Transcript: Trump Hosts Ireland’s Micheál Martin in the Oval Office

They have a great feeling for your country. They have and a lot come back for holidays and stuff like that. Checking out their family ancestry and things like that. Great, fantastic people.

TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN: Some go to Doonbeg as well.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: We love Doonbeg. I love them. I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again. Maybe I won’t, but I think I will. We’ll get there. We’re going to get there. It’s a beautiful place. It’s a wonderful place. Any questions?

Questions from Reporters

REPORTER: Mr. President, how worried are you about the country of Ireland from the EU, which was announced yesterday? Also, how worried should Ireland be, given the fact that it has a massive trade surplus with the U.S. of over $50 billion? Are you marked by nervousness?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I don’t think he looks nervous to me. And if he was nervous, he wouldn’t show it. Now, we do have a massive deficit with Ireland because Ireland was very smart. They took our pharmaceutical companies away from presidents that didn’t know what they were doing. And it’s too bad that happened. It’s a tremendous job. Look, the Irish are smart. We are smart people. And you took our pharmaceutical companies and other companies, but, you know, through taxation and proper taxation, they made it very, very good for companies to move over there. And we had presidents and people that were involved in this that had no idea what they were doing, and they lost big segments of our economy.

The European Union treats us very badly. They have for years. I saw that. I had it out with them in my first term. It did well, but we had to solve other problems, and we did. But the European Union’s been very tough, and it’s our turn to, you know, we get a turn at that also. But they have not been fair. They sue our companies and win massive amounts of money. They sued Apple, won $17 billion, and they use that for other reasons, I guess, or to run the European Union. So I’m not knocking it. They’re doing what they should be doing, perhaps, for the European Union, but it does create ill will.

And as you know, we’re going to be doing reciprocal tariffs. So whatever they charge us, we’re charging them. Nobody can complain about that. Whatever it is, it doesn’t even matter what it is. If they charge us, if they charge us 25 or 20 percent or 10 percent or 2 percent or 200 percent, then that’s what we’re charging them. And so I don’t know why people get upset about that, because there’s nothing more fair than that.

And we had a problem with Ontario, and they dropped that. When I let them know what we were going to be doing, they dropped it immediately. So I’m glad, because electricity shouldn’t be playing with electricity. It affects people’s lives. Actually, their life, I mean, it can affect, depending on whether it can affect their life. So we can’t do that. And it doesn’t make sense that our country allows electricity to be made in another country and sold into us. Who did that deal for the United States, okay? I looked at that long ago, and I said that’s not something that’s very smart.

So we’ve had a lot of bad trade policies, and yet we’re doing very well right now. But we’re doing well because I won the election. If I didn’t win the election, you would add a very bad period. I think a lot of the stock market going down was because of a really bad four years that we had, when you look at inflation and all of the other problems that were, I mean, wars and inflation and so many other problems.

But we’re going to have very good years. We’re going to have, we had, I don’t know if you saw, a little thing like the cost of eggs. Little to you, but big to people out there. Down almost 30% in the last few days, we got it down. We did a lot of things. We have a great secretary of agriculture, and we did a lot of things that got the cost of eggs down very substantially, and so many other things.

The very big thing that I’m very happy with is oil is down to $65 a barrel, and that’s faster than I would have intended. We put on the gas, we stepped on the gas in order to get oil, and with what’s happening. So we’re getting that down. And when energy comes down, prices are going to be coming down with it. So in a very short period of time, we’ve done a very good job.

And I think that the tariffs that we’re talking about, again, reciprocal. I think the tariffs, there are some cases where they’re a little beyond reciprocal, because we’ve been abused for a long time as a country. We have been abused really for a long time, and we will be abused no longer. Okay.

Department of Education Workforce Cuts

REPORTER: On the Department of Education, sir, would you describe, for instance, this meeting your vision by cutting about half the workforce, and what responsibility do you feel to the civil servants who have now lost their jobs? Many of them worked at the Department of Education during the first term.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Sure, I do. I feel very badly. But many of them don’t work at all. Many of them never showed up to work. Many of them never showed up to work, Kelly. And unfortunately, that’s not good. And when we cut, you know, we go, and that’s what I had a number of meetings with a lot of people over the last couple of months. When we cut, we want to cut, but we want to cut the people that aren’t working or not doing a good job. We’re keeping the best people. And Linda McMahon is a real professional, actually a very sophisticated businessperson. And she cut a large number, but she kept the best people. And we’ll see how it all works out.

But our country was run very badly. I mean, whether it was that or contracts that were signed that were so bad, so obviously bad. And I go through them in speeches. I could go through them all day long. I could read for billions and hundreds of billions of dollars. And all of that fat and waste and fraud and abuse is being taken out. But it’s incredible what’s happened.

