Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2026
May 7, 2026
The President. We're doing a job on the reflecting pond. It's really beautiful, and it's going to be fantastic. Hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent over the years, foolishly—
[At this point, the President addressed a participant.]
Hello—foolishly. And we're doing a job that nobody has ever seen anything like it. It was a good idea we came up with, and we're—doing a sealer and then some very intricate work with modern materials, and it's going to look better than it did in 1922 when it was built.
It was built in 1922, and it had granite pavers. It was granite. Various materials on top. The size is very—it's almost—I guess it's over 2,000 feet—2,400 feet long. That's taller than any building in the world—if you lay it on its side—and very big. The surface was bad. The leaking was bad.
These workers are the most fantastic people. You know Doug Burgum. He's in charge of it. He's the head of Interior, and done a great job. And I was getting complaints from people saying that it wasn't good—this is a number of months ago. And I called Doug, and he agreed.
They spent a fortune. President Obama spent $38 million, closed it for 2½years. It was a construction nightmare, construction mess. When they opened it, it didn't work and it leaked. It was a disaster.
And—but I know how to build, and we worked with Doug and Interior and Parks. And these guys have been fantastic.
So, we're putting a beautiful surface on. It's called—the coloring is—it's like a swimming pool, but industrial strength, much stronger. And I think you're going to see something that's amazing.
Very interesting is we took all of the—they took 12 garbage trucks full of garbage that was under the water that people didn't see, but they knew it was there. It was a real mess.
And you're going to have, basically, industrial strength. It's going to last, I would say, 50 years. It'll last—it's going to last a long time, and you'll have no leak—guaranteed no leak. And it's going to be something very special, and it's going to be a beautiful color.
The problem—the color was never good because basically it had a gray stone underneath. Whether it was the concrete or the granite, it was a gray stone. And now we actually picked the color. It's called "American Flag Blue." And so, you can't do better than that.
And so, we had estimates to fix it of about $355 million, and it was going to take 3½ years. You can see by the size of it. And so, we're going to be able to do it for about a million-eight—
$1.8 million—and it's going to take 1 week. And we'll be finished, I guess—I'm going to give them a little more time. Let's give it 2 weeks. But we're pretty much—a lot of the hard work is done. The beautiful work is now.
The application is really the fun. The sidewalk surfaces, they're fixing that too. They're having it repointed, refixed. It's going to be, like, actually, much better than new. It's much more beautiful than it was new, because it—never had the color people wanted, but now it's going to have the great color. So, it's going to be good.
It's going to last many, many years, and it's going to have no leaks, going to have no problems. Going to be clean and beautiful.
And I want to thank Doug Burgum, the job he's done. And we're working on some other jobs that are great. We're working on a—you know, the back terrace of the Lincoln Memorial, that was supposed to be the main entrance, but they built two roadways behind it so nobody ever—it never had access to the Potomac. And we're working on that. We have a beautiful plan for that, the Lincoln Memorial. And we have other things.
Also, I guess you want to talk about what you're most proud of is—underneath the Lincoln Memorial. Do you want to discuss that?
Secretary of the Interior Douglas J. Burgum. Well, underneath the Lincoln Memorial, it's built on, essentially, arches or stilts, like a cathedral. So, there's an undercroft 80 feet high that's only been filled with—junk and graffiti from back when was built in 1922.
The President. Yes.
Secretary Burgum. This summer—there's been a long vision, but with President Trump's leadership and supportive donors, they're opening a undercroft museum, which will tell a great story, hold great documents, coming as part of the 250th anniversary.
So, 15,000 of the 50,000—there's a 50,000-foot cavern underneath the Lincoln—15,000 will be opening as a new museum on June 23rd of this year, as part of Freedom 250.
And again, we've—never had a President like President Trump who's cared more, invested more, or put more time and attention into everything about the Mall.
When he drives around, if he sees something, he calls us. We call the amazing National Park Service. They're on it. They fix it up. That's why we're fixing over 19 fountains around the city. That's why we've eliminated over a thousand graffiti sites.
