Secret Service wouldn’t let me do it. They weren’t thrilled anyway, I will tell you. It wasn’t like they were thrilled. But we did it, and it was great.
But D.C. is a great thing. We have virtually no crime in D.C. anymore. And before, before we did this move, it was, and we could do the same thing with Chicago. You know, we brought Chicago down 25 percent, even though we just had a minimal crew there. We brought Wisconsin down. We brought Minnesota down, way down, even though everything is a fight, you know? Because they want to keep those people that are lying on the floor. They want to keep those people in Minnesota. But they really don’t.
I don’t think the real people have been, it’s a very corrupt place, and the elections are totally corrupt. I feel I won it all three times. Nobody has won that state since Richard Nixon. It’s a rigged state. And the Somalians vote as one group, even if they’re not citizens, and they vote as one group. And, you know, you get 600,000 votes against you. They all ought to get the hell out of here. They’re bad for our country.
Record Reduction in Violent Crime
Nationwide, achieved the largest reduction in violent crime on record. So, this just came out. Nationwide, over the last 11 months, achieved the largest reduction in violent crime on record, including the largest one-year drop in murders ever recorded. Almost 2,000 lives were saved. That’s despite the fact that we took in criminals under the leadership of the Democrats and Joe Biden.
More motor vehicle theft is down by 100,000 vehicles nationwide. That’s another. Nationwide, the motor vehicle theft is at, was out of control, and now it’s very much in control. It was down by more than 100,000 vehicles to a low, a record low.
Eliminating Cashless Bail and Sanctuary Cities
We began the process of eliminating cashless bail policies across the nation. You got to get rid of your sanctuary cities, and I hope our people know that we’re not going to pay sanctuary cities, we’re not going to pay them anymore. They are sanctuary for criminals. They hold criminals. We’re not going to pay sanctuary, they can sue us and maybe they’ll win, but we’re not giving money to sanctuary cities anymore, as of the beginning of the month.
We began the process of eliminating the cashless bail. Well, cashless bail is where it all started. It’s a disaster. And then other places, I don’t know if it started in New York. I remember it starting in New York. So if somebody comes in, murders somebody, and they let them out, no bail, no nothing. Basically, cashless bail means you just get the hell out. And they go outside. We have one case where a guy murders somebody, gets released, and goes out and murders somebody, two people in one day. No, we got to get rid of cashless bail.
They got to pay — got to have bail. There’s a reason for bail. Long-tested. Signed an executive order to bring back mental institutions and insane asylums. We’re going to have to bring them back. Hate to build those suckers, but you got to get the people off the streets.
Recalling Mental Institutions from Childhood
You know, we used to have — when I was growing up, we had in my area in Queens — I grew up in Queens. We had a place called Creedmoor. Creedmoor. Did anybody know that? Creedmoor. It was a big — I said, “Mom, why are those bars on the building?” I used to play Little League baseball there, at a place called Cunningham Park. I was quite the baseball player, you wouldn’t believe. But I said to my mother, “Mom,” she would be there — always there for me. She said, “Son, you could be a professional baseball player.” I said, “Thanks, Mom.” I said, “Why are those bars on the windows?” Big building. Big, powerful building. It loomed over the park, actually.
She said, “Well, people that are very sick are in that building.” I said, “Boy.” I used to always look at that building, and I’d see this big building, big, tall building. It loomed over the park. It was sort of — now that I think of it, it was a pretty unfriendly sight. But I’ll never forget — I don’t know if it’s still there. Because they got rid of — most of them, you know, they — the Democrats in New York, they took them down, and the people live on the streets now. That’s why you have a lot of the people in California and other places, they live in the streets. They took the mental institutions down. They’re expensive. But I’d say, “Why does that building have those bars?” Boy. It wasn’t normal. You know, you’re used to looking at, like, a window. But this one, you’re looking at all this steel, vicious steel, tiny windows, bars all over the place. Nobody was getting out. It’s called the mental institution. That was an insane asylum.
Designated Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, and many others. It is. America is respected again on the world stage. It’s another topic.
Operation Midnight Hammer and Iran’s Nuclear Sites
Obliterated Iran’s nuclear enrichment capability. And Operation Midnight Hammer was one of the most successful anyone’s ever seen. CNN, fake news. I don’t know where they are. CNN. Anybody from CNN here? Fake news. Nobody wants to raise their hand anymore. They used to argue. Now, if you’re with CNN, you don’t raise your hand.
They said, “Well, maybe it wasn’t that successful,” which I really went and was angry because these pilots took their life in their hands. Two o’clock in the morning with no moon, dead dark, gun shooting at them. They went in with those beautiful B-2s, and every single bomb went down an air shaft and obliterated it. And CNN came out and said, “Well, maybe it wasn’t,” by the same by a scam writer, a scam writer who wrote, you know, fake stories, a lot of fake stories on other topics. That’s when we did it. We said, “That’s a terrible thing.”
You know, the pilots came back and they said, “We hit everything.” They did a great job. Then on top of that, we launched from a submarine about 30 Tomahawks on top of everything else. The place was obliterated. CNN said, “Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad.” It was turned out it was worse than it was. You know who could tell you that? The Iranians would tell you that because if they do anything, they’re going to have to start a brand new place. But they did an amazing job. That was a it was like what we did with Venezuela. I mean, nobody’s ever seen a military operation like that.
Ending Multiple International Conflicts
Ended eight unendable wars in 10 months. These were unendable wars. Cambodia and Thailand fighting for years, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India. They were really going at it. Eight planes shot down. They were going to go nuclear, in my opinion.