Now, Department of Education, maybe more so than any other place, has a lot of people that can be cut. They’re number one, not showing up to work. Number two, they’re not doing a good job. And if you take a look at our education process, and if you look at the charts, because they have numerous charts where they do the top 40, we’re at number 37, 38, 39, and 40. And recently they hit, during Biden’s last few days, they hit last. So they were number 40, and yet we’re number one in cost per pupil. So it’s pretty bad. But we have a dream. And you know what the dream is? We’re going to move the Department of Education, we’re going

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] …to move education into the states, so that the states, instead of bureaucrats working in Washington, so that the states can run education. And you have Norway, you have Denmark, you have Sweden, you have Finland, you have various countries that do very well. You also have China that does very well in education, which is a pretty big tribute to China. I must say, 1.4 billion, and they’re in the top 10. And it’s pretty amazing. So we can’t blame size anymore. You know, normally you’d blame size. It’s too big. How can you do it? But China does it.

So we think when you move it back to Iowa and Indiana and all the states that run so well, there’s so many, I could name 30, maybe almost 40. Those will be as good as Denmark. Those will be as good as Norway. And they’ll be as good as any of these. I believe they’ll be as good as any. Now, then you’re going to have 10 that won’t be so great. You’re going to have five that will not be good at all, but we’ll work with them and we’ll get them to be good. But what we want to do is always school choice, but we’re going to do school choice and we’re doing it. But we want education to be moved back where the states run education, where the parents of the children will be running education, where governors that are doing a very good job will be running education, not run.

I drive through the city and I see like so many many buildings, Department of Education, Department of Big Buildings, the department. And by the way, they’re empty. Nobody shows up to work. So I think Linda did a very good job.

Questions on Russia-Ukraine Ceasefire

[REPORTER:] Do you have a meeting with Blackburn scheduled for a conversation? What would be your response to that?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I won’t comment on that, but we had a great success yesterday. We have a full ceasefire when it — if it kicks in. But we have to see. It’s up to Russia now. But we’ve had a good relationship with both parties, actually. And we’ll see. We’ll be knowing — people are going to Russia right now as we speak. And hopefully, we can get a ceasefire from Russia. And if we do, I think that would be 80 percent of the way to getting this horrible bloodbath finished. It’s a bloodbath that’s taking place over there. On average, 2,000 to 3,000 young people a week are being killed in that stupid war that would have never happened if I were President.

So, we have people going over there. Mr. VP, do you have anything to say about it? Because you’re very much involved. What’s going to happen?

[JD VANCE:] Yes, sir. Well, we’ve got some conversations that are happening on the phone and in person with some of our representatives over the next couple of days. As the President said, we think that we’re in a very good place where the Ukrainians have agreed to a ceasefire. And we’re now going to see whether we can get the Russians to agree to a ceasefire, too. And we’ll certainly have news on that when we find out that news.

[REPORTER:] Are you confident that you will keep the ceasefire, considering that he’s broken them in the past?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I haven’t — we haven’t spoken to him yet with substance because we just found out and we just were able to get Ukraine to agree. So, we’re going to know very soon.

I’ve gotten some positive messages, but a positive message means nothing. This is a very serious situation. This is a situation that could lead to World War III. And Biden should have never let it happen. Incompetence allowed this to happen. This shouldn’t have happened October 7th in the Middle East. It should have never happened with Israel. The horrible leaving, the way they left Afghanistan, should have never happened. Inflation should have never happened.

You know, we have great inflation numbers, by the way, just got released. Inflation is way down. And it’s based on what we’ve done. And we’ve done it in a very short period of time. You know, we had virtually no inflation. For four years, we had almost no inflation. And when these characters took over, we went from no inflation to the worst inflation probably in the history of our country. So it’s very interesting. Go ahead.

And by the way, I have to just speak of inflation. I love these guys. What’s with these guys? I’m trying to stay focused, but I’m very impressed with the VPs. I’m trying to stay focused. I’m very impressed.

What are they boycotting? Oh, I haven’t heard that. I really haven’t heard that.

Irish Taoiseach on Peace Process

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] Look, if we’re going to say that you’re paid to be the president on the peace initiatives, the one thing we’ve learned in Ireland about the peace process that you’ve just spoken about, and I recall back in the early 90s, when the first tentative steps to get peace in Ireland, people criticized people like John Hume or people like Albert Reynolds, a then teacher. But they kept going. And when we got that ceasefire in 93, OK, it took a number years to get the comprehensive peace settlement. But again, the guns more or less largely went silent.