Under President Trump's leadership, we've taken care of 82 homeless camps that were in the city when he was elected, making DC safe and beautiful. Crime is down, beauty is up, all because of President Trump's leadership.
The President. So, a very big—thank you, Doug, and great job. Your people are fantastic. The—whole Department of Interior, the Parks, has been amazing. And the police. The police have been incredible.
You know, we have a very safe city now. We didn't have a safe city when I first took second term. It was a disaster what happened. And we now have a very safe city. People walk around.
They love it. Frankly, doing this would be no good if we didn't have a safe city. But the crime, I think it's down about 88 percent or something like that. And Memphis too.
And if you go to—down to New Orleans, we spent—I guess we're in the fourth month, fifth month, and we have it down about 78 percent. It's going down to 90 percent. Memphis is way down. But DC, I don't know, it's like—it's the capital, and we had a very, very terrible crime rate here, and it's down now. We're going to have it down—I think we'll get it above 92 percent down.
We took 5,000 career criminals, people that were really, really bad. They came through the open border. I'm sure you guys love open borders. I don't think so. But they came through on the open borders. They came out of prisons and mental institutions, and they came all over the place, and it is horrible what happened—that they allowed this to happen to our country.
But we got them out. And we had 11,888 murderers allowed into our country. We got them out. We got many of them out. We're looking for quite a few, but we got many of them out. And the crime rate is—as you know, the murder rate in the country is down to the lowest it's ever—it's
down to—in 1900, 125 years, lowest in recorded history. And that's good. So, we're very happy about that. And that goes hand in hand with fixing things up. So, as Doug said, I had 19 or—a lot of fountains. About 19, maybe more than that.
Lafayette Park is beautiful. I made that contribution. It's a pretty significant contribution.
And Lafayette Park is being rebuilt.
We have tremendous amounts of things going on around Lincoln. I think, to me, the most exciting of all is going to be the Triumphal Arc. We're going to build one of the most beautiful arcs in the world. If you look at Paris—in Paris, they have—the Arc de Triomphe is their number one tourist attraction, even more so than the Eiffel Tower. And we're going to have one that's more grand—even more grand, because that's one of—I—would say that's the best right now.
There are 59 triumphal arcs throughout the world, and this will be number 60. And many of them are very old. Some are 6, 700 years old. And they represented triumph, usually a—victory—a military victory.
But we are going to have one that's going to be, I think, superior to anybody else's. It's going to a little bit larger and, I think, a lot more beautiful. So—and that's going to start, I would say, very soon.
It's—it was supposed to be built. You know, the circle by the bridge, by the—river, it's going to be—I think it's going to be something that will be so special. It's been there for—it's been there like that. It used to be a dirt path. And it wasn't built because of the Civil War. Civil War got in the way. The eagles are up. They were built later, but the eagles are up, but they haven't been—it hasn't been built.
And people—a lot of times, they'll be going over the river, the bridge, and they'll be saying, "Why isn't this built?" And they've been saying that for way over a hundred years. So, you're going to have something built there.
So, we're really fixing up Washington, DC.
On a bigger front—even bigger front, worldwide, our military is unbelievable. They're doing an unbelievable job.
We're negotiating with the Iranians. We have—you probably heard we took our three destroyers, and we rammed them through some pretty big stuff today, and we knocked the hell out of them. The destroyers weren't hurt in any way. We—the people weren't hurt, but they were firing at us, and we were firing back at them, and our firepower was a hell of a lot stronger than theirs, and they knocked the hell out of them.
They took down a lot of small boats. You know, we call them small boats or fast boats.
They're both small and they're fast, with some weaponry on the front. You know, this is what—so they—this is now replacing the navy. They had a navy—159 boats. They have none. Okay?
They're all at the bottom of the sea.
