Hello everybody. Thank you very much. You all set? [00:08] Well, we're talking about cafe standards, very big deal, very important today my administration is taking historic action to lower costs for American consumers, protect American auto jobs and make buying a car much more affordable for countless American families and also safer. We're officially terminating Joe Biden's ridiculously burdensome, horrible actually, cafe standards that imposed expensive restrictions and all sorts of problems, gave all sorts of problems to automakers. And we're not only talking about here, we're talking about outside of our country, because nobody could do it, nobody wanted to do it and it was ridiculous, very expensive. It put tremendous upward pressure on car prices. Combined with the insane electric vehicle mandate, Biden's burdensome regulations helped cause the price of cars to soar more than 25 percent and in one case they went up 18 percent in one year. Today we're taking one more step to kill the green news scam, it's part of the greatest scam probably well, other than Russia, Russia, Russia and a few others I could name, the greatest scam in American history, the green news scam and it's a quest to end the gasoline powered car, this is what they wanted to do even though we have more gasoline than any other country by far. And people want the gasoline car, they want everything, they want electric, they want any, they want to have lots of alternatives, but they do want the gasoline car right now, it's leading the way by a lot. The car business is a very interesting business, but we want to keep it that way. [01:46] I want to thank Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Deputy Transportation Secretary Stephen Bradbury, as well as CEO of Ford Jim Farley, Jim, where is Jim? Let's see. Hi Jim, congratulations, you're doing a great job. CEO of Stellantis Antonio Filosa, thank you very much, Antonio. Chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association Tom Castriota, yes sir, thank you very much Tom, great to have you. And manager of General Motors Orion plant John Urbanic, yes sir, thank you sir. Great to have you guys here and you're going to say a few words in a minute about how ridiculous this was, but we're we've just freed you up. [02:30] So, you're going to have a good day, you're going to have a good number of years. Thanks as well to Senators Shelley Moore Capito, Ted Cruz, Kevin Cramer, Marsha Blackburn, Eric Schmitt and Bernie Moreno as well as Representatives Sam Graves, Vern Buchanan, Mike Kelly, Roger Williams, Lisa McClain and Troy Balderson, all great people, these are great people and I know there's a lot of support long beyond the people that are here, we've had tremendous support on this. [02:58] From day one I've been taking action to make buying a car more affordable I signed an executive order to end the unfair expensive electric vehicle mandate as you know where you had to have an electric car within a very short period of time even though you had there was no way of charging them and lots of other things. It would have cost five trillion dollars to build the charging plants and as you know in certain parts of the Midwest they spent to build nine chargers they spent eight billion dollars. So that wasn't working out too well. That was done before me by the way, I wouldn't have let it go forward. We're cancelling the EPA's absurd tailpipe emission standards, one of the most important things that I've never had a group of people come to me more more powerfully and and really just devastated that they had to do it, it was killing them, then the automobile manufacturers, the tailpipe emission standards. And I can tell you your people at Ford were coming to me all the time and they were saying like please, it it it doesn't do anything and it's killing us and it's driving the cost through the roof and we've revoked Biden's emissions waiver for California so that California communists could not regulate the automobile industry and ruin the entire nation of automobiles and they were doing that too, but we have that now under control also with your governor who's got much more than he can control. [04:28] Now under the new rules being issued today by Secretary Duffy the Department of Transportation will rescind the Biden fuel economy prices and and I hate to say that because they were really not economy they were really they were anti-economy, they were they were horrible what they were doing to costs and actually making the car much worse. But these policies forced automakers to build cars using expensive technologies that drove up costs, drove up prices and made the car much worse. The action is expected to save the typical consumer at least one thousand dollars off the price of a new car and we think substantially more than that. [05:08] Under the Trump administration, seventy billion dollars are now being invested in the American auto industry. Ford has announced it will invest five billion dollars across its Kentucky and Michigan plants, is that a correct statement? That's right. That's a lot, five billion, you could do more. Creating at least four thousand new jobs. Stellantis