The war in Ukraine is a devastating war on young people, and I think that very simple, straightforward narrative has to be commended. We all have children. I mean, we’re shocked at the prospect of young people losing their lives in that number, be they Ukrainian, be they Russian, whatever. Anything we can do to stop the violence, I think, is an extremely positive thing. And there will be all sorts of people having qualifications on the rest of it. It’s our job, then, to work on it and to try and build it. You’re a viewer, so maybe we can do that.

Trump on Human Cost of War

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I will say, and thank you for that, but I will say, last week, 2,500 young people died while we sit here and talk. And while they talk about peace, but they’ve been talking about peace. This should have never happened. This war should have never happened. It would have never happened if I was President. That’s what makes me more angry than anything else.

Because you’ve had far more people die than they report, than these people report, for whatever reason. But you had far more people. The numbers are far more devastating. You’ll find that out someday. And it doesn’t affect you very much. They’re not Irish, and they’re not from my country. They’re from Russia, mostly, almost all, from Russia and from Ukraine.

And people can say, why are you doing this? Why are you involved in that? Because 2,000 people a week are dying. And they have families, and they have mothers, and they have fathers, and they have sisters, and they have brothers and friends. And they’re dying. And I’ve seen the pictures, the satellite pictures that we see all the time. And it looks like Gettysburg in its prime, because that was, they say, one of the most horrific battles ever.

You have kids lying all over these fields that are dead because the weapons today are unbelievable. Between drones and various types of guns. I’m not even talking about beyond that with the big babies, you understand what I mean. I hate to even mention the name, the nuclear name. I hate to mention it. But you have weapons today that are so powerful. And I see kids every week. I see pictures of kids laying all over the field dead. They’re dead, beautiful kids. They’re dead.

And they’re not from here, and they’re not from where you are, but he’s working very hard. We’re all working hard to get this thing finished. It’s crazy. Over nothing. And it’s not going to go anywhere. It’s just a terrible situation. And I think we have a chance to get it done. So we’ve gotten half of it as a ceasefire. And if we can get Russia to stop, then we have a full ceasefire. And I think it’ll never go back to war. Stop the war.

REPORTER: [Question Inaudible]

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] One thing I’ll tell you, you’re not from Israel. That’s for sure. She’s definitely not from Israel. It’s an interesting question coming from you. We talk about everything. Israel has been under siege, as you can see. And they had a fight back. October 7th was a terrible thing. People don’t like to mention it. But it was a terrible, terrible day in the life of the world. And it’s amazing the way people don’t mention that. But I’ve never seen anything like it. Those are other clips I get to see. You know, as president, you get to see clips…

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] that you’d rather not see. But I see clips. And that was a terrible day for the world. And we’re working hard with Israel. We’re working hard to see if we can solve the problem. I will say, I just saw 10 hostages, and they were treated really badly. They were really treated badly. I was shocked. I asked them, was there any kindness shown? They were in there. One was in there for 500 days. One was 323 days. I said, was there any — 10 of them. I said, was there any kindness displayed? Like, did they ever, like, say, don’t worry, you’ll be OK? Or give you a little wink, or give you, like, an extra slice of bread or something? And everybody said — all of these people said zero. It was hatred. It was pure hatred. So, I mean, that’s a very deep-seated problem. You have a real problem.

[REPORTER:] Can I give a piece of advice? Ireland’s in the midst of a housing crisis now, and I know you have a lot of experience in business, but how can the state build tens of thousands of houses at that pace?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] You know why they have a housing crisis? Because they’re doing so well. They can’t produce houses fast enough. That’s a good problem, not a bad problem.

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] That’s a very good answer, President. Congratulations.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] No, it’s true.

[REPORTER:] Will you put more tariffs on the EU, Mr. President?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Everybody should have that problem. That’s OK.

[REPORTER:] Will you put more tariffs on the EU? Will you respond to their retaliation?

Trump on EU Tariffs and Ireland’s Economic Relationship with the US

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Oh, of course I’m going to respond.

[REPORTER:] You will retaliate, of course.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] The problem is our country didn’t respond. Look, the EU was set up in order to take advantage of the United States.

[REPORTER:] Including Ireland? Is Ireland taking advantage of the U.S.?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Of course they are. I can’t — you know, I have great respect for Ireland and what they did, and they should have done just what they did. But the United States shouldn’t have let it happen. We had stupid leaders. We had leaders that didn’t have a clue. Or let’s say they weren’t business people, but they didn’t have a clue what was happening. And all of a sudden, Ireland has, you know, our pharmaceutical companies and other — this beautiful island of — it’s Ireland — of 5 million people. It’s got the entire U.S. pharmaceutical industry in its grasp.

And, you know, you mentioned housing and you mentioned other things. I mean, I have property in Ireland, as you know, and I love it. It’s great. But I’d like to have — I’d like to see the United States not have been so stupid for so many years. Not just with Ireland. With everybody.