So, they replace that with what they call the fast boat. It's a fast boat. Big deal. It's fast. It's got a machine gun in front. They've been knocked down. They knocked out quite a few of them today. Yesterday, they knocked out eight. They average eight a day. This is some group of people we're dealing with.
So, you know, it's very simple. Somebody said, "What's your plan?" I said, "The plan is very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, it cannot have a nuclear bomb, and it's not going to have." And they're really at the end of the line and really are at the end of the line. Now, unless you guys feel differently.
Now, these guys, I think, will say that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Wouldn't you say?
Participant. Correct. Yes, sir.
Participant. Definitely.
The President. We wouldn't feel very good if they did, because this—what you're doing and all the work that you do and that we do, it wouldn't look too—very good after a while with these characters. We're not going to give them the right to have a nuclear weapon. There's zero chance. And they know that, and they've agreed to that. Let's see if they are willing to sign it.
So, do you have any questions, please?
Brazil-U.S. Relations
Q. Sir, Mr. President, can you talk about your meeting with President Lula earlier? Was there anything agreed on?
The President. Yes, we'll talk about it. But, you know, you have some of these construction workers that I love. I love, because they all voted for me. I would say a hundred percent or 99. I think——
Participant. One hundred percent.
The President. I think about a hundred.
Participant. Yes, sir.
The President. Can we get those guys over here so they're not standing? Where are—there they are. I saw you over there. There's no way I'm leaving you out here, fellas.
So, who didn't vote for Trump? Anybody? Huh? [Laughter] Thank you. Well, I think——
Participant. We're from Oklahoma, sir.
The President. I think—I would say that's right.
Participant. We're from Oklahoma.
The President. We—love you guys.
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. Are you guys really?
Participant. Yes, sir.
The President. We just—said—do you agree?
Participant. We're all from Oklahoma. Secretary Mullin. Are you guys really? Participant. Yes, sir.
The President. ——Iran cannot have—love that guy. Secretary Mullin. Did you know they're all from Oklahoma? The President. Are you from Oklahoma?
Participant. Yes, sir.
The President. So, Trump won Oklahoma—77 counties.
Participant. Yes, sir.
The President. I won all 77, right?
Participant. You did.
The President. I won it in a landslide, like the election. But you know who second was?
Ronald Reagan was at 56. I was at 77.
And, by the way, you have a very good basketball team.
Participants. Yes, sir.
The President. It was—I was watching the other night. I may try and come to one of those games. I like your basketball team.
These guys are fantastic. So, they're doing the job. They're working hard.
And they agree. Does anybody think Iran should have a nuclear weapon so they can blow you up?
Participants. No!
The President. It's a very important thing that we're doing, right?
Participants. Yes, sir.
The President. And oil is coming down, and the stock market today just hit an all-time high. You know, I was reading about "doom and gloom." We had to do—what we did. We took a little U-turn. We just hit the highest number in the history of our country in the stock market. And I said to my people, "We're going to have to take a little U-turn and go to the lovely country of Iran and blow them up a little bit, because they're not going to have a nuclear weapon"—[laughter]—and they're not.
We're not going to ruin you. These guys work so hard to make things beautiful. We're not going to let a nuclear weapon ruin it.
So, thank you, fellas.
Are you all from Oklahoma?
Participant. Yes, sir.
The President. How did that work out?
Participant. Well, he's from Virginia.
The President. They—wanted super quality, right?
Participant. That's right.
Participant. Yes, sir.
Secretary Mullin. We bring the quality. Oklahoma brings quality. Yes, sir.
The President. We—love it. He's doing a good job, Markwayne.
You know, Markwayne could have been a Senator for the rest of his life. Maybe he could have been President. Who the hell knows? [Laughter] [Inaudible]—I don't recommend it. [Laughter] But—he was your Senator, and he wanted to do this. He wanted to work with a man named Tom Homan, who I'm sure you've never heard of. But he's doing a job.
Participant. Oh, we've heard of him.
Participant. Oh, we know him.
The President. So, Tom, how good a President is Trump?
yes.
