NEWS: President Trump Holds Press Gaggle On Air Force One As Stock Market Plummets

[0:08] So we had incredible job numbers today. [0:10] You saw that. [0:12] And we have good everything, good numbers. [0:16] But the job numbers just came out, and they were fantastic. [0:20] Far better than even anticipated. [0:24] They anticipated pretty good, but they had no idea [0:26] it was going to be that. [0:28] And unfortunately, we're in a world where, [0:30] for the last 15 years or so, when you have good numbers, [0:34] the market goes down. [0:35] When you have bad numbers, the market goes up. [0:37] Because too much emphasis is placed on inflation. [0:42] And you don't have to have inflation by having growth. [0:44] And we have great growth. [0:46] And that doesn't mean inflation. [0:48] In fact, it can be anti-inflation growth. [0:51] So I hope the market starts to learn that when you have good numbers, [0:55] the market should go up, not down. [0:59] Question. [1:01] I'm sorry. [1:02] Given those job numbers, do you think the Fed should cut rates [1:04] at its next meeting? [1:05] And do you think new chair Kevin Warsh can convince the rest of the company? [1:08] Well, I'm going to let Kevin make that decision. [1:09] I'd like to see lower interest rates because each point, [1:13] think of this, is $600 million. [1:20] You said yesterday you're interviewing some candidates [1:23] for a permanent director of national intelligence. [1:25] Who's under consideration for it? [1:29] I have five interviews. [1:31] And we'll have a very good person watching things, Bill Paltty. [1:37] But I have five interviews. [1:38] So cutting rates out, just getting back to you. [1:41] You save hundreds of millions of dollars when you take one point off. [1:46] Hundreds of millions of dollars. [1:48] Two points. [1:50] You save double hundreds of millions of dollars. [1:54] And so I therefore, you know, from that standpoint. [1:57] But someday we're going to have to go back to the old theory. [2:02] When we're doing so good, we have more auto plans being built than we've ever had. [2:08] All these numbers are good, but when the numbers are good, we should be allowed to grow, not to stimey the growth. [2:16] We had a Fed chair that didn't understand that. [2:20] The financial markets are now pricing in a cut, actually, for the October meeting. [2:24] We'd like to see that, but I leave that up. [2:26] I leave it up to Kevin, but I've always said, and I've said it for years, when you have a country that's doing well, the market should go well. [2:40] The market should. [2:41] And the reason they go down is if it's doing well, people say, oh, we have to stop inflation. [2:45] And it doesn't mean inflation. [2:47] In fact, it could be just the opposite. [2:49] Well, we could hike before the midterm elections mean, though, if they were to hike, we're going to save $600 billion every point. [2:57] Why do you want Bill Pulte to cut the office of the director of national intelligence? [3:06] And how long is he going to be in that role? [3:07] Depends on how long it takes to get somebody approved. [3:10] He'll do a very good job. [3:12] He'll watch it closely, but Bill Pulte is very good, he's very talented. [3:18] He's done a great job at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. [3:21] The value there is close to a trillion dollars. [3:26] We've built a value that's incredible. [3:28] So he's done a very good job at that. [3:30] He'll do a good job. [3:31] He's watching for, you know, during this time period. [3:33] And you wanted to cut the number of people working there? [3:36] I wouldn't mind. [3:36] I've heard that's way too high for way too long. [3:39] Yeah, I wouldn't mind. [3:40] If he cut, I wouldn't mind then. [3:42] For artificial intelligence, are you considering the possibility of the U.S. government taking stakes in some AI companies? [3:49] Well, it's something. [3:51] I did it with Intel. [3:53] So I made a deal on Intel, you know, we made, I made for the country, 50 billion dollars. [4:01] We took a stake in Intel. [4:03] It was given to us by our helping. [4:06] I said, look, we'll help you, but you have to give us 10% of the company. [4:10] That was Intel just nine months ago. [4:13] And as I think you know, we made about 50 billion dollars