You know, I looked at trade deals. I was telling the group yesterday, I looked at trade deals in term one. It’s one of the reasons I decided I had to do this because somebody had to straighten it out and I didn’t see anybody that was going to. I looked at trade deals that were so bad, I’d actually say, how is it possible that this could have happened? Who would have been so stupid to let these deals happen?

For instance, when the pharmaceutical companies started to go to Ireland, I would have said, that’s okay if you want to go to Ireland, I think it’s great, but if you want to sell anything into the United States, I’m going to put a 200% tariff on you, so you’re never going to be able to sell anything into the United States. You know what they would have done? They would have stayed here.

[REPORTER:] Are you planning to lower corporate taxes in Ireland?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I’m so lucky that I went to…

[REPORTER:] Are you planning to lower corporate taxes in Ireland? Are you planning to lower corporate taxes in Ireland?

Trump on Tax Plans and Democrats’ Response to Recent Tragedies

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Well, we are planning to lower taxes, yes, if the Democrats behave, but the Democrats have no clue. You saw that the other night during the speech. Two young women were slaughtered by illegal aliens. One young man has very serious cancer and many other problems. When you look at the people up there, they all had difficulty, very serious difficulty, but when we’re talking about two young girls, beautiful young girls, Lake and Riley, you know the whole story that evening was a disaster for the Democrats, in my opinion, and I would mention, and I’d see two mothers that were inconsolable as they stood, crying. Their daughters have been absolutely just destroyed, killed, viciously killed, and the young man who loves the police departments, he had cancer and has cancer, very bad cancer.

There wasn’t a… From people sitting there, Democrats, there wasn’t a hand clap, nobody stood, they were just stone-faced. These people are sick. There’s something wrong with them. There was no standing for anybody. The only thing they liked is when they heard about the death taking place with Ukraine. They were happy about that. They were happy about that. Pocahontas was very happy. She’s the one that was clapped. That’s why I looked at her and said, oh, it’s Pocahontas. These people are sick. They don’t know what’s happening in the real world.

The Democrats have to get their act together, and if they don’t vote, then what you’re going to do is you’re going to have taxes that are going to go through the roof, you’re going to have a very bad time, you’re going to have some very bad things happen, and people are going to blame the Democrats, and Schumer is a Palestinian, as far as I’m concerned. He’s become a Palestinian. He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore. He’s a Palestinian. Okay.

[REPORTER:] There’s been a lot of on and off, some inconsistency.

Trump on “Flexibility” in Tariff Policy

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] There’s no inconsistency, only with NBC, which is one of the worst networks on television, by the way. Let me just tell you the inconsistency. I have the right. I have the right to adjust, and I was called by the automakers, as an example, General Motors, Ford, et cetera, the big three, the big four, and they asked me to do them a favor. Could I delay it for a period of four weeks so that they’re not driven into a little bit of a disaster for them? They actually love what I’m doing, but they had a problem, and I’m not like a block that just, I won’t delay. It’s called flexibility. It’s not called inconsistency. It’s called flexibility, and I think you want me to be flexible, too.

[REPORTER:] Is flexibility going to be your ongoing view?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Sure. I’ll always have flexibility, but there will be very little flexibility once we start. April 2nd is going to be a very big day for the United States of America. The United States of America is going to take back a lot of what was stolen from it by other countries and by, frankly, incompetent U.S. leadership, grossly incompetent.

I gave you an example of Ireland. I would have never let that happen, impossible for that to have happened. We’re going to take back our wealth, and we’re going to take back a lot of the companies that left. They’re coming back. If you haven’t read, we have the biggest computer chip company ever, ever, has virtually all of the market. I didn’t call them. They called me, and they called for two reasons.

Number one, we had a great election of somebody that they want running the country, and we ran. We won in a big band-aid. We won every swing state. We won by millions of votes. We won by 2,750 districts to 500. Think of that, 2,750 districts to 500. That’s why the map, when you looked at it, was entirely red, meaning Republican, not meaning Communist.

Trump on Immigration Issues

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] So anyway, so look, this country needed somebody to defend it. It’s this big, beautiful place that was being ripped off by illegal immigrants coming in from prisons, coming in from mental institutions, gang members, gang leaders, drug dealers pouring into our country with the open borders.

I am so angry at the last four years and what they’ve done to our country, what they’ve done to this country between inflation, but maybe the most that bothers me is that they would allow millions of people to come into our country that are stone-cold murderers, killers, drug dealers, the worst gang members, the worst people allowed into our country, and we’re now getting them out. We’re going to get them out. We’re getting them out.