The Prime Minister of Pakistan was here, and he said President Trump saved 10 million people and maybe much more than that. They’re both nuclear countries. Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia were going to fight over a dam. And I got them to stop. I still got to work it out because they put a dam up in Ethiopia that stops the flow from a little river called the Nile. I always think of the Nile being in Egypt, you know, beautiful Nile with the pyramids. But they put a dam up. You know who paid for the dam? The United States. It’s biggest dam, I think, in the world. They put a dam up. I said, how did you let that happen? Why would we have done that? We financed it. This country would, I don’t know, I don’t know, maybe it was a Republican president, but I don’t think it was. I think it was a Democrat. But what a terrible thing. So Egypt basically is, you know, they don’t have enough water in the Nile. And they use that for a lot of things, including entertainment and travel and tourism and everything. I mean, I don’t know. They got a big dam. I got to work that one out now, too.
Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Agreement
Armenia and Azerbaijan, President Putin told me, “I cannot believe you settled that war. I’ve been trying to settle that war for 10 years.” Armenia and Azerbaijan, they were fighting it for many, many years. And I ended up getting the heads of the both countries in my office, beautiful Oval Office, much more beautiful now than it ever was. And once out of one side, once out of the other said, you know, “I’ve been the head of Azerbaijan for 22 years and for 22 years, I’ve been killing his people.” And the other gentleman and both very good guys said, “I’ve been here for seven years and for seven years, I’ve been killing his people.” And they started over there. And within an hour, they were next to each other. And by the time we ended, they were hugging each other.
Nobel Prize Controversy
Armenia has been a great peace, you know, should have gotten the Nobel Prize for each war. But I don’t say that. I saved millions and millions of people. And don’t let anyone tell you that Norway doesn’t control the shots, okay? It’s in Norway. Norway controls the shots. They’ll say, “We have nothing to do with it.” It’s a joke. They’ve lost such prestige. Got all. That’s why I have such respect for Maria doing what she did. She said, “I don’t deserve the Nobel Prize. He does.” And she got it. They named — they said, “Wow, that’s amazing. I thought President Trump would get it. President Trump deserves it. He ended up eight wars.” How nice, right? She’s a good woman. Got all.
Hostages Returned
Twenty living hostages returned to their families, and the remains — they all came out. We got the 20 living hostages. We got the 28 hostages. They have one left that we think we know where it is. Amazing. Looked like we weren’t going to get anywhere near that. But now they’ve gotten almost. And more importantly, we got many more. Hundreds. We got them all. If we didn’t — if we didn’t do it, you wouldn’t have had — most of those people would have been dead. I don’t know if that’s covered properly, but, you know, the 20 is great. They were the last ones. I always said the last 20 are going to be hard, but we got them. We got the last 20, and we got close to 28 of the — of the bodies of the dead. And to those parents, that was just as important as getting their son back alive. They were almost even more intent on getting — they knew their son was dead. They wanted to get the body. I got him back.
We just created the Board of Peace, which I think is going to be amazing. I wish the United Nations could do more.
I wish we didn’t need a Board of Peace, but the United — and with all the wars I settled, the United Nations never helped me on one war. I mean, I guess I’m not blaming them. I didn’t call them to help, but I got the presidents and prime ministers together. We knocked heads. We got along. And they liked me. I liked them. Every single one of them nominated me for a Nobel Prize. Every one of the wars, among many other people, nominated me for a Nobel Prize. But Putin told me, “I cannot believe you got this war settled. I’ve worked on it for 10 years” because it’s his territory.
Hostage Rescues and Afghanistan
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Rescued 83 American hostages and citizens detained from abroad, paying a lot of money, paid no money. Apprehended terrorists responsible for the Abbey Gate bombing that claimed the lives of 13 U.S. servicemembers in Afghanistan, the lowest point in the history of our country. That was a Biden disaster. I was getting out, but I was getting out with dignity and strength. We were the boss. Oh, we were the boss. They wouldn’t do a thing against us. And this very stupid person got in, and what a shame. They should have left from Bagram, which is the big military base, which has hundreds of acres around it. Should have left from Bagram.
Terminated visas of Hamas sympathizers and deported pro-jihad foreign nationals.
NATO Defense Spending Increase
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Got NATO members to agree to raise defense spending to 5 percent of GDP from 2 percent. And they paid the 5 percent, and they didn’t pay the 2 percent. And, by the way, I did more for NATO than any other person, alive or dead. Nobody has done for NATO. And I think, for the most part, they’ll tell you that. I think you could ask the Secretary General about that. But he said it a lot. I’ve done more for NATO than anybody, and I see all this stuff. But NATO has to treat us fairly, too.
The big fear I have with NATO is we spend tremendous amounts of money with NATO. And I know we’ll come to their rescue, but I just really do question whether or not they’ll come to ours. You know, I’m just asking. Just saying, right? You remember, during the debate? Just saying.
Military Investment and Modernization
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Signed $1 trillion investment in U.S. military. And next year, we hopefully will go to $1.5 trillion. We’re building battleships that are 100 times more powerful than the battleships of World War II, which are the big, beautiful — those big, beautiful things with the guns. They said, “What about bringing them out of dry dock?” They said, “Sir, what we’re building will blow them away.” It’s — think of it. These ships are 100 times more powerful than the battleships that you see on Victory at Sea. Do you ever see Victory at Sea? What a great thing that is to watch.
Renamed the Department of Defense into the Department of War, which everyone loves, by the way.