on that deal. [4:17] Would you want to do it for a young? [4:18] I did a very good job. [4:19] I should be a stockbroker. [4:21] Yes, sir. [4:22] I'm going to change the subject if you don't mind. [4:24] Did you get a chance to watch game one of the NBA finals? [4:26] What did you think? [4:27] We're going to game three, I guess. [4:31] It's game three on Monday. [4:32] I thought it was amazing. [4:34] I think that, I think the Knicks have an amazing team the way they played. [4:37] It started off slow and it just got stronger and stronger. [4:41] Wemby looks like he's going to be a great player, but they really played well. [4:47] Did you see Wemby crossing his arms during the U.S. National Anthem? [4:51] Did you have any thoughts on that? [4:52] I did not see that. [4:54] Is that what he did? [4:55] He did, yes. [4:56] What did he mean by that? [4:57] Nobody asked him. [4:59] I guess you have to ask him. [5:02] Well, who's your favorite Knick? [5:03] Brunson's fantastic. [5:06] Towns is fantastic. [5:08] They just have a great team. [5:10] Why do you think that the game you're going to, the cheapest price for the game three [5:14] country you're going to is $8,000. [5:16] Everyday Americans can't afford these sporting events. [5:20] They can watch it on television. [5:22] Sort of semi-free to watch it on television, but that's the way life goes. [5:28] You know, for some, and now if the game wasn't a big, if the team wasn't a big success, you [5:33] could go very easily. [5:34] So, you know, you can, you can do that too, but that's the way life is, you know, and they've [5:40] had great success. [5:41] And don't forget they've suffered also losses and they've suffered during the bad times. [5:45] Now they have a good time. [5:46] Now they have a good time. [5:47] They have a team that's amazing. [5:49] I don't think they've lost a playoff game. [5:51] Has that ever happened before? [5:54] Has anyone ever had this kind of a run in a playoff game? [5:58] I don't know. [5:59] On the new promenade you announced yesterday, Mr. President, where is the funding going [6:05] to come from? [6:06] It's not a lot of money and it's going to be beautiful. [6:10] You know, it's always been the Lincoln Memorial has always been very tied to the Potomac River, [6:15] but they built two roadways behind it unexpectedly at the time, many years ago. [6:20] But after the memorial was built, it used to have a tie to the river and then the highways [6:25] cut it off. [6:26] And we have a really beautiful plan where it goes over a beautiful, beautiful series [6:34] of platforms that bring you right down to the river. [6:37] It's beautiful. [6:38] The funding? [6:40] It's cool. [6:41] It's a promenade. [6:42] It's a beautiful promenade. [6:43] Probably, well, it could come from a lot of, we have a lot of sources of funding. [6:47] We won't have to go back to Congress, certainly. [6:49] We have a lot of sources of funding. [6:51] And a lot of people have asked me to stay involved with the Kennedy Center. [6:56] We had a judge who's totally conflicted, but that's all right. [6:59] He's a totally conflicted judge. [7:00] He should be ashamed of himself. [7:02] But they've asked me, in the strongest of language, to stay involved with the Kennedy Center. [7:07] We want to see, because the building, well, I mean, it's a very, it's very dangerous, [7:11] number one. [7:12] Number two, it was losing for years tremendous amounts of money. [7:17] So, well, I'm considering that. [7:19] But a lot of people have asked me to get it fixed. [7:21] We have to fix the Kennedy Center of Wimcom, both physically and from the standpoint of attendance. [7:27] President, on oil and gas prices, I know you're saying that the oil prices and gas prices [7:32] will fall after the conflict ends. [7:34] Would you limit exports of gasoline if prices in the short term go up? [7:38] We have a lot of alternatives, but the beautiful thing from our standpoint is we have more oil and gas [7:44] and coal and everything else in any other country or the planet. [7:48] And then when you add Venezuela to it, we have probably 64 percent of that type of energy. [7:58] That's unbelievable. [7:59] The Venezuela is working out very well. [8:01] We're getting along incredibly. [8:03] The country is