I want to thank Tom Holman, by the way. He’s doing a great job, and I want to thank Kristi Noem, who’s doing a fantastic job. This is a job that’s so unnecessary. This should have never happened. This should have

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Never happened. We’re bringing back our country in many ways, not only financially, and financially we’ll be stronger than ever before. I think the markets are going to soar when they see what’s happening. I’ll tell you what. I’m called every day by numerous big, big companies. I spoke at the business roundtable yesterday. They had the largest attendance they’ve ever had, and these are only the CEOs and chairmen, but mostly the people that run the boss, the people that run the top 150 companies. A hundred and fifty people showed up. Every single company showed up. First time it’s ever happened. It’s been around a long time. The biggest business leaders. We had a great discussion. Went really well, and I want to tell you there’s tremendous optimism out there about our country in terms of regulations being cut, in terms of taxes being cut, and it would be great if the Democrats would do what’s right.

It would be great if the Democrats would do what’s right for our country for a change because they really are there. They’ve lost their way. They’ve lost their way. They think that people pouring into our country from prisons, jails, murders. We have 11,088 murderers that were allowed into people that murdered people, half of which murdered more than one person in our country and getting them the hell out. But who would run it? Who would allow this to happen? Who would allow men to play in women’s sports? And they’re still fighting it. There’s still, it’s got to be a 95% issue. But they’re on television this morning. I see this person, a Democrat, say we should have the right. No, no, men should not be, they’re hurting women. They’re hurting women very badly. They’re hurting women and they should not, and they’re also demeaning women.

But who would want these things? And everything’s transgender. Everybody transgender. That’s all you hear about. Now that’s why we won the election in record numbers, but very importantly, now it is what it is. The Democrats should get with us and come up with good tax policy so that Ireland and other countries can’t take our businesses away from us. And he understands exactly. You guys did the right thing. I’m not upset with you. I think I respect what you’ve done. You’ve done a great job. But our people, our people, our people did a very bad job.

[REPORTER:] How advanced are your plans to try and bring some of those companies back to America? Will you be bringing them back?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Well, I’d love to have them back. I mean, I’d love to have them back, but he’ll be fighting me. I mean, but I would say, President, if I could, if I could, one second, it’s just a quick point.

Irish-American Business Relationships

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] It’s a two-way street, too. We are investing a lot more in America now. And people may not realize, but Ryanair, one of our biggest airlines, for example. Aircap. They buy more, to put them together, buy more Boeing airplanes than anybody else outside of America. That’s a little known fact. It doesn’t turn up in the statistics, but Ryanair and Aircap, big aircraft leasing company, Irish company, have done great work with Boeing. Huge investment over the last couple of years. So, and there’s a lot of Irish companies here now. About 700 and a half Irish companies based in America. There’s a lot of them creating thousands of jobs in America.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] And it’s only fair. I mean, that’s correct. That’s the way it should happen. And I think it’s a very good relationship we have. It’s a historic one. It’s happened over time.

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] We’ve added value to American companies. We’ve increased our value. They’ve got access to the European market, and they did all of that. I understand where you’re coming from, fully. But I think it’s a relationship that we can develop and that will endure into the future. And change it with the times. And you’re evolving, and you’re doing things.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] And they’ve done a very good job. Now, I just will say this. But with all that we’ve said, we could talk about Ryanair. There’s a massive deficit. I don’t mean by a little bit. I mean, there’s a massive deficit that we have with Ireland. And with other countries, too. And we want to sort of even that out as nicely as we can. And we’ll work together. We’re going to work together. Have a great, but the deficit is massive.

Discussion on Russia and Ukraine

[REPORTER:] When you hear this one? You said earlier that it was now up to Russia in terms of this decoupling. Is there anything you can do in terms of pressuring Russia or in terms of sanctions or what can you do?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] We can, but I hope it’s not going to be necessary. Sure we can pressure. We can do that with Russia. Remember this. Russia took Georgia from Bush, right? They took Crimea from a man named Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, right? They tried to take the whole thing from Biden. They’re going for the whole ball of wax. Who is the only one that never took anything from Trump? And in fact, I’m the one that stopped Nord Stream 2, the pipeline, the biggest pipeline anywhere in the world. I stopped it. It was dead. And then Biden got in and he approved it. Nobody mentions that.

What I did to Russia was very tough. I was the toughest ever, but they never took anything from me. They took them from Obama and Bush, and they took it from sleepy Joe Biden. With Biden, they wanted to take the whole country, but I think I’ve stopped that, but we’ll see. But yeah, there are things you could do that that wouldn’t be pleasant in a financial sense. I can do things financially that would be very bad for Russia. I don’t want to do that because I want to get peace. I want to see peace, and we’ll see. But in a financial sense, yeah, we could do things very bad for Russia. It would be devastating for Russia, but I don’t want to do that because I want to see peace. And we’re getting close to maybe getting something done. We’ve got Ukraine done. And as you know, I’ve always said that Ukraine might have been the more difficult party. You saw you were here a week ago when some interesting things happened. I had somebody that didn’t seem to want peace. Now he’s agreed to peace. So we’ll see what happens.