Critical Minerals and Rare Earth Deals
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Signed landmark critical minerals deals with Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, Ukraine, Japan, and many others. We’re going to have so much rare earth. It’s actually not that rare. Getting it processed is rare, but there’s a lot of rare earth. There’s a lot of earth around, I can tell you.
Withdrawal from World Health Organization
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Withdrew from the corrupt World Health Organization where we were paying hundreds of millions of dollars a year. So we were paying $500 million a year, and China is paying $37 million a year. I said, “Why aren’t we paying the same as China?” They said, “Well, nobody asked.” I said, “China’s got 1.4 billion people. We have 350 million, probably, with all the illegals.” You know, China probably knows more accurately. But we have much smaller in terms of the number of people. We have a much more powerful military, but we have much smaller — I rebuilt the military during my first term, by the way. And while they gave away a lot to Afghanistan, the Taliban, which was just horrible seeing them — every year, seeing them do that military down some dirty street is a disgrace.
But while they gave — while Biden gave a lot of it away, it’s a tiny fraction compared to what we did. I rebuilt the military, and now we’re continuing to build it. And bigger and better. We need it. Peace through strength.
Withdrawal from World Health Organization
But we withdrew from the corrupt World Health Organization. So, I remember, we were paying $500 million. They were paying $37 or $39 million. And I said, “How come?” So I withdrew, and they called, “We’ll give you the same deal that they had.” I said, “Well, it should be less than that because if they’re at 37 and you have three times, four times the number of people, even maybe five times. I don’t know. So it should be less.” But I didn’t want to chisel around. And I thought about it. So I could have taken $500 million to 37, and everybody knew it. I chose not to do it because it was actually very popular when I got out because they were terrible. And so I chose not to take that deal.
First thing Biden did is go back into it. You know what he paid? More than $500 million. So I actually called them. I said, “You know, you can buy it for less. You can make a deal at 37. There’s no reason to pay $500.” They didn’t care. They paid more than $500. Did you know that? They paid more than $500 million. I made a deal at 37. I could have had 37. They were public about it. “We’ll give you the same deal that China has for 37.” And they paid $500 million. That’s the way you ruin a country. And it’s the same attitude that, you know, you have on everything else with these people. They were terrible.
Ending International Agreements and Councils
The anti-American U.N. Human Rights Council, we ended. The U.N. Relief and Works Agency, we ended. And the fake Paris Climate Accord, which was a ripoff of America, where we had to pay a trillion dollars and they were paying nothing. China didn’t kick in until 2035. We kicked in immediately. We were supposed to pay a trillion dollars. Russia went to a standard of 1991, which was a dirtier standard. But we had to pay top dollar. So I terminated that. Another wreck.
Abolishing DEI Policies
We ended the woke lunacy and restored common sense, abolished all discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion DEI policies throughout the federal government and the private sector. They’re gone. Everybody, they’re gone. Terrible.
Terminating Green New Deal and Electric Vehicle Mandate
Terminated the Green New Scam and ended the insane electric vehicle mandate. I love electric vehicles. That caused me a little problem with a man named Elon. But he understands, and he’s a good guy. I didn’t get along, but I said, “Elon, we can’t have all electric cars. We just can’t do it. I like the electric cars. I like his car. But, in particular, I like his car. But we can’t do that because some people don’t want an electric car by 2030.” And to build the power stations all over the country would have cost $4 trillion. Four trillion. That’s more than any country has. If you got China, the United States, and everyone, you couldn’t do it. And it would have taken years, and yet they were supposed to be switching over electric vehicle mandate.
Some people don’t like electric cars. Some people want hybrids. Some people want regular gasoline-powered cars. We have more gasoline than anybody. And now, with Venezuela, we have — you know, we have 62 percent of the market, when you include Venezuela. So I ended the Green New Scam and I ended the insane electric vehicle mandate. Now you can buy a gasoline-powered car, a hybrid, and you can buy an electric vehicle. I mean, if you think — if you want electric, you can buy it. Make a good deal on them right now because they made a lot of them.
Reversing Environmental Regulations
Permanently stopped Joe Biden’s ridiculous CAFE standards. That’s having to do with the environment. So ridiculous. Canceled the EPA’s absurd — totally absurd — tailpipe emissions standard, which made you spend hundreds of thousands.
It made — for hundreds of thousands of cars, the numbers — the cost numbers were incredible that the consumer has to pay. Imposed 25 percent tariff on all foreign automobiles and a 100 percent tariff on Chinese cars, which don’t come into the country because of tariffs. Only because of tariffs. We didn’t have tariffs. You wouldn’t have any car deal — we have now more car factories being built in the United States than ever before because of tariffs.
If they take those tariffs away, China will eat our lunch. They’ll take all of our garbage. Now, there’s another way of doing it, but it’s more cumbersome, et cetera, et cetera. I don’t want to scare you, but it’s more — much more cumbersome, not as good — not as good for national security as this. We have a perfect system right now. We’re making a fortune. We’ve never been stronger.
And I hope the Supreme Court does the right thing for our country, because if they don’t, it’s such a problem. It’s just so — it would be so sad. We’re doing so well because of tariffs. And the people that are heading up the lawsuit, like this guy named Leonard Leo, who’s a bad guy, and people that are very China-oriented and foreign-car-oriented and foreign-business-oriented, but, in particular, China, they’re suing to get rid of tariffs because they don’t want tariffs.
Like Coke. Coke has businesses outside of the United States. If you have them outside, you don’t want tariffs. But because of tariffs, they treat us well. Without tariffs, they would treat us very badly. As you saw for many years, they respect us more now than they ever have respected us by a lot.
