Transcript: Trump Takes Questions From Reporters After Long Cabinet Meeting – Aug 26, 2025

We’re down to – I mean, I think I maybe in my own mind have somebody that I like, but I deal with Scott and I deal with Howard and we’re dealing with a lot of people actually that are going to be involved in that decision ultimately.

It’s a very important decision as we see. I mean, I got a bad recommendation when I went with Jerome Powell. Too Late. He’s too late. His nickname is “Too Late,” costing us a lot of money, hurting the housing.

I mean, housing industry is good, but it could be phenomenal. Most of this country in terms economic terms has been phenomenal. We’ve never seen anything like it. Because of him and his high interest rates, the housing is less than it could be.

We’re going to get that straightened out very quickly. He gets out very quickly, fortunately. He’s been the wrong guy. Not a bad person, I don’t think, but I do think he has motives, by the way, but I don’t consider him. I’ve dealt with worse.

But he hasn’t done the job. The recommendation from a certain person was not a great recommendation. That person vouched for him, but we’re doing a very careful study. We’ll see what happens.

Look, we have – we just put a very good man in one position. We might switch him to the other to longer term and pick somebody else. But we’re very happy with the person we have in there. And we’ll have a majority very shortly. So, that’ll be great.

Once we have a majority housing is going to swing and it’s going to be great. People are paying too high an interest rate. That’s the only problem with housing. We have to get the rates down a little bit. And when we do, it’s going to be a tremendous difference.

Country is doing so well. It sort of blows through the fact that we have a man who’s too late and not doing a very good job.

Gun Carry Rights in DC

REPORTER: Mr. President, regarding crime in DC, something that might help especially ladies is being able to carry. I know you’ve talked about reciprocal carry. Would you like for that to apply here in Washington DC?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: When you say carry, I assume you’re talking about carry – what we’re talking. Concealed or – In other words, carry a gun. Is that right?

REPORTER: Would you like to carry a gun?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I would like to. Yes, sir. You feel a hell of a lot better, right? Absolutely would. I agree with you a hundred percent. Okay? Okay. Great.

But I’ll tell you, within another couple of weeks, it’s hard to believe what’s been accomplished in twelve days, but within another couple of weeks, you won’t have to carry. You’re not going to have to carry. You’re going to be safe. People are safe now.

The turn has gone fast. I knew it was going to go fast, but this turn has gone really fast. And within a month or two, this is going to be one of the safest places in the country. Have no doubt about it.

And we’ll do an extension. We’ll work with Congress or I could declare an emergency, but I don’t think that’s going to be necessary. Work with Congress. We’re going to be working with Congress. I spoke with our great Speaker, and I will be speaking to John Thune.

And we’re getting tremendous support from Congress, especially maybe here. Everybody wants to see our capital be great. You say it’d be great again. You know, it’s such a beautiful place. But if you have crime, nothing looks beautiful.

So, but you won’t need to carry a gun, but if you do, you’re welcome to.

REPORTER: Well, I would like to have the option just in case.

Crime Policy and Blue Cities

REPORTER: There’s a lot of people feel that. Also in other blue cities, you’ve got Karen Bass in Los Angeles, Brandon Johnson in Chicago. It seems to be very popular here, the fact that people can walk around, go to restaurants, shop, and not have to worry about their safety. If blue city mayors oppose those efforts in their cities, do you anticipate the Democrat voters are going to take it out on them?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think so. I think that crime is going to be a big thing. And we are the party. The Republicans are the party that wants to stop crime. We’re against crime. The Democrats like crime. I don’t know why.

I mean, we talk about common sense. I think I got elected on talking about common sense, the border. We have to have a wall. Don’t want transgender for everybody. We don’t, as I said before, we don’t want to have men playing in women’s sports.

I mean, you see the difference weightlifting. Take a look at weightlifting. Take a look at long distance running where a runner came in five hours and fourteen minutes ahead of another runner, both champions, one male, one female. It’s not fair. It’s demeaning to women. It’s so bad.

But they have another one. And I think this is the beauty of them all, crime. They’re against crime prevention. You can’t do that. You can’t do that.

And I think to myself, I say, is there some game? You know, they’re smart people. Is there anybody that can cheat like that in elections is smart. Okay? And there’s never been in history anybody that could cheat like that. They’re smart. Brilliant in many ways.

I say, is there some trick to this? When they say, “Trump is in Washington, D.C. Stopping crime. He’s a dictator.” And people are being mugged like your brilliant associate here. I don’t know how you’re alive.

I mean, based on that story, you got very lucky. You didn’t just go. All you had to do is this. Right? And, you know, it’s pretty amazing. Wasn’t it?

