About this transcript: This is a full AI-generated transcript of Trump makes remarks on economy as war with Iran continues from MS NOW, published March 28, 2026. The transcript contains 12,849 words with timestamps and was generated using Whisper AI.
"Thank you very much. A lot of rich people in this audience. I'm looking left, right, center, all the way in the back. They're rich, too. But I'm thrilled to be back with so many friends and partners, leaders and innovators here at the Future Investment Initiative. And it's a really great group of..."
[0:00] Thank you very much.
[0:01] A lot of rich people in this audience.
[0:03] I'm looking left, right, center, all the way in the back.
[0:07] They're rich, too.
[0:08] But I'm thrilled to be back with so many friends and partners, leaders and innovators here at the Future Investment Initiative.
[0:18] And it's a really great group of people, very smart group of people.
[0:22] They know what's happening in the world.
[0:23] It's my second address to the conference as president of the United States.
[0:29] And it's my honor to be here.
[0:31] Thank you very much.
[0:33] As you know, we're gathered at a moment of bold action and historic decision to make America and our allies safer and stronger, more prosperous, more successful than ever before.
[0:45] That's what's happening tonight.
[0:47] We're closer than ever to the rise of the Middle East that is finally free at last from Iranian terror, aggression and nuclear blackmail.
[0:59] That's what's happened.
[1:00] It was nuclear blackmail for years and years and beyond that.
[1:05] It was blackmail period under my leadership.
[1:09] America is ending the threat posed by this radical regime, decimating Iran's capabilities with Operation Epic Fury, something that nobody's ever seen anything quite like it.
[1:22] We have the most powerful military in the world by far.
[1:25] I built it in my first term.
[1:27] Remember, I said a trillion dollars.
[1:29] They also what do you mean a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars every year?
[1:34] Another trillion.
[1:35] The next another trillion.
[1:36] We have the best.
[1:37] People we have by far the best equipment.
[1:41] We have weapons that nobody's ever seen before.
[1:44] We have weapons that nobody even knows about, except for a few of us.
[1:49] For 47 years, Iran has been known as the bully of the Middle East, but they are not the bully any longer.
[1:57] They're on the run.
[2:05] Last June, America's armed forces obliterated Iran's key nuclear facilities in one of the most spectacular military actions of all time.
[2:14] Nobody has ever seen anything like it.
[2:16] In the dead of night, no moon, one o'clock in the morning, we went in.
[2:23] It was called Operation Midnight Hammer.
[2:27] And every single one of those bombs hit their mark.
[2:31] Air shafts.
[2:32] They will never build an air shaft again.
[2:34] I promise you that.
[2:35] They went right down that granite mountain through air shafts.
[2:39] Most incredible technology you've ever seen that a thing like that.
[2:42] And it was decimation was obliteration.
[2:46] One of the networks said, well, maybe it wasn't that bad.
[2:48] It was that bad.
[2:49] Turned out to be even more than we thought.
[2:53] But after that attack, the Iranian lunatics refused to cease their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
[3:00] And I have to say before that, Barack Hussein Obama, did you ever hear of him?
[3:05] Barack Hussein Obama, he had the Iran nuclear deal.
[3:08] He went to Iran.
[3:10] He paid him.
[3:10] Remember, he sent two 757 Boeing 757 jetliners.
[3:16] They took the seats out and they piled it with cash.
[3:18] Like 1.7 billion of cash.
[3:22] That's when I realized the president is a very powerful.
[3:25] The presidency is a very powerful thing when you can do that.
[3:29] I haven't done that yet.
[3:30] I haven't found a reason to do that yet.
[3:32] But that's big 1.7 billion in cash.
[3:35] You know, there wasn't a bank in D.C., Virginia or Maryland that had any money after that disaster, but they sent the cash to Iran.
[3:45] But more importantly, they they signed an agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, which if I didn't terminate it in my first term, I terminated it almost immediately.
[3:55] If I didn't terminate it, they would have had a nuclear weapon long ago and they would have used it on the Middle East, Israel and the Middle East.
[4:02] And you know, the Middle East, because when you look at all the missiles that got fired, UAE had 1500 missiles shot at it.
[4:09] They didn't think they were going to have any.
[4:13] Saudi Arabia didn't expect to have.
[4:15] I mean, we have the most powerful Saudis.
[4:18] Oh, yes.
[4:19] You are so powerful.
[4:20] But yes, sir, you didn't expect any missiles going to Saudi Arabia.
[4:23] They didn't expect him in Qatar.
[4:25] They didn't expect him in Kuwait.
[4:28] In Bahrain, the missiles rained down on you.
[4:31] They were going to hit you with nuclear or whatever they had.
[4:34] But we stopped it.
[4:35] We stopped it.
[4:36] We stopped it with him.
[4:38] And then it was a big moment also in my first administration when I took out Soleimani.
[4:44] And a lot of people think that might have been the biggest thing of all, because he was a mad genius.
[4:49] He was a vicious, horrible human being.
[4:52] But he was a great general and a great leader, if you call if you define a leader in a certain way.
[4:58] Very, very powerful leader.
[5:00] In fact, he was so powerful that I really think that the leadership of Iran was extremely happy when I took him out.
[5:09] But they don't say that.
[5:10] But nobody's going to be asking him anymore because they're not here either.
[5:15] But getting the termination and terminating the Iran nuclear deal that was done by Biden and Obama, I would say mostly Obama.
[5:28] Actually, I don't think Biden knew where he was then, too.
[5:31] He had no idea.
[5:33] You said to him, the Iran nuclear, what's that?
[5:35] But there was four years of hell we had with this guy as our leader, I'll tell you.
[5:42] And then we hit him with the B-2 bomber.
[5:44] So we did it twice.
[5:45] But if they would have had a nuclear weapon, it would have a whole big deal.
[5:48] And I wouldn't be here right now.
[5:49] And probably you guys wouldn't be too happy.
[5:52] You might be in an area who knows where you would have been.
[5:56] But we did it twice.
[5:58] And I think I really believe we saved the Middle East.
[6:00] We saved not just Israel.
[6:02] We saved the Middle East.
[6:04] And it was proven by all those rockets that fired down upon you.
[6:08] Saudi Arabia got hit a lot.
[6:10] You all got hit.
[6:11] And nobody expected any missiles to be wasted.
[6:15] You would have thought they were only going at Israel.
[6:17] They weren't.
[6:18] As president of the United States, I would never allow the world's number one state sponsor of terror to obtain a nuclear weapon.
[6:24] I said that for a long time.
[6:27] And I didn't.
[6:28] To defend America and our allies over the past 27 days, the U.S. Armed Forces, most powerful in the world,
[6:35] have been annihilating Iran's military capacity with force, precision.
[6:40] Skill like the world has never seen.
[6:44] It was violence, actually.
[6:47] Really violence.
[6:49] We're crushing Iran's.
[6:50] Currently, as we speak, I just looked.
[6:52] We had another big day.
[6:53] We hit them.
[6:54] They don't know what's happening.
[6:56] Remember this.
[6:58] They lied about three days ago.
[7:00] I said, yeah, we're negotiating with Israel.
[7:02] We are not negotiating.
[7:04] They're being hit so hard.
[7:07] Anybody would be negotiating.
[7:09] They are negotiating.
[7:11] They're begging to make a deal.
[7:12] They're begging to make a deal.
[7:13] Turned out I was right.
[7:14] They were negotiating, which they admitted two days later.
[7:18] And in order to make up for their misstatement, they said, we're going to send you eight ships of oil.
[7:28] And the following day I saw, this is two days ago, I saw on one of the networks.
[7:33] Very strange.
[7:34] There were eight ships of oil coming out of Iran.
[7:38] And then they actually said, we're going to add an extra two.
[7:41] And they added an extra two.
[7:43] So we had 10 ships.
[7:44] And then people realized we were actually negotiating.
[7:47] And we're negotiating now.
[7:48] And it would be great if we could do something.
[7:50] But they have to open it up.
[7:51] They have to open up the strait of Trump.
[7:56] I mean, Harmooth.
[7:58] Excuse me.
[8:01] I'm so sorry.
[8:04] Such a terrible mistake.
[8:06] The fake news will say, he accidentally said that.
[8:09] There's no accidents with me.
[8:11] Not too many.
[8:13] If there were, it would have a major story.
[8:16] Well, we had that with the Gulf of Mexico.
[8:19] Remember the Gulf of Mexico?
[8:21] And one day I said, why is it the Gulf of Mexico?
[8:23] We have 92%.
[8:25] Of the area around it.
[8:27] They have 8%.
[8:28] Really less than 8%.
[8:29] But for 350 years, it was good.
[8:32] You know, they were there 100 years longer than us.
[8:34] Mexico.
[8:35] They're at 350.
[8:36] We're at 250.
[8:38] And I said, I've often asked myself, why don't we call it the Gulf of Mexico?
[8:43] It seems like we dominate.
[8:44] Well, when I checked, it was more than 92%.
