Trump calls out menacing fraudsters at White House roundtable

[0:00] this is very important and i want to thank everybody for being here the effort to stop [0:10] cybercrime and cyber fraud has been ongoing for many years but i think we're closer to it than [0:17] anyone's ever been working very hard on it for years our nation has faced a growing menace of [0:24] cybercrime perpetrated by fraudsters hackers and scammers who try to steal americans money [0:32] pray on senior citizens exploit children and young people through fraud ransomware [0:38] impersonalization see the schemes that they use for impersonation and other illegal acts and it's [0:48] very very severe when you see some of the things that we're finding in minnesota california we have [0:54] crooked politicians running the places it really gets bad countless american victims have had their [1:02] life savings bank accounts college funds and more emptied by these thieves and that's exactly what [1:10] they are and they're often part of a sophisticated criminal syndicate operating scam centers all [1:16] around the world almost three quarters of american adults have been subjected to internet scams and [1:24] cyber attacks it's pretty amazing americans reported losing more than 20 billion dollars to cyber [1:31] enable crimes and this is just what's reported so the number would be probably many times that [1:37] amount when i was just last year alone the real number would be really i think quite a bit higher [1:43] every american who has an aging parent or a young son or daughter has felt the anxiety of knowing that [1:50] those you love are using internet service overrun by thieves and pirates predators and foreign criminals [1:59] under the trump administration we have marshalled the full force of the federal government to combat [2:05] disgorge we have very talented people we have people that do nothing but this and they're really [2:11] good at it i've seen some examples amazing actually in march i signed an executive order [2:19] directing every relevant department and agency to work together to combat predatory internet schemes and [2:26] establish a victim's restoration program to recover as much money for the victims as possible i wish we [2:34] could get it all but it oftentimes doesn't work that way because they spend it they spend it before [2:40] they get it in august i signed a historic national security memorandum unleashing the incredible talent [2:47] tools and resources of our private sector and companies to undertake offensive and defensive actions to stop the [2:55] hackers and these uh horrible people that we talk about predators cyber criminals including industrial [3:03] scam centers stealing from american families and american businesses i want to thank secretary of war pete [3:11] hegseth attorney general todd blanche these are great people by the way secretary of homeland security [3:19] mark wayne mullen deputy chief of staff stephen miller fbi director cash patel director of national [3:28] intelligence jay clayton national cyber director sean cameron where are you sean where the hell is [3:36] here i got to get this name so perfect cairncross is that good cairncross i see you all the time but [3:45] i never heard your damn name now i i know him i know him very simply as sean cairncross it's a nice name [3:54] actually and many others here in this panel and it's a great honor to have you in the national campaign to [4:02] destroy this menace federal law enforcement has been able to warn over 10 000 americans targeted for [4:10] victim victimization and we've prevented 1.6 billion dollars in losses at least this year federal law [4:19] enforcement has also frozen nearly 1 billion dollars of cyber currency and tied to foreign scammers shut [4:26] down more than 500 fraudulent websites and coordinated with technology companies to disrupt millions and [4:34] millions of online accounts used by foreign criminals it sounds so sinister i guess it is but it sounds [4:40] you know as you're looking at this and you're reading what experts have largely written it sounds so [4:47] sinister it's terrible situation and we've engaged with international partners to arrest hundreds of [4:53] foreign scammers of all types including scam call centers our administration is also aggressively [5:01] confronting the sexual extortion rackets that have wrecked the lives of too many young people and [5:07] in some cases even tragically led victims to take their own lives commit suicide this has been a top [5:14] priority for our wonderful first lady who led a successful bipartisan effort to pass the take it down act [5:22] a big deal and it went almost i think unanimously through congress we're very bipartisan melania's [5:30] continued leadership has been vital to helping us protect america's children and women from online [5:37] exploitation to any american who might find themselves a victim of online fraud extortion scams especially [5:48] young people and our great seniors and we want to protect our seniors because the seniors almost more [5:54] than anybody are really victims of what we're talking about today i want you to know that the trump [6:00] administration is here to support you and will bring the perpetrators to justice we will do it [6:06] quickly as quickly as anybody can believe and if you think you may be a victim seek out help from [6:13] trusted family members and oftentimes they're going to know exactly where to go