And revoke the California emissions waiver to stop San Francisco communists from regulating the automobile industry and destroying automobiles and the industry in the nation. I was with Bill Ford of Ford Motors. I was with all the people at General Motors the other day, and they are making more money and building more cars than they’ve ever — they are doing so good, all because of tariffs and what I’ve done. And they’re building their plants all in the United States.
Energy and Natural Resources
War for drilling. That’s a big deal. Launched a massive Alaskan pipeline project to export natural gas to Asia. We made a deal with South Korea and with Japan that gives us money, the likes of which nobody has ever seen before. Signed executive orders to end Biden’s war on coal. And put, I say, clean, beautiful coal. I never say the word coal. It has to be preceded by the words “clean, beautiful coal.” And put miners back to work. The miners love Trump. I think I got 100 percent of their vote.
Military Policy Changes
We banned transgenders from the military. We don’t want transgender in the military. Ordered reinstatement of patriots expelled from our military with full back pay. So we had some people that were terminated, and they’re coming back into our military.
Fired the woke boards of visitors at our military service academies. The boards of visitors were run by radical left, maybe communists, maybe not. But they were still heavily radical left, and they were bad for us.
Government Operations and Federal Workforce
Signed an executive order to remove anti-American propaganda from federal museums and national parks. Required the federal employees to return to work in person or be fired. We don’t want them sitting in their home on their bed working. We want them in an office that we’re paying for in Washington, D.C., or wherever it may be. And we’ve largely taken care of that mess. That was crazy.
I guarantee you they’re out on the ball fields. I guarantee you they’re out playing golf. And you can’t run a country or a company that way. I think it’s happening even so with countries and companies. But we had so many of our federal workers, they wouldn’t come into work.
Free Speech and Gender Policy
Signed an order banning all government censorship and restoring free speech. Made it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders. This was not a tough one. Two genders.
Can anybody guess what they are? Male and female. I think the Democrats know that, too, but they refuse to admit it. Banned the use of puberty blockers, hormone injections, and other chemical and surgical mutilation of children. Can you imagine saying this 15 years ago? That we banned the use of puberty blockers, hormone injections, and other chemical and surgical mutilation of our children. You know, when I say it, I say it is—do I have to say that? I actually ask my people today, yes, sir, because people—that’s where the country was.
Banned men from playing in women’s sports. Big Supreme Court case in there. I mean, I can’t believe it. Some of the justices were fighting hard for men to be able to play in women’s sports, a couple of them. I can’t imagine it, but I think anybody that rules that way should lose a lot of credibility. But we banned men from playing in women’s sports. All you have to do is look at the records. Look at weightlifting records. Look at swimming records. Look at track and field. It’s not fair. It’s very demeaning to women.
Education and University Reforms
Banned transgender ideology and critical race theory from our schools. Secured unprecedented settlements with Brown University, Columbia University, and many other colleges, including the University of Pennsylvania, where I went—the great old Wharton School of Finance. To restore fairness and merit, we’re working with Harvard right now. They’ve been very anti-Semitic. Terrible what they’ve done. And we’ll see what happens. I hear we have a deal, but who the hell knows with them? They have a lawyer that wants to show how hot he is.
Ended taxpayer-funded student loan forgiveness for radical left and anti-American activists. Can you believe it? Began the process of abolishing the Federal Department of Education and returning education back to the states. And Linda McMahon is doing a fantastic job.
Ending Government Weaponization
Ended Joe Biden’s weaponization of our government and removed his hand-picked, radical-left Marxist prosecutors from the Department of Justice. Like deranged Jack Smith. He’s a sick son of a bitch. They gave me the worst of the worst. And here I am. How did that happen? How did that happen? He’s a sick guy. And Letitia James is sick. And Alvin Bragg is sick. They’re sick people. And others. Fani. Fani. You can’t call Fani. She doesn’t like it. She wants to be called Fani. Fani Willis.
I won. Can you imagine? Putting somebody through that? And then if I suggest that somebody may be guilty of a terrible crime. Oh, he’s weaponizing government. Trump is weaponizing government. It’s terrible. Can you imagine? They say to me about weaponizing. I don’t weaponize anything. But what they did to me, nobody ever went through what I went through. And here I am in a place called the White House. It’s a beautiful place. Who would have thought, right?
Media and Cultural Initiatives
Signed legislation to cut all taxpayer funding to woke and biased NPR and PBS. And they’re sort of gone now, I guess. I heard they closed up. They were terrible. They were so unfair. They were so terrible.
Officially reinstated Columbus Day. I like the name Columbus Day. The Italian people are very happy about it. Remember, when you go to the voting booths, I reinstated Columbus Day. That was an easy one. Christopher Columbus.
Social Security and Veterans Administration Improvements
Cut Social Security wait times by 50 percent, serve 65 percent more Social Security recipients by phone, and are on track to doubling the service and performance compared to the Biden administration. We’re two and a half to three times better and faster. Slashed VA claims backlog to the lowest number ever recorded.
Trump Accounts for Newborns
Created Trump accounts, starting with $1,000 for every newborn baby. This is something that’s become so popular. And I give Mr. and Mrs. Michael Dell. Dell Computer, who put in $6 billion—$250 million, started with nothing—and he actually invested all that money to give to kids so that when they grow up, they have an account that might be worth a lot of money. It’ll be riding with the markets.
And, you know, they can, at 20 years old, 21 years old, they could have $100,000. They could have a lot of money. That’s going to be amazing. But I give a lot of credit to Mr. and Mrs. Michael Dell.
