Well, thank you very much. It's an honor to have a friend of mine, a very good friend of mine—we've become friends, actually, through the trials and tribulations of everything—Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO. Highly respected, every country, almost every country in Europe. I think you can almost take away the "almost" pretty soon. But they all have great respect for the leader, and he is the leader. And we've had some very good discussions today, and things are going along pretty well as regarding Ukraine-Russia. We thought it would be a little bit easier; that's turned out to be tougher than the Middle East. The Middle East was supposed to be the tough one, and we've solved that puzzle. But this one will get solved also. So I want to just say it's an honor to have you, Mark. Thank you very much.
President Trump Participates in a Meeting with the Secretary General of NATO
Thank you so much for hosting again. And we were texting, I think it was on the day when you were in Israel and in Egypt, this tremendous success you had under your leadership bringing peace to the Middle East. And then we texted each other and said the next big thing has to be Ukraine-Russia. And I want to help, NATO wants to help, my colleagues want to help to basically deliver on your vision of peace in Ukraine. And I really want to thank you for everything you are doing, including breaking the deadlock with Putin, starting that dialogue in February when you came in as President in January. But also everything you did with NATO, the fact that we are now at this 5% goal, the huge success in The Hague at the NATO summit, the fact that Europeans are also stepping up when it comes to Ukraine, basically the weapons from the U.S. being delivered to Ukraine paid for by allies, and the Europeans coming together to discuss how can we sustain Ukraine post the peace deal. All of this is evidence of your leadership, of pushing the Europeans and the Canadians to do more, to deliver, and to equalize in spending with the U.S. So on all of this, and today we'll talk more on how we can really bring Ukraine to the next phase and get this terrible war and all the bloodshed ended.
And as you know, we are going to be making a big trip next week. Some of you are going with us. We'll be going to Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan. In South Korea, I'll be meeting with President Xi of China. We'll have a pretty long meeting scheduled; we can work out a lot of our questions and our doubts and our tremendous assets together. So we look forward to that. I think something will work out; we have a very good relationship. But that'll be a big one. We canceled the meeting with President Putin; it just—it didn't feel right to me. It didn't feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get, so I canceled it. But we'll do it in the future. But next week we'll be with many of you in those locations that I told you. Then it's back, back to Washington. So, thank you very much, everybody. Yeah, please.
Mr. President, can you tell us a little bit about why you're elevating sanctions against Russia right now? What's the point?
I just felt it was time. We've waited a long time. I thought that we'd go long before the Middle East. And Mark, as you know, we did the Middle East plus seven. So we did seven different wars from Pakistan and India to so many...
Azerbaijan, Armenia...
Which they said was impossible to do. All these wars I did, and the one that we have left, we have one left. It'll be nine. We have one left, and I think we'll get that done too. I think we're on our way to getting it.
Absolutely, we have to. Yeah.
Mr. President, do you have a timeline for when you think this war is going to be over because of your leadership?
No, I don't have a timeline. You can't have a timeline in war. So many things happen in war. Go ahead.
What about Tomahawk missiles? Putin is definitely upset about that.
Well, the problem with the Tomahawk that a lot of people don't know, it'll take a minimum of six months, usually a year, to learn how to use them. They're highly complex. So the only way a Tomahawk is going to be shot is if we shot it, and we're not going to do that. But there is a tremendous learning curve with a Tomahawk. It's a very powerful weapon, very accurate weapon, and maybe that's what makes it so complex. But it will take a year, it takes a year of intense training to learn how to use it. And we know how to use it, and we're not going to be teaching other people; it would be too far out into the future.
You said as recently as yesterday that you still believe that Putin wants to end the war, yet today you took this step to ratchet up sanctions and put more pressure on him. What else are you going to do to encourage him to get there, or can you explain why you do believe that Putin wants peace?
Yeah, it's a good question. Today is a very big day in terms of what we're doing. Look, these are tremendous sanctions, these are very big. These are against their two big oil companies, and we hope that they won't be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled. We just answered having to do with the various forms of missiles and everything else that we're looking at, but we don't think that's going to be necessary. We would like to see them just take the line that has been formed over quite a long period of time and go, and let's, you know, go home. Last week they had almost 8,000 soldiers killed. Many Russians were killed last week. Many Ukrainians were killed last week. We think it's ridiculous and we'd like to have it end.
Why do you think he wants peace though? Why do you still believe that?