[8:47] So I announced, I wouldn't say Mexico was thrilled.
[8:52] But I announced that from now on, the Gulf of Mexico is going to be called
[8:56] the Gulf of America.
[9:00] And it took about one hour.
[9:01] And it was done.
[9:02] Everybody, I mean, the president called me.
[9:05] She's really a nice person, too.
[9:06] I like her a lot.
[9:07] She called up.
[9:08] She's the most beautiful.
[9:09] She's a very elegant woman.
[9:11] Has a beautiful, beautiful voice.
[9:12] She goes, President, President, President, tell me, this is not so.
[9:18] No, no, it's so.
[9:20] And then Google Maps changed it.
[9:25] We won the court case in about one hour.
[9:27] And Google Maps changed the name.
[9:30] And it's now the Gulf.
[9:31] It's the Gulf of America, which it should be, in all fairness.
[9:34] We're crushing Iran's weapons stockpiles, destroying their missiles and drone factories
[9:39] at levels nobody ever thought was possible, and turning their defense industrial base
[9:45] into nothing.
[9:47] Iran's navy is gone.
[9:50] It's all sunk at the bottom of the Gulf and elsewhere.
[9:55] Did you see the attack submarine that we have went after one of their boats?
[9:58] It was called the Soleimani.
[10:00] It was the pride of their fleet.
[10:02] But this attack submarine.
[10:04] It was like 60 miles an hour.
[10:06] I'd never saw anything.
[10:08] And it caught them in about two minutes.
[10:11] And that was the end of the Soleimani.
[10:14] Now, they're 100% dead.
[10:16] They have 22 mine droppers.
[10:18] They're gone, mine droppers.
[10:19] And the mine droppers, 22, all 22 are gone.
[10:22] So I guess they can drop mines, but they're going to have to take them out by a rowboat
[10:25] because they don't have any boats.
[10:27] Their air force is dead, totally, completely dead.
[10:31] It's out of business.
[10:31] No planes left at all.
[10:34] They're anti-aircraft.
[10:35] And communications capabilities are totally dismantled and dead.
[10:41] And their leaders are all dead.
[10:43] Other than that, I think they're doing quite well.
[10:48] No, their leaders are dead.
[10:50] Their supreme leader is no longer supreme.
[10:53] He's dead.
[10:56] Son is either dead or in very bad shape because nobody's heard from him.
[11:01] I think he says, just keep me out of this.
[11:04] This is the only country where nobody wants to lead.
[11:07] There's nobody.
[11:08] Who would like to lead Iran?
[11:10] Please raise your hand.
[11:12] A big audience.
[11:12] Just saying, who would like to be our leader?
[11:16] Dead silence.
[11:17] Nobody wants to lead.
[11:19] Now, we have an amazing military.
[11:21] We have the greatest intelligence apparatus that anybody's ever seen.
[11:24] We can tell you everything that's going on.
[11:26] We know everything that's going on.
[11:27] We're achieving each and every one of the military objectives.
[11:34] Four weeks ago.
[11:35] Four weeks ago.
[11:37] And we're doing it really, I guess, with two weeks.
[11:42] We call it a military operation.
[11:49] We don't call it a war.
[11:50] We call it a military operation.
[11:51] We're very disappointed, by the way, with NATO.
[11:55] They didn't come to our aid.
[11:57] I didn't try too hard, actually, you know, because I wanted to prove a point.
[12:01] I didn't sell.
[12:02] They probably think I'm a lousy salesman.
[12:04] You know, they said, I said, would you like to help us?
[12:07] To President of France Macron, nice guy.
[12:10] He is a nice guy.
[12:11] He said, very well, but we could probably use him maybe for helicopters.
[12:43] And they said, yes.
[12:45] Oh, yes.
[12:46] We are preparing them.
[13:31] Ukraine's not our war.
[13:32] We're not our war.
[13:37] Our war would have never happened, but we had a man of a very low IQ as president,
[13:41] and he had no idea what the hell it was.
[13:43] I was listening to him talk.
[13:44] I said, he's forcing an issue that's going to be trouble, and it turned out to be trouble.
[13:50] Last week, 28,000 soldiers died.
[13:52] The week before that, 32,000 soldiers died.
[13:55] I think we're going to get it settled, but it's a terrible thing.
[13:59] Worse since World War II.
[14:01] I said, but the hatred between Putin and President Zelensky is extreme.
[14:10] Never good.
[14:11] Hatred's a bad thing when you're trying to settle a war.
[14:15] I want to thank the entire kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
[14:18] Been very helpful.
[14:20] Unlike NATO.
[14:21] Saudi Arabia fought.
[14:23] Qatar fought.
[14:24] UAE fought.
[14:25] Bahrain fought.
[14:27] And Kuwait fought, even though they shot down three of our planes with the finest missiles.
[14:34] We could have done without that.
[14:37] They didn't know they were our planes.
[14:40] They wasted three great Patriot missiles, and you have to say there's nothing like these Patriots.
[14:46] You know, we had an attack of a hundred.
[14:48] A hundred and one a few days ago, a hundred and one missiles shot at a very valuable thing that we had floating on the water, namely an aircraft carrier, biggest in the world, and they were shot a hundred and one going 2,500 miles an hour, and out of the hundred and one missiles shot, one hundred and one missiles were shot down and spread out all over the city.
[15:17] Pretty amazing.
[15:19] That's called incredible.
[15:21] Technology, right, Steve?
[15:23] That's called great tech.
[15:24] Now think of it.
[15:24] A hundred and one missiles going 2,500 miles an hour.
[15:28] You don't have a lot of time.
[15:30] And these aren't necessarily weightlifting shoulders.
[15:33] These are very smart people doing that.
[15:37] And I watched them.
[15:37] I watched their performance.
[15:39] Missiles launched, missiles launched.
[15:41] It's almost like they're bored by it.
[15:42] They have like nine seconds.
[15:45] Head of FIFA, the most powerful man in sports, Johnny, Johnny, you, you never choked, right?
[15:51] These guys can't choke, but they're very smart.
[15:53] High IQs.
[15:54] We need high IQs.
[15:55] We have too many low IQ people, but what happened is, you have to see it, it's very cool.
[16:02] Missiles launched, missiles launched, missiles launching, they're launching, okay, we're
[16:07] ready.
[16:08] There's a hundred and one missiles coming at them.
[16:10] All right.
[16:11] We have to have like 11 seconds to make a determination and then at seven seconds, fire.
[16:24] Fire, boom.
[16:25] Fire, boom.
[16:26] One at a time, just knocked them out like they were nothing.
[16:28] Genius.
[16:29] It was unbelievable.
[16:30] I mean, to think the, and we have the technology nobody has.
[16:34] Look at what happened in Venezuela.
[16:36] They had other equipment, not ours.
[16:38] They made the mistake of using other equipment, didn't work too well.
[16:43] And Venezuela was, you know, it was more powerful, but it's not powerful anymore.
[16:58] Within two days, I think the damage was done, but now it's really done.
[17:03] Now we're just going after targets and they, again, they have no anti-aircraft, so we're
[17:07] just floating over the top looking for whatever we want and we're hitting it.
[17:11] And we have another 3,554 targets left and that'll be done pretty quickly.
[17:19] And then we, you know, at some point we're going to have to determine what we do.
[17:23] But they have, they've never seen anything like it.
[17:28] When we hit Venezuela, and you know, that's a very strong military country.
[17:34] They have soldiers.
[17:35] If you've ever been there, I've been there.
[17:36] They have a lot of soldiers walking around all over the place.
[17:39] Everyone's a soldier, very military kind of a place.
[17:43] Then the general.
[17:44] The general, professional general, really good.
[17:48] And he said, we were all set for him.
[17:49] We knew there was a problem when we noticed at one o'clock in the morning, every 32 seconds,
[17:55] another airplane, a very fast plane was coming off the deck of an aircraft carrier.
[18:01] That's actually the biggest aircraft carrier in the world.
[18:04] And every 32 seconds, boom, boom, boom.
[18:07] And it was one o'clock in the morning.
[18:08] So we said, okay, I think we're in trouble.
[18:11] But they were ready for us, Johnny.
[18:14] And we were ready.
[18:15] He said, we were ready.
[18:16] And then they hit us.
[18:18] And they came from 17 different angles.
[18:21] They were here.
[18:22] They were there.
[18:23] We ran for our lives.
[18:24] It was over.
[18:26] And it was over.
[18:29] And then we took this guy who was a very bad guy.
[18:31] And within literally minutes, he was in the back of a helicopter in a house that was in
[18:37] a big military base with thousands and thousands of soldiers.
[18:42] The house was all steel with steel doors, steel everything.
[18:45] They had the small steel doors, the big steel doors.
[18:48] They were equipped for anything.
[18:49] Even the big, big one, it would have been opened within 30 seconds.
[18:53] They walked in with blow torches.
[18:56] And within minutes, he was out of the house being thrown into the helicopter, sailing
[19:01] away.