announced it will invest thirteen billion dollars to expand its U.S. based manufacturing by more than 50 percent and open new manufacturing facilities across the country and I think a big part of that is also the tariffs because of tariffs they're coming in not only the automobile industry. AI, we're leading China in AI, we're leading everybody in AI, we're leading everybody in everything. We're the hottest country right now I will tell you a lot of political people behind me, great political people, very successful political people, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. One year ago we had a dead country and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world and it started from November 5th but it also started when we did the tariffs and we've had tremendous support on the tariffs. It's bringing in trillions of dollars of wealth, it's bringing in national security and I've stopped eight wars and of the eight wars five of them have been because of tariffs and trade. So very important and General Motors plans to invest four billion dollars as it brings its manufacturing back to the United States from Mexico. [06:37] After falling by 5 percent under Biden, U.S. auto production has surged by 10 percent so far this year. You know I won the autoworkers vote, but now even the head of the autoworkers said Trump is the greatest president we've ever seen. And happens to be right about that. But we're protecting our autoworkers and we're making it easier for every family to afford high quality cars, in other words we're bringing automobiles back and the manufacturing of automobiles back into this country. We lost 52 percent over the years, 52 percent of our automobile manufac-, you see it, closed factories all over the place, now they're all opening up, they're being in most cases they're being knocked down and new ones are being built in their place and a big beneficiary is the state of Michigan, but South Carolina, even states that didn't really do too much with the automobiles they're opening up plants, it's been amazing. [07:30] So between automobile plants, AI plants and plants of every other nation really every other type including chips. We're going to have a big percentage of the chip market very soon, not because of the Chips Act which was horrible and ridiculous where we just gave these companies billions and billions of dollars and they just kept the money, but because of what we did with tariffs, they have to build here otherwise they're going to have to pay tariffs they won't be able to do business in the United States and we we are bringing we're going to have a big percentage of the chip industry as of about a year ago two years ago we had none and now we're going to have a very big percentage when it all finishes out. [08:13] So I'd like to ask Secretary Duffy to speak and then Mr. Farley and then Filosa and Urbanic and Castriota and also we're going to ask some of our political leaders to speak because let me tell you they went out of their way this was not easy and people were brainwashed. This is a green news scam and people were paying too much for a car that didn't work as well and now they're going to have a great car that's going to be environmentally friendly but it's going to cost you a lot less and it's going to work great all of the nonsense is being taken out of the cars. So Secretary Duffy could you say a few words?
President Trump Makes an Announcement, Dec. 3, 2025
Thank you Mr. President. So yesterday at the cabinet meeting the president was talking about affordability and the way that Democrats talk about affordability is a lie. Today is a perfect example of that. So these cafe standards used what was contrary to the law that Congress set a rule that says you have to look at combustion engines. Biden and Booted-edge-edge Boot-edge-edge I'm sorry Boot-edge-edge used EVs and hybrids to come up with a 62 mile an hour per gallon standard which I think the car companies will tell you is completely unattainable. So they spent a lot of money on technology trying to meet the unattainable standard driving up the cost of a car number one and then number two if they couldn't meet the unattainable standard they had to trade for carbon costing billions of dollars and again driving up the price of the car. So Mr. President what Democrats were doing were not making cars more affordable they're making them less affordable. The consequence of that is going to be that more Americans can afford to buy a new car which means they're going to be safer on the roads because of all the great new technology we have that save lives. So we'll have less death on American roads. These rules are going to allow the automakers to make vehicles that Americans want to purchase not vehicles that Joe Biden and Booted-edge-edge wants them to build, um which is important. Um but also this is important for American jobs the more cars we sell the more jobs we have in this country and so this is jobs this is freedom and this is common sense Mr. President so thank you for your leadership and I and I appreciate what the Senate did with the big beautiful bill and what we've done here today so thank you Mr. President.