happy. [8:05] The people love the USA. [8:07] And we have a lot of, you know, the big oil companies are moving in there now as we speak. [8:13] And we're going to be taking out millions of barrels of oil. [8:16] Are U.S. oil majors doing enough to boost output in the U.S.? [8:19] Are you asking them to do more? [8:20] Well, we have everything we need. [8:23] The world doesn't. [8:25] I will say people thought it was going to be a lot worse. [8:28] You know, today I looked at $96 a barrel. [8:31] People thought that was going to be $300 a barrel. [8:34] And in the meantime, we're having great success with Iran. [8:37] They're not going to have a nuclear weapon. [8:39] They're in no position to have a nuclear weapon. [8:42] Senator Tillis said he won't support Todd Blanche's confirmation unless Todd Blanche condemns January 6th. [8:48] Do you have a reaction to that? [8:50] Senator Tillis is a loser. [8:52] That's why he didn't run. [8:54] He didn't run because I wouldn't support him. [8:56] And he's just an angry man because he's not going to be a senator any longer. [9:02] He wasn't respected in the Senate. [9:04] He fought a lot of people. [9:05] He fought Pete Heggseth. [9:07] Pete Heggseth turned out to be a gem. [9:10] No, Senator Tillis is a loser. [9:12] Stone Cold. [9:13] And he's an angry man because I basically, he was forced to leave the Senate because I wouldn't support him. [9:21] And he quit. [9:22] So now he's trying to make trouble by, you know, opposing anybody. [9:25] Todd Blanche is a brilliant guy who everybody likes and everybody respects. [9:30] And Tillis is always like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. [9:33] He should have done it before when he was a senator. [9:36] He would have gotten wiped out in a race. [9:38] But he needed my support. [9:40] And I said, I can't give you my support. [9:42] He's not qualified. [9:43] He's not, he's not good for the position of senator. [9:47] I didn't hear about what he did with Todd Blanche. [9:50] Todd Blanche is fantastic. [9:52] So, sir, on the AI companies potentially taking these equity stakes, have you spoken to Sam Altman or any of the other anthropocists? [9:59] There's a concept out there. [10:00] There's so much money and it's so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public. [10:08] Where the American public essentially becomes a partner with the companies. [10:13] And I will tell you, yeah, I have spoken to all of them. [10:17] There's something very interesting about it where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public. [10:23] And we'll look into that. [10:25] We are looking. [10:26] I actually have a meeting scheduled in the very short, very near future with, did you know that, with all of the companies. [10:35] And we're talking about it, where the American people can benefit from the success of AI. [10:43] And by doing that, they're going to like it better. [10:45] Because we're leading China. [10:47] We're leading everybody in the world with AI. [10:49] And we want to keep it that way. [10:51] It's probably the biggest industry maybe that we've ever seen. [10:54] Which companies in the meeting? [10:56] All of them. [10:57] Anthropoc? [10:58] All the big ones, yeah. [10:59] SpaceX? [11:00] They're all coming to the White House probably next week. [11:03] And is the idea that that would be dividends for the American people? [11:05] I don't know. [11:06] You see. [11:07] I mean, we're going to see sort of it's like you make them a partnership in this revolution. [11:11] It would be a beautiful thing. [11:12] And it would make them rich. [11:14] Senator Bernie Sanders proposed this. [11:17] 50% managed public-private partnership. [11:20] I've been talking about it for the last year. [11:23] But is it odd to be kind of on the same page with Senator Sanders? [11:26] No, actually when Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of with Hillary Clinton and he lost in the primaries. [11:36] A lot of people think he didn't lose. [11:39] I mean, he had two of them, right? [11:40] He lost then and he lost a second time with Biden. [11:43] But when Bernie Sanders lost, you know that I got many of his people. [11:47] They voted for me because we are what an economic plan, as far as economics is concerned. [11:55] We have certain