[19:02] And the soldiers just looked.
[19:03] Bye.
[19:04] Bye.
[19:05] Enjoy your trip, sir.
[19:08] It was amazing.
[19:09] It was an amazing.
[19:10] But this is more amazing, what's happening now, because we took a very strong country.
[19:14] I could see, yes, sir, the problem you would have had.
[19:16] I mean, this was not a weak country.
[19:18] This was a strong country.
[19:19] They had over 10,000 missiles that they accumulated since October 2nd, if you think, since the
[19:27] B-2s.
[19:28] Really, since the B-2s, they accumulated them in a matter of months, six months.
[19:35] But they had well over 10,000.
[19:36] They had rocket launchers.
[19:37] You know, rocket launchers are more important than the rockets, because you take a rocket
[19:41] launcher out, that's the end of that.
[19:44] People think you can take those big rockets and throw them out your window, like when
[19:47] you were a child with the paper airplanes.
[19:48] You say, it doesn't work that way.
[19:51] You need those launchers.
[19:52] And we knocked out 97% of the launchers.
[19:56] That's why you may be attacked, but you're not being attacked with very heavy numbers
[20:00] of missiles, like at the beginning.
[20:02] But in particular, I want to thank my friend, the Crown Prince Mohammed, who is a fantastic
[20:10] man and a great friend of mine, and a friend of all of yours, I think.
[20:21] And he's a warrior.
[20:22] He's a warrior.
[20:23] He was not afraid of this country.
[20:24] That, frankly, is not a problem.
[20:25] And frankly, he should have been afraid of it, because they're very powerful.
[20:28] I want to thank Tamim, because Tamim is...
[20:32] These three people have been unbelievable, Tamim, and then UAE, Mohammed.
[20:39] These are three great people.
[20:41] And they were under tremendous attack, unexpected attack.
[20:46] And they weren't thinking this was going to happen.
[20:49] Nobody was.
[20:50] And they turned against them and really became very powerfully aligned.
[20:54] And they were with us, but they weren't with us very...
[20:57] Obliquely, they were with us.
[21:00] But I think that I have to acknowledge for their bravery, because they were being hit
[21:05] pretty hard.
[21:06] All three of them, they were being hit pretty hard.
[21:10] The Emir, Mohammed, Mohammed, you had two Mohammeds, and Tamim, and they're friends
[21:19] of mine.
[21:20] And also, I have to say that Bahrain and Kuwait, they were stand up, more so than NATO.
[21:28] I want to say more so than NATO.
[21:30] No.
[21:31] I'm a little closer to the action than NATO in all fairs, but very disappointed with NATO.
[21:37] But I wasn't disappointed with our allies in the Middle East, and others, and others.
[21:43] We had tremendous support from countries that were not in the general area, but they were
[21:48] tremendously supportive.
[21:49] I think Turkey was fantastic, actually fantastic.
[21:54] And they stayed out of things that we asked them to, and he's a great leader.
[22:00] He's a great leader.
[22:02] And Indonesia was great.
[22:06] So many, we had so many great, you know, you learn who your friends are, really do.
[22:10] You learn who your friends are.
[22:12] And but Indonesia, Turkey, and so many other countries, but the five were great.
[22:20] But your dear friend and my dear friend was, he was all man, he stood up and he wasn't
[22:27] scared.
[22:28] Maybe he was, I don't know, maybe he was, but he didn't show it.
[22:31] He was great, a great leader.
[22:32] You can be very...
[22:33] Saudi Arabia can be very proud of your, because he's got a lot of titles.
[22:38] He's the crown prince, he's the prime minister, he's the future king, he's got about seven
[22:44] other titles.
[22:45] I said, you have more titles than any human being on earth.
[22:48] He's everything.
[22:50] And he deserves to be, because he's a winner.
[22:52] So I just want to thank those people.
[22:58] So the Middle East will be transformed, and the future of that region is never, I don't
[23:04] think it's ever looked brighter.
[23:05] You couldn't have, you know, we did the Abraham Accords, I hope you're going to be getting
[23:08] into the Abraham Accords finally.
[23:10] Yeah, sir, will you please go back and explain?
[23:13] It's time now.
[23:14] You know, Mohammed said, oh yes, as soon as we do this, as soon as we do that.
[23:20] I said, Mohammed, we did that.
[23:22] Oh yes, but we have a couple of other things.
[23:25] It's now time.
[23:26] We've now taken them out and they are out bigly.
[23:29] We got to get into the Abraham Accords.
[23:31] And we hope all of the countries are going to be in the Abraham Accords.
[23:36] We have some very brave countries that did it.
[23:39] You know, years ago, they went in and you know who they are, the four, the early four.
[23:45] And they did a great thing in doing it.
[23:47] And it was great for them also economically, but it was a great thing that they did it.
[23:51] But I think all the Middle Eastern countries are going to be joining now.
[23:55] And in some cases, I would say all the Middle Eastern countries and beyond, you have people
[24:00] not in the Middle East that want to be members.
[24:03] You'll be seeing that soon.
[24:04] In the meantime, the conflict in Iran also makes it absolutely vital for the radical-left,
[24:10] Democrats in Congress to immediately end their dangerous shutdown of our Department
[24:14] of Homeland Security.
[24:15] You know, they want to play games.
[24:17] That's all they are.
[24:18] These people are lunatics.
[24:20] They sort of remind me of, they remind me actually a little bit of Iran.
[24:26] They're deranged, they're deranged, they're deranged Democrats.
[24:32] For 42 days, they've tried to completely eliminate funding for the number one duty of government,
[24:38] which is keeping America safe.
[24:40] And they want no ICE.
[24:42] They want no Border Patrol.
[24:44] They want no protection of any kind to be given, reopening our borders and stopping
[24:49] all immigration enforcement in our country.
[24:51] They want to have our borders be open again.
[24:54] We opened, we took in 25 million people.
[24:57] We've gotten a lot of them out.
[24:59] Tremendous numbers of people that should never have been here.
[25:02] Over four long years before my election, these same radical, lunatic Democrats let 25 million
[25:10] people pour across our borders like they were nothing, like they were non-existent.
[25:13] They want no border patrol.
[25:14] These people were totally unvetted, unchecked, including murderers, drug dealers, gang members,
[25:21] vicious criminals, even the criminally insane.
[25:24] In 2024, the American people voted in a landslide to stop the invasion of our country.
[25:31] And I won all seven swing states by millions and millions of votes.
[25:35] We won the electoral college by a massive number.
[25:40] We won the popular vote, millions and vote, just millions.
[25:44] This was a big election.
[25:45] I loved it.
[25:46] I loved every minute of it.
[25:48] And for the first time, no Republicans have done anything like this in decades.
[25:53] But for the first time, we won the counties of America.
[25:57] That's a big one, 2,700 to 525, 2,700 to 525, 87% of the vote.
[26:07] We won 87% of the counties.
[26:09] In other words, it was a mandate like our country has not seen in many decades.
[26:13] It was a mandate for an ideology, which is an ideology.
[26:17] I heard the other day, I think that he's losing the MAGA base.
[26:37] I said, really?
[26:39] Because of the war.
[26:40] See, I get into a war.
[26:42] I call it a military conflict.
[26:45] But there's a reason for that.
[26:48] But you get into a war or a military conflict for you.
[26:54] And then they say, my base, I said, no, no, MAGA is stronger than ever because MAGAs make
[26:58] America great again.
[27:00] But my MAGA people, which is the greatest phrase in the history of politics, it's the
[27:05] most important movement by far.
[27:06] Probably in the history of the world.
[27:08] I mean, you know, there's never been anything like this.
[27:11] And in fact, just a few days ago, you have to understand the fake news right back.
[27:17] Oh, that's a lot of fake news.
[27:19] Yeah.
[27:20] So you brought a lot of fake news with you.
[27:21] They must know you're going to make a speech at some point because look at them.
[27:25] But what happened is the fake news was saying he may, they hope, you know, it's like, oh,
[27:32] we got to get rid of this guy.
[27:34] They say he may be losing his MAGA base.
[27:39] And that would be.
[27:39] Maybe the end of him.
[27:43] And then I happen to be watching CNN, which is terrible.
[27:46] They treat me terribly.
[27:47] In fact, just a few days ago, CNN had a poll that had me at 100 percent of MAGA voters.
[27:56] They said they've never seen anything like that.
[27:58] Can you put that up?
[27:59] I actually said, if you could put it up, do you have the technology to put it up?
[28:03] Go ahead.
[28:04] Give it a shot.
[28:05] You know, sometimes you look at the polling data and there are numbers that just jump
[28:08] off the screen at you.
[28:09] And this is one of those.
[28:11] Because just take a look here.
[28:12] MAGA GOP view of Trump approved one hundred percent, one hundred percent.
[28:18] If you are a member of MAGA and the GOP, you approve of Donald John Trump zero percent
[28:25] say that they disapprove.
[28:27] You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know you can't go higher than one hundred
[28:31] percent.