I think they want peace. I think they both want peace at this point. It's been, you know, it's almost four years, you're going into four years. And if I were President, it never would have started. But yeah, it's time.
Mr. President, on the shutdown, will you prepare to meet with Democrats before you head to Asia? And if not, why not?
Well, I think it's a shame that it's shut down because we have the greatest economy, as you were saying before, we have the greatest economy in the world right now by far, the United States. We have almost 18—now it was 17, now it's 18 trillion dollars being poured into our country, and it's no time for shutdowns. I don't think it's affecting what we're doing, but it's too bad for a lot of people. We have a lot of good people that aren't working right now that should be, and it's because the Democrats want to try and renegotiate a deal that they had negotiated. They want 1.5 trillion dollars given to illegal immigrants who came into the country. And it's going to hurt the healthcare of citizens of our country that have been paying into it, that have been working hard for it, that really deserve it. So we're never going to do that. It's not going to happen. And I will tell you, there are a lot of good Democrats that really want to make a deal. And I think all we need is five Democrats because we have great support on the Republican side. So I think we need five Democrats, and there are a lot of them that want to make a deal. So I think at some point, common sense will prevail. Go ahead, you can finish up.
On the drug boats in the Eastern Pacific, can you explain to us what that was about, how it was conducted?
Yeah, sure. Well, they had one today in the Pacific. And the way I look at it, every time I look—because it is violent and it is very—it's amazing that the weaponry that every, everyone is, you know, they have these boats that go 45, 50 miles an hour in the water. And when you look at the accuracy and the power... Look, we have the greatest military in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world. And you see a little bit of it there: one shot, everyone dead center. And the only way you can't feel bad about it is you realize—that you won't feel badly about it—is you realize that every time you see that happen, you're saving 25,000 American lives. Every one of those boats that gets knocked out is saving 25,000 American lives, not to mention the torn-up families all over the country. And whenever I see that, I think to myself, I just saved 25,000 lives. I will say that there are very few boats traveling on the water right now. Actually, that includes fishing boats, that includes any other kind of boat. But there are very few boats traveling on the water. So now they'll come in by land at a lesser—to a lesser extent—and they will be hit on land also.
Mr. President, do you have the legal authority if they do come in through...
Yes, we do. We have legal authority right where—we're allowed to do that. And if we do by land, we may go back to Congress, but we—this is a national security problem. They killed 300,000 people last year—drugs. These drugs coming in, they killed 300,000 Americans last year. That gives you legal authority. We have a national security, really... I will say this: when you look at the people we're dealing with, and we know them—we know the people coming in, we know the boats, we know everything else—we're allowed to do it. It's in international waters. If we don't do it, we're going to lose hundreds of thousands of people. Now, they'll be coming in by land a little bit more because they're not coming in by boat anymore. There are no boats in the water. There are no more boats. We know the boat almost immediately. You know, it's pretty unusual when you see somebody with a fishing rod and five engines on the back of a boat, you know? You don't need that to go fishing. Wait, wait, wait. And we will hit them very hard when they come in by land, and they haven't experienced that yet, but now we're totally prepared to do that. We'll probably go back to Congress and explain exactly what we're doing when we come to the land. We don't have to do that, but I think, Marco, I'd like to do that. You may respond to that if you want.
Well, I mean, the question is, bottom line, these are drug boats. If people want to stop seeing drug boats blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States.
But does it matter if it's in the United States waters or...
Well, these are all in international waters, but they're striking the United States or...
But would you strike in the United States or further...
Well, that's a different matter. Now you're talking about a law enforcement matter. In this particular case, they are people traveling on international waters headed towards the United States with hostilities in mind, which includes flooding our country with dangerous, deadly drugs. And they're going to be stopped. And that's what's happening. And in the case last week, you saw there was a submarine. It was a submarine, it was a submersible. That's a drug boat all the way through. We know what these boats are. The President just said it: we track them from the very beginning. We know who's on them, who they are, where they're coming from, what they have on them. And if you're running drug boats, you're in grave danger.