So we have something. I think we have two things. I think what Bobby was talking about with respect to drug prices is unbeatable. Nobody else could have done it but us.

And I think that crime – I think crime will be the big subject of the midterms and will be the big subject of the next election. Think of it. They are instead of saying “Trump’s right about crime, it’s really bad in Chicago.” You have a guy in Illinois, the governor of Illinois, saying that crime has been much better in Chicago recently, and Trump is a dictator.

And most people say, if you call him a dictator, then if he stops crime, he can be – he can be whatever he wants. I’m not a dictator, by the way, but he can be whatever he wants.

I think it’s going to be a big – a big, big subject for the midterms, and I think the Republicans are going to do really well. They are – they called it a trap, this Democrat consultant. They said, “He’s put them in a trap again” because these are all traps. You know?

Eighty twenty, but they’re not eighty twenty. They’re almost a hundred to nothing, all these issues. But I would say that crime is stronger than men playing in women’s sports. I think it’s stronger than transgender for everybody. And it’s transgender for everybody according to them.

It’s stronger, of course, it’s – this is the cause of it, Open Borders. Open Borders gave us a lot of this crime. So, you know, so they’re sort of on an equal footing, I guess. But crime is going to be a very big subject.

Cooperation with Blue State Leaders

And you know what he should do? He was smart. Illinois or New York, if they want, or Gavin Newsom, they should call me and they should say, you know, “We’ve got a – we’ve got a problem. You know, we could solve with this team” – different players, but work the same way because you’d leave them here. You don’t want to take them out and let it go to hell.

Everybody’s so happy and why – I bet you walked over here today and you had no fear. Nobody has any fear anymore. Last twelve days.

But what if – if they – what it would be so smart. Gavin is calling me up saying, you know what? “We have a big problem. We have the Olympics coming up. We want to do well. We have tremendous problems on crime and other things, and we’d love some help.”

Chicago in particular, maybe right now. I mean, it’s disaster. It’s a disaster. We could solve their problem in, it’s bigger than this, let’s say, months. Okay?

Working with their police, I know their police very well. I have a big project in Chicago. Built, I was so proud of it. It’s the best site in Chicago. I got it. Nobody else got it. I was happy as though that was when I was a real estate guy.

And I got it, the Sun Times site they call it. And I built a building, it’s a great building. And I’m so embarrassed when I see the kind of crime stats coming out there. So, so embarrassed.

And if I were a governor, a Democrat governor, or mayor, or anybody having to do – I’d call up president Trump.

President Trump Addresses Long-Term Safety Plans for D.C.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’d say, President Trump, we need your help. We saw what you’ve done in DC in a period of twelve days. This is twelve days. We haven’t even started. This is going to be so safe.

Going to be the safest place on Earth. And we’ll do the same thing in Chicago. But I’d like to be asked as opposed to just going in and doing it. Because, you know, when you go in and do it, then they start screaming, “Oh, he shouldn’t be here. We don’t need him.”

“We’re doing so well.” And then the better we do, they take credit for it. So it’s really pretty unfair. Yes.

REPORTER: For a lot of big firms like myself, a big concern is long term sustainability. Can we share with more with the American public about your plan and ensuring that D.C. is safe in the long term?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Longer term, yes. Well, it’s a great question. Number one, we want to stay there for longer than thirty days. As you know, we have an absolute mandate and I can extend it, but I’d rather not have to declare a national emergency because by that time, I mean, now, there’s not an emergency. We’ve done, as you sort of said yourself, it feels like a different world.

We’ve got under arrest and prosecution, and we’ve thrown out, taken some, and we’re in the process of taking hundreds out of our country that shouldn’t be here. And these are hardcore professional criminals. They were born to be criminals in my opinion, but they’re seriously bad people, murderers, drug dealers, you know them all, you see them all as you walk beautifully to work and every once in a while somebody puts a gun to your head because that’s what happened in your case.

We’re getting a lot of them out of the country. We’re putting a lot of them in prison because we’re afraid to bring them out of the country, they could come back. As good as we’re doing, they could come back. We don’t want them back. And that’s going to solve a lot of it.

We also think there should be a presence here for long enough. We should also work with our police department because you have very good police here, very good. We’re working very well with them, by the way. And we have to work together for a while. We have some people that are very tough and very strong.

Working with the police, they’re going to be able to handle it. And you know what? If it gets a little bit bad, a little bit, just a little bit, I’ll bring them back in and we’ll straighten it out. We’ll make it perfect. You’re going to be so safe in this city and you’re going to have the city beautified.