[28:32] He is the nineteen hundred and seventy two Miami.
[28:38] Good technology.
[28:39] Thank you.
[28:40] I figured you'd have good tech.
[28:41] I said, I wonder if they could put that ball up.
[28:42] We just did it two minutes ago.
[28:44] No.
[28:46] And I'm hearing them saying, could he be losing the MAGA base?
[28:49] I don't think so.
[28:50] You know why?
[28:51] Because MAGA wants to win.
[28:53] Number one.
[28:54] Number two, they want our country protected.
[28:56] They don't want another country out there that's hostile and crazy to have a nuclear
[29:00] weapon.
[29:01] And number three, they like us protecting certain allies, whether it's Israel or Saudi
[29:07] Arabia or Qatar or UAE, any of them.
[29:12] They want that.
[29:13] MAGA wants strength.
[29:14] And they want victory.
[29:15] They want that.
[29:16] They want victory.
[29:17] They want success.
[29:18] And that's what we have.
[29:19] And we have been very, very successful.
[29:21] You know, when I went into Venezuela, I said, man, because I campaigned on the fact peace
[29:26] with strength.
[29:27] You wouldn't have to use it.
[29:29] I said, you'll never have to use it.
[29:31] But sometimes it and Cuba's next, by the way.
[29:34] But pretend I didn't say that.
[29:37] Pretend I didn't say please, please, please, media, please disregard that statement.
[29:43] Thank you very much.
[29:44] I Cuba's next.
[29:48] So despite the radical left Democrat.
[29:50] Shut down.
[29:52] We will continue to defend the sovereign borders of the United States of America and will defend
[29:57] our allies, your ally.
[30:00] You didn't know they were that tough, did you?
[30:02] You didn't know they were pretty tough Iran.
[30:04] Not tough anymore.
[30:06] Now we'll continue to deport dangerous criminal aliens from our country.
[30:11] Just days ago, an 18 year old girl in Chicago named Sheridan Gorman was gunned down by a
[30:16] savage criminal alien led in by sleepy Joe Biden.
[30:19] And the.
[30:21] Released in a Democrat sanctuary city was an animal.
[30:26] The same month, an 83 year old veteran, highly regarded person was shoved onto the subway
[30:31] tracks and murdered by an illegal alien with a long criminal history in New York City.
[30:37] These are vicious criminal thugs, disgusting human beings that Democrats have defunded
[30:44] our airports to protect.
[30:45] They want our airports to be defunded so that these people can come into our country.
[30:50] Not going to happen.
[30:51] We're not going to have it.
[30:53] That's why this week I deployed ice to our airports to help reduce the delays.
[30:59] People there are doing a great job, but they didn't want to pay him.
[31:02] The Democrats didn't want to pay him.
[31:04] And a short time ago, I also ordered emergency funding to resume paying the TSA agents immediately.
[31:10] They're getting paid.
[31:12] Democrats must stop their dangerous and destructive shutdown and reopen the Department of Homeland
[31:17] Security without delay.
[31:20] And it's time that they start.
[31:21] They start thinking properly.
[31:23] That's why they lost in such a landslide and put America first.
[31:28] It's time that they start thinking about America first.
[31:30] And we're honored to be joined tonight by many distinguished guests from around the
[31:35] world, including FII Institute Chairman Yasser Al Romain.
[31:41] Where are you?
[31:42] Yes, sir.
[31:44] Come here.
[31:45] Stand up.
[31:46] Yes, yes, please.
[31:47] What a nice thing.
[31:48] What a nice thing.
[31:51] And his son, Faisal.
[31:53] And by the way, I've known really well.
[31:55] But, you know, I've never heard of him.
[31:56] I've never heard his last name.
[31:57] So I'm saying, who the hell is Yasser?
[31:59] I know Yasser.
[32:00] I said, who the hell is that guy?
[32:03] But I know him by Yasser, right?
[32:04] I didn't know if it was your first name, your last name.
[32:06] All I know is he's got a lot of power.
[32:08] All I know is he's got a lot of cash.
[32:12] And he's another great leader, actually.
[32:14] And he's a good friend of mine.
[32:15] So nice to be with you and nice to be with your son.
[32:19] Son's beautiful.
[32:20] Saudi Minister of Finance, Mohammed Al Jadon.
[32:24] Thank you very much.
[32:25] Thank you very much.
[32:26] Nice to see you again.
[32:27] Good job.
[32:32] If you want to be a Minister of Finance, Saudi Arabia is a good place to do it, right?
[32:36] You don't have any dearth.
[32:38] There's no dearth of funds.
[32:40] Most places, they say, where are we going to get the money?
[32:42] How about a tax increase?
[32:44] Minister of State, Mohammed Al Sheikh.
[32:47] Mohammed, thank you very much.
[32:51] Great honor.
[32:52] Chairman of the Saudi Esports Federation, His Royal Highness Prince Faisal.
[32:57] And of course, please, thank you.
[33:03] And of course, the Kingdom's wonderful ambassador to the United States, Her Royal Highness,
[33:08] Princess Rima, who's great.
[33:19] She's great.
[33:20] Also, I want to thank the President of Sierra Leone, Julius Madabiyo, Madabiyo, I love that
[33:29] name.
[33:31] Thank you.
[33:32] Great honor to have you.
[33:34] And Chairman of the FII Institute Executive Committee, Richard Attias.
[33:40] Thank you, Richard.
[33:43] As well as Special Envoy, I call him Henry Kissinger, who doesn't leak, because Henry
[33:50] is a big leaker.
[33:51] Richard Nixon would beat him, Henry, somebody's leaking on us.
[33:56] There's somebody leaking.
[33:57] Henry would say, we'll get to the bottom.
[34:00] It was Henry that was leaking.
[34:03] That wasn't good.
[34:04] So we have Henry Kissinger, better than Henry Kissinger, and he doesn't leak.
[34:09] Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff.
[34:11] Thank you.
[34:12] Doing a great job.
[34:16] And he and Jared, Jared Kushner, they're like a team, and boy, I tell you, they're a good
[34:20] team.
[34:21] High IQ.
[34:22] It's a high IQ team.
[34:23] You want to find your high IQ people.
[34:26] Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Michael Kratios, a Greek individual.
[34:33] Where's Michael?
[34:34] He was at the Greek event yesterday, so I know he's Greek.
[34:40] They asked me, please, sir, would you introduce Michael?
[34:44] CMS administrator, a phenomenal man, a brilliant man.
[34:48] You know, he had a show on television for like 20 years that was so great.
[34:52] I was on his show.
[34:53] He said, would you do me a favor, would you go on my show?
[34:55] I said, yeah, yeah, I'll go on your show.
[34:57] It's a big show.
[34:58] It was very successful.
[34:59] And I went on his show, and he determined that I should lose weight.
[35:00] This is what I went through.
[35:01] He said, I think you should lose weight.
[35:02] I said, I don't need you saying that in front of millions of people.
[35:03] You don't have to tell me that.
[35:04] But he's a great guy, and I don't know how he ever got the job after that, but he's the
[35:05] most powerful man, actually.
[35:06] Medicine, him, and Bobby.
[35:07] What a team.
[35:08] Bobby is great.
[35:09] He's a great guy.
[35:11] And I don't know how he ever got the job after that, but he's the most powerful man, actually.
[35:12] Medicine, him, and Bobby.
[35:13] What a team.
[35:14] Bobby is great.
[35:15] He's great.
[35:16] Dr. Oz.
[35:17] You know that?
[35:18] Mehmet Oz.
[35:19] And they're coming up with things that are amazing, a little out of the box, but the
[35:21] out-of-the-box guys are really finding things that are amazing.
[35:22] Autism, that's so important to us.
[35:23] We want to find out why is it happening in such large numbers all over the world, but
[35:24] why is it happening in our country?
[35:25] And he said, I don't need you saying that in front of millions of people.
[35:26] You don't have to tell me that.
[35:27] But he's a great guy, and I don't know how he ever got the job after that, but he's
[35:28] the most powerful man, actually.
[35:33] Medicine, him, and Bobby.
[35:34] What a team.
[35:35] Bobby is great.
[35:36] He's great.
[35:37] Dr. Oz.
[35:38] You know that?
[35:39] Mehmet Oz.
[35:40] You know that?
[35:41] Bobby is great.
[35:42] He's great.
[35:43] Dr. Oz.
[35:44] You know that?
[35:45] Mehmet Oz.
[35:46] Bobby is great.
[35:47] He's great.
[35:48] He's great.
[35:49] Dr. Oz.
[35:50] Bobby is great.
[35:51] Mehmet Oz.
[35:52] You know that?
[35:53] Mehmet Oz.
[35:54] You're coming up with some pretty impressive studies and answers.
[35:55] A really good friend of mine, the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino.
[36:00] And Gianni is great.
[36:05] You know, when I didn't get the Nobel Peace Prize, you gotta understand, I don't care.
[36:12] Norway.