Signed an AI executive order to ensure the United States dominates the future of artificial intelligence. So we’re leading China. We’re leading the whole world. We’re producing more electricity than we ever have because I’m allowing every one of those plants to build their own electric facility. We’re giving them very, very fast approvals, unlike Los Angeles with a fire.
Federal Support for Los Angeles Fire Recovery
So the federal government, I want to give a lot of credit to Lee Zeldin. The hardest approval for the 20,000 houses or more that burned down in Los Angeles because they didn’t have the water. They didn’t allow the water to come down from the Pacific Northwest. They routed the water into the Pacific Ocean. So we had no water there. Now, no, he had, I would say, “open up the water,” open it up to the governor, to the mayor. They didn’t want to do it. They want to protect a tiny little fish. That’s, you know, I said, “how can you have a fish when you don’t have any water?” It was just an excuse, I guess.
But it’s amazing. We took 20,000 houses. And Lee Zeldin, the toughest permit is from the federal government. Within two weeks, every single permit was given to the people to build their houses. Then you have the incompetent mayor of Los Angeles. He’s notable, who decided to go to Africa during the fire. So you have this incompetent mayor. And I had it out with her the night when I got right after the fire. I went there. She said, “we’re working on it so that we can have everybody starting to build within two or three years.” Remember that? I said, “you mean two or three days?” “No, I mean two or three years.” And the place went crazy.
Well, they still haven’t gotten their permits. But every federal permit, every single one has been given a year ago. And Lee Zeldin has done a great job. But he’s done a great job in the approval of all these big plants and factories and all of the electricity that they’re creating for themselves.
Electricity Production for AI Infrastructure
I said to Zuckerberg. I said to all of them. I said to Jeff Bezos. I said to everybody. Mark Zuckerberg couldn’t believe it. He said, “you know, where are we going to get all the electricity?” Because you need double the electricity that the country currently makes just to fire up those big plants. I said, “well, nobody can do that. So what we’re going to do is let you make your own electricity.” Nobody believed it. And I said, “we’re going to get your fast permit.” So we get them within two weeks.
And they’re coming up with some of the most incredible electric plants you’ve ever seen. So each one of those massive buildings, AI or otherwise, is building their own electricity. They’re building their own plant. And it’s incredible. Many of them are under construction already. They’re going to have — we’re leading AI, and we’re leading China by a lot.
Health and Agriculture Initiatives
Established a Maha Presidential Commission, banned many artificial food dyes, as you know. Issued new vaccine recommendations, and created a new real food pyramid. And Bobby and Dr. Oz have been incredible. Provided $12 billion in aid for American farmers. Just gave them $12 billion in aid because they got screwed by other nations. And the number of drug dealers have fallen every single month since I took office. Drug dealers are way down in the United States.
And that’s a small version of what’s sitting right there. That’s just a small version. We took a country that was dead, and it’s the hottest country in the world right now. And that’s after one year. So, let’s go. All right. Please. Yeah, go ahead.
REPORTER: Thank you so much, Mr. President. I have two questions for you. One, do you want your Board of Peace to replace the U.N.?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it might. I mean, the U.N. just hasn’t been very helpful. I’m a big fan of the U.N. potential, but it has never lived up to its potential. The U.N. should have settled every one of the wars that I settled. I never went to them. I never even thought to go to them. They should be able to settle those wars. I believe you got to let the U.N. continue because the potential is so great.
Brazil’s President Lula and Peace Negotiations
REPORTER: And this is a question for the President. Mr. President, you invited Lula from Brazil to be part of the Board of Peace.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I did. I did.
REPORTER: What role do you expect him to play, especially in Venezuela?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: A big role. I like him. Yeah.
REPORTER: And another one, because they — Are you from Brazil?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Yeah.
U.N. and Mercosur Trade Agreement
REPORTER: The U.N. and Mercosur just signed a trade agreement this weekend, which is going to be the biggest trade zone — free zone — in the world. At the moment, you’re going to talk a lot about tariffs. What is your reaction to that? So, two questions.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, look, I just think this. I think we have trade like we’ve never had before. We’re doing better in trade than we ever have before. We’re not being ripped off by every country in the world like we were before. We’re doing — we’re doing numbers that nobody has ever thought possible. We’re the richest we ever were. It’s because of tariffs and the proper use of tariffs. And we’re also the most secure. As an example, Iceland, without tariffs, they wouldn’t even be talking to us about it. So, we’ll see what happens. I think it’s going to work out quite well.
Relationships with Macron and Starmer
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. How would you characterize your relationship with Emmanuel Macron and Pierre Starmer right now? And have you spoken to them since your brief social post?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I haven’t, but I think I get along very well with them. I mean, they always treat me well. They get a little bit rough when they’re — you know, when I’m not around. But when I’m around, they treat me very nicely. And, you know, I like both of them. They’re both liberal. They’ve got to straighten out their countries. You can’t — you know, London is having a lot of problems. And if you look at Paris, it’s got a lot of problems. They have two problems — immigration and energy. They’ve got to stop with the windmills, and they’ve got to go back like — U.K. has an unbelievable asset called the North Sea. Norway uses it, makes a fortune. They have a better section of it, and they don’t do it. They could straighten out their countries, and it would be good. But I get along very well with them.
The Nobel Peace Prize and Norway
REPORTER: Go ahead. Go ahead. The Press. Have you told Norway’s Prime Minister that — Are you from Norway?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: You told — It looked like you would be from Norway. She looks like she’s from Norway. Okay.