White House Border Czar Thomas D. Homan. Greatest President of my lifetime. [Laughter]
The President. [Inaudible]
Border Czar Homan. I got a question. I got a question. Are you all legal? [Laughter]
Participant. Yes, sir.
Border Czar Homan. All right, just making sure.
The President. You know what? Actually, if you're from Oklahoma, the answer is probably
Participant. And Indian. [Laughter]
The President. Oh, very good. That's great.
Participant. Yes, sir. Choctaw.
The President. So, are you here pretty much until this gets finished up?
Participant. Yes, sir. Absolutely.
The President. That's great. Are you with the company, with the contractor?
Participant. I'm with those two men behind you. Yes, sir.
The President. That's great. That's good.
You got a good-looking crew back there, fellas, huh?
U.S. Military Operations in Iran/Beautification Efforts in the District of Columbia
Q. Mr. President, you are here against the backdrop of the war in Iran.
The President. Yes.
Q. Why focus on all these projects right now——
The President. You know why? Because——
Q. ——when we're still seeing gas prices soar?
The President. ——I want to keep our country beautiful and safe. Beautiful also. This place was a disgusting place. It was—Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and we had a—terrible, disgusting—I don't know, you—probably don't see dirt, but I do. And you walk down this—pond—if you would've walked down—
They'll tell you better than anybody. They had to take 11 or 12 truckloads of garbage out of that lake—out of that water, and it sat there for years like that. And that's not what our country's about.
Our country's about beauty, cleanliness, safety, great people—not a filthy capital.
Q. What is the status of—
The President. That's such a—stupid question that you ask. You're—we're fixing up the reflecting pond to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument. And you say, "Why are you fixing it up?" Because you can understand dirt, maybe, better than I can, but I don't allow it.
This is one of the worst reporters. She's with ABC fake news, and she's a horror show. She's saying, "Why would you bother fixing this up?" Why would I bother taking 11 or 12 truckloads of filth out of the water in front of the Lincoln Monument? That's what made our country great: beauty made our country—people made our country great.
A question like that is a disgrace to our country. Any other questions?
Q. Mr. President, I'm also with ABC News.
The President. Fake news.
Hantavirus Outbreak
Q. Can I ask you about the hantavirus? Have you been briefed on the virus that hit this cruises——
The President. Yes, I have.
Q. Can you tell us what you learn in these briefings? Should Americans be—
The President. Well, I think you're going to be told everything, and you already have.
It's very much, we hope, under control. It was the ship, and I think we're going to make a full report about it tomorrow. We have a lot of people—it's a lot of great people are studying it. It should be fine, we hope.
Q. Should Americans—be concerned that it's going to spread? And how are you working—
The President. I hope not.
Q. ——to get those Americans home——
The President. I mean, I hope not. We'll do the best we can. Yes.
Q.—to get the Americans that are on the ship home?
The President. Go ahead, please
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil
Q. Mr. President, can you detail your meeting with President Lula today? Was there anything agreed on between the two of you?
The President. No, we had great meeting with the President of Brazil. We're doing a lot of trading, and we're going to do some increased trading. We talked about tariffs. We talked about, you know, they would like to have some tariff relief. But we had a very good meeting. He's a good man. He's a smart guy.
Q. Why wasn't it open to the press?
U.S. Military Operations in Iran
Q. Mr. President, after these strikes, is the ceasefire with Iran still on?
The President. Yes, it is. It's—they trifled with us today. We blew them away. They trifled. I call that a trifle.
I'll let you know when there's no ceasefire—you won't have to know. If there's no ceasefire, you're not going to have to know. You're just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran. And they better sign their agreement fast.
Iran/U.S. Diplomatic Engagement
Q. And—yes, could you give us an update on what is the latest in those talks? You said yesterday——
The President. No, it's going—the talks are going very well, but they have to understand, if it doesn't get signed, they're going to have a lot of pain. They're going to have a lot of pain. They want to sign it. I will tell you, they want to sign it a lot more than I do.