[36:13] has lost so credible. I stopped eight wars. I even stopped India and Pakistan. And they were
[36:20] going at it for a week. They had nine planes already shot down. They were in a war. I stopped
[36:24] them. You know how I stopped them? I said, if you keep fighting, I'm going to put a 250% tariff on
[36:31] each one. No, no, no, you cannot do that. I said, I'm doing it. All right, we won't fight anymore.
[36:37] That's how I stopped them. I used tariffs to stop. You ever hear of anything like that?
[36:41] It was too much for them to bear. But they were going to be in a war. And the prime minister,
[36:46] actually a great guy, the prime minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved 30 to 50
[36:51] million people. Two nuclear countries would have happened. And I figured, I mean, if I don't get
[37:00] the Nobel Prize for Peace, nobody will ever get it. I didn't get it. I'm not surprised. I didn't
[37:07] get it. And the person that got it was shocked. She's a wonderful woman, too, by the way.
[37:12] And she said, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised.
[37:13] I said, no, no, no, I don't deserve it. President Trump doesn't. Nobody deserves it. Nobody ever
[37:17] deserves it. I stopped eight wars, yes, sir. Do you know what that is? Eight wars. You didn't
[37:21] stop eight wars. You started eight wars, yes. I stopped eight wars. But it was a little early
[37:28] because, in all fairness, it was for the year before, right? It was for 24. But still, you
[37:34] thought they would have made an exception. But they didn't do that. You watch what happens.
[37:40] But it was sort of amazing. So she was so nice. And she actually came to the White House,
[37:44] and she presented me with her award. She's a wonderful woman. But stopping wars, I think,
[37:53] is my most, it's the best, I think I do it the best. I stopped wars that nobody thought.
[37:59] President Putin called me. He said, I can't believe you stopped this one and this one,
[38:03] which are impossible. Azerbaijan was an impossible war to stop. We stopped it.
[38:10] But we also have a man who's probably good at stopping wars. I know he's good at being a tough
[38:17] guy. He is a tough guy. He's a tough guy. He's a tough guy. He's a tough guy. He's a tough guy.
[38:18] He's been very tough on crime, and he's done a great job. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez is here
[38:24] someplace. Francis, hi. How are you? And we have our great son. He's got the best genes,
[38:31] I think, of any human being I've ever known. He's my son, Don Trump. Don, he's a great guy.
[38:40] And his fiancee, Bettina. Good, Bettina, good. Now, my son's got the greatest genes in history.
[38:47] I'm a big believer in genes, by the way, I will tell you. My daughter, Tiffany,
[38:55] and her husband, Michael, my beautiful daughter, right? And they have a new child, the most
[39:03] beautiful, the most beautiful guy we've seen, right? Blows us all away, right? He's great.
[39:09] Thank you for being here. And countless other business leaders. We have so many friends of
[39:13] mine here, so many business leaders, but we can't go on because we have a couple of moments more to
[39:18] discuss the world and the economy. Over the past 14 months, the Trump administration has achieved
[39:23] perhaps the most dramatic one-year turnaround of any country in history. And I think it's a
[39:26] nation in all of history. A short time ago, a man that we just discussed, the king, the future
[39:35] king of Saudi Arabia, and I also love the king of Saudi Arabia, what a man he is when I was there,
[39:40] we bonded. He would grab me to get up. He was a little frail at the time, and this was a long
[39:45] time ago, and he's still doing well. And he grabbed my arm to get up when I was sitting next
[39:50] to him. And they said, that's the only time he's ever grabbed anybody. He would grab me all the
[39:54] time. And I said, I think he likes me. And he did like me.
[39:59] And he still likes me. And he's a great man, and say hello to him. He's a great guy with a great
[40:04] son. But a short time ago, we were together, and he looked at me, and he said, you know, it's
[40:13] amazing. One year ago, you were a dead country. Now you're the hottest country anywhere in the
[40:20] world. He didn't think this was going to happen. He didn't think he'd be kissing my ass. He really
[40:26] didn't. He thought he'd be just another American president that was a loser, where the country was
[40:32] going downhill. But now...
[40:34] You know, he has to be nice to me. You tell him, he better be nice to me. He's got to be. But it
[40:41] was really something. No, he said, though, he said, you know, it's amazing, President, because
[40:46] he's a very smart, but a regular kind of a guy. He said, you know, it's amazing, President. A year
[40:52] ago, in that case, it was a year and a half. It was six months ago. But a year ago, you were a dead
[41:00] country. Now you're literally the hottest country anywhere in the world. And that was before we
[41:07] beat the hell out of Iran. You know, now I think he's got to say even better. I think we have to up
[41:12] it. But he's fantastic. And everything we do, we're working to make America the number one place on
[41:20] Earth to do business. We passed the largest tax cuts in American history, including no tax on
[41:25] tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our great seniors. We provided 100 percent
[41:33] expensing and bonus depreciation so that anyone who wants to build a factory can deduct the
[41:38] entire cost of equipment and the entire factory in the first year that used to take 38 years to do
[41:44] it. Take it a little drips, little drips. Now it's done. And, you know, a lot of people remember that
[41:51] my first four years was the most successful time we've ever had financially in the history of our
[41:57] country. We had an unbelievable success, but this is much better. And by the way, when this war ends,
[42:04] it's going to be like a rocket ship. I thought we were going to go down more. And I thought,
[42:09] well, prices were going to go up higher than they are now. It's not finished yet. I'm not saying
[42:13] it's sort of finished, but it's not finished. It's got to be finished. And I thought that we would
[42:19] see a bigger drop in stock. Hasn't been that bad. You know, it's sort of crazy. I hit 50,000 on the
[42:27] Dow. People said that wouldn't be possible within four years. I did it in one year. And then we hit
[42:34] 7,000 on the S&P. People said that's even harder than hitting 50,000 on the Dow.
[42:41] And I did that in less than one year. Toward the end of the year, both of them, we broke every
[42:46] record, every stock record we broke. And you're big beneficiaries because so many of you invest
[42:52] in the United States and keep doing it because it's going to be a rocket ship you watch. But then
[42:57] I said, all right, do I have to do this? We have a country that's sick and demented, and they have
[43:05] a nuclear weapon or they want to have one. They were very close to getting it. Remember, they were
[43:08] two weeks away. They were two weeks away. If they would have, if we didn't hit that, I call it the
[43:14] nuclear dust. I use the term nuclear dust. If we didn't knock the hell out of them, they would have
[43:18] had a nuclear weapon within two to four weeks, and they would have used it on you and on Israel and
[43:22] on everyone else. And I said, we really do have to stop and go on a little different journey for a
[43:30] little while and take them out and then go back to life. And that's what we did. And we did it
[43:35] violently. We did it powerfully. We did it with the respect of the world. And we helped a lot of
[43:46] our allies. We learned that other allies weren't there. We didn't need them, but they weren't there
[43:52] if we did need them. And that's going to be very costly for them. The stock market has set 53 all
[43:59] time record highs since the election, adding $9 trillion in value to America's savings and
[44:04] retirement accounts and 401ks. Everybody's benefiting by this. And more Americans are
[44:10] working today than at any time in the history of our country, at any time. To me, that's the
[44:15] number one stat. More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country.
[44:17] By far than at any time in the history of our country. And in 14 months, we've lifted 3.3
[44:25] million Americans off of food stamps. That's a record. And Biden and his allies wrecked our
[44:32] country. They wreaked havoc on our economy and they gave us the worst inflation in American
[44:39] history. Under Trump, during the last three months of 2025, we got core inflation down to 1.6 percent.
[44:47] And right now, the average tax refund for
[44:50] filers, because of the great, big, beautiful bill, has been close to $5,000. It's a lot of
[44:56] money for a family. And this, you know, when I'm talking to Saudi Arabia and I'm talking about
[45:01] $5,000, they'd look at me, 5,000. That's like a penny. Right, David? That's like a penny. Saudi
[45:08] Arabia is not into $5,000, but it's Saudi Arabia. I just want to ask, are the Saudis impressed by
[45:17] the fact that a family has saved $5,000? I don't know. They're looking like,
[45:22] what the hell is $5,000? Their shoes cost them more than $5,000. But that's the way it goes.
[45:28] We're talking about, remember, we're talking about the real world. In his entire term, Joe Biden,
[45:35] I have two terms for him, Crooked Joe and Sleepy Joe. And I've never, it's always been pretty,
[45:41] you know, I do sometimes a poll, which is a more accurate term, sleepy or crooked, pretty much even.
[45:46] I like sleepy. In his entire term, Sleepy Joe Biden got less than $1 trillion of new investment
[45:55] a lot less. And in our first 11 months, 12th month is coming, it's going to be big.
[46:04] We did $18 trillion. Think of it, less than $1 trillion for four years. In 11 months, we did
[46:10] $18 trillion. And we have factories being built all over the country at a level that's never been
[46:15] seen before. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that I allow these plants and everything to
[46:22] build their own electricity. Well, we need big electricity. They're all building their own
[46:25] electricity. But a lot of that has to do with the fact that we have to build our own electricity.