D.C. Beautification and Infrastructure Plans

We’re going to be giving out. We’re working with Clark, as you know, construction. They’re the biggest. They’re working with me also. We’re building a beautiful ballroom for the White House. They’ve been after it for one hundred and fifty years, employs a lot of people. It’s going to be as beautiful a ballroom as has ever been built.

And Clark is the big builder in this city. They’ve done, I guess, the majority of the good work, the big work. And we’re working with them on the beautification, the fixing up of the roads, the fixing up of the medians, between the roads. So, cars don’t wrap into each other. They wrap into I have one piece sitting on the ground for weeks.

This was a year ago when I had to come in, unfortunately, for fake court cases. And I looked at the condition. We have it fixed up a lot right now. You know, the tents are removed and lot of things have taken place. But I’d come into this city and say, does it look bad? The filth on the roads, the medians were broken and always laying down and nobody would fix them and all of that.

Well, we’re going to have new meetings. We’re going to have a nice topping put on the road. We’re not going to rip the roads apart and start a construction project in the last for two and a half years as they rebuild the road, which they don’t have to do. And we’re going to have this place so beautiful. That’s going to be a part of it.

Now, the biggest part is crime, but it’s also a part you know, when you see a dirty city, it’s like I told I don’t know. It became the number one thing viral. I said my father. He’s a smart guy. He’s a great guy. He’s a loving, wonderful father, but he could be a little on the tough side.

He told me that, “Son, when you walk into a restaurant, you see a dirty, filthy door going into the restaurant. Don’t go there because the kitchen is dirty also.” When they see a dirty capital, the rest of the world, they lose a lot of respect for our country. This capital is going to be so beautiful. We’re going to have new poles, new lights, new fences, stuff that when you add it up, it’s money, but it’s peanuts compared to what we’re talking about. And we’re also going to have great safety.

Personal Safety Incidents and Crime Response

REPORTER: I wanted to ask you on crimeand also a question on foreign policy that maybe other officials can weigh in too. And on crime, Iris shared her story and you mentioned know, people going—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: That was a terrible story because I’m just amazed she’s here. When when the gun is panned, when the gun is put to the head did they ever capture these people, by the way? I kept calling, but I haven’t heard back about it. It’d be really great if you could maybe give the information. She’s very good at capturing people. She’s very good. If you could give that information to Pam, it would be great. Would you do that? You’d love to see them. I would assume you’d like to see them, Kathy.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: For sure. You can’t you just can’t. We’ve been for years. Yeah. Take a good look at them.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, go ahead. So go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Just a few weeks ago, I was out to dinner with my husband and we’re taking the Metro back and then we get attacked on the Metro. They’re throwing things, some teenagers throwing liquid at us.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, they’re throwing things. They throw — how about where they chop down the granite curbs and the concrete curbs, but the granite curbs so expensive. Those granite curbs, nobody uses it because they’re so expensive. And you see a guy chopping them and handing out big chunks of them like a brick because they couldn’t get in because people were stopping them from walking out a little bit unusual when you’re walking with a bag of bricks.

Generally speaking, Sean, that’s not a good sign. It’s not a good sign. But they now come in with hammers. They can disguise a hammer. They start pounding the concrete and the granite and they hand out chunks. And those people take those chunks and start throwing them cups or they stand on the top of bridges and they drop them down into the windshield of your car and you get killed running into a light pole. Those days are over.

National Guard Deployment and State Cooperation

REPORTER: I wanted to ask you, Governor Hochul, Kathy Hochul said that she spoke to you on the phone and you said you might send National Guard troops to New York. You mentioned that. So will you—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’d love to do it. If she’d like I get along with Kathy. If she’d like to do that, I would do it. You see, look, New York has difficulty like other and and I I don’t want to make this bite. I want to make this, like, friendly.

But the places we’re talking about happen to be virtually all Democrat run. Now take a look at your twenty five places that that are most troubled. Everyone except maybe one and it’s way back in number twenty four or twenty five. But essentially, twenty five out of twenty five are run by Democrats and cashless bail was a disaster.

When they did that, and I believe it was instituted first in New York, but when they did cashless bail, that was a tragedy for this because that’s when it really started. It really started getting bad. When somebody kills somebody, you don’t say you can come out, you don’t have to put up anything. You put that person in jail and you find out whether or not it’s true, but you don’t give cashless bail with a promise to come back in a couple of months.

We’ll start talking to you because they go out and they kill other people, and you can’t do that. The cashless bail has been, you know, it’s just a woke thing. It’s got to stop. You see that, Kristi, better than anybody. It’s gotta stop. It causes unbelievable and we’re doing that. We’re stopping it in DC.