things that aren't that far apart. [11:58] People are surprised. [11:59] But many of you guys, if you'll take a look, many of the people that voted for Bernie Sanders, [12:05] when he was no longer there to vote for, they went to me. [12:08] I picked up a lot of his, a tremendous amount of his voters. [12:11] How many, how much oil have you gotten through the straight with the help of naval escorts? [12:18] And are you asking, are you directing U.S. forces to guide those ships through the straight, more tankers through the straight? [12:23] A lot. [12:24] I don't want to say how many, but a lot. [12:26] A lot of oil is coming into our country. [12:28] A lot of oil is coming into the world that people don't even know about. [12:32] And that's why it's at $97 a barrel instead of $300 a barrel. [12:36] And when that whole thing is straightened out, it should take long one way or the other. [12:40] It's going to get done. [12:41] And when it's all straightened out, you're going to have oil prices drop down to maybe even lower than they were. [12:47] I would, and you've heard me say this, I was in Iowa. [12:51] And for a gallon of gasoline, it was at $185. [12:56] And that was three and a half months ago. [12:59] Last year, the FBI reopened, and last year the FBI reopened its investigation into the cocaine found in the White House during the Biden administration. [13:07] Have you been briefed on where that investigation stands? [13:10] No, but I might ask about it. [13:12] I might ask. [13:13] You mean in the shelves where they found the cocaine, actually? [13:17] No, I might ask about it, sorry. [13:21] Have you made a decision on the arms sales to Taiwan, that package, the $14 billion thing? [13:26] We're looking at that, yeah. [13:27] Are you still planning to talk to Taiwan's president about it? [13:29] I don't always talk to him, but we're looking at it. [13:32] What was your reaction to John Bolton agreeing to plead guilty in the classified documents? [13:37] Well, I was never much of a fan of John Bolton. [13:40] I never thought he was a smart person. [13:42] And he was a radical right in terms of war, not in terms of other things. [13:49] He wanted to go to war with anybody that opened their mouth, anybody that talked. [13:54] And I used him for a purpose. [13:57] You know, he was involved with Bush and he created a lot of problems. [14:00] But he always wanted to kill people in war. [14:03] And that was okay for me, as long as I didn't listen to him, which I never did. [14:10] He's a bad guy, John Bolton. [14:13] He's a dirty guy. [14:14] And we caught him. [14:15] You know, we caught him. [14:16] And, you know, he wrote a book. [14:20] You look at all the information he took. [14:22] I mean, if you look at that case, it's a great honor to have helped from the standpoint of encouragement. [14:30] I looked at John Bolton as somebody that was a very dishonest guy and not a smart guy. [14:37] And I guess he's paying the price for certainly being dishonest. [14:41] How do you want to be involved moving forward? [14:45] The same way it is. [14:46] I'm the chairman. [14:47] So we'll just keep it going. [14:48] Somebody has to do it. [14:49] It loses a lot of money. [14:51] It has for years. [14:52] It's lost hundreds of millions of dollars for years. [14:56] And yet it's something you have to keep going. [14:59] You know, it's the arts. [15:01] They all lose money. [15:02] Carnegie Hall. [15:03] You take a look at all of that kind of thing. [15:06] Loses. [15:07] So they really, everybody, they want me to say very badly. [15:10] So we're going to take a look. [15:12] You also mentioned Fannie Mae. [15:13] The judge really hurt the Kennedy senator because he slowed down. [15:17] We were going to, you know, we're going to spend a lot of money on fixing it and making [15:20] it and bringing it back to health. [15:22] And the judge really made it very hard to do that. [15:25] But we're going to, I'm going to look at his ruling on that. [15:28] But we have to bring it back physically. [15:30] We have to bring it back. [15:31] And we have to bring it back in other ways. [15:34] So we'll take a good look at it. [15:35] You mentioned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. [15:37] Yeah. [15:38] With Pulte's move over is now acting