[46:26] And a lot of that has to do with the fact that we have to build our own electricity. Well, we need
[46:27] big electricity. But a lot of that has to do with the fact that we have to build our own electricity.
[46:27] I think a lot of it has to do with the tax bill, because it's really the biggest tax reduction bill
[46:31] in history, the great, big, beautiful bill. And a lot of it has to do with the one-year
[46:36] deductibility, where you build a plant and you take the whole thing as a deduction.
[46:41] I did that in my first term also, but I had it for one year. Now I have it for 10 years.
[46:48] So it's pretty amazing, and it's pretty amazing what we're seeing. But it all started with our
[46:52] historic visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. My first visit was to the future capital,
[46:58] King. And on that first foreign trip of my presidency last May, the Crown Prince announced
[47:05] that Saudi Arabia would be investing an incredible almost $1 trillion in the United States, which he
[47:12] later increased as just a few examples of these new partnerships. Oracle will be building a $14
[47:22] billion worth of cloud computing and AI infrastructure in the kingdom. I didn't know
[47:27] that, David. We have to talk to your father about that. Why isn't he doing it here, David?
[47:33] I'm very upset with you. And by the way, David has done a very good job. David Ellis said he
[47:40] just had a very big win. And your father's very proud of you because your father said,
[47:45] that's a tough one. And you got it. You got it done. It's going to be a great success. You're
[47:49] going to be a great success. You're going to blow away your father. And he'll be very happy about
[47:54] that because he loves you. But it's a great family. Great family. Say hello to him.
[48:00] Okay. You're going to have a big, big success with the deal he made. Boeing is selling dozens
[48:06] of 737 airplanes and a deal valued at $4.8 billion and supporting approximately 20,000 US jobs.
[48:15] And during our trip, the United States and Saudi Arabia, and I must say also Qatar,
[48:21] we visited. They were fantastic. And UAE, we visited. They were fantastic. All three of them.
[48:27] We took in a total of almost $3 trillion.
[48:31] Just those three countries. But Saudi Arabia signed the largest defense sales agreement in
[48:37] American history, nearly $142 billion of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world.
[48:44] We make the best military equipment in the world by far. Nobody's ever figured out the Patriot. I
[48:49] mean, when you can shoot down 101 out of 101, that's good stuff, right? And those suckers are
[48:55] traveling at 2,000, Mr. Minister, 2,500 miles an hour. You better hope you don't have chokers.
[49:02] They're sitting behind that desk. Because if they're about one second late, that's the end of
[49:07] it. You say, well, we missed them. They're coming. When I hosted the crown prince at the White House
[49:13] last fall, we officially designated the kingdom as a major non-NATO ally, first time. And for the
[49:22] very first time, we agreed to sell Saudi Arabia, perhaps the most capable fighter jet ever built,
[49:29] the F-35. The F-35 is amazing. And we sell them very sparingly.
[49:34] We don't want other people to have them. I'm confident that this partnership and so many
[49:40] others around the world will continue to grow and thrive, because under President Trump, America
[49:45] once again fights and competes. For one thing, we fight to win. We fight for justice, and we fight
[49:50] to win. We don't fight to be politically correct, like we did under other presidents, where we
[49:57] fought to just keep fighting and fighting and fighting. And when I took out ISIS, I was told
[50:04] by generals it would take four to five years.
[50:07] And I met General Raisin-Kane, who's our top person, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I said,
[50:15] if I ever do this thing again, if I ever get in, I'm putting that guy as the head of the Joint
[50:19] Chiefs of Staff. I went to see him in Iraq, and I said, why is it taking so long to destroy ISIS?
[50:25] We have the best weapons in the world. And I understood why. But I had generals, I call them
[50:30] the television generals. They weren't any good. Mattis, Milley, they weren't any good. They were
[50:35] lousy. But they said, sir, we'll take them.
[50:38] It took about four years. When I went over and I met General Kane, I said, how long will it take?
[50:43] Four weeks, sir. You'll have a lot of time left over. I said, wait a minute. Did you say four
[50:47] weeks? Four weeks, sir. It'll take four weeks. You'll have a lot of time left over. That's our
[50:52] new head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he said, how do you do that? Well, sir, we were only
[50:59] able to fight from this one very far away location because nobody wanted to use all of our portable
[51:05] runways that we have all over the Middle East. We have portable runways. Can you believe it? We
[51:09] have everything. But nobody wanted to use them because they didn't want to insult the country
[51:14] where the runway was located. I said, they wouldn't even know. Do you think some country's
[51:18] going to know when we have jets taking off? They don't know. He said, well, I agree with you, sir.
[51:22] But whether they know or not, who cares? He said, sir, we have about 17 locations that we could
[51:28] take off. From this one, it took eight hours to get to the destination. By the time we got there,
[51:33] we had to refuel all the time and we had to come back. He said, but we have 17 different locations,
[51:39] sir. And, sir.
[51:41] We're going to hit them from the left. We're going to hit them from the right. We're going
[51:44] to hit them from the east and the west. We're going to hit them from above. And you could see
[51:48] it was getting crazy. And I said, what's your first name? He said, Raisin, sir. What do you
[51:56] mean, Raisin? My name is Raisin. He said, you mean your name is Raisin Kane? And he said, yes,
[52:05] sir. You're the guy I'm looking for. I've been looking for you for four freaking years. I found
[52:13] Raisin Kane.
[52:13] His first name is Dan, but his nickname is Raisin. And I love that. I loved Raisin Kane. And I said,
[52:20] if I ever get in, this was before I decided to even run. I said, if I ever run and if I win,
[52:25] that guy's going to be the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. That's exactly what happened.
[52:30] Then he was all for me and I'm all for him. But he's a great general. He's like one of these
[52:34] football coaches. That's great. You know, there's some great ones, Johnny, right? And all they do
[52:41] is they sit, their wives are complaining. Everyone's complaining.
[52:46] They never go, they don't see anybody. They just go into the room and they study film and tape.
[52:51] Then they go out and win and everyone says, and other guys are out there playing golf.
[52:56] They're not winning. And he's been great. And Pete Hegseth has been amazing. He's been amazing.
[53:02] Pete has done a great job. He was born for it. I really believe he was born for it.
[53:06] We have a lot of great people. We have a lot. We had a great first four years, but
[53:11] the people we have now, you know, look, when I won,
[53:17] I ran it before. I ran. Everyone thought I was doing it for fun. Even Steve Whitcough. He said,
[53:22] you're doing it for fun, right? No, I guess. I don't know. I didn't know what I was doing it for.
[53:26] Maybe. But they all said, no, he's going to run. And in September, he's going to have a lot of fun.
[53:30] He'll drop out. Then the debates came and I did good in the debates and we're knocking people
[53:35] off. All senators, governors, mostly senators and governors, all professional politicians,
[53:39] smart guys. You can't be stupid and be a senator or a governor. It doesn't work.
[53:43] Other than Biden, he got lucky. He was in a room. They locked him in a room.
[53:48] And he never got to talk. So that's a whole other story. But I ran and then all of a sudden
[53:55] there were 18 people, including me. Then there were 15 and there were 12. Then there were nine.
[54:03] Then there were six, five. It's like a rocket ship. Four. Then all of a sudden I won.
[54:12] But I never did it before. I went to Washington. I said, I've only been here 17 times and I've
[54:17] never slept over. I didn't know anybody. So I had to take.
[54:22] Recommendations from rhinos and some good people. I mean, there were recommendations and some were
[54:28] really good. I mean, I had some great people. Look, I rebuilt our entire military in the first
[54:32] term. We got the largest tax cuts in history, the largest regulation cuts in history in the
[54:38] first time. We did good, but I didn't have the same people generally. But I went home and I
[54:45] watched this thing closely. And by that time, I knew the good, the bad and the ugly. I knew the
[54:50] good ones. I knew the bad ones. And when I came back, I knew the good ones. I knew the bad ones.
[54:55] I picked great people. We have a great, we have an unbelievable, we're talking military now,
[55:00] but we have an unbelievable group because I got to know it. I was never in Washington.
[55:04] You know, it's hard. I never ran for class president. All of a sudden, ladies and gentlemen,
[55:12] your next president of the United States is Donald Trump. I said, really? I never did this before.
[55:18] Johnny, I said, how the hell did this happen? Right. But it did happen. And we had a great
[55:24] first term. But the second term is blowing it away.
[55:27] To be honest with you, it's really blowing it away. And when we when we decide to leave,
[55:32] you know, regime change, I guess we change the regime. The regime keeps gets it gets blown up
[55:38] every two days. Everybody's afraid to announce who's the head. We don't even know who the hell
[55:43] the leader is. So I think we have regime change already. But we're going to be at some point
[55:50] we'll be leaving. And I think you're going to see a rocket ship because we won't have that
[55:56] dark cloud hanging over our heads.