Questions for the Taoiseach

[REPORTER:] Brian. Yes. Thanks. Thank you. First, we’ll congratulate you on your lower inflation.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Thank you.

[REPORTER:] Gas prices going down, airline prices going down. This is for the Irish gentleman here, if I can see you real quickly. Welcome to the United States. You look great.

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] Thank you.

[REPORTER:] If you could run on make Ireland great again, what would your number one issue be for people in Ireland right now to make your country stronger? I’ve got a two part question to that as well.

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] The number one issue in Ireland is housing, to be honest, and I think it was correctly pointed out. We’ve got to build more houses. We’ve got to build them faster to give the young people of Ireland an opportunity to afford to buy a house or to afford to rent a house. We have a lot of other good things happening. That’s my number one priority.

[REPORTER:] Ireland is known for very happy, fun loving people, great attitude. Many of them right now that I’ve met. Why in the world would you let Rosie O’Donnell move to Ireland? Thank you.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I like that question. Do you know who she is? Do you know who she is? You’re better off not knowing.

Discussion on Gaza and Palestine

[REPORTER:] Are you expecting to inform the President your views on Gaza? Considering that you have diametrically opposed positions on the fate of Palestine, your country is one of three in Europe that recognizes the fate of Palestine. Are you expecting to discuss this with the President? Are you expecting to inform him?

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] I don’t have to inform the President. He’s very well clued into the whole situation. We shared the President’s, again, unrelenting focus on peace. And his envoy, the President himself, soon after he came into office, went to get a ceasefire. We’ve been calling for a ceasefire for a long time. We want to consolidate the peace. That is our fundamental aim. We want the hostages out. I’ve been saying it from day one. It’s a horrific thing to do to take someone as a hostage. And I went to Kibbutz every act of October 7th in solidarity with Israel, and that gets forgotten. And I went a week or two afterwards. I saw the Kibbutz. It was a shocking thing to see, even though it was a week or two.

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] after the horror. It was a village. You could see life going on prior to the attack. It was something that will not leave me. And I’ve been interested in the Middle East for a long, long time. It’s complex, and it’s all of that. But we do desperately need the hostages out, all of them. And then we need a ceasefire. We need to consolidate that. We need a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Because, again, there’s too many children and too many people starving. And it’s that humanitarian input is what motivates the Irish in respect of its views.

And I’ve always been of the view, it’s been our view, that a two-state solution would be ideal. It’s become much more challenging and difficult as time has moved on. But that has always been our position. But it’s genuinely to have people, because we’ve gone through this. We discussed this prior to you coming in. We’ve been through some of this. People hating each other. We’ve heard about acts of violence carried out on each other. We came through it. It’s our earnest hope that Arab and Jewish people can live side by side and admit with people parents of children who were killed on both sides, called parents hurtful. And their work to try and bring people together is difficult work.

[REPORTER:] What about the President’s plan to expel Palestinians out of Gaza? Are you discussing that with him?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Nobody’s expelling any Palestinians. I don’t know. Who are you with?

[REPORTER:] I haven’t worked in America.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Oh, no wonder. OK. Who is that?

On U.S. Companies in Ireland

[REPORTER:] I’m just saying that he would like to take back U.S. companies, pharma companies based in Ireland.

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] Well, I think the pharma companies in Ireland are doing very well, as the President says it would like. And, you know, again, I think it’s about that two-way partnership. I understand fully where the President is coming from. I think there’s actually room that we can discuss all this. I think there’s room for those companies to grow in America. And many of them, by the way, have already announced fairly significant manufacturing investments now.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] That’s true.

[TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN:] Like people like Eli Lilly, for example, who have been a longstanding presence in Ireland since the 1970s. I spoke to the CEO recently. He’s a great guy. And he’s announced, I think, what, a $50 billion investment in America.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] That’s right. Big investment. You know, they’ve had big investment in Ireland. Ireland has served them well, too, you know. The workforce is very strong. It’s an educated workforce. They’ve delivered well. During COVID-19, a number of CEOs said to me, a lot of the plants in Ireland were the only plants that never closed for a single day during COVID. Not a single day. Productivity is good as well.

[UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER:] Thank you so much.

On Russia and Ukraine

[REPORTER:] You spoke to the company for quite a while. Yes. So, I want to know your assessment. When you take this deal to him, how do you assess the chances of a deal?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I have no assessment, and I don’t go by chances. I think it makes sense for Russia. A lot of downside for Russia, too. And we have a very complex situation solved on one side, pretty much solved. We’ve also discussed land and other things that, you know, go with it. We’re not just doing it and saying ceasefire. We don’t know what’s happening. We know the areas of land we’re talking about, whether it’s pullback or not pullback.