I would love to have the governor of Illinois call me and say, “Look. We have a problem in Chicago. We will stop that problem in Chicago in two months, maybe less, two months. We’ll stop it.” These are tough cookies we have working for us. These are tough cookies. These are not politically correct soldiers that I won’t go into definitions of what that means. But these are not politically correct soldiers. These are rough guys.

I watched it last night. I see it. I saw them the other day when we went down and we spent some time together with them. These are tough cookies. These are not people that you’re going to laugh at and spit in their face, and they’re not going to do anything about it. And these people, they’re afraid.

These gang members who are bad people too, these are bad. These are just bad people. Ours are bad, but they’re bad in a good sense, right? You don’t understand that Scott. And we can solve Chicago in two months.

Now, then as per your statement before, we have to keep it going, and we’ll be able to keep it going. The first thing you have to do is get it down. We are very close to being at that position in DC. And within a month, we will be within a month from when we started, which is quicker than I thought, we’re going to have you’re going to feel very, very safe. I think you feel very safe right now.

But but I would love it to have these governors, mayors call me and say, “We’d like to invite you into our community because we have a problem, and you can handle the problem, and we can’t.” One other thing, sanctuary cities, they should be terminated. There’s sanctuary for criminals. There’s safety and security for criminals. They are very, very bad. And all of these places have big sanctuary cities, and all they’re doing is protecting criminals. Okay?

Government Records and Investigations

REPORTER: Think about don’t about Lisa. You have spoken out very strongly for a long time about what you see as the weaponization of government. Is your administration weaponizing government by digging into the mortgage records of officials in your life?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, they’re public. I mean, you can find out those records. You can go check out the records yourself. And you should be doing that job actually. You wouldn’t do that because that’s not the kind of reporter you are. But you should be doing that job. I shouldn’t have to be doing it. If you did your job properly, we wouldn’t have problems like Lisa Clark. Go ahead. You were going to say something.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Blue? Think we have to have lower interest rates.

Transnational Criminal Networks

REPORTER: A follow-up question for you and Madam Attorney General on National Security. We’ve heard from Stephen Miller yesterday in the Oval Office that there are street criminals here in D.C. who are actually found to be doing business with transnational criminal cartels who—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: That’s right. And we know who they are, and we know who they’re doing business with. And we’re arresting the people, very strongly arresting, and we’re keeping them there because, you know, your laws here make it very difficult.

And one of the other laws we’re trying to get done, and because you have fourteen year old kids that are just as tough as a twenty five year old kid, just as dangerous, and they carry the same gun. And we have to make a provision where they’re treated like older people because these are seriously tough, bad. They’re children, but they’re criminals, and they’re really bad criminals.

And they’re used by older people because they never get charged because you can’t do anything to them. But we are getting that changed, Pam, I hope. Because you have fourteen year old kids that are evil, they’re sick, and they have to be put away. There’s something has to be done because you can’t have a society where they’re allowed to walk the street. You know that better than anybody else.

I can’t believe you’re not tired holding that? I have two more questions. How strong are you? Look at him. He’s been holding that thing for three hours. You’re good fisherman. Ahead.

Ukraine-Russia Negotiations

REPORTER: Point of Alaska, you had mentioned that there would be severe consequences if Vladimir Putin did not agree to a ceasefire. After that summit that was rolled back given the negotiations, is he back on the clock now?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I want to see that deal end. It’s very, very serious what I have in mind if I have to do it, but I want to see it end. I think that in many ways he’s there. Sometimes he’ll be there and Zelensky won’t be there. It’s like, who do we have today? I got to get them both at the same time. But I want to have it end.

We have economic sanctions. I’m talking about economic because we’re not going to get into a world war. I’ll tell you what, in my opinion, if I didn’t win this race, Ukraine could have ended up in a world war. We’re not going to end up in a world war anymore, but it would have ended up possibly in a world war. That would have been a they were ready to trot.

But just like India and Pakistan, we’re going to end up in a nuclear war if I didn’t stop them. You know, it was sort of strange. I saw they were fighting. Then I saw seven jets were shot down. I said, that’s not good. That’s a lot of jets, one hundred and fifty million planes were shot down. A lot of them, seven, maybe more than that.

Diplomatic Relations and Trade Negotiations

They didn’t even report the real number. I’m talking to a very terrific man, Modi of India. They say, “What’s going on with you in Pakistan?” Then I’m talking to Pakistan on trade. I said, “What’s going on with you and India?”