REPORTER: You told Norway’s Prime Minister that you not winning the Nobel Peace Prize made you feel less obligated to think purely of peace.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I lost a lot of respect for Norway. And I believe — and I believe very strongly that Norway controls the Nobel Prize. But you have to understand, I settled eight wars. I’ve had — every one of those wars, every participant wrote — I didn’t ask them to do it. They sent in strong — you know, they make recommendations for that. But I settled eight wars. No President has probably ever settled one war. I don’t know. Think of it. I did eight. The reason I do it is because it’s easy for me to do. And I didn’t do it for a Nobel Prize. I did it because I’m saving a lot of lives. I’m trying to settle the final one. I’m trying to do Russia-Ukraine. And when Russia is ready, Ukraine is not. When Ukraine is ready, Russia is not. But they’re losing 25,000 people a month, on average. And I’m trying to get that one done.
No, I feel — but I feel that Norway has tremendous control over who gets the Nobel Prize, despite what they say.
REPORTER: How far are you willing to go to acquire green?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: You’ll find out.
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. Kevin Hassett has said that those $2,000 tariff rebate checks would be up to Congress to decide whether or not to disperse that. Do you agree with Kevin Hassett on that, or do you think you can do that unilaterally?
TRUMP: I don’t think we would have to go to Congress.
But, you know, we’ll find out. The reason we’re even talking about it is that we have so much money coming in from tariffs that we’ll be able to issue at least a $2,000 dividend and also pay down debt for the country. But we’d do a $2,000 dividend to the people of our country. We would probably set a limit of — you know, income limit, where it made sense.
But we will be able to make a very substantial dividend to the people of our country. I believe we can do that without Congress.
REPORTER: Last night on True Social, you said that the British plan to hand the base of Diego Garcia over to Mauritius and then rent it back was an act of great stupidity. Previously, you backed that deal. Is it now your position that the deal should not go ahead?
TRUMP: I think that they — you know, when they originally were going to do it, they were talking about doing some concept of ownership. But now they’re looking to essentially just do a lease and sell it.
And I’m against that. You know, it’s a — reasonably nothing like Greenland, but it’s a reasonably important area of the globe. Not to — anywhere near Greenland, but I think they should keep it. I don’t know why they’re doing it.
Do they need money? Mr. President, with your support to the Syrian government, most probably you avoided another civil war and a bloodshed in Syria, especially after the fall of the regime.
TRUMP: I did a good job. I did a good job.
REPORTER: And the Syrian government, the last two weeks, had to use some force to implement its force on specific areas. And with your — The President.
TRUMP: Well, to keep the prisoners — the terrorist prisoners, which are some of the worst in the world at bay. So they were able to keep that.
He’s working very hard. The President of Syria is working very, very hard. Strong guy, tough guy. Pretty rough resume. But you’re not going to put a choir boy in there and, you know, get the job done. I spoke with him yesterday because we were talking about the prisons and, you know, what was going on. We have some of the worst terrorists in the world in those prisons. And he’s watching them.
REPORTER: Mr. President, Gavin Newsom is going to be at Davos. If he’s not already there, you’re probably going to run into him. I presume that this is for him to raise his platform for 2028. What do you anticipate his foreign policy platform is going to be?
TRUMP: I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know that he’s going to be the nominee. I know this. I had a very good relationship with Gavin Newsom when we were, you know, in office together. I was President. He was the Governor of California. We had a really — he would talk about it often. And somewhere, we just went astray. I just — I just hate the way California is being run.
We actually have people leaving. It’s never happened before. But I hate the way it’s being run. He and I had a very good relationship, really close to the word exceptional. But now, we seem not to.
REPORTER: Thank you so much, President Trump. Tara Castronova from Zendel TV. And you spoke earlier about the 2020 election. Now that Maduro is in U.S. custody and he was criminally charged, has any more information emerged that you could share with us regarding Venezuelan election software and Venezuelan ties to tampering with the 2020 election? And would you consider speaking to Maduro personally in prison in New York to get some answers on Venezuela’s involvement with the 2020 election?
TRUMP: No, I don’t think I would be doing that. I think my lawyers would be very unhappy if I did. Yeah, they’ve learned — they’ve learned some things.
REPORTER: What happens to the tariff threat to Greenland if the Supreme Court comes out and rules against you on the tariffs?
TRUMP: Well, that’s something else. I mean, look — you know, take a look at the word license. Take a look at other things. I mean, we have other alternatives.
But the — what we’re doing now is the best, the strongest, the fastest, the easiest, the least complicated. Sir, if you move ahead with the Greenland-related tariffs on Europe, you secured almost a trillion dollars of commitments from them to invest in the United States. Does that go out the window if that happens? I doubt it.
Look, they want to — they need that agreement very badly with us. They really do. They fought very hard to get it. So, I doubt that.
But we’ll see what happens. We have a lot of meetings scheduled on Greenland. I’m leaving tonight, as you know, Davos. And we have a lot of meetings scheduled on Greenland. And I think things are going to work out pretty well, actually.
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. Will you still go to Paris for the G7 emergency meeting as offered by President Macron?
TRUMP: No, I wouldn’t do that. Because, you know, Emmanuel —
I mean, Manuel is not going to be there very long. And, you know, there’s no longevity there. He’s a friend of mine.
He’s a nice guy. I like Macron. But he’s not going to be there very much longer, as you know. And I think, you know, I have meetings with the people that are directly involved, not some of the people you’re talking about.