Q. What was their response?
Q. Have they given you some kind of official response?
The President. I think that's what you want to hear, fellas. Right? Or you want to hear a different tone.
That's the only thing they understand. They don't understand it.
We had three world-class destroyers go through the—Strait today. Any other country under the circumstances wouldn't have done—shot missiles at it and drones at it. And these stupid boats that came at it, they got blown away in about 2 minutes. Their tanker got blown. You know what we did with the tanker? We didn't want to create an environment—so we shot out the rudder, and the tankers going around, spinning around in circles.
They should not have done that today. We thought they might. We didn't know, but we were prepared. They shot missiles. Every missile was knocked down. Every drone was knocked down. And the people that shot it are no longer with us.
Iran/Disposition of Nuclear Material
Q. Mr. President, Iran—has Iran officially responded to the one-page offer?
The President. Well, it's more than a one-page offer. It's an offer that's basically said they will not have nuclear weapons. They're going to hand us the nuclear dust and many other things that we want.
Q. Have they agreed to that so far, Mr. President——
The President. Yes, they've agreed——
Q. ——on handing over the enriched uranium?
The President. ——but when they agree, it doesn't mean much, because the next day they forget—they forgot they agreed. And, you know, we're dealing with different sets of leaders.
When you talk about regime change—you know, they keep talking about regime change. Well, we got rid of the first regime. We got rid of the second regime. We got rid of most of the third regime. And then they say, "Oh, is that regime change?" [Laughter] I think—it's the ultimate regime change.
Iran/U.S. Diplomatic Engagement
Q. How close would you say that you are to a deal right now with Iran?
The President. It could happen any day. It could. And it might not happen. But it could happen any day. I believe they want the deal more than I do.
Virginia State Senator L. Louise Lucas
Q. Sir, back here at home, are you aware of the FBI raid on Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas' house yesterday?
The President. Who's—the—who?
Q. Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas. She's a Democrat.
The President. I'm not aware of it.
Q. It was yesterday. Not aware of it.
The President. No, I'm not.
Q. Okay.
China-U.S. Relations
Q. Mr. President, is your trip with China still going ahead?
The President. Yes, sure.
Q. And which companies you're in—you have invited?
The President. I have a very good relationship with President Xi. We've had a great economic time. China has been great for us economically, but not for other Presidents. But we've done very well with China.
We're going to have a meeting with President Xi. It's going to be, I think, quite amazing. He's been a—he's been a friend of mine. I got—I've gotten along with him very well over the years. We have had no problem, and we've had no problem with China and Iran. You know, everybody said, "Oh, China, China." We've had no problem with China.
Pope XIV
Q. Have you spoken to Secretary Rubio since his meeting with Pope Leo? And did you ask——
The President. No. No.
Q. ——him to pass on a message to him?
The President. I spoke to him—I—just said, "Tell the—tell the Pope very nicely, very respectfully that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. So, when he comes to their defense, also tell the Pope that Iran killed 42,000 innocent protesters who didn't have guns, who didn't have weapons." Tell that to the Pope.
China
Q. Mr. President, there's a Christian pastor in China that's been imprisoned since October. I know that members of your administration have pushed to highlight the protection of Christians. Are you going to——
The President. What's his name?
Q. His name's Ezra Jin. Are you going to press President Xi on his release?
The President. Well, I've heard about it, but I will certainly look into it. Yes.
Q. Will you press him?
The President. I'll look at it. I'll look—I'll bring it up. Yes.
Q. Sir, the Court of International Trade, just before you came over——
The President. I've gotten a lot of people out. You know, I've gotten a lot of people out of different countries, including China. People that were hostages or held. So, we'll take a look at that, including Pastor Brunson, as you know, from—in that case, it was Turkey. So, we've—we've done a lot of that. I do a lot.
And I don't pay $6 billion to get somebody out like Biden used to do and Obama. They'd give $6 billion to get some person out.