And the hatred was tremendous. Now this has been going on for a hell of a long time, with sometimes with different names for hundreds of years. But I said, “What’s going on? I said, I don’t want to make a trade deal. No. No. No. We want to make trade deal.” I said, “No. No. I don’t want to make a trade deal with you. You’re going to have a nuclear war. You guys are going to end up in a nuclear war.”

And that was very important to them. I said, “Call me back tomorrow, but we’re not going to do any deals with you or we’re going to put tariffs on you that are so high.” You were there, Howard, right? “You’re to put tariffs on you that were so high. I don’t give a damn, your head’s going to spin. You’re not going to end up in a war.”

Within about five hours, it was done. It was done. Now, maybe it starts again. I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I’ll stop it. If it does, we can’t let these things happen.

The Russia-Ukraine Conflict

The Russia Ukraine situation, last week, seven thousand and twelve soldiers died. They were Russian, they were Ukrainian, they weren’t American. So a lot of people would say, “What do you care? They’re not American.” I care.

Over the last couple of weeks, over twelve thousand people died in two weeks. You know, we’re talking about crime where somebody’s killed here or someone. Think of it. You have your son leaving Russia, leaving Ukraine, their little house, wherever they live with their parents, they’re waving goodbye, just like our parents would wave goodbye. And they’re waving goodbye, son.

And then a week later, his head’s blown off in a stupid war by a drone, a whole new form of military problem. So, no, I’d like it to stop. I want to get it to stop. And it will not be a world war, but it’ll be an economic war. And an economic war is going to be bad.

And it’s going to be bad for Russia, and I don’t want that. Now I have to also see because not everybody know, Zelensky is not exactly innocent either. Okay? You know, it takes two people to tango. And I say it all the time.

You got to get them together. I get along with Zelensky now, but we have a much different relationship because now we’re not paying any money to Ukraine. You know, stop that. We’re paying money to ourselves. What’s happening is, NATO is buying all of the equipment and paying in full.

But even with that, forget about that. I want to get it stopped because it’s a lot of lives that are being lost. Every week, it’s seven thousand, five thousand, six thousand. I get the reports, and I see battlefields. I’d rather not see them.

And, you know, you read about Gettysburg. You read about Gettysburg, and you see those thousand six hundred thousand people, but in that war in particular was really bad, a hundred and fifty thousand or something, just dead body. I’m seeing the same. I see pictures. I see satellite pictures of heads over here, arms over here, legs over here.

And this is a modern age. This is no different than the worst wars that I’ve ever seen. And if I can stop it because I have a certain power or a certain relationship had a very good relationship with President Putin. Very, very good. That’s a positive thing again.

And I think I’m probably the only Steve Wittkopf would tell you I’m the only one that can solve it. I don’t know. You just told me that a few times, unless you were saying that just to build up my ego, but it’s not really. I have no ego when it comes to this stuff. I just want to see yourself.

Thousands of young people, mostly young people are dying every single week. If I can save that by doing sanctions or by just being me or by using a very strong tariff system that’s very costly to Russia or Ukraine or whoever we have. But I stopped seven wars, and three of those wars were going on for more than thirty years. If you look at Congo, if you look at just look at any of them, almost all of them were going on for extended period of time.

Now, one had just started, it was two days old, and you know that one. And we did that one when we were in Scotland negotiating. It was two days but there were two thousand dead bodies laying on the border, and I got that one stopped too. And I’m very honored by that, but I still the one that I thought would be the easiest is turning out to be the hardest. That’s President Putin and President Zelensky, but I think I’ll get it done.

REPORTER: Why do you think that is why you’re fighting inside Steve?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You never know. It’s war. With war, you never know, right? Wars are very tricky, very horrible. But with war, you never know.

Things change. People go into war, think they’re going to win the war, then they get their asses kicked. And they lose their country, they lose millions of lives. Nobody goes into a war thinking they’re going to lose. They go in.

I’m sure that Ukraine thought they were going to win. It’s going to be you know, we’re going to win. You’re going to beat somebody that’s fifteen times your size. Biden shouldn’t have let that happen. Biden shouldn’t have done.

I mean, the man was grossly incompetent. He should have never been there. That would have never happened. But you don’t go into a war that’s fifteen times your size.

Federal Reserve and Legal Challenges

REPORTER: Lisa Cook has indicated your personal attorney that she’ll promptly challenge this action court, seeking a judicial decision that would confirm her ability to continue.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: That’s all right. Whatever it is. And the Fed will abide by any court decision. Thank you very much, I abide by the court. Yeah. I abide by the court. Yes. That’s enough. That’s enough.