Thank you very much. Big beautiful bill is it's something it's amazing wait till the people see the benefits and the lower taxes that they're going to have lower regulations. So how about Ford?
Oh Mr. President and Secretary all the important lawmakers here competitors today's a victory common sense and affordability. Uh we're very proud of Ford to be the number one auto producer in our country. 85 80 percent of the vehicles we sell here we make in our country.
Great.
And we never left unlike many of our competitors. Uh we're the number one exporter and we have the most uh factory auto factory workers. Um and this cafe standard that is aligned with customer demand is the right move uh for a lot of reasons. We were number two last year in EV sales we were number three in hybrid and we're the leading brand for combustion. We believe that people should be able to make a choice as you said Mr. President and we will invest more in affordable vehicles. This allows us to invest in affordable vehicles made in the U.S. which we will take the lead on and will allow us to make vehicles more affordable. So thank you for making this step for all of you.
Thank you very much. One of the other things we're doing it's separate from this meeting but I think everybody here would agree with it. If you go to Japan where I just left and if you go to South Korea and Malaysia and other countries they have a very small car sort of like the Beetle used to be with the Volkswagen they're very small they're really cute and I said how would that do in this country and everyone seems to think good but you're not allowed to build them. And I've authorized the Secretary to immediately approve the production of those cars so you'll be able to buy the they really are they're actually some of them are really beautiful actually if you take a look Honda um uh some of the Japanese companies do a beautiful job but we're not allowed to make them in this country and I think you're going to do very well with those cars so we're going to approve those cars would you like to say something about that?
Well no just that he never stops working so even when he's on Asian time he's calling me at midnight in the states but you he gave me the direct tip to clear the regulations on this too which we have and so if if Toyota or any other company wants to make smaller more affordable cars fuel efficient we have cleared the decks so they can make them in America and sell them in America.
They're really nice and less expensive and it really gives people a chance to have a car you know for have a brand new car as opposed to a car that maybe isn't so great and so you car companies start thinking about that I think it's I think it's going to be a tremendous market. Please, would you like to say something?
Thank you Mr. President. It's a great day for us at Stellantis today because this is the day where we see cafe regulation reconciled with real customers demand. That's why at Stellantis we decided to invest through Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler 13 billion dollars in the next four years increasing production by 50 percent delivering to the market five new vehicles and creating 5,000 additional jobs. That's because we believe in what you Secretary Duffy and all your team is doing in this country. We believe in growth and we are ready to invest even more. So thank you very much thank you very much also for this great news of the K cars which we are very interested into and we are very looking forward to work with Secretary Duffy your team in the future for the next steps. Thank you very much.
We'll get ready for those cars because we've already cleared the way you can start right away.
We will thank you very much Mr. President.
Thank you very much. Please.
Mr. President thank you so much for having me. Uh we support your leadership for this issue that is so important to the auto industry. I'm here representing the hard working men and women of Orion assembly in Michigan. The facility our manufacturing facility there is currently going through a retool so that we can build additional U.S. manufactured pickup trucks and full size sport utilities for our customers and we're so excited about that and thank you for your support Secretary Duffy thank you as well.
And this is largely coming in because of the tariff situation we have we're taking in trillions of dollars actually trillions and we have so many other advantages but these great companies are coming back to the United States they left the United States if somebody was sitting behind this desk that knew what they were doing that wouldn't have happened they would have said well you can sell your car here but we're going to put a 100 percent tariff and you would have never had the auto industry leave. Again we lost more than 50 percent of our auto industry and now it's all coming back and I think it's coming back ultimately I think it's going to be bigger I believe it's going to be bigger than it was before actually. But it's an honor to have you here and please would you like to say something?