U.S. Court of International Trade
Q. What's your reaction, sir, to the Court of International Trade's ruling against your 10 percent across-the-board tariffs? Will you——
The President. Well, we——
Q. What are you going to do now?
The President. ——were surprised. We—had one very positive vote. We had two radical-left judges that voted against it. So, nothing surprises me with the courts. Nothing surprises me.
So, we always do it a different way. We get one ruling, and we do it a different way.
We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars from tariffs. And we're taking—it away from countries, frankly, that have ripped us off for years. And now they're not ripping us off anymore.
Pakistan/Mediation Role in Iran-U.S. Negotiations
Q. What happened with Project Freedom, Mr. President? Why was that suspended? Administration officials were talking about this being the next phase of the war.
The President. Because a really wonderful leadership at the place—as you know, Pakistan has been fantastic, and their leaders have been fantastic—the field marshal and the Prime Minister—and they asked us not to do it. We'll go back to it if we have to. They asked us not to do it during the negotiation.
Gasoline Costs/National Economy
Q. Are—you considering maybe going back to that now that gas prices are more than $4.50?
The President. It could—well, no, gas prices have come down today. Have you looked?
They've come down very substantially today—the gas prices.
You know what's happened today? Gas prices are way down, and the stock market is way up today. So, gas prices have come down. And I—saw today that they broke negatively, in other words, to our positive position. They broke our way very substantially.
And when the war is over, gas will fall down at levels that you've never seen before. You'll be down to where you were, maybe even lower.
We had it down to—I was in Iowa, and we were at 85—we were about 85, would you say?
Secretary Burgum. Under—under $2.
The President. Yes, I think so. We broke—
Secretary Burgum. Two dollars.
The President. Yes, we broke it. We broke it. We had numbers that nobody's seen in a long time.
So you had $2 a gallon. We were down, I think, to $1.85, $1.90——
Secretary Burgum. Yes.
The President. ——in Iowa and a lot of other places.
Outside of California where—California charges such a high tax on the gasoline. When you take that tax off—but California has a tremendous—I don't know if anybody knows, California
was the third-largest area for oil. And you were telling me and Chris was telling me before—we were talking about California oil. They—California is like an oil—it's rich with oil. But stupidly, 15, 16, 17 years ago, people stopped drilling. It was third to Texas and another State, probably Oklahoma.
But when—this is over, I think you're going to see oil prices drop down to the levels where they were and maybe lower. There's a lot of oil out there.
And the stock market hit a new high. Nobody thought that was possible. Stock market today, for the 59th time since I'm President, hit a new high. And people that have 401(k)s—
You guys have 401(k)s? Then you got to like me.
Does everybody have a 401(k)? Because you got to like Trump if you do. The 401(k) is—right? The 401(k)s are through the roof.
All right. One or two more.
Q. Mr. President——
The President. I want to look at the surface because I like the surface better than I like——
Texas Republican Senatorial Candidates
Q. Why haven't you endorsed either John Cornyn or Ken Paxton in the Texas——
The President. I'll make a decision. Yes, I'll make a decision.
Q. When will you make your decision?
The President. Maybe relatively soon.
Q. Would you consider curbs——
The President. I like them both, actually. I like them both.
Q. ——on oil exports at all?
The President. Yes?
Domestic Oil Production
Q. Sir, would you consider export curbs on oil or jet fuel if supplies get tight in the U.S.?
The President. I don't need them. We don't need them. And we have tremendous amounts of oil. We're—we are not suffering oil.
And, again, ships are coming all the way—where they used to go to Hormuz, they're coming all the way up. And we have hundreds of ships coming up to Texas, coming up to Louisiana, and coming to Alaska, filling up, and they're going back and making a lot of money.