Intel Partnership Deal

REPORTER: Kennedy, what other companies are you thinking about taking the stake in?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we didn’t take the stake in the sense that it was reported. Everyone said, I bought a stake in Intel. No, I got it for free. I said, I was with the is that correct? Saban Howard was there? Absolutely correct. Scott knew all about it.

They came in, a man was charged with something by a very good person, Senator Cotton, made some statements about the gentleman that was running Intel. When he came in, I said some rough things about him, I said, “I’m not happy with it.” They called and he was very devastated at what I said.

I said, “He should immediately resign.” And he came to see me and I was very impressed by him actually. And he made a mistake or the things factors happened where something like this could have taken place. In the meantime, his board was staying by him. And I said to him and took about, I would say, less than forty five seconds.

I said, “You know what you should do? If you’re smart, give the United States of America ten percent of your company.” And he looked at me and he said, “I’ll do that.” I said, “I just made eleven billion dollars for the United States.” And we made the deal.

I took I didn’t pay. We didn’t write a check. Now, I guess, Biden, his stupid chip sack, handed money to all these people that didn’t need any money. It didn’t do anything. You know, the chip, they’re giving billions of dollars to everybody.

They all have so much money, and they have more money. But there’s no commitment that you had to build. They just took all this money. I don’t know. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.

See, with tariffs, they have to come in because if they don’t come in, they can’t sell into our country. So it’s power and you don’t have to give up any money. But I said to him very simply, I mean, I’m glad we’re straightening this out because everyone thinks I bought in. No. I said, “Would be great. We’d be a great partner for you.” And I want to see Intel do well. You know, Intel was a great company, and it can be a great company again. But I said, “I think it would be good if we own ten percent of your company.” He said, “I’ll make that deal.”

And it happens to be worth eleven billion dollars So we made eleven billion dollars for the country. And then I was criticized by some of the fake news media. “That’s not the American way.” Actually, it is the American way. Now, if I can help other countries or do those deals with us, I would do that.

I think it’s great. It builds up our balance sheet. Let me tell you, our country is becoming very rich again. You don’t see it. When the CBO came out on Friday and said, “We just found eleven we just found four trillion dollars” and that goes to reduce our deficit, four trillion and it was from the tariffs.

Our country is becoming very, very rich again. I hope you get used to it. You’re going to have to get used to it.

Tariff Revenue and Rebate Checks

REPORTER: [QUESTION INAUDIBLE] reversing the deficit, any update on your previous talking about potentially giving Americans a tariff rebate check?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we have a lot of money coming in rebate checks for the Americans, and it’s coming in at tremendous numbers. Don’t forget, I would say, Scott, we probably are talking about right now fifty percent, maybe even less than that.

With all the money you’re hearing is coming in, you’re talking about a lot of it hasn’t kicked in yet. And when it really kicks in is in two years when these plants are built and opened and the money starts pouring in, right? But I mean, there’s a concept of making a, you could call it a dividend as we would say, making a dividend to the people in this country who have had to suffer through stupid leadership. And they paid a lot of taxes and they got nothing for it, where they got attacked for it.

Now there’s possibility. Primarily, we want to pay down debt, but there’s a possibility that we take a piece of it and pay some.

Russia-Ukraine Peace Negotiations

REPORTER: This past weekend, Sergey Lavrov was saying that Putin will not sign a peace deal with Zelensky because Russia’s use in this illegitimate. Just wondering if the Russians have been relaying this to your team, if they view Zelensky as a leader worth signing a peace deal with, if they will

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It doesn’t matter what they say. Steve can answer, but I can answer too. It doesn’t matter what they say. Everybody is posturing. It’s all bullshit, okay? Everybody is posturing. Steve, do you have a different answer?

STEVE WITTKOPF: I agree with you, sir.

Police Staffing and Military Decision-Making

REPORTER: [QUESTION INAUDIBLE] if the police departments in this country were fully staffed, defund the police, how bad could that turn out for America?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It’s an interesting question. I found I was surprised when I heard how many police were here. It’s not a really big area. And I think they said they’re down to three thousand two hundred police or something like that. I said, “That’s a lot of police.”

And I was a little bit surprised because to me, that’s a big force and it’s not a big area, but it is what it is. There’s a lot of crime. You have a lot of don’t forget, you have a lot of police that weren’t allowed to do their job.

When I came in, as you remember, we made tremendous strides in a little conflict that we had going at the time because I allowed our military to make the decision. I said, “You can make any decision you want.” I gave it to the colonels in the field. I gave it to the captains in the field. You remember that where everything went through Biden, meaning one of the people, and everything went through Obama before him.