but [6:18] you start heading for law enforcement so we will work tirelessly to help [6:23] recover what has been stolen and dismantle the criminal networks that prey on our people [6:29] and now i'd like to ask a man who's done an incredible job attorney general todd blanche [6:33] to say a few words thank you very much thank you very much mr president i appreciate that [6:39] thank you for convening this discussion today and for the attention that you've given this issue which [6:44] has affected as you just said far too many american families i also want to recognize um our u.s [6:51] attorney from dc janine pirro who's here and our chief of our criminal division tyson douva who's here both of [6:58] them have done a tremendous amount of work delivering justice for cybercrime victims so thank you both for [7:04] your work at the department of justice we are implementing your series mr president of executive [7:10] actions aimed at combating transnational criminal organizations that for far too long have targeted [7:16] the most vulnerable among us with ransomware malware phishing financial fraud and deplorable extortion schemes [7:26] as you just mentioned mr president your march executive order directed us at the department of justice [7:32] to work with dhs treasury state and the department of war to build out a single plan to dismantle [7:38] organizations behind scam centers predatory fraud and extortion and in your august national security [7:45] memorandum you directed the department of justice and the department of homeland security [7:50] to jointly oversee vetted american companies taking cyber operations against these criminal [7:55] networks through the homeland security task force and the new scam center cell in the national [8:01] coordination center our prosecutors are working alongside fbi and hsi agents the secret service [8:09] treasury and state on the same targets so that every case is built to take down not just one scammer [8:16] but the whole network and because of the magnitude of this issue it demands a nationwide response we have [8:24] evolved from delegating these cases to single u.s attorney's offices to leveraging our newly established [8:30] cyber enabled scam initiative which is led by our criminal division at the department of justice [8:35] and deploys dozens of prosecutors across all 94 u.s attorney's offices to continue driving prosecutions [8:43] and helping victims mr president thanks to your leadership and our partners here today this [8:49] coordinator response is working there are private companies helping as well meta has been an incredible [8:56] partner to law enforcement as has x and elon musk in april fbi and the dubai police announced the arrest of [9:05] at least 276 individuals and this and the dismantlement of at least nine scam centers that targeted americans [9:14] who suffered millions and millions of dollars in losses at the same time our prosecutors unsealed [9:20] charges against their managers and their recruiters and in a similar operation just last month we seized [9:29] shinby criminal marketplace and restrained 52 million dollars on the same day that treasury sanctioned it [9:37] scam centers like these are the ones sending your grandmother fraudulent links they're the ones [9:42] emailing your mom with fake emergencies that don't really exist and they're the ones impersonating law [9:48] enforcement officers on the phone with fictitious arrests but we are stopping them together prosecutors [9:56] and agents across government have restrained nearly a billion dollars stolen from americans we're also [10:03] meeting the serious threat of sextortion head-on i'll say mr president there is no corner of government [10:11] from which these predators can hide arrests at hsi agents at hsi and fbi are identifying them the state [10:19] department is denying them visas and our prosecutors are charging them we are increasing our effort to [10:25] block funds that unsuspecting victims send to fraudsters and thanks to our partnerships and we [10:31] do have partnerships with the financial industry we have protected americans from losing millions of [10:36] dollars mr president while we still have a lot of work to do our strategy to combat cybercrime is [10:43] delivering for the american people and that's because of your leadership and the commitment of the [10:49] people in this room and at this table to my left and right to protecting the financial security of [10:55] every single american thank you mr president great job thank you very much todd and mark wayne please [11:04] thank you mr president uh for giving us the opportunity to go after these bad actors [11:10] mr president dhs is leading the way by serving as a co-lead on the homeland security task force [11:16] working with federal state and local law enforcement agencies across the country and fight [11:21] to dismantle the cyber syndicates and secure our communities most critically we are protecting our [11:28] families through what is known as no to protect hsi which the director of hsi is with us tony salisbury [11:36] who does a wonderful job on leading hsi the cyber crime center we are educating families on how to [11:43] protect themselves from digital extortion since just march of this year no to protect has made over [11:50] 5 500 media impressions which has led over 600 000 websites and over 13 000 online leads to report on [12:01] online abuse behind every statistic is a human life