White House Ballroom Construction Project
Q. One more, Mr. President. On another project. You have repeatedly said that taxpayers would not pay for the ballroom at the White House. Why should taxpayers now be on the hook for a billion dollars for——
The President. Well, they're not——
Q. ——that project? And Secretary Mullin too.
The President. ——because that's for many other projects. That's for projects having to do with safety in—that's in a certain section of the White House grounds. That's not all for the ballroom. And we are putting up $400 million to do the ballroom section of the ballroom. We are
putting that up privately. I am doing it along with other patriots that love our country. But they want to do certain things militarily with respect to the ballroom having nothing to do with us or having to do with the safety of the President. So, having to do with a lot of things.
But we are going to have a safe ballroom. It's under construction. It's ahead of schedule. It's right on budget. It would be 3 to 400 million that we're putting up, and a lot of that money will be going to safety also. But there—the House approved or the Senate approved, I guess, or they're going—or looking at approving. I don't know if it got approved yet, but they're talking about putting up a certain amount of money having to do with security at the White House and the East Wing.
Yes.
Funding Sources of Planned White House Ballroom
Q. Will—you commit to publicly releasing the amount of money that the private donors——
The President. Well, I have no problem——
Q. ——have given to the ballroom?
The President. ——with it. You're not supposed to because it's done under a way where you don't have to do that. But I have no problem. They're unbelievable people. These are great patriots. They're putting up—you know, it's the only place in the world you can give a $400 million ballroom, you put up the money, and they're unhappy with it. They think the taxpayers should pay for it.
So, this will be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world, and it'll be the safest ballroom by far anywhere in the world. And you won't have a fiasco like you did Saturday night 2 weeks ago.
Qatar's Gift of a Boeing 747 to President Trump
Q. Are you expected to have the Qatari jet by July 4th?
The President. By July 4th. Yes, we think we're going to have it. Yes, we do think we're going to have it. Thank you very much for the question.
White House aide. Thank you. Thank you, press.
The President. Thank you very much, everybody. [Inaudible]
NOTE: The President spoke at 7:27 p.m. at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. In his remarks, he referred to Andrew C. Brunson, pastor, Dirilis (Resurrection) Church in Izmir, Turkey, who was detained by Turkish authorities on October 7, 2016, and returned to the
U.S. custody on October 12, 2018; Gary S. Katzmann and Timothy M. Reif, judges, and Habe A. Restani senior judge U.S. Court of International Trade; Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir of Pakistan. A reporter referred to Jin "Ezra" Mingri, pastor, Zion Church of Beijing, China, who was detained by Chinese authorities in 2025. The transcript was released by the Office of Communications on May 8.
Categories: Addresses and Remarks : Visit to National Mall Reflecting Pool; Interviews With the News Media : Exchanges with reporters, Washington DC.
Locations: Washington, DC
Names: Biden, Joseph R., Jr.; Brunson, Andrew C.; Burgum, Douglas J. ; Cornyn, John, III; Homan, Thomas D.; Katzmann, Gary S.; Leo XIV, Pope; Lula da Silva, Luiz Inácio; Mullin,
Markwayne; Munir Ahmed Shah, Syed Asim; Obama, Barack; Paxton, W. Kenneth, Jr.; Reif, Timothy M.; Restani, Habe A.; Rubio, Marco A.; Sharif, Shehbaz; Xi Jinping.
Subjects: 2024 Presidential election; 2026 midterm elections; Brazil : President; China : President; Crime rates; District of Columbia, law enforcement improvement effort ; Gasoline costs; Holy See (Vatican City), Pope; Iran, commercial transit through Strait of Hormuz; Iran, diplomatic engagement with U.S.; Iran, U.S. military operations; Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, renovation work; Oil and natural gas, domestic production; Oil markets and prices; Pakistan
: Prime Minister; Pakistan, Chief of Defense Forces; ran, nuclear weapons development; Secretary of Homeland Security; Secretary of State; Secretary of the Interior; Stock market; Tariffs; Turkey U.S. citizen, release from detention; U.S. Court of International Trade; Visit to National Mall Reflecting Pool; White House Ballroom construction project; White House Border Czar.
DCPD Number: DCPD202600321.