And drug usage is way down, and drug usage coming from the sea—they call it ocean drugs, a little term that they use—the ocean drugs is very close to nonexistent right now. I wouldn't want to be in one of those boats heading away, you know? They're driving happily to destroy the lives of people, and they end up—that's the end of them. So the ocean drugs and the sea drugs, drugs by sea they call it also, that's almost down to nothing, as you can imagine. So they continue to come in by land at a little bit less because they see something is going to happen. They don't like it. They see something—and they're right, something very serious is going to happen, the equivalent of what's happening by sea. And we're going to Congress just to tell them what we're doing, just to keep them informed. We have to do it for national—we have to do it to save lives.
Secretary Bessent said that Vladimir Putin had not been honest and forthright in his talks with you. Just wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about your feelings about that? And also, if I may, to Minister Rutte, just your thoughts on whether Ukraine should get Tomahawks. Thank you.
Well, I think that in terms of honesty, the only thing I can say is every time I speak with Vladimir, I have good conversations, and then they don't go anywhere. They just don't go anywhere. So in that sense. But no, look, he's fighting a war. He's in a war. That's two very competent sides, and that's the way war is. You never know with war, but I would say that it's time to make a deal. A lot of people are dying. You know, they're not Americans, but they're people. They're souls, and they're dying by the thousands. Worst since World War II, and we really should stop it.
And to your other question, this has been consistent from this President. When we first met again after your reelection in Mar-a-Lago in November, you said we have to stop the killing. This is close to your heart, and this is your vision. That's why this war needs to end. When it comes to Tomahawks or whatever system, it's up to individual nations to decide whatever they want to supply to Ukraine. NATO doesn't take a position. But I can assure you this: when the President called me in July and said we want to again send weapons into Ukraine, paid for by our allies, the Canadians and the Europeans, that was an important moment. And that is now taking place, and the ambassador, myself, we are working hard at this. Already a couple of billion dollars of weaponry into Ukraine from the US paid for by allies. So I'm not going to comment about the Tomahawks, but when it comes to the US and all the support for Ukraine, it is there and it is close to the President's heart, and I know this.
I will, I will say this, and you know, Mark can say it better than anybody: the European nations and Canada have really pulled together. And it's beyond even that, I mean, it's really beyond even that.
It was the Australians, New Zealanders, Japanese—if you want to really add them up, we could really add them up. But NATO, basically European and Canada and a lot of other nations, they've really banded together. They are not happy about what's happening with Russia and Ukraine. They're not happy at all. Neither am I.
Jeff, sir, just changing the topic slightly. I see you've got the model of the White House and the ballroom. Many people were surprised the entire East Wing is being demolished because you had said initially that the ballroom would just touch or would not even touch...
Well, certain areas are being left. We determined that after really a tremendous amount of study with some of the best architects in the world, we determined that really knocking it down, trying to use a little section... You know the East Wing was not much; it was not much left from the original. It was over the course of 100 years, it was changed. The columns were removed, and it was a much different building. Then a story was added on in 1948, 1949. There was a story added on which was not particularly nice. And the building was very, very much changed from what it was originally. It was never thought of as being much; it was a very small building. And rather than allowing that to hurt a very expensive, beautiful building that, frankly, they've been after for years—you have that, I brought these along so people could see, but it's, you know, there's a relative... Nobody's actually seen anything quite like it. I think it'll be one of the great ballrooms anywhere in the world. It's about 300 million dollars. It's set to do many, many things, including meetings of foreign leaders, including the honoring of foreign leaders. You can see this, this is a plan. It's got tables so that you honor a foreign leader. We have a proper space. Right now, we have a space that with tables holds about 79 people. And this is a proper kind of a thing. Now, what the White House was doing, as you know, is they were putting tents out on the lawn. This is an interior shot of the ballroom. I think there'll be nothing like it. And it's being paid for 100% by me and some friends of mine, donors to it. The government's paying absolutely nothing. We're also working with the military on it because they want to make sure everything's perfect, and the military's very much involved in this. They want to make sure everything is absolutely beautiful. You can see the kind of interiors that we're talking about. That's an interior of the ballroom, and it's the highest level. And you see it goes beautifully with the White House. I mean, the mix is beautiful. So over the years, many presidents have made changes. This obviously would be the biggest change, but this was something they've wanted for at least 150 years. Many of you have gone to the events where they had, as an example, President Xi, or they had, you know, a leader of one of the countries, including the King and the Queen from your favorite country.
Absolutely, exactly.