You know, I’ve never seen this room like this. Is this a celebration of the first year? Have you ever seen it? I’ve never seen this many. I hope we have a very good structural floor. You know, this used to be a swimming pool. You’re sitting over a swimming pool. I could see that happening. But we need a good structure here, don’t we? Yeah.
REPORTER: Thank you so much, Mr. President. Happy one-year anniversary. And my question is for you on Syria. The Kurds, as the most loyal U.S. partners, are facing attacks by some Syrian elements within the Syrian government. What will you do to ensure the Kurdish rights protected and their effective forces against terrorism in Rojava, Syria, continue as the Kurdish see you as a President does not abandon his allies?
TRUMP: Well, I like the Kurds. But just so you understand, the Kurds were paid tremendous amounts of money. We’re given oil and other things. So they were doing it for themselves more so than they were doing it for us.
But we got along with the Kurds, and we are trying to protect the Kurds. The Press And if you’re speech is Davos, can you give us a preview of what we can expect as far as, you know, laying out the plans for Americans to be able to buy homes? The President I think more than anything else, what I’m going to be speaking about is the tremendous success that we’ve had in one year. I didn’t think we could do it this fast.
Think of it. It’s just now 12 months. And, you know, I say it often. We have the most successful country in the world. We have the hottest country anywhere in the world, by far. And this country would have been absolutely stone dead.
And I’m going to be talking about it. I’m going to be because, you know, a lot of them could use some of the advice as to what we did. They need energy. You take a look at their energy policy.
They’re going to destroy themselves with what they’re doing with the windmills and all the nonsense. They need energy help badly or they’re going to be in big trouble. And they need immigration help badly. How much longer do you want to go? I do. I do. I have. I have a very I have a very important goal with President Erdogan, who I like. I like. I wonder one or two more.
REPORTER: You talked a lot at the beginning of this about the economy. Some positive economic indicators only show the majority of Americans don’t feel the economy is doing well. Are you worried you’re making the same mistake as President Biden?
TRUMP: I hope I don’t make the same mistake as him. Look, I inherited a terrible. I mean, it’s a great question because we inherited a terrible, terrible mess between the border, between all the problems. The whole country was falling apart. And in 12 months, less than 12 months, I mean, in 12 months, we have the strongest border we’ve ever had.
We have prices that are much, much lower than they were for the last. We inherited very high prices. We inherited. Remember, this inflation was at a historic high.
We had never had inflation like that. They say 48 years. But whether it’s 48 years or ever, we had the highest inflation, in my opinion, that we’ve ever had. Prices, because of that, were very high.
I inherited. We brought down eggs immediately. Remember, the first news conference, they were screaming at me about eggs. I was in the position for two days, and they’re screaming.
We brought eggs down to lower than what they were before. And, by the way, they continue that way. We brought the prices down from when I came into office and from what Biden had. Way down.
We’re going to bring them down further. But the job we did is a miracle. One of the reasons I’m doing this today is to explain. We inherited a mess, and we’ve made it a beautiful, beautiful picture.
Think of gasoline at $1.99 in many states. One dollar and 99 cents a gallon. It was $4.50, $5.00, in some cases $6.00 or $7.00. We’re at $1.99.
And energy is so big that, with energy, everything else comes down. But the prices are coming way down. And they’re going to — we’re going to bring them down further. But we started up here with these guys.
We inherited a country that was broken. We inherited a country — and I have a very warm spot — we’ve done very well with Venezuela. And, by the way, that even, in itself, is going to help us bring down the oil prices. I mean, the Venezuelan oil — we’ve taken 50 billion — 50 million gallons of oil.
We’ve taken 50 million barrels of oil out of Venezuela in the first four days. We’ve got millions of barrels of oil left. We’re selling it on the open market. We’re bringing down oil prices incredibly.
And when they come down — and they’ve already come down. Again, $1.99 a gallon for oil. Nobody thought they’d ever see it. All right, one or two more.
REPORTER: I want to ask you about Iran. Is the military option still on the table? And can you assure us that the killing in Iran has stopped? And when regard to the European Council, which members have to pay $1 billion?
TRUMP: So, with Iran — are you from Iran?
REPORTER: No, I come from the White House.
TRUMP: Where are you from?
REPORTER: I’m Palestinian-American.
TRUMP: So, with Iran, they were going to hang 837 people, and they let them be known that — and we let them know that if that happens, that will be a very bad day for them. And they decided not to do it. They didn’t hang the people. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen in the future, but supposedly they’ve taken that off the table.
But they were going to — last week, they were going to hang on Thursday or Wednesday. One — they were going to hang, I think, 837 people, and they didn’t hang anybody. So, we’re just going to have to see what happens with Iran.
REPORTER: Is the military option on the table?
REPORTER: Thank you, Mr. President. You promised during your second inaugural to always fight America first. I’m curious, how would you winning the Nobel Peace Prize improve the lives of average, everyday Americans? Why is this prize so important?
TRUMP: It wouldn’t improve the lives of any — what improved the lives of people are people that are living. I saved probably tens of millions of lives in the wars. You know, if you add up the numbers — just — just if you look at — if you look at any one of those wars, you’re talking about millions of people. You multiply it times eight. But when you look at India and Pakistan, that could have been 10, 15, 20 million people.
Could have been more than that. So I saved millions of people. So that, to me, is the big thing.
REPORTER: You suggested a moment ago that perhaps the reason why a positive story about the economy isn’t getting through is because of, you know, bad communications people. But are average Americans wrong to still feel high prices? And how much longer does the White House hope that they will have safety? So I think a lot of people — a lot of people are listening to the fake news a little bit.