DNI, is an IPO off the table? [15:41] No, it's not. [15:42] We're thinking about an IPO for that. [15:43] It's not a rush. [15:44] But we've created a, you know, I could have sold that for literally less than 10% in my [15:57] first term. [15:58] I was offered, a lot of people were offering me money to me, meaning the country, to buy [16:05] Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as you know. [16:07] And it suffered tremendous hardship. [16:10] And then we built it back. [16:13] And I could have sold it in my first term for one tenth of what it's worth now. [16:17] And I didn't want to do it. [16:19] Now I think we would, you know, we would consider an IPO, yeah. [16:22] And he would stay at, he would potentially see that through. [16:25] No, he's staying there. [16:26] So then who are the people you're talking to for DNI? [16:28] Can you give us some names? [16:30] Five different people. [16:31] All very good. [16:32] All people that you know very well. [16:36] All people that do that kind of thing. [16:38] And they're very respected people. [16:39] Mr. President, what do you think about Major League Baseball owners pushing for a salary [16:43] cap? [16:44] Do you think it's time for baseball to have a salary cap? [16:48] You sort of have one. [16:50] It's a luxury tax threshold, but the teams that have the money are willing to spend it, [16:53] like the Dodgers. [16:54] If you don't have a salary cap, you don't have a sport. [16:56] Because they can't help themselves. [16:59] You know, in sports they can't help themselves. [17:01] Football has a salary cap. [17:02] Every major professional league accepts Major League Baseball in America. [17:06] They should have done it a long time ago. [17:08] I know so much about sports. [17:11] They should have done it a long time ago. [17:13] We're trying to help save college sports, because they got some rulings that really essentially [17:18] destroyed college sports. [17:21] And we're working with Randy Levine and Nick Saban and some great people who are trying [17:27] to save it because it's so horrible. [17:29] What do you think could happen if this NIL just gets completely out of control and nobody [17:32] checks in? [17:33] Well, I think what's going to happen if you don't have what they're trying to do now, [17:37] that's sort of a cap in a certain way. [17:39] If you don't have that, you really have a problem. [17:42] But not only college, but it's colleges, where you see where Penn State lost $500 million, [17:48] where a certain school that I like very much in Florida, they lose $500 million. [17:54] You can't have that. [17:56] Nobody can afford that. [17:57] Because they go crazy. [17:58] That's why when you say Major League Baseball, Major League Baseball, it's shocking, frankly, [18:05] that they didn't put a cap on many years ago. [18:08] They had a chance to do a cap and they blew it. [18:10] Sir, in Ukraine, now that Zelenskyy has proposed a face-to-face behemoth Zelenskyy, [18:14] do you still want them to go first before the U.S. gets involved and talks? [18:17] Well, I don't mind. [18:18] I mean, it's let them deal. [18:20] I'm the one that got them to this position. [18:24] And I think that's going to get worked out. [18:26] I think we're getting close to where Russia and Ukraine should have. [18:30] It's a war that should have never happened, would have never happened if I was president. [18:33] But I think that's going to get worked out. [18:36] Will Secretary Rubio take a more active role, or do you expect to still be Jared and Steve? [18:40] We'll all be involved. [18:41] J.D., everybody. [18:42] We'll all be involved. [18:43] We want to see it done. [18:44] You know, we're not spending money. [18:46] They're buying things from us, actually, at full price. [18:50] With Biden, he gave them everything. [18:52] He just gave them hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons and everything else. [18:58] But it's a war that should have never happened, and it's a war that has to be. [19:02] Last week, 25,000 people over the course of the month, 25,000 people were killed. [19:08] Russia, Ukraine, 25,000. [19:11] It's not acceptable. [19:12] It's not acceptable. [19:14] Thank you very much. [19:15] Have a good time. [19:16] Thank you, sir. [19:17] Thank you.