Everything went through they had to make the decision as to whether or not to attack the Taliban. So they’d find thirty people together. They’d call up Washington, and they’d go to a political hack who knew nothing about it.

My first night, I got that same call. They called me, and they said, “We have a” I got a call at three o’clock in the morning because I listened to their system and they were calling me and they were asking me whether or not they could attack a group of people having to do with you know what war I’m talking about. And I said, “I know nothing about this. Wait a minute.”

And then I said, “Who is he? Let me speak to the people calling. They’re calling from Afghanistan.” And I said, “Let me speak to the people. I want to speak to them.”

And it was a colonel. I said, “When did go to school, colonel?” “I went to West Point, sir.” “Were you a good student?” “I was, sir. I was a very good student.” “So you’re calling the White House to ask for permission to attack. And by the time you get the answer, how long does it take?” “Sometimes two or three weeks.” “So by the time you get the answer, the people that you want to attack have already left, right?”

He said, “How did you know that, sir?” I said, “Let me ask you. So you’re a good student, you went to West Point, and you love the military, right? You make the decision.” And I gave all those guys that went to all these great schools and they’re all military people.

I gave them the right to make their own decision and we kicked ISIS’s ass. Don’t forget, ISIS was supposed to be, was supposed to take five years to terminate him. And we had a man named Raisin Cain, who happens to have done the whole thing in Iran. Great general. And he’s a wonderful guy too, believe it or not.

Presidential Response on Military Leadership and Congressional Relations

But he’s a great soldier. We let them do their work, and we defeated ISIS. We defeated everybody. Every fight that we had militarily that I had, I won. And I let these great soldiers do.

And some make a mistake, I guess. But like this colonel, I’ll never forget it. “Where did you go to school?” “Went to West Point, sir.” I did ask him a question.

“I like good students as opposed to bad, sir.” He said, “I was a good student.” And I said, “You do what’s necessary.” And, you know, I don’t want to sound overly vicious, but he wiped out the entire group of very bad people that want to kill us. So you have to let them do their job. In Washington, they’re not allowed to do their job.

They’re not allowed. You have great police. You have great police, but they’re not allowed. Hello. Go ahead.

Congressional Continuing Resolution Discussion

REPORTER: On congress, mister president, would you be open to a year long continuing resolution?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I’m always open to whatever is necessary. But here’s the problem in congress. You have democrats that will never vote for anything. I could say that we’re going to lower your taxes by fifty percent.

We’re going to guarantee you free cities, safe cities. Nobody will ever get touched, molested, beat up, shot in the head. We’re going to give you the greatest country ever. We need your vote, and they won’t vote. And they do it in unison.

The only thing they do good is cheat on elections and unite. You know why they unite? Not because they’re good or they’re loyal people. They unite because they’re afraid. They’re afraid of the radical left, and you can’t get their vote.

So we have a vote coming up at the end of September, I think we’re going to pass it because we have the majority. And I think almost every Republican will vote for an extension. Because no matter what deal you make with these people, look at Schumer. He made a deal a year and a half ago. And after making the deal, he’s been almost run out of the party.

He’s not the same man. He’s not the same man. He’s finished. He aged twenty years. He’s become a Palestinian, by the way.

We call him our great Palestinian senator. But Chuck Schumer, and I wrote him a letter. I said, “Chuck, that was really great. Thank you very much.” And somebody gave the letter to the press, not me.

And he was destroyed because they thought I was being sarcastic and I was. He made a great decision. It kept our country open. It was a positive. But you can count on almost no vote.

I mean, I see things. I’ll give you an example of crime. So we’re going to pass a bill to stop crime. We may not get one Democrat vote. We may not get one. So when you say continuing resolution, I guess so. And it’s going to be passed exclusively by Republicans.

H-2A Visa Program for Farm Workers

REPORTER: Spartanburg, why don’t you just go into it in Iowa that you wanted to see some changes to the H-2A visa program for farm workers? Mentioned in Iowa that you want to changes. Do you want to see that before the fall harvest?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I love both groups, and we take care of our farmers and we also take care of the people that want bad people out of our country. And we’re working on something that’s going to work really well. We take care of our farmers, but we also have to take care of those people that voted for me because they don’t want criminals in our country. And we’re working on something where we can take care of both.

REPORTER: You were talking about the media reported two of your cabinet members were talking about. I remember back on liberation day, many of us reporters covered your detractors, people saying that it was going to explode the deficit and therefore explode the debt. Who all of us called you to say I was wrong?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Is that okay? Know the answer to that. Yeah. Please. Yeah. It’s only the president.