and a campaign that has led to actionable results [12:09] under mr president your leadership we are working with countries around the world to arrest criminals [12:16] i want to brag just a second also on a secret service secret service is known for protecting [12:23] you and many of us uh along the way but what they don't realize is what else they also do underneath [12:29] their internet crimes against children's which is called icac just secret service that doesn't include [12:37] cissa uh that is in which we got our acting director nick here too appreciate it and our our deputy [12:43] uh secretary uh secretary troy edgar who is in this fight every single day leading the charge for dhs [12:50] um underneath the secret service alone they have recovered 14 600 child abuse videos as uh the first [12:59] lady has so eloquently said take it down and over 35 600 images that's just secret service alone [13:07] um when you get into to what is going on um elderlies uh the elderly population over uh over 60 as just in [13:18] 2025 through cyber crimes lost 7.7 billion in their income that's retirements that are completely wiped away [13:26] and because mr president you have made this elite that you have made this a a a staple part of your [13:32] administration uh your executive order has given us a clear mission to confront the criminals that are [13:41] taking advantage of americans every single day we're disrupting their network we're enabling uh we're [13:47] taking away the networks that enable them to work and dhs department homes homeland security will [13:52] continue to do just that um i believe now i'm turning it to secretary hexa mr president thank you for your [13:59] leadership well mr president thank you i'm just struck sitting here yet again you're taking the [14:06] lead on real issues that affect real people uh that have been ignored for far too long and using the [14:12] entirety of the government to attack that problem and that's why we're proud to be here with the [14:16] chief with cash with todd with with mark wayne with stephen with sean uh and everybody at this table [14:23] who's working shoulder to shoulder to address this i mean at the war department we've done the same on [14:27] the southwest border with our interagency partners on law enforcement in cities all across america [14:33] in mass deportations of illegals who who we're proud to have the assets to be able to support that [14:38] directly and now with cybercom and nsa and the exquisite capabilities that the war department has [14:44] so in march when you issued that executive order mr president we immediately started working with the [14:48] justice department and homeland security and treasury and state to get after transnational criminal [14:53] organizations because your directive is clear that attacks on our people or our infrastructure will [14:59] be met with decisive action and the war department has the kind of specialized intelligence and technical [15:06] capabilities that we can use to directly support the attorney general and the secretary of homeland [15:10] security so we're feeding our deep intelligence and tracking data on overseas cyber networks directly [15:17] to the national coordination center and homeland security task force and this ensures that law [15:21] enforcement has what it needs as we do so well at the department of war to map disrupt and dismantle [15:27] these criminal enterprises into criminal networks because we've also seen there's a very clear [15:32] connection between transnational cyber syndicates and enemy militaries and how they fund themselves how [15:38] they support what their activities so if they can't match us or beat us on the battlefield which they can't [15:43] then of course they try to move to the realm of cyberspace to attack and by taking on these cyber criminals on [15:49] offense and defense we watch out for our warriors we watch out for american citizens and we secure the [15:55] homeland so we're proud to be a part of work with the homeland security task force and get after this [15:59] problem set mr president thank you thank you very much john steven thank you mr president this is another [16:06] example of you solving a problem that has gone on for decades that nobody else had the vision courage team [16:15] leadership to solve before everybody knows the stories it's affected almost every family in america [16:23] your your grandmother your grandfather your parents they get a phone call saying a loved one has been [16:29] arrested wire ten thousand dollars right away to get them out of jail except nobody was arrested nobody's [16:34] in jail and the money goes to a foreign scam center and then that that pension that retirement account [16:40] that senior citizen has saved for their entire lives is gone and then you have senior citizens who are [16:45] going to be living in their golden years are now living in poverty and for years and years and years [16:50] this went unmet and unanswered with the executive order that you signed for the first time ever we [16:57] are using offensive cyber capabilities to dismantle disrupt and disable these foreign scam centers that has [17:05] never been done before and then we're working with foreign governments and the department of justice to bring [17:10] these individuals into our prison system to face real jail time here in the united states for the crimes [17:18] against the american people so you have effectively