TRUMP: And I’m not blaming anybody. I think I — I blame ourselves. I think we’ve done a much better job than we’re able to promote. We’re not promoting. We’re doing a great job, and we’re sort of letting the promotion take care of itself. One of the reasons I’m doing this news conference — I think it’s important. We have taken a mess and made it really good. It’s going to get even better.
But if you look at prices from a year or a year and a half ago, you look at the Biden prices, they were way up through the sky. And, you know, they use the word affordability. They just say affordability, and they don’t talk about it. They created the affordability problem, and we have — we are solving it.
We have solved a lot of it. Again, everybody agrees in this room, I think, gasoline prices have come per gallon way down. When that happens, everything else comes down. But they’ve come down way down.
Many of the groceries have come way down. It’s all happening, and it’s happening strong. But if you go back a year, a year and a half, two years, take a look at those prices and look at the prices now.
REPORTER: Mr. President, of Venezuela you made a condition that was —
TRUMP: Where are you from?
REPORTER: I’m from Spain.
TRUMP: Nice place.
REPORTER: Thank you. You made a condition that the political prisoners should be freed. It seems that they are not being as fast as they promised in the beginning. Would that be an issue for the current government?
TRUMP: They’ve agreed that they’re going to let, I guess, most of them out. Depends on what they did. But they have released a lot of — they have a lot — released a lot of political prisoners in Venezuela.
Mr. President, earlier on last year, you had mentioned — you had indicated that you wanted to take back the Panama Canal. I know we’ve heard a lot about Greenland. Is that still on the table? I don’t want to tell you that.
Sort of. I must say, sort of. That’s sort of on the table. Okay, one more.
Yes, go ahead, ma’am. Go ahead. With the blue. Holding the computer.
A consequence of your determination to take control of Greenland is the ultimate breakup of the NATO alliance. Is that a price you’re willing to pay? You mean the breakup of the NATO alliance? So I think something’s going to happen that’s going to be very good for everybody.
Nobody’s done more for NATO than I have, as I said before, in every way. Getting them to go up to 5 percent of GDP was something that nobody thought was possible. And pay. At 2 percent, they weren’t paying.
At 5 percent, they are paying. And they’re buying a lot of things from us, and they’re giving them, I guess, to Ukraine. That’s up to them. But they’re giving them to whoever they’re giving them to.
But they’re buying a lot. I think that we will work something out where NATO is going to be very happy and where we’re going to be very happy. But we need it for security purposes. We need it for national security and even world security.
It’s very important. How about it? Thank you very much. First of all, last year, you told me that you believe that the reason you won the election is because God put you in this place so that you could save the world.
Looking back one year, do you feel like God is proud of the effort that you’ve put in? I do. I think God is very proud of the job I’ve done. And that includes for religion.
You know, we’re protecting a lot of people that are being killed — Christians and Jewish people. And lots of people are being protected by me that wouldn’t be protected by another type of President. No, I think — I think a lot of people are very proud of the job we’ve done. We’ve had an amazing year.
This has been one of the greatest years. Even some people that wouldn’t necessarily love me instinctively, they’re saying this was an incredible year. We’ve had an incredible year economically. Look at our border.
Our border was a disaster. People poured — it was an invasion into our country of a lot of very bad people. Good people, too, but a lot of very bad people from prisons and drug dealers and gangs and horrible people, murderers. Thousands and thousands of murderers allowed into our country.
And we now have the strongest border of any country. There’s probably not a country — I guess North Korea has a pretty strong border, by the way. But there’s not a country in the world that has a border like we do. And we took it from the worst border.
We had the worst border in the world. Now we have one of the strongest borders in the world. One more. One more question.
The Press. Mr. President, you said your comments — something’s going to get worked out in Greenland. But Greenlanders have made it clear they don’t want to be part of the U.S.
Well, I haven’t. I haven’t. What gives the U.S. the right to take away that self-determination?
I haven’t spoken yet. When I speak to them, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled. Mr. President — Mr.
President, are you committed to keeping the U.S. in NATO? I’ve had such a good relationship. I’ve made it so much better, so much stronger.
It’s so good now. NATO is so much stronger now. I don’t agree with a lot of the things they’ve done, but that was done before I got there. I think NATO has been good.
Sometimes it’s overrated. Sometimes it’s not. But we have a strong NATO. When I came here, we had a weak NATO.
We had a NATO at 2 percent, and they weren’t paying. We had a nothing NATO. NATO’s — whether you like it or not, it’s only as good as we are. If NATO doesn’t have us, NATO is not very strong.
Thank you very much. Go ahead. The Press. Really appreciate it, sir.
We’ve heard a long list of accomplishments from the last year. Could you cherry-pick the top three? And then, looking forward, what are your three most important priorities of 2026? So, I think the building of a really powerful military has been a great achievement, and that would include the Venezuela thing.
That would include the attack on Iran and the wiping out of the nuclear threat. I think that’s been really amazing, what we’ve done militarily. I think what we’ve done in business has been incredible. We have $18 trillion coming in.
Plants are being built all over the — thousands of plants are being built all over the country. Eighteen trillion is a record. No country has ever come anywhere even close to that. I think that’s a record.
And I think that most favored nations for drugs is something that nobody thought they’d be able to get. Tariffs helped me there because the nations would have never gone along with it if I wasn’t able to say, if you don’t go along with it, we’re going to put a 10 or a 15 or a 20 percent tariff on your nation. And they went along. And our drug prices are going to come down at numbers never even seen before, never even thought possible before.
So those would be three things. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you.
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