You know, we’ve discussed a lot of the details of what has to go because we don’t want to be wasting time. We don’t want to be wasting time while people are dying. I mean, as we’re sitting here, you probably had two people die on that very open field. You know, it’s dead flat. It’s great farmland, and it’s dead flat. There’s no protection. The only thing that stops a bullet is a human body, and these are bodies that are young people, and they’re stopping a lot of bullets because a lot of bullets are flying across those level fields. Dead flat, no protection whatsoever. It is a disaster, and so I hope he’s going to have a ceasefire.

[REPORTER:] You are using the American leverage to get a lot of political issues.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Well, I don’t want to get into that, but if I had to, I’m the only one that’s dealt with them successfully. Everyone else, I went through it. Bush didn’t deal with them successfully. He dealt with them terribly, got ripped off, and Obama was a disaster. You know, they have with Obama, he gave them sheets, and I gave them anti-tank missiles. You know that, right? It’s called javelin. You know the javelin? I’m the one that gave him the javelins. People don’t say that. And then they say, oh, Trump has a great relationship with Russia. I’m the one that gave him the javelins. Obama gave him sheets. That’s an expression. He gave sheets, I gave javelins.

On Irish Voters and Immigration

[REPORTER:] Mr. President, I’m worried to the undocumented Irish people about your administration, that you’ve run the vote instead of the Republicans.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Oh, I think the Irish love Trump. We won the Irish with a tremendous amount of vote. I want to thank you very much. We won in the 80s with Irish. I got the Irish vote. I think I have it locked up pretty good, unless I did something very stupid, like drained your company, your wonderful place of all of its companies. If I drained Ireland of all of the companies, maybe I’d lose the Irish vote. I don’t know.

But right now, I love it. I’ve been there many times, as you know. And we don’t want to do anything to hurt Ireland. But we do want fairness, and he understands that.

On Irish Athletes and Culture

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I do happen to like your fighter, he’s got the best tattoos I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if I’m going to make it, but you have a lot of great Irish fighters actually, they’re great fighters. I don’t know what that is, but Ireland’s always had a lot of good fighters. You know why? Because they’re tough people, they’re smart people and they’re passionate people, and they really have been over the years.

So many, I think your father was a great fighter right? Wow, and yet look at you, you’re so smooth and so on. He was a really good boxer.

On Apple and European Union Trade Issues

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Ireland, I mean genetically I’m not going to mess around, a couple of more from somebody that didn’t ask a question.

[REPORTER:] Should apples go back to the U.S. market?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Apple was treated very badly. Look, Apple had tremendously bad luck. I thought they had a very good lawsuit, but they lost 16 billion dollars, 16 billion, and they were after a lot of our American companies. See that’s what’s unfair, it’s the European Union. I’m not blaming you, I’m blaming the European Union. The European Union’s gone after our companies, and Apple’s a great company, and they have to give 16, 17 billion dollars on a lawsuit that I didn’t think was a good lawsuit. No, that’s not good.

No, the European, we have a problem with the European Union. They don’t take our farm products, they don’t take our cars. We take millions of cars, BMWs and Mercedes Benz and Volkswagens and everything. We take millions of cars. I said to Angela Merkel at the time, I said “Angela how many Chevrolet’s do we have in the middle of Munich?” “Why, none.” I said “You’re right, we have none. That’s the way it is, we have none.”

Now I’m not happy with the European Union, I want to tell you, and we’re going to win that. We’re going to win that financial battle. It’s a financial battle. They have millions of cars coming in, millions and millions of cars. Probably the largest, Japan’s very big too, but they don’t accept our cars. We make great cars, they don’t have our cars, but we have their cars. They don’t have our farm products. We have the greatest farmers in the world, they don’t accept our farm products, but we accept theirs.

So, you know, things are going to change unless they do what they have to do, and they know what they have to do. This is not going to be a tough battle, in my opinion. Not going to be tough, just like when Ontario charged us, everybody said, oh, they just, I said, this will be won in one hour, and they announced what we were going to do, and they withdrew their little threat, and what they don’t say in Canada is that 270%, have you ever heard that, we have dairy products from Canada, 270%, going up to 400%, you never hear

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] That 400% is absolutely one of the worst. And when I say worst, worst in terms of charging tariffs. Their dairy products – they charge our farmers 240%, 250%, 270%, and 400%. Think of that for dairy products. And we charge them like peanuts. You know why? Because we’ve been improperly run for so many years.