declared cyber warfare against the cyber criminals [17:25] and that is saving the pensions the life savings the retirement accounts the earnings of countless [17:31] american citizens not to mention protecting people from sextortion from child trafficking from human [17:37] trafficking so we've talked so much mr president about how you've brought crime to record lows [17:42] violent crime to record lows the murder rate to the lowest in 125 years but now you're bringing [17:49] cyber crime to the lowest level since this has existed as an industry it's just one more example [17:54] of how you have put the american people first you've put the american people's safety first i'll make one [17:59] more point on this there's a common theme in all of the challenges that you have systemically tackled and [18:04] solved whether it's the trade deficit where we're getting ripped off by foreign countries whether [18:09] it's welfare fraud where we're getting ripped off by these refugees and foreign scammers or cybercrime [18:16] where you have entire foreign economies that are propped up on stealing from american seniors [18:21] what you're saying is america is not a pile of treasure for other countries and other people [18:27] and other scammers all around the world to loot for themselves you're protecting american wealth [18:33] for american people and american families in a way no leader has ever done before thank you sir [18:37] thank you very much we appreciate it cash please thank you mr president and first and foremost thank [18:45] you for your leadership here as stephen said this problem has existed for decades but no president [18:51] in the history of the united states put pen to paper and put this team together and gave us these [18:55] authorities to go after these cyber criminals around the world the fbi is leading out through operation [19:00] blackout uh under president trump's initiative here and what does that mean for scam centers around the [19:05] world scam centers for the american public in the world are literally towns and ecosystems with traffic [19:11] victims with cities and housing that they built an empire for criminal syndicates to fleece american [19:16] citizens they're in southeast asia they're in africa they're in the middle east and the fbi's operation [19:22] blackout with our interagency partners has gone to each one of these separate continents and [19:26] and dismantled and destroyed and demolished over 20 compounds the federal bureau of investigation along [19:32] with our partners at doj and the united states attorney's offices have seized over 17 billion dollars [19:37] from these scam compound fraud centers seized it that means that's money we got back we're going to use [19:42] it with our doj partners to prosecute these individuals and then get that money back to the american [19:47] people from which it was stolen that is us going on offense to annihilate these scam centers through fbi's [19:53] operation blackout and it's also putting everyone on notice they thought they could get away with it [19:57] in southeast asia and the cross border regions because of your relationship to the leaders of [20:01] those countries we were able to work there with immediacy and efficacy they moved to africa we got [20:06] them there too just two weeks ago we were in ghana nigeria and we arrested another 300 individuals [20:11] and seized another 15 million dollars being fleeced from american senior citizens through these scam [20:17] center operations and just the other week we partnered with our uk forces in england [20:21] to have a disruption week to further work with the private sector and again because of your [20:26] relationship with these private sector companies in america meta google microsoft ibm and so forth [20:31] they have immediately come to the table and shut down internet trafficking and domain networks across [20:37] the cyber security space that participate in this global scam center enterprise so the whole of [20:44] government effort you're seeing here under president trump's leadership with everyone up here and everyone here [20:48] in the front row and the private sector has never ever happened before because there's never been a [20:54] president who has brought us together like president trump has we're going to continue to go on offense [20:59] mr president and lastly on our operation blackout we are not waiting for the scammers to hit our [21:06] citizens we are going out there in full force mr president to date your administration has prevented 11 000 [21:12] americans from being fleeced of 675 million dollars that means they were not scammed we went out to them [21:19] through our interagency partners and our relationships and we said we think you are being scammed and we [21:24] shut it down before it even happened so the american public that's listening we have an internet crimes [21:30] complaint center at the fbi 1-800 call fbi let us know no piece of information is too small every piece of [21:37] information you give us allows us to cripple this global criminal syndicate and destroy and demolish [21:44] global scam center operations and the fbi's operation blackout is a small part of it mr [21:49] president we thank you for your leadership well thank you very much and thank you to everybody it's been [21:54] an amazing period of time in so many different ways but this is one of them this is one of the [22:00] i would say it is a very negative thing but