Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2026
January 13, 2026
The President. Good morning, everybody.
Q. Good morning, Mr. President.
The President. So we're going to Detroit. We'll be talking about how well the economy is doing. As you know, the inflation numbers just came out, and we have very low inflation. So that would give "Too Late" Powell the chance to give us a nice, beautiful, big rate cut, which would be great for the country.
But rates are falling also, and growth is going up. We have tremendous growth numbers. So growth is going up.
So I'll be talking about that today in Detroit, the big speech. And I can only say that the country is doing well.
You saw my statement on Iran. You saw my statement on Minnesota. On Minnesota, we have taken out killers, rapists, drug dealers, people from mental institutions that came in illegally. All of them—most of them came in illegally. They're from other countries. They came in under the Biden ridiculous open border policy, and we've gotten a lot of them out.
We just had numbers from Chicago where Chicago crime has gone down pretty good. We—it could go down a hundred percent, virtually, but we're fighting with that Governor who's so incompetent. But, as you know, we took out a lot of killers, murderers, drug dealers, drug addicts, mental-institution people, and people from jails. We took them out of Chicago.
So Chicago has got much better numbers now than it had a few months ago. We will get no credit for it, but these are minor details.
Crime in Washington, DC, is almost nonexistent. It's a safe place, so people can come bring their families. They can send their son and daughter to look at Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, or whatever they want to look at. But it's almost nonexistent. We're very proud of that.
Memphis is making tremendous strides, and so is New Orleans. We have a whole group of people. And crime in New Orleans is down about 65 percent. We've only been there for 3 weeks.
So it's really amazing what's happening throughout the country. The crime numbers are among the best numbers we've ever had.
[At this point, several reporters began asking questions at once.]
Q. Mr. President, what's it going to take to avoid another Government shutdown?
Q. On the Fed, Mr. President.
Q. Government shutdown. What's it going to take?
Chairman of the Federal Reserve System Board of Governors Jerome H. Powell
Q. A growing number of Republicans are voicing concerns about this investigation. They say the investigation into Jerome Powell is going to undermine confidence in the Fed. Do you approve——
The President. He's billions of dollars over budget. So he either is incompetent or he's crooked. I don't know what he is, but he does a—certainly, he doesn't do a very good job.
[Several reporters spoke at once.]
Immigration Enforcement Actions
Q. Are you committed to mass deportations—are you committed to mass deportations among all this bad PR that we've seen and attacks that we've seen on ICE?
The President. We're getting rid of a lot of people that are criminals that shouldn't be in our country. They came in through Biden's open borders, and we're getting them out of our country. That's why our crime numbers are so good. We have record-low crime numbers.
Thank you.
NOTE: The President spoke at 10:12 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White House prior to boarding Marine One. In his remarks, he referred to former President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.; and Gov. Jay R. "J.B." Pritzker of Illinois.
Categories: Interviews With the News Media : Exchanges with reporters, White House. Locations: Washington, DC.
Names: Biden, Joseph R., Jr.; Powell, Jerome H.; Pritzker, Jay R. "J.B.".
Subjects: District of Columbia, law enforcement improvement efforts; Federal Reserve System; Illegal immigration; Illinois, Governor; Louisiana, law enforcement improvement efforts in New Orleans; News media, Presidential interviews; Tennessee, law enforcement improvement efforts in Memphis; Undocumented immigrants, deportation of criminals.
DCPD Number: DCPD202600018.