I had that all settled in my first term, but then of course, Biden, you know, he let everything go to hell. One of the things we did is we took from China hundreds of billions of dollars. And I have great respect for President Xi, but he understood that. He understood it was a one-way street, and you can’t have a one-way street.

[REPORTER:] Wouldn’t that be a stupid thing for me to say? He’s President Xi. And which countries am I going to target for the next travel ban?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] And you believe somebody would ask that question? Well, we’re going to talk. We’re going to be talking really to the European Union.

Trump’s Experience with Ireland and the EU

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] I will tell you this – one little thing, we’ll end it with this. So I have a property, a big property in Ireland that you know well. It’s one of the most highly rated hotels in all of Europe. It’s beautiful, in Doonbeg. It’s a beautiful 600 acres on the ocean, and everybody knows it. And we have a beautiful hotel.

I was going to do a project there, a big expansion of the place. This was when I was a civilian, before the presidency, before I even thought about the presidency. But I was going to do a really beautiful expansion because it does very well. And I got the approvals from Ireland so quickly. They were so professional. They wanted it, you know, it’s economic development, it’s jobs, it’s construction jobs, a big expansion, beautiful expansion.

But I was told something that bothered me. They said, “Sir, you also have to get approved by the European Union.” I said, “Why do I have to go to the European Union to expand a hotel that’s in Ireland?” They said, “Well, that’s the way it is.” I said, “Well, shouldn’t that go fast?” They said, “No, it’ll take at least seven years.”

You gave me the approval in about four weeks. It was beautiful, professional. If you took four years, you wouldn’t have done a better job. Everything was done environmentally. There’s no reason to take very long. I had everything from Ireland in four weeks. And then I hired somebody, he said the process will be from five to seven years. And I said, “Oh, really?” And then I found out that they weren’t playing games.

Think about how bad that is for your country. So that was my first experience with the European Union, and I dropped the project. I just thought, I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to go seven years to expand something. But I’ll hand it to Ireland, you were so professional, so good. But I don’t know why the European Union had to approve it, and with them, it was, you know, that’s the European Union. So it was a very bad experience I had.

[TAOISEACH MARTIN:] Just to say, President, you have the distinction of being, I think, the only president that has physically invested in Ireland, through your Doonbeg.

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] And it’s been a good investment.

[TAOISEACH MARTIN:] And it’s, I mean, for anybody, you should go there, it’s just stunning, even if you don’t play golf. I mean, it is a stunning landscape. Your people have restored it very well, and our people are going to continue to work with you on that piece, to do it all sort of effectively and so on. They’ve had a great relationship. But it is great, and the local people – my local councillor, Rita McInerney, texted me last week to say, “Tell President Trump to thank his family, for the way they’ve worked with the local community, and for the work that they’ve done.”

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Thank you. Thank you.

NATO and International Relations

[REPORTER:] What’s that?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Well, NATO has to treat us fairly if they pay their bills and if they do what they’re supposed to do. When I first got involved with NATO, as you know, they weren’t paying their bills. There were 28 countries and most of them weren’t paying, and I got them to pay, and they paid billions and billions of dollars.

I made a certain statement that I’m not going to be involved with NATO unless you’re going to pay your bills. And I was asked a question, “If we don’t pay, are you going to help us?” I said, “No, if you don’t pay, you’re saying you’re delinquent,” a term, a real estate term. “You’re delinquent. You’re not paying your rent. You’re not paying your bills. If you’re not paying your bills, I’m not going to help.”

And everybody we took in, your Secretary General will tell you, he was very generous to me. He said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Money came in by the billions and billions and billions of dollars, and NATO became much stronger. Now, NATO has expended a lot of that money in fighting this horrible war. It was too bad they had to do that, but they had the money from me. I was the one that got people to pay. The countries, most of the countries were not paying, or they were paying a very small amount. So, we’ll see. But NATO can be a force for good, absolutely.

[REPORTER:] Would you like to see Ireland join NATO?

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] That’s up to Ireland.

[REPORTER:] Would you think Ireland and the EU are too close? Do you think that perhaps, like you said-

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] We are very close.

[REPORTER:] No, Ireland and the EU. Do you think there’s too close a relationship there? Do you think there needs to be a separation? Like you said, if you can’t get permission when you get it in Ireland, you can’t get it in the EU. Do you think-

[PRESIDENT TRUMP:] Well, look, I can just tell you about my personal experience. Ireland treated me very well, and the EU was terrible. And they stopped really a magnificent addition. It wasn’t a big deal from the standpoint of the world. It wasn’t like the things we’re talking about now, but it would have been a very beautiful addition, and they stopped it, which is bad for Ireland. And I don’t know why. I don’t know why it would take five to seven years to get something approved, but that’s what it was.

Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you.

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