Governor Pritzker and Chicago Security

You know, Governor Pritzker said yesterday that he had a press conference. He said what? If he would encourage nonviolent resistance if the National Guard is sent to Chicago. This guy doesn’t know what resistance is or nonviolent resistance is. He’s a bad politician. It’s amazing. I mean, if he didn’t have the money, he wouldn’t get any votes because there’s no compelling reason to vote for him.

That’s a major loser. But it would be nice if he would call me. I would change my mind immediately. He said, you know, because everybody knows Chicago is a hellhole right now. Everybody knows.

It’s not like he’s saying Chicago has much better numbers, right? Well, what’s much better? You mean one hundred people are going to be murdered? It’s going to be much more. So I would have much more respect for Pritzker if he’d call me up and say, “Have a problem. Can you help me fix it?” I would be so happy to do it.

I don’t love, not that I don’t have, I would have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the President of the United States. If I think our country is in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it.

No problem going in and solving, you know, his difficulties. But it would be nice if they’d call and they’d say, “Would you do it?” And we do it in conjunction. Now, we work very well with the police because we naturally get along with the police. So the police and us work really well together, the mayor is opposed or whether I mean, you have a really rotten mayor there too.

He’s got a six percent approval rating in Chicago. And I see black women wearing a red MAGA hat last night on television. “Please let the president come in. My son was attacked. My this…” You have a force of black women, black women. They’re like only Trump. They want Trump to come in. And you see him. They’re all over the place in Chicago because they’re afraid to go out, and they don’t want their son or their daughter killed just like your parents didn’t want you killed.

And we have a tremendous look, it’s not about winning elections because we want to have nice fair elections. It’s not politics. We want to see a safe country. You have people that want to see a safe country, and they’re great people. You have great people in Chicago. The mayor is at six percent approval.

He’s an incompetent man. He should have never been put in a position like that. He can’t handle it. You have an incompetent governor there. You have an incompetent governor in California, Gavin.

I know him very well. He’s incompetent. He’s a nice guy, looks good. “Hi, everybody. How are you doing?” He’s got some strange hand action going. I don’t know what the hell is his problem. It’s a little weird, to be honest. There’s a little something shaky going on there.

But all he has to do is call me and say, “We have the Olympics coming up. We want to make it really good,” he’d say. And I’ll put some really good, great American patriots in there, and you won’t have any problems. Don’t forget, it’s loaded up with some stone cold killers, some really bad people, some people that were just born to be bad. They’re criminals, bad criminals, dangerous, and we could solve the problem for them very quickly.

Closing Remarks on Cabinet Meeting Transparency

You know what I think? I think this. You have not had this happen for four years. You sat and you’d ask one question to Biden, and it was always the ice cream question. Right? “What flavor ice cream do you like?” “I like vanilla.” And that was the end of the conference.

I think now we’ve done enough. These people are very busy. I want to just thank, this is the greatest. This has never been done before. First of all, a cabinet meeting was sacred. You’d never let the fake news media in. But the fake news media isn’t all fake. It’s a lot of it, but it’s not all.

I think it’s a great thing. I think it’s maybe it’s going to be done in the future. I hope it’s going to be done, but you really get the word out. I mean, we had each one of these people spoke. I think each one, if I thought one of them did badly, I would call that person out. I would say, “Christy, what the heck are you doing?” No.

But seriously, you have a very talented group of people. They get along. They work along together. And there’s something really nice about just, you know, the openness of what we’re doing. It’s government. It’s an open government. That’s what we are.

And we haven’t made too many mistakes. Maybe we’ll, but we haven’t made too many mistakes. We’ve called it right. And I think you can be very proud of your country. We are a respected country again.

We are really, right now, respected at the highest level, and we’re doing great. And we’re a very rich country again, Very rich. And that’s a good thing because when we’re rich, we can take care of poor. And that’s what we’re doing. And we’re taking care of crime.

And I hope just in finishing, I hope that Illinois, I hope that New York, I hope that California, I hope they call me and they say, “I’d love to have you come in and help us out.” I will be a totally different person with them. I will respect them for doing it. Thank you all very much. Thank very much.

Thank you.

Related Posts

• Transcript: President Trump Hosts a Cabinet Meeting, Jul. 31, 2026
• Transcript: President Trump’s Remarks at Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Funeral
• Transcript: Trump’s Michigan Rally Speech Ahead of Midterm Elections
• Transcript of Nick Fuentes Interview ft. Hunter Biden – Channel 5
• Transcript: Trump Remarks at White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner