Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2026
May 27, 2026
The President. Well, thank you very much. We have a lot of very happy people around the table, because we're a great team. It's been a tremendous period of time for our country, and things are going very well.
The number of jobs—we have more people working today than we've ever had before in the history of our country, and many other things.
And I have a few words to say to you that I think will be helpful. Last night was incredible—not only Texas, but so many other places—and the numbers were fantastic. And they've really been that way for a year, if you look. It's—hundreds of people won, and almost nobody didn't win. So but last night was very, very powerful.
So I'm thrilled to welcome everyone to the 12th Cabinet meeting of our administration, and we're doing something that no administration's ever done. We're always letting the press join us, because we're very open and transparent. You like the word "transparent," but we're more transparent than any administration in history.
No—to the best of my knowledge, press has never been invited ever to a Cabinet meeting for any reason at all, and it's an honor to have you.
This team has achieved more than most other administrations achieve in 8 years. We took the most dangerous, unsafe, violent, and open border in the world—anywhere in the world, there's no border like the border we had—and created the most secure border in the history of our country.
We had no people—12 months now—no people reported in the last 12 months came in illegally. Zero illegal aliens admitted to the United States in the last 12 months. And that's—those charts are made by, you would say, politically unfriendly people.
And the reason they don't come in is because—nobody comes up—because they know that they're going to be turned away and if they get in, they're going to be moved out right away. So it's been zero. You're the one that do—you do the reports. I'm actually surprised by the number, because I don't know how it can be zero, but they say it's zero for the last 12 months.
In 2025, we achieved the largest drop in the murder rate ever recorded. So the murder rate was quite high, and we achieved the largest drop in the murder rate ever recorded, to the lowest level in 125 years. That's the year 1900. And that's despite the fact that many people came in from prisons and from very rough countries and from mental institutions and from lots of other places—drug dealers and others. They came in illegally during the Biden administration.
We've gotten many of them out, but we still have some that we're looking for—quite a few that we're still looking for. But we've gotten—over 11,888 murderers were allowed into our country. We've gotten a lot of them out. We've gotten some. We put them in jail. We don't even trust the country to send them, because they'll come back in maybe, and we put them in jail.
Eleven thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight murderers, more than half of which have committed more than one murder. That's what they allowed in, and they should—they can never be forgotten for the horrible things they've done to this country.
Fentanyl coming across our border is now down by 61 percent. Sixty-one percent. And coming in by water, by sea, by ocean is down 97 percent. Can you imagine?
Thanks to our Republican majorities in Congress, we passed the largest tax cuts in American history. All Democrats voted against the tax cuts.
Putting more money in Americans' pockets, this year the typical family got tax refunds of nearly—almost close to $5,000. The stock market has set 68 alltime record highs since the election, so 68 days we hit alltime highs. We're right there now, and the average 401(k)—and that's despite the conflict. I don't call it a war. I call it a conflict.
Despite the conflict with Venezuela—who no longer has a navy, no longer has an air force, no longer has a lot of people that were leading the country into very bad places. Their leadership is gone. Their second-rung leadership is gone, and we're dealing with their third—half of their third, because half of their third is gone too.
The average 401(k) is up almost $30,000 since I took office, so the Americans are benefiting. Working today, we have the most working, and we have 401(k)s at their alltime high—highest they've ever been. And that goes along with the stock market, which is the highest it's ever been.
Under my most-favored-nation agreements—this is something that I wish the media would talk about, because, to me, it's one of the biggest things ever to happen in our country—certainly, as to medical—anything having to do with medical—because drug prices—we're delivering record-setting discounts on prescription drugs with price differences of 400, 500, and even 600 percent at the TrumpRx.gov.
We recently added nearly 1,000 low cast—low-cost generics to the website. So we have drugs down 400, 500, 600 percent.
Now, you could say 80, 90, 70, 60, 50 percent if you want. There are two ways. Depends on the way you ask the question. But a pill that would sell in Germany or, let's say, in London for
$10 was selling for—here for $130. And I got the countries to all agree, otherwise they would have had to pay big tariffs.
I don't want to go into it, but I had some very interesting discussions. They said vehemently, "No." And then when I said: "That's all right. We're going to charge you a 50-percent tariff on everything you sell into America." They said, "Well, like we said, we'll say yes." And every single country agreed, and every drug company agreed. So we have most favored nations.
So we were paying the highest drug prices in the world. Now we're paying the lowest drug prices in the world. So that pill that I talked about would go from $10 to $20.
The world is bigger than the U.S. Hard to believe, but it's true. So it's not like you cut it in the middle; they just had to go up a little bit, but a little bit is a doubling of a price, so a little bit's a lot. So the pill would go from $10 to $20, and we'd go from $130 to $20. Think of that.
So we would get—if you remember, some of you were at the news conference I had in my first term where I got the prices down one-eighth of a percent—one-quarter, one-eighth of a percent in my first term. And I'm so proud of it, because prices—drug prices hadn't come down in 28 years, and I was the first one to do it. But now I'm getting them down not one-eighth of a percent. I'm getting them down 400, 500, 600—or if you want to use it a different way, you could say 70 percent, 80 percent, 90 percent, 50 percent. Nobody's ever seen anything like it.
And I got that through—well, everybody knew it was taking place, but we paid the highest prices anywhere in the world. Now we're paying the lowest prices anywhere in the world, and the press refuses to write about it. I think it's the biggest thing in—for health care, you know, so much of it is prescription drug prices and drug prices, and with them coming down, the health care is going to come down very substantially.
We recently added nearly 1,000 low-cost generics too, as I said. And that's, you know, 1,000 drugs. And it's all on—and it's—this was not a—this was not given by me. This was given by Dr. Oz and Bobby. And I, you know, wasn't sure whether or not I loved the idea, but they said: "We want to use 'Trump.' TrumpRx.gov is what it is." And it's the hottest site I think anywhere on the planet, from what I understand, Bobby, right?
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Yes, sir.
The President. It's really great. People are calling up and they're buying drugs for a fraction—for literally a fraction of the price, and it should be the biggest story.
And on that alone, we should win the midterms. On that alone, we should win the midterms, but the press doesn't talk about it. It's the biggest thing to happen in the drug industry ever maybe. Ever. And the press doesn't even want to write stories about it.
We made the largest ever investment in U.S. military, $1 trillion. And we're asking, actually, for $1.5 trillion for the coming year. And we have the strongest military anywhere in the world, as you know.
You saw what we did with Venezuela. That worked out very quickly, and we do—we're doing really equally as well with—but, again, people don't want to write about it—with Iran.
Iran is very much intent—they want very much to make a deal. So far, they haven't gotten there. That—we're not satisfied with it, but we will be. We will be. Either that or we'll have to just finish the job.
But their navy is gone, as I've said a thousand times. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Everything is gone, and they're negotiating on fumes. But we'll see what happens. Maybe we have to go back and finish it. Maybe we don't.
Right now—I mean, you can speak to Steve Witkoff and Jared. They're doing a good job. But right now, I think, it looks like they want to just make a deal. They want to—they have—I don't think they have a choice.
They're just going back to the internet because they're getting clobbered. Their economy is in free fall. They have 250-percent inflation. Their money has no value. Their whole economic system is broken down.
They thought they were going to outwait me, you know? "We'll outwait him. He's got the midterms." I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night: That was the prelude to the midterms. People understand it. They know that, very simple, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I'm doing that for the world. I'm not doing it just for us.
And we've had great support from other nations, by the way. We don't need it at all, but we've had great support from other nations. The problem is, you always get the support when you don't need it. When you need it, you don't get the support.
With Operation Epic Fury, our warriors are ensuring that the world's number one State sponsor of terror never obtains a nuclear weapon, and they won't.
Under the leadership of Vice President J.D. Vance—very proud of this—the White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud is waging war on waste, fraud, theft, and abuse like nobody's ever seen before.
He looks like Eliot Ness. Do you ever see Eliot Ness? [Laughter] No, I'm telling you, the guys that are up there—they're all central casting. They're standing behind—what a group of people. No, it looks like a movie. I'm going to make a movie out of it, I think.
And they're finding billions and billions and billions of dollars. And I just said, "That's good." He said, "You haven't seen anything yet." He just said that.
And you know, if he does really great, we'll have a balanced budget without having to do anything. They—this is the kind of money they stole. They're crooks. They're thieves. And I hope that Todd is going to do a real job.
These are crooked people. These are thieves. This isn't, like, a mistake. We're just talking about one person. He got hundreds of thousands—millions of dollars for securing one man, for taking care of one elderly man. He was a service. He got paid millions of dollars for taking care of one man. Total crook. They're all crooks.
The Somalians are—what they've done to Minnesota. The Somalians, they're crooked as hell. Ilhan Omar, crooked as hell. They're all crooks, and we got them. We got them. Now we're putting the clamps on.
But, boy, I tell you, that's an impressive group of guys that you have behind you. I was watching that. And a couple of very strong women too.
Vice President James D. "J.D." Vance. Yes, sir.
The President. But I was watching that last night. I said, "I'm proud of you guys." In 2 months, we've exposed tens of billions of dollars of defrauded taxpayer money,
prosecuted numerous fraudsters, Todd, and stopped billions of suspicious payments. Very suspicious—oh, you haven't seen anything yet. What till you see. I'm getting reports from Todd, from J.D. I've never seen anything like it. The kind of—just hundreds of billions of dollars were stolen, and no other administration would do what we're doing. They'd let it go. Everybody was getting rich.
And I think we have a chance to save Social Security without doing anything to it by just the numbers of fraudulent people on Social Security—people that are 115 years old, 125 years old getting payments. It's funny. I said, "Oh, do those payments get turned back?" "No, they accept them." [Laughter.]
Well, somebody's getting the payment. It's not a person that's 125 years old. But that's the least of it.
The numbers that we're finding out—we have great people at Social Security. We're going to make our Social Security so strong, so good, that you've never seen anything like it.
We're going to protect—I said right from the beginning we're going to protect our people on Social Security. If the Democrats ever got in, you wouldn't have—Social Security would be bankrupt. People wouldn't be getting anything.
Last week, they took down two of the largest Medicaid fraud cases in Minnesota history, as well as the largest autism fraud case ever charged by the Federal Government. You saw that with millions of dollars just being stolen. Everybody had autism. Everybody had autism, they said. It was incredible, actually.
And I really—I mean, I've just seen so—I see what they're doing. You haven't seen anything
yet.
So congratulations, J.D. Be vicious, like they are. They're violent people. They're violent,
vicious scum.
Before asking Vice President Vance to speak about these efforts, I want to express our tremendous gratitude to our outgoing Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, who's a terrific person, actually.
She's come up with some findings that were pretty good. And Tulsi has worked tirelessly to restore trust and focus on the intelligence and with the intelligence community. They all respected her. They listened to her. She gave us leads that were—pretty much, people thought they were dead, and they weren't dead, they were right there. And she was able to expose a lot of things that we used at the FBI with Kash and with Todd and with J.D. and everybody else. It was amazing.
She dramatically reformed the Office of Director of National Intelligence in cutting the staff by 40 percent. And she prevented countless terrorists and cartel members from entering the United States.
She exposed mountains of evidence related to the "Russia, Russia, Russia" hoax—one of the—was probably the greatest hoax in the history of our country. Although, when you look at the fraud coming out, it's—there's a lot of them. I mean, honestly. There's a lot of them. But the "Russia, Russia, Russia" hoax—a great hoax; a very dangerous hoax too. And revoked security clearances of officials involved.
And she declassified numerous historic documents of special public interest, including related to the JFK and RFK assassinations, which everybody wanted to see.
And we're now releasing a lot of things having to do with space. You know, it's—people are very interested in that. It actually became the number-one topic. We're releasing a lot of information having to do with extraterrestrial things, and people are totally fascinated by it. It's amazing. I wasn't sure if they would enjoy it. It's literally trending number one. [Laughter] Can you believe it?
So a lot of people out there are liking it. But we're releasing all of that information.
And, Tulsi, we're praying for you and for your husband. Her husband's not feeling great, but he's going to feel great soon. You're going to make him—you're going to get him better.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Yes, sir.
The President. And he's a wonderful guy. So, just say hello, and thank you for the great work you've done. We appreciate it. Thank you very much.
And now I'd like to ask J.D. to say a few words about the war on fraud, followed by Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who's doing fantastically, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, another one.
I mean, we have great people. And the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth—central casting.
He's—[laughter]—he loves war. I don't know, I've got—[inaudible]—[laughter]——
Secretary of War Peter B. Hegseth. [Inaudible]
The President. He's a good man, that one.
And Scott Bessent. You talk about a guy doing a job. You've been fantastic. Thank you, Scott. Really fantastic. And a lot of the success that we're having with other countries is what you've been able to do and find.
And SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler. And all of the people here have been great. We're going to just do those few, and maybe if you have some questions, we'll go to others. But everybody around here has got a lot to say. But we did that once, and it lasted for, like, 4 or 5 hours. It was a little—[laughter]—it was a little much. We want to be open. So—no, if I do this way, they'll say, "He didn't let anybody talk."
But let's start with J.D., and you can talk about a really, really important thing: bringing our country back to honesty. A tremendous amount of money is involved.
J.D., go ahead. Thank you.
Vice President Vance. Yes, sir. Well, first of all, thank you for your leadership, sir, and for making it possible.
I often find in the Fraud Task Force that there sometimes are barriers that we need to break down, the agencies that need to coordinate, and I'll come to the President and say, "Mr. President, I need your permission to do." He'll say, "For what?" "For the Fraud Task Force." And he'll cut me off and say, "Yes, go do it."
So the fact that we have dedicated Presidential leadership is really what's made this possible, because it does require—we've got great people around the table, but sometimes these agencies don't know how to work together at the lower level. And that's one of the things we've had to turn on in force with the fraud task force.
[At this point, Vice President Vance continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]
And let me just give one example to build on something you said earlier, sir. One of the people that Todd just prosecuted was a person who was collecting a lot of money from the American taxpayer to take care of elderly citizens, people who worked their entire lives, paid their taxes, should have had dignity and nobility in old age, but it was deprived from them from fraudsters who say that they're taking care of them, who collect a check to take care of them, but then abuse and neglect these people. And particularly, one man who died because he wasn't getting adequate care, and that guy was still collecting benefits to take care of a person who he had completely neglected.
So not only do you have an American taxpayer who's paying into these programs, you have an elderly citizen deprived of his dignity because we're not going after the fraudsters.
The President. How much——
Vice President Vance. Well, now we are.
The President. How much money did he get?
Vice President Vance. Sir, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe more than that. But we think that exact type of fraud has been replayed all over our country.
That particular case was outside of Minneapolis. We expect that there are tens of thousands people who are collecting fraudulent money to take care of people, and they're not actually taking care of them.
We're, of course, going to get to the root of as much of it as we can. But again, sir, it's been—I wouldn't say fun, because you find out how much people have been taken advantage of, but it's certainly very good and valuable work.
So thank you for giving me the opportunity to do it.
The President. Wow. Thank you very much.
Vice President Vance. Yes, sir.
The President. And Attorney General? Please.
Acting Attorney General Todd W. Blanche. I'll just continue to talk about what the Vice President was just talking about. The way that we are actually—it's one thing to uncover fraud, which we've done, and that's part of it. But it's also prosecuting the bad guys that are doing it and stopping it from continuing. And that's where you have—everybody in this room has Inspector Generals. And for many years, these really hardworking law enforcement members would
identify fraud and nobody did anything about it. DOJ prosecuted it but spent very little resources on that.
So what we've done—just in the past 51 days, over 400 law enforcement actions in this country related to major fraud. That's search warrants. That's arrests. That's convictions. That's indictments that are filed. And that's just 51 days.
[Acting Attorney General Blanche continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]
We are standing up—as you know, Mr. President, you allowed us to stand up a new division at the Department of Justice. It's—our entire existence of that division is to combat what we're talking about. And then every U.S. attorney's office is now focused on it as well.
So this is something that will result in a better place for every citizen in this country and save money—a lot of money—and, also, it's the right thing to do for our tax dollars, Mr. President.
The President. And billions of dollars was given out just very quickly before Biden left office. Billions and billions were given out.
And I mean, I know of many cases, but one—I don't know what's happened with it, but I think you're looking at it; I know Lee was involved in it environmentally—and Stacey Abrams was given $2 billion for an account that had $103 in it. An environmental fraud, I guess. And she had $103 in this newly opened account. And before leaving business, they put $2 billion into the account, and they had no reason for existence. They were unable to say what they did with it: $2 billion.
Lee, do you want to just mention something about that?
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee M. Zeldin. Well, thanks to your leadership, Mr. President, that was canceled, and they no longer have access to that $2 billion.
The President. They fought like hell. They did. [Laughter] They wanted that money. Go ahead.
Administrator Zeldin. In fact, it was over $29 billion that have now—it's now been canceled at EPA. You told us to make it a priority. Now, this happened as soon as you came in.
After the election, before your Inauguration, they were caught on video saying that they were rushing to get billions of dollars out the door before your swearing-in because they were afraid that once you were sworn in, you were going to stop it. Well, that part they were right.
The President. We did. [Laughter] Yes, we did. Great job.
Administrator Zeldin. And you know, we're happy to do it, Mr. President.
And the Department of Justice, under Todd Blanche's leadership, they just secured another big win in appeals court on some recently canceled grants for different agencies. So, great attorneys making sure that this accountability is delivered over the finish line. It's been a big, great team effort.
The President. And we're building more—most importantly, we're building more factories and plants in the United States now than at any time ever before. Eighteen trillion dollars coming in. That's not including the 12th month. That's 11.
And I say it often that the Biden administration had much less than $1 trillion, and we have
$18 trillion. And when those numbers—those final numbers come up, they'll be even higher than that. That's a record in the history of the world. No country has ever done that.
And that money is going into plants, and you are giving them very fast approvals—thorough and environmentally correct, but fast approvals—and you're doing a fantastic job.
Thank you very much.
Another man doing a fantastic job, I think we all agree, is Marco. You're all over the place, right? I watched you last night in three different locations.
So tell us about Iran.
Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio. Well, first of all, the bottom line is, Iran's never going to have a nuclear weapon. And if recent events have done anything, it's just remind us once again that they are the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, and they can never have a nuclear weapon.
Now, the President's preference—Mr. President, your preference—he's told us repeatedly—is always to negotiate these things and to figure out if you can have agreements.
Diplomacy is always the first option, and we continue to work on that through your Envoys, Mr. Witkoff and Kushner and others—the Vice President—who have been very involved. And if we—if there's an agreement to be made, we want that to be made. I think there's been some progress and some interest, and we'll see over the next few hours and days whether progress could be made.
[Secretary Rubio continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]
We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States, and so we're very—the State Department and other agencies represented here—the Centers for Disease Control, HHS, others—are working very, very hard to contain this crisis to the countries where it's currently located, particularly the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
And so we've surged assistance to make sure that that is being contained there. And, obviously, multiple agencies involved here are also very involved in tracking people just to make sure that nobody comes into this country that has Ebola and creates a problem for us. And we feel like we've got good efforts in place to do that, and Americans should feel assured that the President and his administration is doing everything we can to protect them on that front.
My last point. You said I was all over the place. One of the places I stopped in last night was to initial the Trump Route for Prosperity in Armenia. This is a key linchpin of the peace deal that you were able to achieve between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The President. Right.
Secretary Rubio. And in addition to that, we also signed a critical minerals MOU with them and a strategic engagement one as well.
So just a reminder of another war you helped to settle, Mr. President. But from that has—now we are seeing the emergence of a great new relationship with Armenia that really had grown stagnant for a very long period of time, so we're doing well on that front as well.
Thank you.
The President. All right. And could I just ask you: Cuba and Venezuela, what's going on there?
Secretary Rubio. Well, interesting. On Venezuela, that process continues—that three-phase process, you know, of, obviously, stabilization, recovery, and transition.
I would just say, just—since January 3 of this year—okay?—and I think this number's right—and, Chris, you could—Chris or Doug can—can correct me on this, but I think over 10
million barrels of Venezuelan oil have been delivered to the United States since the 3rd of January.
[Secretary Rubio continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]
So we'll be talking to them. We'll be working on it. You know, we're—we want something good for the Cuban people, and hopefully, there'll be a good outcome there for them. There needs to be.
It's 90 miles from our shores, and having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States.
The President. So we're producing right now more oil, by double, than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined. There's never been anything like that. We have—we don't need oil. We don't need the Strait. We don't need anything. But we have more oil now being produced—by double, by two times—than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined. It's a great stat.
Do you want to say something about that?
Secretary of the Interior Douglas J. Burgum. Well, I would.
President Trump, under your leadership, we've opened up lease sales on public land. This is land that was put away for the benefit and the use of the American people, like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
The Biden administration had illegally stopped holding lease sales during their administration. President Trump famously said, "Drill, baby, drill," but before you can drill, you've got to open public lands.
[Secretary Burgum continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]
And what's going on in Alaska, where—when I was there last week in Alaska and the North Slope, 80,000 barrels a day coming on line at Pikka. That wouldn't have happened with you. It's up by Willow, on the North Slope. That's going into the Alaska pipeline. Twenty percent increase just off that one field. So, amazing work.
It's—energy is a high-tech industry, and those guys are crushing it. And they're loving the fact that they can provide affordable, reliable, secure energy for America.
The President. And we're working very hard in California. You know, a lot of people don't know this, but California has tremendous, tremendous oil reserves. Used to be number three in the Nation, and the radical left has just wiped it out. And we're working very hard to get that open again and get it so the people—their gasoline prices, their lack of energy is just staggering. It's staggering. And we're actually making very good progress.
Even people that were against that at one point, now they're saying, "Wow, that'd be great." But people don't realize it was one of the—right, Chris?—it was one of the——
Secretary of Energy Christopher A. Wright. Yes, it was.
The President. ——top drilling States, one of the—I would say, in terms of reserves, as among the top in the country. Nobody thinks of that with California—everything was just closed down—really, violently closed down.
And we're opening up some of it, and we're being met with, actually, great spirit, because they're paying so much for gasoline and they don't have to be doing that. And they have a very incompetent group of leaders. Like, grossly incompetent. So I think that's going to be something.
On a slightly smaller subject, while Doug was speaking—Department of Interior—he and his people have done a fantastic job on DC. DC is looking beautiful.
The fountains are almost all open. We had 28 of them. And we have one in particular—a very long lake, we call it. The reflecting lake, between the Lincoln Monument. We—I—nobody's ever seen anything like it. The—you take a look at—between Lincoln and Washington, you have the longest—like, 2,400 feet long. That's longer than the tallest building in the world if you set it on its side. And it's almost 200 feet wide. And for—actually, it was built in 1922. And from 1922 on it really never worked. It always leaked, and it was a problem. And a lot of things.
And hundreds of millions was spent. The Biden administration and the Obama administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get it to work, and they failed. And we'll be spending—you'll give me a number, but I think it's a very low number. It's, like—in the number that we originally talked about where we cleaned it, we fumigated it. It—we had 10 major truck dumpsters of garbage taken out. Can you believe it?
A friend of mine came in—very substantial person—from Germany. Wanted to see the Washington Monument, wanted to see the Lincoln Memorial. He said: "I looked, but that horrible reflecting pond is disgusting. It's filthy, dirty, and disgusting." I said, "Really?"
I drove down. I said, "Secret Service, let's take a drive." And we went down. I said, "That's terrible." And for the most part, it didn't work. I mean, they wouldn't even have water in there, but when they did, it was just dirty, filthy water that leaked out.
And we've got to work on it. And it was supposed to cost almost $400—think of it—$400 million, because it's like putting the skin on a skyscraper but bigger. Much bigger. Many skyscrapers, you could almost say, other than for the world's tallest. Think of it. The world's tallest skyscraper is shorter than 2,400 feet. So we went to work.
And over the years I built hundreds of pools. I build them every time I built the building. I always like to build Olympic-sized swimming pools. And I was very aware—swimming pool—what goes into making a swimming pool. It's not as simple as people think. You never want it to leak. You want a beautiful surface.
I said, "You know, I have an idea, Doug." We sat down. I said, "Let's take that long thing"—where we're going to fix it with concrete, which leaks—concrete, and all sorts of other materials that all leak and don't look good. They're gray, and you know—swimming pool. I've—have a swimming pool right up the road. I built it 22 years ago. It's perfect. I said, "Does it ever leak?" "No, it's perfect." Good contractors. I actually called in a couple of the contractors, got some ideas from them. And I gave it to Doug. And Doug's done an unbelievable job.
And so, they were going to spend maybe $400 million. I don't know. You never know with cost overruns and everything. But it was going to take years to build: 3 years, 4 years. And we'll have it done before July 4. Substantially before July 4.
If we didn't have such bad weather the last 4 or 5 days, we could have been almost done. We have to—you can't do the substance in the rain.
And what they did is, they cleaned it. They took out, as I said, more than 10 dumpsters of garbage. Shovels. It was disgusting. Oh, every corner that—every corner had massive amounts of—I guess that's the way the tide goes. But it had massive amounts of garbage.
We then steam cleaned it. We then sandblasted it, and then we pebble-blasted. That's a bigger version of sand. We made the surface as good as it can be. And we're now covering it with the most beautiful blue—very thick. You think of it as a very sophisticated form of rubber. No leaks. No problems.
And it's beautiful. It's called "American Flag Blue." That was the color we chose. And we are probably 70 percent finished with it. It's going to be finished. The hard part's done.
And then we decided to do much more than we originally—when I—originally I thought I was just going to do the surface.
But we said the problem is the outer ring looks pretty bad too, where you walk on. So, we sandblasted that. This was all additional work. We didn't want to do—you know, when you do something like this, when you do the one, you think the other looked okay. But then—when the other, you see the new surface—the old stuff that looked okay looks really bad.
So we cleaned that—sandblasted it—the walkways. All of it. It's tremendous amount of area.
You know, it's—again, it's thousands of feet long, very wide.
This is where the people stand—not the water part, the dry part. And we had a combination of granite and stone, and we're pointing it, fixing it. The joints were terrible. Everything. The whole place was a mess.
And when it opens in a couple of weeks, long before July 4—we want to have it for July 4 weekend, but it will be long before that—you will see something that's really going to be beautiful.
And now we're looking at the World War II fountain, because that's also in pretty bad shape.
On the bottom, we're going to duplicate it, I think, with the—maybe with a slightly different color, actually. We'll go with a lighter color.
But Doug and I have a lot of fun doing it. Your staff is fantastic. They've really worked well.
But the concept—so think of it. Instead of spending $2-, $3-, $400 million—and it will never work—we're going to spend, like, $10 million maybe, $12 million. Instead of spending 4 years, we're going to spend, like, if you add it all up, like, a couple of months. And instead of going through four Fourth of Julys as a horrible construction site, we're going to have it open before the Fourth of July.
And the difference is, it's better. Somebody said, "Oh, well, but it's not the same." You know, some of the fake news would say, "Well, but it's not"—no, it's like the pen story. The pen is better at $2 than it was at $2,000. [Laughter] This is the same thing. This is far better. Won't leak. It will last for 50 years, maybe a hundred years. They didn't even know. I said, "How long will this last?" "Oh, I think you'll get 50 years out of it."
We did the swimming pool treatment, but they said, "Sir, for a little more money we can get industrial strength." I said: "That sounds good to me. Same color, same everything?" "Same stuff, but it's much—it's actually much stronger. It's used for industrial." I said, "I love that."
So we're going to have that open. It's going to be really, really beautiful, and it's a very important thing. You know, we can't have people looking at the Washington Monument, going—the memorial—the wash—if you take a look, the Lincoln Memorial—it was built, I guess, a little after the Lincoln Memorial. It's embarrassing. It was so horrible. I never saw anything like it. It was filthy, dirty.
It was Biden, and they spent—between the two of them, they spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to fix this thing.
Now, when Biden—when Obama did it, he spent way over $100 million. And they had a great idea: Let's use the water from the Potomac——
Participant. Good.
The President. ——because, environmentally, they liked it. Somebody said that was good, but the water from the Potomac was not suitable for this, to put it mildly. It was disgusting what happened.
And so they spent hundreds of millions—over $100 million—and they immediately closed it. It was closed for many months, and nobody did anything. It was closed. It's basically been closed.
But go back to 1922. It was always sort of—people think of it as beautiful, but it was always a mess.
It's going to be unbelievable. It will be unbelievable. It's actually exciting. I want to ride over there today if I can. You know, I always have a problem. Secret Service isn't in love with my walking along, checking—[laughter]—checking the sidewalk—the new sidewalk to see whether or not they pointed it correctly.
But they do. We have great contractors doing the job, but we'll spend a very tiny amount of money, and it will be better than it ever was when it was built in 1922. It's very exciting, actually, to me. I love construction. It's very exciting.
And we do many things. We did 28 or 29 fountains. I made a contribution to redoing Lafayette Park. That's the entrance to the White House, and it was an embarrassment. The floors were broken. The—they had bricks. The bricks—some of the bricks were missing. You know where they're missing? They took them out to throw at people.
We're going with a—it's going to be a world-class park. It'll be open pretty soon. They're doing a lot of work over there. That was a contribution that I made with some other people, and it's going to be really beautiful.
That was really the front door to the White House, but you couldn't even use it. It was so terrible. People would come to the White House, and it was so terrible.
So, with that, I'm going to ask Pete to talk about some of our great success——
Secretary Hegseth. Yes, sir. Well——
The President. ——including Venezuela, you might talk.
Secretary Hegseth. Absolutely, sir.
I think, actually, your efforts on the reflecting pool are actually a great segue. If you look at Washington and Lincoln, these are two men that faced monumental tasks and stood up in historic fashion and delivered for the American people. And when you step back and look at 47 years of what Iran waged war against us and our people, there's only one man over the course of both presidency who has stood up and said, "They will never get a nuclear weapon," as Marco said.
So, whether it was Qasem Soleimani, whether it was scrapping the Obama deal that was going to give them a weapon, whether it was the 12-day war or Operation Midnight Hammer, you created the conditions to ensure the American people and the world are safeguarded from this generational threat.
[Secretary Hegseth continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]
And then I just want to note one more thing to give you a sense of how committed this President is. Maybe a year ago, he heard the call of Nigerian Christians who were being targeted and killed by ISIS in Nigeria, and he said, "Pete, I want the War Department to focus on ensuring that we do everything we can to protect those Christians."
Partnerships like that can take time behind the scenes, but he never wavered on it. And we've got the assets there. And over the last month—and there hasn't been much coverage of this—we killed ISIS number two in Nigeria, who is most responsible for killing Christians and trying to target the U.S. homeland, and have since, because of the intel we gathered, killed hundreds of
ISIS members who were targeting and killing Christians in Nigeria, creating a whole new opportunity there.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins. Wow.
Secretary Hegseth. So there's a lot of things we do that the media pays attention to and a lot of things that the President empowers the department to do on behalf of the American people that he deserves great credit for, Mr. President.
Participant. It's true.
The President. Thank you. Great job. You're doing a great job.
Secretary of Commerce Howard W. Lutnick. Great job.
The President. I just want to say, on recruitment, we're very proud of the fact that, for the previous 4 years, the previous administration—they had—I mean, they couldn't recruit people, and that included, by the way, police and firemen and others. They were not proud of our country. And they couldn't recruit. Anybody with a uniform on was having a hard time recruiting. And they set record-low numbers. They were way, way behind. And literally from November 5 it started. It started even before we've got going.
Secretary Hegseth. Mm-hmm. Yes, sir.
The President. But from the time we won the election to now, we've had numbers of recruitment the likes of which we've never had. Record recruitment in every single branch, and that includes police and firemen. Record recruitment. So we're very proud of that.
Thank you. Great job.
Secretary Hegseth. Thank you, sir.
The President. Kelly, please.
Administrator of the Small Business Administration Kelly L. Loeffler. Mr. President, you have made us a Nation of builders again. You're leading us to the greatest economy that the world has ever known, and I see that every week as I travel this country. Main streets across dozens of States, from Alaska to Maine—I've been in many of the States two or three times—I hear it everywhere I go, "Please thank the President for putting us back on track."
They thank you. They love you. They want more of what we're doing: tax cuts, deregulation, fair trade, energy dominance. Small businesses are spring-loaded, and we see that in the jobs numbers.
[Administrator continued Loeffler remarks, concluding as follows.]
And so you think about, at the SBA, we found $200 billion in fraudulent PPP loans that the Biden administration tried to hide and forgive and sweep under the rug.
We've turned the first $22 billion of that over to Treasury for collections and to DOJ for prosecution. Our Inspector General is already——
The President. Good.
Administrator Loeffler. ——announcing that people are going to jail. There are jail sentences now being served. We've announced that 140,000 people have been barred from ever getting SBA loans again—defrauding the Government for about $9 billion.
So we are going to continue our work under the great leadership of Vice President Vance, and appreciate the partnership, because it's really accelerated our ability to get the job done.
But then, just back to small businesses: We have record business formation in this country.
That's another story that the media won't tell you. Over half a million businesses on average a month this year. So it's not just record people working—strong job creation, business formation at alltime records in this country. But we have manufacturing expansion 4 consecutive months. That means—that's a leading indicator, meaning that we have expansion coming.
Another story the media won't tell you: 98 percent of all manufacturers are small businesses.
They—75 percent of our defense industrial base is small business. They're our main exporters.
And so "America first," free trade, fair trade, deregulation, tax cuts, and energy dominance is helping workers on Main Street, and that's why they tell you—to tell me to tell you, Mr.
President, thank you, and they love you.
The President. Well, thank you very much. Great job. Thank you, Kelly.
And I just say, you know, we went to China last week. We had an amazing meeting with President Xi, and the relationship is very good. We're doing a lot of business with China now. But it's not where they were ripping us off. For years and years, they ripped us off like nobody ever got ripped off. It's—now it's very profitable business that we do with China, and they respect our country again.
We have the strongest military in the world by far, and they respect our country again. Scott, please.
Secretary of the Treasury Scott K.H. Bessent. Good, sir. On the economy, two words: resilience and prosperity. The continued resilience of the economy speaks for itself, even during the Iran—the conflict—and it speaks to the strength of your leadership.
Pro-growth policies are creating conditions for American families and businesses to prosper.
We're entering the second half of our 250th anniversary year with renewed optimism and momentum. It has never been a better time to be an American, and, as you said earlier, we have a record number of Americans working.
[Secretary Bessent continued his remarks, concluding as follows.]
For the—what I believe is the most important Government benefit for young people since the GI Bill: the Trump Accounts. The app will be available on all major platforms tomorrow morning, and it will place the American dreams into the palms of the hands of parents and children. Nearly 6 million kids have been signed up for Trump Accounts, and they will launch on July 4. And it will be a great symbol of the 250th anniversary.
Main Street prosperity. Workers have seen positive wage gains. The unemployment rate remains low at 4.3 percent, and private sector job growth is strong.
So, sir, just to reiterate: Resilience and prosperity——
The President. Yes.
Secretary Bessent. ——have been the marks of your second term.
Secretary Rollins. Well done.
The President. It's been great. It's been amazing, actually. Any questions, please?
[Several reporters began asking questions at once.] Yes.
Federal Law Enforcement Support in the District of Columbia/Beautification Efforts/Illegal Immigration
Q. Thank you, Mr. President. Iris Tao with NTD, sister media with the Epoch Times. You've done a lot to clean up DC and fight crimes here. And as a lot of Americans and people from all around the world are coming to the Nation's Capital ahead of the major 250 birthday events here——
The President. Right.
Q. ——how important is it for you to, really, keep delivering on these results? But also, what does it mean for America's identity on the national and international stage?
The President. So I'm very proud of DC, because when we came here a little more than a year ago, it was a very dangerous place, and now it's a very safe place. It's been incredible what's happened, as you've—you see the crime numbers.
We had restaurants closing up, and nobody wanted to go to a restaurant. They were afraid to walk to work. It was very dangerous place. Very unsafe. And now it's a very safe place.
We brought in the National Guard. We worked with Kash and the FBI, and Jeanine is doing fantastically and Todd and everybody. And it's now a very safe city. And people are pouring in.
And you see the grass is all beautiful. We put a lot of new grass in, because, you know, like people, grass has a life too. [Laughter] And this grass had—it was up a long time.
But we—the waterfalls, we talked about. And the fountains, they're—most of them are in the final stages or fixed. People are writing me letters. People are talking about it. They're all—we have some of the most beautiful fountains in the world. And there wasn't one—not one that worked. We had 29. Out of the 29, not one was worked, in addition to the reflecting pool, which is even—you know, that was the big one of them all. But that was a disaster.
So, with all of that—and we—this place is looking beautiful. I rode through it yesterday.
With—the fences are down. The homeless aren't staying here any longer. We have—we're helping them out, but we're not—you know, we just can't have them in the Nation's Capital.
And when foreign dignitaries come in, they're saying—the first thing they say to me: "This place has really changed." They saw that it was going down—our whole country was going down, just like DC was going down.
And, as you know, the restaurants were closing up. There weren't very many restaurants, and now they're opening up. You can't get a space. And everyone's going out to dinner, and they're safe.
And we had the national security, and we have the National Guard, and we're going to keep them. You know, I want to—by the way, just in case I mention—keep them. Okay? [Laughter] And don't lower the number either.
Secretary Hegseth. Absolutely.
The President. Somebody said, "Oh, are there less?" I said, "I hope not." But don't lower the number if you don't mind." Okay? Keep them.
Secretary Hegseth. We're going to surge this summer too. Yes.
The President. They look great. You know what? They give people—if—we have—we took out 5,000 criminals—hardcore criminals.
By the way, 90 percent of the crime is calculated—they—2 percent of the people do 90 percent of the crime. That's a great number, because when you get rid of 2 percent—2 percent you can get rid of; 90 percent you can't get rid of. Two percent. So 2 percent create 90 percent of the crime—91 percent, actually, to be exact.
And we have really—we moved 5,000 people, Todd, out of here. We—these are career criminals. Many of them came over from the last administration through the open border. The ridiculous open border. No vetting. Nobody knew who they were. They came out of prisons. They came out of the—they're drug dealers. There were people from mental institutions. And Washington, DC, is now a safe and beautiful place, and it's only going to get more beautiful.
Yes, please.
Former President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Q. President Trump, thank you so much for having us in here today. What are your thoughts—why do you think that Joe Biden is trying to sue the Department of Justice—former President Joe Biden—to have his tapes that he did interviews on blocked from the American people hearing them? Do you think that he's trying to hide something?
And maybe Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche could comment on if they will countersue and release those tapes to the American public.
The President. Are you talking about with respect to his book?
Q. Respect to his memoirs.
The President. Well, I'd like to see it. I don't know, maybe there's some constitutional reason. I don't know. I'd like to—I would like to see what he has to say, because—we can never allow what happened to this country to happen. The man was grossly incompetent, and the Democrats—I call them the "Dumocrats" because their policy is so bad. But they came very close to destroying our country. We can never let it happen again.
And I hope that you're able to produce that. I think it would be very interesting reading for people.
[Several reporters began asking questions at once.]
Commercial Transit Through the Strait of Hormuz
Q. Mr. President, Iran wants control of the Strait of Hormuz. Would you accept a short-term deal that allows Iran and Oman to control the Strait? And would they have to open it immediately, or would you be open to that happening over a period of time?
The President. Yes. No, the Strait is going to be open to everybody. It's——
Q. And who would control it?
The President. It's international waters. Nobody is going to control it. We're going to watch over it. We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have. They would like to control it.
Nobody is going to control it. It's international waters, and Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we'll have to blow them up. They understand that. They'll be fine.
[Several reporters spoke at once.]
Domestic Oil Production/Venezuela
Q. Mr. President, thank you. How much economic pressure do you feel to get the Strait of Hormuz open?
The President. Well, you have to understand, the United States has so much oil that we are an exporter of oil, so we have plenty of oil. We're very lucky. We're blessed with the greatest piece of land in the world from that standpoint, and we have more than anybody else. And now, when you add Venezuela to it, we have, I think, 64 percent of the world's oil.
And we're getting along very well with Venezuela, by the way. It's being run really beautifully. The big companies are moving in. They're going to be a—it's going to be amazing, because it's also—like us, they're very blessed in that sense.
But we have natural energy that no other country has. We have more than anybody else. So it's really a world problem, because most of the world doesn't have that, and we're making it available.
During the closing—I don't know if you've seen some of the satellite pictures—boats—hundreds of boats lined up. It looks like, I used to say, the Long Island Expressway with cars. [Laughter] They're lined up, and they're coming to Texas, Louisiana. They're coming to Alaska to fill up their boat—their big boat. Some of them are really big. You know, 2 billion gallons. Even bigger than that, now, they make them.
They make them up to four, Chris, I hear. Now they make them up to four. The four are now the big ones. It used to be the ones, now it's 4 million barrels of—think of that, 4 million barrels of oil in one boat.
But they're lined up, and they're, right now, heading to Texas. And they've already filled up, and they've gone back.
Gasoline Costs/Iran/Nuclear Weapons Development
Q. But the American people, sir——
The President. In addition to that, you have a lot of boats—you have about 14-, 1,500 boats in the Strait wanting to get out, and at the right time, we'll release them.
Q. But the American people, sir, are seeing higher gas prices. Now, it's——
The President. Yes, they are.
Q. ——come down a little bit, but——
The President. No, it's coming down.
Q. ——it's still $4.45 a gallon.
The President. Well, it will come a lot. It will come—it will come down to where it was before.
We had it—when I was in Iowa, we had—we're driving by, and we saw gas stations: $1.90 a gallon, $1.85, $1.87 were the three that we saw. We had it down in some places below—now, we can't help in California where they charge so much tax that—you know, you lower it, and then they charge tax. They've got to straighten the act out in California.
But we had oil—we had gasoline down to a very low number. I think we'll be hitting that number shortly after that whole excursion ends.
Q. Does that give you more urgency?
The President. But regardless of anything, as Marco said better than anybody can say it, you can't let them have a nuclear weapon. They would use it instantly. They wouldn't think about it. They would use it instantly. I've gotten to know them. They would use it instantly.
Iran/Nuclear Weapons Development/Domestic Energy Supply
Q. Does that give you more urgency, Mr. President? You've said that you're in no rush to make a deal, but with gas prices that are so high across the country, people are paying more for travel. Does that give you more urgency to make a deal? Why doesn't it?
The President. Well, I'll tell you, the primary urgency I have—and I said this; it wasn't covered properly—but the primary urgency is that we can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon.
But at the same time, we have a tremendous amount of oil, gas, coal. We have tremendous amounts of energy. We're blessed with something very special.
Those prices are going to come down. They're going to come down fast.
I think—I think that you'll see—actually, Todd, I think you're going to see lower prices than we had even before we did this.
Now, I knew there'd be an increase. I said, "We have a choice. We don't have to do anything." And then, in 2 years or 1year or 2 months, because Iran would have had a—if we didn't hit them with the B–2 bombers, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon within 2 weeks from that date, because they were ready to go. And if they had a new weapon—a nuclear weapon, it would have been used already.
It also would have been used had I not terminated the Obama deal, the Iran nuclear deal, as we call it. That was in my first term. Had I not terminated that, they would have had a nuclear weapon a long time ago. I would say it was a guarantee that it would have been used, and it would have blown up Israel. It would have blown up the entire Middle East, and that's never going to happen.
Yes, please.
Q. President Trump, on the shooting last weekend.
Iran/Disposition of Nuclear Material
Q. Mr. President, on Iran, would you be comfortable with Russia or China taking their stockpile of highly enriched uranium? And have they offered to do that?
The President. No, I wouldn't be comfortable. [Several reporters spoke at once.]
That would not make me comfortable, no. [Several reporters spoke at once.]
Iran/U.S. Sanctions
Q. Is the U.S. considering easing sanctions on Iran to allow Iran to sell its crude to market?
The President. No, we're not talking about any easing of sanctions or giving money. No sanctions, no money, no nothing.
We have control of money that they claim is theirs. We'll keep control of that money. And when they behave properly and when they do what's right, we'll let them have their money. But right now, we're not doing that. And it's not—one thing is not contingent on the other.
The President's Personal Security
Q. Mr. President, on the shooting last weekend, it came barely a month after the third assassination attempt against you during the White House Correspondents' Dinner. What was your reaction when you first heard about the latest shooting? And what gives you the courage to really keep doing your job effectively without thinking about these threats every day?
The President. Well, I can't think about it, because if I thought about it a lot, you know, I wouldn't be a very good President. [Laughter] I wouldn't be here, probably. I'd be sup—up in some room with a locked door and say, "Just leave me alone." [Laughter] So I can't really think about it.
If—it's just something that—it's a sad part of life. It's a dangerous business. What I'm doing is a dangerous business. And they say—and look, we have been maybe the most consequential, but we certainly have been one of the most consequential. This group of—has been a very consequential administration. And they say if you're not consequential, you don't have so much problem. If you are consequential, you do. So you have to look at that.
But it's a shame. It's a sad—it's a very sad fact of life.
Look, anybody in office—not only in this country; in other countries too—but when you are a consequential President, your life is in grave danger. I knew that.
Yes.
Iran/U.S. Military Operations/Diplomatic Engagement
Q. Mr. President, how would you characterize the current state of the talks with Iran? I guess if it were a football field, what yard line would you be on?
The President. Well, I think we're doing very well. They are starting to give us the things that they have to give us. And if they do, that's great. And if they won't, then the man on my left is going to finish them off. Going to happen.
Q. Is there a timeframe in your mind?
The President. What?
Q. Is there a timeframe in your mind for——
The President. I mean, it happens quickly. The problem is, every time I mention a timeframe—for instance, I see—you know, we've been doing this for a few months. Vietnam lasted 19 years. Korea lasted 8 years. Afghanistan lasted many years. They were all many, many years. And we're into it for a few months, and I read about you people, like you, "What's taking so long?" But we're in it.
You know, we lost—between two wars—two big wars, Venezuela and Iran, we lost 13 souls, 13 great people. Met the parents. Great people. And it's a terrible thing. But 13.
If you look at the war casualties and the deaths in wars from Vietnam and all that, they lost hundreds of thousands of people in numerous of these wars.
We want—we're very cognizant of that. We want to lose very few. We want very few to be injured. We're very careful.
But war is war. War is dangerous. But we've lost 13. I saw the Democrats took an ad putting in the 13 people that were lost. And when you look at hundreds of thousands of people that were lost in the Middle East, Iraq, all the different wars we were in, we have done an amazing job.
With that being said, I hate to lose 13. I hate to lose one. But we've been very capable.
I mean, when you think of it, we took over Venezuela in 1 day. We have done a similar job, but we said we'll give them a little chance at the request of somebody that we greatly respect from Pakistan—the field marshal and the Prime Minister. They've been great. They asked us, would we pause the war for a little while because they'd like to—so we'll do that.
But we had them beat. They're, you know, no better now. We could close that out very quickly. If we can do it in a different way, that'll be good, if we get everything we want. But we could close that out very, very quickly. And we may have to. I don't think so, but we may have to.
[Several reporters spoke at once.]
Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup
Q. Mr. President, can I ask you about the World Cup, if I could?
The President. Yes.
Q. The U.S. spent a lot of money getting the World Cup here and—and increasing the infrastructure. Does the economic benefit outweigh the cost?
The President. No, the World Cup is great. It's the most successful they've ever had, ticket-wise. It's—they've never had anything that sold so quickly.
Q. So what——
The President. It's amazing, because it's the United States.
Q. What are the economic benefits?
The President. You don't think of—we—I call it soccer. You know, it's just easier to do, because we have football, and they have two footballs, right? They call it football.
But I never—most people never thought they'd see anything like that.
The World Cup—it's turned out to be the most successful World Cup, from the standpoint of what's happening, than they've ever had.
Yes, please.
[Several reporters spoke at once.]
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Q. Mr. President, thank you so much. Rowena Ortiz with Turning Point USA. I have one question for you, and one question for Vice President J.D. Vance on fraud.
What's your message to the New Jersey leaders pushing back against ICE operations at Delaney Hall? And——
The President. About ICE?
Q. Yes.
The President. Or about NICE, as I call it? [Laughter] NICE. The NICE facility. I'd love to change the name, call it "NICE." They do a great job. And it's all paid-for protesters.
You know, you can see by the signs. The signs are all made by the same beautiful factory.
It's a printing plant. In fact, I'm thinking about using it. They do such a nice job. [Laughter] These aren't protesters. These people are fake. They're all paid for.
And I will tell you, Tom Homan and that whole group, and now Markwayne, is so incredible.
Markwayne, do you want to just respond to that?
Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin. Sure.
The President. We run the finest facilities anywhere in the world of their type. But we have some horrible killers. We have killers—we have guys that have murdered numerous people in there. And these are the people they're trying to protect.
There's nobody that runs a facility like we do. Markwayne, please.
Secretary Mullin. Yes, it shows the—this—radical-left Democrats' priorities when they decide to go out and protest a detention center where we're housing rapists, child predators, murderers, drug dealers, and they choose Memorial Day—of all the day, of all the time to go protest something that—[laughter]—they say that they're—that it's because they're on a hunger strike, when there was only a handful of individuals that was refusing to eat because they want their ethnic group—or their ethnic-right food.
Well, they can go back to the country and get whatever food they want. The fact is, we're giving them the calories they want. This isn't Holiday Inn. We're giving sanitation.
But for the Democrats—and the Governor—like Governor Sherrill—and Senator Kim and Senator Booker to go out and do something like this, of all the days, is very frustrating.
And they're—and we see—antifa signs are literally out there. The local police refusing—literally refusing—to respond. They barricade it, not allowing our employees to come in and out. ICE has to go out there, remove the barricade. And then you have one of the Senators complain because he got splattered with a—with a—you know, pepper ball. I'm sorry, you probably shouldn't have been there.
The President. You know, one thing I'll say about that—the local police. I know a lot of the New Jersey police. They're phenomenal. They love us. But they're told not to do anything.
Secretary Mullin. That's right.
The President. They love us. They love him. They even love me—[laughter]—a lot. And they—I'm in New Jersey a lot. It's great. I mean, I think it's a great place. It's got a group of people running it now that are having a hard time.
But they really like this administration. They love this administration more than any administration they've ever had. And they're thanking me all the time.
And you know, I see those guys going up and down the Jersey Turnpike with their big, beautiful hats on.
I say, "I'd like to look like that someday." [Laughter] You know? They're great. No, these are great people. And they love him. And they love ICE. And they love the Border Patrol. And they're not allowed to talk to anybody. It's like—but it all comes from the top. They have to follow orders. They want to keep their jobs.
Gasoline Taxes
Q. Mr. President are you expecting Congress—are you expecting Congress to pass a Federal gas tax holiday?
The President. A gas tax holiday?
Q. Yes. To suspend the Federal gas tax.
The President. Well, it's something we might talk about. Let's see what happens over the next week, 2 weeks. A lot of good things are happening.
National Basketball Association Finals/New York Knicks
Q. Sir, are you going to the Knicks game next week?
The President. No, I was invited to the—I was going to go on Wednesday, but they closed it out very quickly. They're great. [Laughter]
And Jim Dolan's—great guy. He's—as you know, owns and in charge of Madison Square Garden. He's having a good year. Boy, what a team. They won all their games. They really—they have some great players.
I think I'll be going to one of the games. Yes, I was invited by numerous people and Jim.
And I think I'll be going. It's great to see it.
You know, the Knicks——[Several reporters spoke at once.]
The Knicks have—the Knicks have really—they've really suffered for years. [Laughter] And they're doing, right—they're doing, right now, very well.
Iran/U.S. Diplomatic Engagement
Q. On Iran. Would you accept an agreement with Iran that just calls for further talks on uranium?
The President. No.
Q. Or is the only option in your mind one for——
The President. No, the basics. No, I would for some of it, you know, because it's a memorandum of understanding for speed.
One of the things that will happen is, the Strait will open immediately. Immediately. But it's got to be perfect. I'm not going to do the—I didn't do this to get a crummy agreement.
The worst agreement ever signed was by Barack Hussein Obama. What a horrible agreement that was. It was a setback for this country, for the whole world. The Middle East would have blown itself up.
No. And we'd like to have the countries we were talking about—with Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Qatar, and the others—we would like to have them immediately join the—and Steve Witkoff is working on that with Jared and some others. But we'd like to have them join the Abraham Accords. It will be historic if they do it.
And we would—I think they—I think they owe that to us. To be honest, I think—because that really would be a tremendous sign. And I think those countries owe it to us.
[Several reporters spoke at once.]
Steve, are you going to get them to sign?
U.S. Special Envoy for Peace Missions Steven C. Witkoff. We're definitely pushing it, Mr. President.
The President. I'm not sure we should make the deal if they don't sign, you want to know the truth. If they don't sign to join the Abraham Accords, I don't know that we—you know, we have countries in there already. U.A.E., great. Great countries. Bold countries. And it's turned out to be so good, so effective.
And so we're, you know, requesting strongly that they join. I—it will be great. It'd be great for Saudi Arabia. It'll be great for Qatar and Kuwait, the whole group.
Iran/International Cooperation
Q. So the Iran deal might be contingent on more countries joining the Accords?
The President. I don't know. I don't want to say that. I'm not going to give you, you know, what's contingent and what's not.
I can say that we can make a good deal right now, but maybe not a great deal. And if it's not a great deal, we're not making it, so—because we can make a great deal with this guy right here.
[The President gestured toward Secretary Hegseth.]
And—but it's—you know, it's a lot nastier. Probably wouldn't go as quickly. You know, we wouldn't be talking about as quickly, but it would be foolproof.
But I think we're doing very well. Steve, I think we're doing pretty well in terms of the negotiation. But we'll see.
If it's not going to be a real deal—because Obama had that horrible JCPOA, whatever it was.
It was the worst deal. It was a path for Iran to have a nuclear weapon very quickly. Years ago, they would have had a nuclear weapon. We might not be here talking about it right now. They would have had a nuclear weapon.
And frankly, Obama picked the wrong country. He should have picked another country. I won't tell you what it was, but he picked the wrong country when he picked Iran.
But we have things understood now with Iran. It's been nasty. They've lost their leaders.
They've lost—and it really is regime change.
You know, we didn't set out for regime change, but by the fact that we're dealing with a totally different group of people than we were at the beginning—and, frankly, I find them to be much more reasonable. I actually find them to be smarter, but I find them to be much more reasonable.
This is regime change. One regime is gone. Another regime is gone. We're dealing with the third—pieces of it, because some of them are gone too. And I find them—I think—how can you have a stronger regime change than that, you know? So I do find that.
I'd like to thank you all very much. We're doing great. Our country is doing fantastically well, and this group of people is outstanding. Thank you all very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
NOTE: The President spoke at 11:54 a.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Mehmet Oz; Rep. Ilhan A. Omar; Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Kashyap P. "Kash" Patel; Abraham Williams, husband of Director Gabbard; Stacey Y. Abrams, Ronald W. Walters Endowed Chair for Race and Black Politics, Howard University; Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia; Chief of Defense Forces Syed Asim Munir Ahmed Shah Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan; White House Border Czar Thomas D. Homan; James L. Dolan, executive chairman and chief executive officer, Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. He also referred to his son-in-law, U.S. Special Envoy for Peace Jared C. Kushner. Secretary Hegseth referred to Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, a suspected leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist organization in Nigeria, who was killed in a U.S. military
operation in northeastern Nigeria on May 16. Administrator Loeffler referred to the Small Business Administration Inspector General William W. Kirk.
Categories: Addresses and Remarks : Cabinet meeting; Interviews With the News Media : Exchanges with reporters, White House.
Locations: Washington, DC.
Names: Abrams, Stacey Y.; Bessent, Scott K.H.; Biden, Joseph R., Jr.; Blanche, Todd W.; Burgum, Douglas J.; Dolan, James L.; Gabbard, Tulsi; Hegseth, Peter B.; Homan, Thomas D.; Kennedy, Robert F., Jr.; Kushner, Jared C.; Loeffler, Kelly L.; Lutnick, Howard W.; Mullin, Markwayne; Munir Ahmed Shah, Syed Asim; Obama, Barack; Omar, Ilhan A.; Oz, Mehmet; Patel, Kashyap P. "Kash"; Pirro, Jeanine; Rollins, Brooke L.; Rubio, Marco A.; Sharif, Shehbaz; Vance, James D. "J.D."; Williams, Abraham; Witkoff, Steven C.; Wright, Christopher A.; Xi Jinping; Zeldin, Lee M.
Subjects: 2026 midterm elections; Acting Attorney General; Alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), release of Government files; Armed Forces, U.S., recruitment efforts; Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, release of declassified records; Assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, release of declassified records; Basketball; Border security; Cabinet meetings; Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; China, President; China, relations with U.S.; China, trade with U.S.; Crime rates; Cuba, political and economic stability; Director of National Intelligence; District of Columbia, beautification efforts; District of Columbia, Lafayette Park beautification efforts; District of Columbia, law enforcement improvement efforts; District of Columbia, Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, renovation work; Economic improvement; Environmental Protection Agency; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup; Fraud enforcement, strengthening efforts; Gasoline costs; Illegal drugs, interdiction efforts; Illegal immigration; Iran, commercial transit through Strait of Hormuz; Iran, diplomatic engagement with U.S.; Iran, nuclear weapons development; Iran, U.S. airstrikes on nuclear facilities; Iran, U.S. military operations; Job creation and growth; Military families; National Guard; Oil and natural gas, domestic production; Pakistan, Chief of Defense Forces; Pakistan, Prime Minister; Prescription drug costs, reduction efforts; Secretary of Agriculture; Secretary of Commerce; Secretary of Energy; Secretary of Health and Human Services; Secretary of Homeland Security; Secretary of State; Secretary of the Interior; Secretary of the Treasury; Secretary of War; Small Business Administration; Social Security program; Stock market; Task Force To Eliminate Fraud; Tax Code reform; U.S. Armed Forces, funding and equipment, improvement efforts; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; U.S. Special Envoy for Peace;
U.S. Special Envoy for Peace Missions; Undocumented immigrants, deportation of criminals; Venezuela, oil supply and refining; Venezuela, relations with U.S.; Venezuela, U.S. military capture and exfiltration of President Maduro; Vice President; White House Border Czar.
DCPD Number: DCPD202600370.