[55:58] Right. That we did before, which was a nuclear armed, sick country of Iran, because it might
[56:06] have affected your country, Saudi Arabia and the others. But and it certainly affected Israel more
[56:11] than anybody. The hatred they have for Israel. But it also affected us because with modern day
[56:19] equipment, they can fly. And how about how about the fact that they flew a missile two thousand
[56:24] seven hundred miles the other day? They didn't say they had that. Nobody knew they had that.
[56:28] When two thousand.
[56:29] Seven hundred miles. So we learned a lot. But we're determined to have the best technology,
[56:36] the brightest minds, the greatest businesses and the strongest economic and security partnerships
[56:41] of any nation anywhere in the world. And for this reason, we're also committed to ensuring
[56:46] the United States remains number one in artificial intelligence. We're doing great. We're leading
[56:52] China by a lot. And I'll not allow radical left maniacs to sacrifice American leadership to red
[56:59] tape or political correctness.
[57:01] It's going good. We're doing really well. We're building factories all over America,
[57:06] the biggest in the world. And in America, we don't fear the future. We invent the future.
[57:11] We're really inventing the future. We have the most brilliant minds and we invite all nations
[57:16] to join us in building the most powerful AI ecosystem on the planet. We're building more
[57:21] automobile plants than any time in the last 50 years for a lot of reasons. I think number one,
[57:28] maybe the election, but number two and a close number two is terror.
[57:31] The tariffs are driving people in from Canada, Mexico, Germany, Japan, South Korea. They're coming
[57:38] in. We're building auto plants all over the United States. Tens of billions. I met Mr.
[57:45] Toyota in Japan. I said, what's your name? He's about 92 years old. Sharp is attack.
[57:52] What's your name? Toyota. I said, you're rich. I said, do you have anything to do with
[57:58] automobile? Yes. What do you have to do with Toyota? I own it. And I said, well,
[58:04] do you want to make an investment? Yes. We're going to spend $10 billion, spending $10 billion
[58:08] right now on building five plants. Everybody is. They're all coming into America. We're going to
[58:15] be hotter than we were 70 years ago when we dominated the automobile. We made all of the
[58:22] cars. My administration has also worked tirelessly to ensure that America remains at the bleeding edge
[58:30] of crypto revolution. We're really doing great. And if we're not going to do it, then China is
[58:35] going to take it over. They want to do it. We're going to take it over. We're going to take it over.
[58:37] We're going to be the undisputed crypto capital and Bitcoin superpower of the world. Bitcoin is
[58:43] very powerful. It's all becoming powerful. So many people now, they want to pay you in crypto.
[58:48] They want to pay you in Bitcoin. And we have to be at the top of it in all of these, call it an
[58:56] industry. Last year, I signed the landmark Genius Act into law, creating a clear and simple framework
[59:03] for dollar backed stable coins. And this was a historic achievement. And I'll not allow
[59:09] Democrats and their big bank donors, although they've had a lot of support for crypto, they will
[59:14] say that the Democrats have been very strong on crypto. They want to see it too, which is shocking
[59:18] if you want to know the truth. But we don't want any pointless regulations or needless restrictions.
[59:25] We want to have free enterprise open. America became the world financial capital because we
[59:31] were the strongest and the freest nation on earth. And the Trump administration is going to keep it
[59:36] that way. We're very open. And I tell people, if you have a lot of money, if you have a lot of money,
[59:39] if you have problems, call me, call me. And some of them are amazed I actually take their call and
[59:45] get their problem solved. For four long years, our country was pushed to the brink of destruction by
[59:52] radicals and thugs and stupid people who punished success, pillaged our economy, dismantled our
[1:00:00] borders and surrendered our strength. But today, all of that is behind us. Our country is
[1:00:05] prospering again, I think like never before. I would say, you know, it's amazing.
[1:00:10] I thought I knew I'd do it. I didn't know I was going to do it. I knew I had no idea it was going
[1:00:15] to be this fast. But you never know. I had no idea I'd be going into Iran. I didn't think we'd have
[1:00:21] to do that. But it turned out we did because they became more and more radicalized and more and more
[1:00:26] threatening. Our economy is booming again and America is respected again all over the world,
[1:00:32] perhaps like never before, with the help of business leaders, innovators, allies and partners
[1:00:37] like those in this room, incredible people in this room.
[1:00:40] Incredible successors, the most successful people in the world will seize every opportunity,
[1:00:46] overcome every challenge, defeat every threat. And America and our allies will thrive and
[1:00:52] prosper and win like no nations have ever won before. You're going to win like you've never
[1:00:57] had before. So I want to just thank everybody very much. And I'm asked to take a few questions.
[1:01:04] And unlike other politicians, they would like the questions screened. I don't ask for screening of
[1:01:10] the questions. You can ask me any questions. I'm going to ask you any questions. I'm going to ask
[1:01:12] me anything you want. You can talk sex. You can do whatever the hell you want. I'm here for you.
[1:01:22] Whatever question you want, you can ask. So do you want to do that? Do we have some people
[1:01:27] handling this? Here he comes. Look at this man. Very powerful man coming up, ladies and gentlemen.
[1:01:32] We'll take some questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Thank you so much.
[1:01:39] And thank you for accepting to take five questions. We don't want to take too much of your time.
[1:01:43] So let's talk about business.
[1:01:45] In one sentence, where should the world invest in America right now?
[1:01:52] Say it. Where should the world invest in America right now?
[1:01:57] Well, look, the one that they're going crazy about is AI. Now, sometimes you'll say,
[1:02:02] let's go the opposite, because I've seen it. You know, everyone goes, but AI is going crazy.
[1:02:07] AI. So my family, we made Don, the whole family. Eric is doing a good job. All of us, Ivanka.
[1:02:17] We're doing a good job. We're doing a good job. We're doing a good job. We're doing a good job.
[1:02:18] When you can make money in real estate, it's a great business. But I see. Dad, he's got a net
[1:02:24] worth of $24 billion. I said, you've got to be kidding. Awful little contraption. So but the
[1:02:31] money seems to be right now, AI. And also, if you're in school, like you're going to the Wharton
[1:02:38] School or the Stern School or any of these great schools, I mean, the numbers that they're paying
[1:02:44] to go into that business is incredible, where you see people getting the money. And I think it's
[1:02:49] incredible. I mean, we're giving a $10 million bonus to sign, like baseball players or football
[1:02:54] players. We're giving you a $10 million. I mean, I hate to say because it sounds ridiculous, but
[1:02:59] there have been some $100 million bonuses paid to sign. So I think probably if you're going to say
[1:03:05] one thing, AI and just hope that it works, right? You better hope. So, Mr. President, what is the
[1:03:18] one leadership trait the world is missing right now? What is missing in leadership? Well, it's
[1:03:25] you've got to win. You know, I've watched a lot of people, leaders, great leaders. And, you know,
[1:03:31] the one thing about sports is you break it down into, you know, a two-hour period, something nice.
[1:03:36] You don't have to wait a lifetime to find out if somebody is a winner or a loser. You've got a lot
[1:03:40] of losers, mostly losers, fortunately. It's a good thing to have a lot of losers. I always like to
[1:03:45] hang around with losers, actually, because it makes me feel better. I hate guys that are very,
[1:03:51] very successful, and you have to listen to their success stories. I like people that
[1:03:55] like to listen to myself.
[1:03:56] But I find, and I found this, and I'm only kidding. I want to say that, sort of. But I find that
[1:04:08] people that win, it's much easier to lead when you're successful and you win. You know,
[1:04:15] Vince Lombardi was a very tough person, a very tough football coach. He was sort of a violent
[1:04:20] guy, actually. I knew him. But he won, and he got away with things because he won. You know,
[1:04:25] if you win, winning helps you to become a better.
[1:04:30] leader. People follow you if you win. And not everybody can win. Some people win, and some
[1:04:35] people don't win. But when you win, it's a lot easier to lead.
[1:04:40] Talking about winning, Mr. President, the world is entering in a new economic era. Who do you
[1:04:46] think are the winners, and who do you think will be the losers?
[1:04:49] Are you talking about as nations?
[1:04:51] Yes. Or sectors?
[1:04:54] The United States right now is the hottest country anywhere in the world, by far. And we've done it
[1:05:00] very quickly, because we have a good system.
[1:05:03] Now, it's somewhat radicalized, because the Democrats are really holding us back. And you
[1:05:07] better hope they don't get in, because they'll destroy a lot of what we've built. But right now,
[1:05:12] the United States, as the future king of Saudi Arabia said, we're the hottest country anywhere
[1:05:18] in the world. I must say, I respect China greatly, because it's amazing that with a system that,
[1:05:25] in theory, shouldn't work. You know, we go to school, and we go to the best business schools,
[1:05:30] and we do well in those schools.
[1:05:32] And we read about free entrepreneurship, and we read about all of these different things. But
[1:05:38] you look at China, how well they do, how well they manufacture. I mean,
[1:05:43] they manufacture cars so many that they actually have a contest for who can manufacture the least
[1:05:48] cars, because they have so many cars. You have to have great respect for China for the job they do.
[1:05:54] Like them or not like them, you have to respect them.
[1:05:57] So precisely, you will be going to China in May?
[1:06:01] Yes. Yes, I'll be going. We had a...
[1:06:03] a meeting, and I called up President Xi. I get along really well with him. He even approved the
[1:06:08] TikTok deal. He said, I will not approve that deal to other people, not to me. And I thought it was
[1:06:15] good if we could keep it going. I like it because I'm the number one person on TikTok. Can you
[1:06:20] believe it? I put a chart up there, another chart. You want to put another chart up? Like we did with
[1:06:24] fake news CNN. I said, you know, let's see what happens. So we got a group of very big investors,
[1:06:32] the biggest investors, and they really wanted to...
[1:06:34] And I did very well on TikTok in the election. I won the youth. You know, I did tremendously well
[1:06:40] with youth because of TikTok and other things, certain interviews, et cetera. But I did very well.
[1:06:45] And I sort of developed a liking for it. And I was told that it will never be approved by China.
[1:06:53] You had to get approval. And I didn't really care. And then it got to a point where all of these very
[1:06:59] successful people were willing to pay a lot of money for TikTok. And I called up President Xi.
[1:07:04] I said, do me a favor.
[1:07:06] We approve this. It's good. It's good for China. It's good for everybody. Would you do me a favor?
[1:07:11] I know you said it was a hard no. And I said, I know you said no to everybody, but you haven't
[1:07:16] said no to me. Would you do me a favor? Would you approve it? It's good for China. It's good for us.
[1:07:22] You have a lot of big investors. They're investing in China also. They have a lot of money in China.
[1:07:27] I would appreciate it. He said, OK, I'll do it. Nice. It was very nice. And they bought TikTok
[1:07:36] and it's going to do good.
[1:07:38] And it was done with the consent of China. We get along well with China. You know, China used to
[1:07:43] take big advantage of us, but they don't take advantage of us anymore. Now we, you know, we
[1:07:47] compete very nicely with China. We put tariffs on China. The tariffs got too high. At one point,
[1:07:55] they were up to one hundred and forty five percent. And I was saying, no, put tariffs on that,
[1:07:59] put tariffs on for fentanyl at 20 percent. And then one day I said, what's China paying now?
[1:08:05] Sir, they're paying one hundred and forty five percent. I said,
[1:08:09] one.
[1:08:09] Forty five. That's crazy. I got a little carried away. So I got them down to one hundred.
[1:08:16] Then I took them down a little more. And I'll never forget. I took them down a little bit from
[1:08:20] one hundred and forty five to one hundred. And the fake news said Donald Trump collapses on China.
[1:08:26] He's paying one hundred percent. Nobody pays a hundred. So anyway, we got it done. And now we
[1:08:30] have a great business relationship with China. I've always had a good relationship with President
[1:08:35] Xi, except for the covid situation, because I wasn't thrilled about that. He wasn't thrilled
[1:08:40] either, by the way.
[1:08:41] I wasn't thrilled. But I have great respect for him as a leader. And we had a deal we had. I was
[1:08:46] going there and I didn't want to go during the war. I said, look, you know, we have a thing called
[1:08:52] a war or as they would rather say, a military operation is for legal reasons. I say military
[1:08:59] because there's a military operation. I don't need any approvals as a warrior supposed to get
[1:09:04] approval from Congress, something like that. So I call it a military operation. But we have that
[1:09:10] going along. And
[1:09:11] I'd like to say thank you very much.
[1:09:12] I'd like to delay it. So we delayed it a few weeks. So I'll be going very shortly.
[1:09:16] Mr. President, we have a few leaders here, business leaders from Africa. And of course,
[1:09:21] we have His Excellency, the president of Sierra Leone. What is your vision about Africa today?
[1:09:26] Well, I tell you, it's got tremendous potential. Now, I've been hearing about this for a very long
[1:09:33] time. And I have a lot of friends that have bet the ranch on Africa. They're very smart.
[1:09:38] It's got tremendous earth. It's got tremendous value underground,
[1:09:43] which is very important. So do we. We have the biggest, the most oil, gas, and coal and everything
[1:09:48] of any nation on earth. There's a big advantage. But Africa has tremendous value on its land. And
[1:09:54] if they can unify and get together, I think it's got tremendous potential. I have a lot of very
[1:09:59] smart friends that they're putting everything into Africa. What do you think, Mr. President,
[1:10:07] is today the biggest mistake that leaders are making right now? Not sticking together. I think
[1:10:15] that NATO made a terrible mistake. I think that NATO made a terrible mistake. I think that NATO made a
[1:10:16] terrible mistake. I think that NATO made a terrible mistake. I think that NATO made a terrible mistake.
[1:10:16] When they wouldn't send a small amount of military armament, when they wouldn't send,
[1:10:25] just even acknowledge what we were doing for the world and taking on Iran. I never considered it
[1:10:33] very risky. But war is always risk, you know, very risky. But war is always risk, you know,
[1:10:41] a lot of strange happened to think things happen in war that very bad, but, but,
[1:10:47] I didn't consider it. I know how great I'm with the greatest military by far anywhere. There was
[1:10:52] nobody close. I didn't think there was a big risk, but there's always surprises with war.
[1:10:57] They could be very bad surprises. I mean, wars are lost. It should be one. Many wars are lost.
[1:11:02] You think a country is going to wipe somebody out and they end up getting wiped out themselves. So
[1:11:07] it's always risky. But I think a tremendous mistake was when NATO just wasn't there.
[1:11:14] They just weren't there. It's going to make a lot of money for the United States,
[1:11:19] because we spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on NATO, hundreds of protecting them.
[1:11:25] And we would have always been there for them. But now, based on their actions, I guess we don't have
[1:11:30] to be, do we? Mr. President, that sounds like a breaking story. Yes, sir. Is that breaking news?
[1:11:36] I think we just have breaking news. But that's the fact. I've been saying that. Why would we be
[1:11:41] there for them if they're not there for us? They weren't there for us. If you had one bet on the
[1:11:47] future, what would it be? That the United States will, with
[1:11:53] good leadership, remain the dominant country anywhere in the world. But you still need
[1:11:59] leadership. I mean, look at the last four years were so bad with the bad leader. You need
[1:12:04] leadership. And, you know, in theory, you need to have that. You need the open, fair elections. You
[1:12:10] need a free press. We have a terrible press. We have a very corrupt media. Think of it. I got 96%
[1:12:18] negative stories and I won in a landslide. And you know what that means? That means that the media
[1:12:24] has no credibility. Mr. President, I think we're going to have to do something about this.
[1:12:26] The media has no credibility. You can't get mostly bad stories, fake stories. They were fake.
[1:12:30] The polls are fake. That's why I appreciate that one poll that I saw up there at 100%.
[1:12:35] She's never seen 100%. Nobody has. But you have to have a free and open media.
[1:12:41] And when a media can give you 96% to 97% bad stories, they write stories about it. Trump
[1:12:48] received 97% bad stories and I won in a landslide. And that means very simply that the media has no
[1:12:55] credibility. Because, you know, the media has no credibility. The media has no credibility.
[1:12:56] Because that can't happen. Now, I also have a voice more than most people. I can come up and
[1:13:00] talk about it and convince people without necessarily reading the New York Times,
[1:13:05] which is fake. I mean, if you read the New York Times, you would think we're doing badly
[1:13:09] against Iran. Remember, they have no Navy wiped out. 159 ships at the bottom of the sea in three
[1:13:16] days. They have no Air Force all wiped out. They have very few missiles left. Their drones are
[1:13:21] at a minimum. Their factories are gone. Their leaders are gone. The leaders are all dead.
[1:13:26] They're all dead. Nobody has a chance. Nobody has a chance. Nobody has a chance. Nobody has a chance.
[1:13:27] Nobody ever heard of the people that are left. And if you read the Times, you think we're doing
[1:13:31] poorly. It's almost treasonous. I have to be honest. It's almost treasonous. But fortunately,
[1:13:39] we have other media that's fair and honest and honorable. And you have to go out and do some of
[1:13:43] your own talking because nobody else will. You know the expression? I have to sell myself because
[1:13:49] nobody else will. My last question, Mr. President, is the same question I asked you last year.
[1:13:55] What do you want your legacy to be? Well, I'll tell you what. So I told you that I
[1:14:03] settled eight wars. That means millions and millions of people. Some of those wars were
[1:14:09] going on. One was 34 years. One was 32 years. One was 29 years. One was 22 years. They were
[1:14:17] long term wars and a lot of people being killed every year. So I've saved millions and millions
[1:14:21] of people. And I mean, I know it doesn't sound right for me to say this, but I'd love my legacy
[1:14:28] to be made as a great peacemaker because I really believe I'm a peacemaker. It doesn't seem it,
[1:14:34] right now, but I think I'm a peacemaker.
[1:14:37] Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. President of United States of America, Donald J. Trump.
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