But where they'd be honored and they'd be in a tent out on the lawn and it would rain and it was a disaster. Brian's shaking his head, you know what I'm talking about. And so I thought I'd bring this out because this is going to be probably the finest ballroom ever built, and we're doing it—no cost to the country. It's being put—the money's being put in by me and donors, really great patriots, actually. And the spirit on the building of it is amazing. We are using little sections of footings and various other things, but that's sort of irrelevant. In order to do it properly, we had to take down the existing structure. The way it was shown, it looked like we were touching the White House. We don't touch the White House. That's a bridge, that last bridge going from the White House to the ballroom. Then you get into the lobby of the ballroom, and then you go into the magnificent, the main room. And it's something that has gotten incredible reviews.
I just want a quick follow-up on that question. Your response to people who say that you haven't been transparent enough about this...
I haven't been transparent? That's some of your critics feel that. Really? I've shown, I've shown this to everybody that would listen. Third-rate reporters didn't see it because they didn't look. You're a third-rate reporter, always have been. So third-rate reporters didn't look, but anybody that asked—these, these pictures have been in newspapers, they've been all over the place. And you know, we're very proud of it. It's gotten great reviews, it's gotten really great reviews. So I think we've been more transparent than anybody's ever been.
How confident are you, Mr. President, that the sanctions that you're announcing today will push Putin to the negotiating table?
Well, I don't know that they will. I think that they'll certainly have an impact. They're massive sanctions; it's sanctions on oil. The two biggest oil companies, among the biggest in the world, but they're Russian. They do a lot of oil. And hopefully it'll push... Hopefully he'll become reasonable, and hopefully Zelenskyy will be reasonable too. You know, it takes two to tango, as they say, and we're going to find out. They've had, they hate each other. These two people hate each other. You know that better than anybody. And it makes it more difficult than it should be. This should be easier to do, but the level of hatred between Zelenskyy and Putin is very substantial.
Could I add, could I add one thing? What the President is doing today with these sanctions is putting more pressure, of course, on both parties, in this case on Russia. It's all about changing the calculus. Making sure that Putin understands that the President's vision this weekend of having a ceasefire, stop where they are, as you literally said, that this has to be step one now. And for him to really accept that vision and to come to the table, and then you have to put pressure. And this is exactly what he did today.
Along with Europe. I mean, Europe, look: these have become—they've actually become friends of mine. I think all of them. We have a very close relationship, and they want to see it end too. They really want to see it end. But I can say they're totally committed. If this went on for 10 more years, Europe is behind them. They just can't let that happen. You can't let what's been going on... Now, it should have never happened. It would have never happened if I were President. But it did happen, I inherited—this was Biden, a man who was without question—you take a look at the new walkway, the Presidential Walk of Fame we call it—Biden is the worst president we've ever had, if he was even a president. The people that surrounded that desk made those decisions. But this should have never happened, it wouldn't have happened, but it did happen. I inherited it; we're going to get it ended, hopefully soon. Yes, please.
You had a Truth Social post earlier this afternoon talking about a Wall Street Journal report as a fake story. It sort of...
Yeah, fake. Wall Street Journal is fake. Less fake on financial than it is on gossip.
Can you just confirm that my understanding of what's happening is accurate? As I understand it, that story framed it like we had just lifted the US restriction on intelligence...
No, it said that I gave Ukraine permission to shoot missiles deep into Russia. I didn't do that. Second of all, they're not using our missiles, they're using, I think, European missiles or from someplace, but they're not using ours. And what they do, I don't control that. But I do control our missiles. They're not shooting our missiles in. It was a fake story. Wall Street Journal does a lot of fake stories.
Thank you so much. The President of Colombia in a recent interview said that if you won't change, he thinks that people should get rid of you. We're talking about now Colombia the country, not the university. Go ahead. He said what? [21:19] He said that if you won't change, then perhaps you need to be gotten rid of. Do you see that as a threat?
Well, he's a thug and bad guy. He's a guy that is making a lot of drugs. We've just as of today stopped all payments going to Colombia, the country Colombia, also the school Colombia. No, we settled, we made a settlement with them. But no, he's a thug and he's a bad guy and he's hurt his country very badly. They're doing very poorly, Colombia. They make cocaine, they have cocaine factories. They grow all sorts of crap that's drugs, bad drugs coming into the United States, goes generally through Mexico. And he better watch it or we'll take very serious action against him and his country. His country is—what he has led his country into is a death trap. Please.
How has the Secretary General presented his Ukraine peace plan to you? Are you prepared to be chairman of the board for peace?