what we're doing is very positive and we'll put a dent a [22:06] very big dent hopefully in uh what's been taking place for really many decades and it's gone totally [22:13] unchecked it should have been they should have they should have had this meeting 30 years ago 20 years [22:18] ago they should have had it a long time ago so the team here and a lot of the audience most of the [22:23] audience i would say are the top people in the business and they are fantastic people uh do you have a [22:29] couple of questions please anybody oh they have no questions good yeah sure sure we had [22:44] a wonderful man who during the biden administration was taken hostage in russia they claimed things we [22:55] won't get into that but we thought he was a very high quality innocent man and uh stephen hubbard [23:03] his name is and he was for the last number of years i would hear the name mostly when it happened when [23:11] when it happened i would watch his son on television i'd watch his family on television [23:18] begging virtually to for him to come back please and uh the other day i was talking with i i set the [23:27] the stage earlier but the other day i was talking to vladimir putin about settling his war with ukraine [23:33] which i think we're getting closer to by the way maybe now the closest we've been but uh i mentioned could [23:41] you let stephen hubbard out please and uh he agreed to do it so he was met today in russia and he's on [23:52] his way back he's on a flight steve whitkoff is with him his family is with him his family went over to [23:59] meet him and so we thank everybody involved this was an amazing thing they didn't think he'd come out for [24:06] 20 25 years so we appreciate the fact that we were able to get him and we we gave nothing in exchange [24:15] which is very rare we never give anything in exchange we have we've taken we've gotten out [24:21] hundreds of hostages we don't give once you give you you'll end up uh quadrupling the problem [24:28] the past administration gave massive amounts of money and other things you can't do that [24:34] and when you do that the problem is is greatly exacerbated so uh he'll be landing soon relatively [24:42] soon and uh i hear he's in pretty good shape he went through a lot i spoke to him this morning [24:50] he is the happiest man around he didn't think this was going to be this was very surprising to him but [24:55] i i did it it really took place on a phone call at the end of last week with president putin so we [25:02] appreciate it very much and uh his family is extremely happy they can't believe it because it happened so [25:08] quickly so uh that's the kind of things we do any other questions [25:22] you have to you can't both speak thank you mr president for following up on that question while [25:27] mr whitkopf was in st petersburg he described president putin as a humanitarian would you [25:33] describe him in that same way you mean steve whitkopf said he was a humanitarian yes well i guess you [25:40] have could say for that particular purpose for the purpose of uh allowing a man who was thinking [25:47] he was going to be in prison for life uh out but uh you know i i wouldn't say anything one way or the [25:54] other you know we're negotiating with russia to stop the war with ukraine and we have been pretty happy [26:03] with russia that they have not gotten involved with iran we've we've taken iran down to levels that [26:09] they've never seen before they're very low their military is completely gone their anti-aircraft [26:16] just about everything is gone including their economy the only thing not gone is inflation they [26:22] have 301 as of this morning their money is gone everything is gone so and frankly their leaders are [26:29] gone the first set of leaders are gone the second set of leaders are gone parts of the third set of [26:35] leaders have gone and uh i would say that a very important element is the fact that russia and china [26:46] have not participated or participated in a much smaller way than they could have so i i'm very happy [26:54] about that so the last thing i want to do is uh upset an apple cart where we're getting close to [27:01] settling a war the last thing you're going to do is let's let's do something horrendous so let's say we did [27:07] what a lot of stupid people wanted me to do a lot of really stupid people i took a lot of heat well [27:14] why don't you do this they didn't even know what it was they didn't even know what it was all they said [27:18] is oh i think you should do oh do you know what he's supposed to do no we don't really know it's just [27:23] some one guy one politician on television said uh we don't know exactly something well i was in the midst of [27:31] getting stephen out of russia and if we did what these foolish people wanted me to do [27:41] he wouldn't be coming out right now he'd be in there for another 20 years so the last thing i was [27:46] going to do is break up that also and whether people like it or not russia could have participated [27:54] much more strongly with iran and likewise china and as you know president she was here a week ago [28:00] uh likewise china could have participated a lot more that very there's relatively little participation [28:09] uh the fact is both of them would like to see the war settled so we're in the process of doing [28:14] that with russia and we have china also that's uh involved thank you very much everybody thank you