Yes Mr. President. Tom Castriota sir I'm the chairman of National Automobile Dealers and we represent 18,000 dealers in the country along with 3,000 heavy duty truck dealers. And what the actions that you've done as the president and your administration is definitely going to save our customers money. And and you made your promises that let the consumer buy what they want sir and you delivered on that. And the other thing that that you delivered was your promise and the and the big beautiful bill the tax deduction on loans that had gone away some years back and now that makes it affordable for our buyers that can save money through that loan of the tax anywhere from several hundred to several thousand. So again sir I on behalf of all the dealers and our customers we appreciate what you and your administrator have done and and of course our legislative support as well Mr. President.
That's very nice and I'm glad you brought that up we're allowing people to deduct so if you go out and buy a car and this is for middle income but for lower income no it don't matter what they never really had deductions. You know rich people like deductions but middle income people were never really afforded deductions which is very unfair. You borrow money to buy a car you're allowed to deduct the interest from your income tax and I think that's going to be one of the most in terms of your industry I think it's going to be the biggest thing that we're talking about maybe even bigger than cafe standards. Uh people are going to be able to borrow money deduct it so it's going to cost them essentially half. And uh they'll be it'll help. Yes sir. I think it's going to be a tremendous factory they've never had a chance to do that before. And that's all done that's all in the great big beautiful bill. So it's really terrific. Uh I'd like to ask a couple of our political leaders to say because you you guys have done an amazing job this was something that was going to be very tough we had to fight lunatics to get it done and they had no answers you know it's you just present them with the facts and they just say well we're just not going to vote for it they couldn't talk about it but they didn't want to vote. I see Mike Kelly my friend back there who's been with me from day one right?
Yes. What do you have to say Mike? Well you know what I think you hit the key everyone's talking about the same thing. In America Look at look at look at the way they like each other you can see. There's no hatred between these two guys. As long as the price is right we're best friends. No but you hit the nail on the head the American people have always been able to choose what they want to buy. They don't want to be taken out of a market by people who quite frankly don't even drive their own car and saying this is a way you've got to go going into the future and say well you may say that but you're not in the market you have no idea and I know the business we're in at the end of the day if you were there with me I'd say well Mr. President other than price what's keeping you from taking the car home today? It's always price. And the fact that we can build a car that's affordable that people want to buy that's the key to it what you've done is unlock the most ridiculous statute that ever came in with cafe it wasn't done by the congress it wasn't done it was done by president obama after the courts failed on it so thank you for doing what you're doing you're making America great again in every single way thank you.
It's going to be so big for the auto manufacturers you people aren't even going to believe the impact this has. You know Mike used to come to my rallies all the time and we'd have a rally it was like zero degrees it was freezing everyone and he'd sit there without a shirt on. And I didn't need that you know I didn't say it was pretty but he would sit there in the cold and he didn't mind it at all I said that's one tough cookie right? You lit it up we didn't need any you were there we we had a good time we had a lot of great rallies in Pennsylvania. Please Mr. Congressman.
Thank you Mr. President what uh I represent the dealer bod- I'm a dealer and we got some other dealers in here but uh this is huge for the dealer body the local car dealer uh we're going to be able to sell what the customer wants and the manufacturers going to make what the customer wants uh we've got all kinds of options to the big bill is going to enable people as we talked about deduct payments and so forth as we say in the business it's never been cheaper than they are today Mr. President and it's going to be a great opportunity for the dealer body to sell what consumers want and 99 percent of the businesses in uh America are small businesses many are car dealers employ a lot of people it's going to be a great year for us we appreciate your leadership and we appreciate from a retail standpoint we we appreciate the manufacturer going to step up and build cars that customers want and that we want to sell so thank you very much and make it a great country.
He's also a very brave congressman because he was there on the baseball field that horrible day with Steve Scalise and some other people he was hit but he uh he took it very well he took it very well you're my pal. Thanks great job great job appreciate it. Kevin could you say a few words? Of wisdom one of the really smart economic forecasters I will tell you beyond an economist he's a real forecaster please.
Sir I think that there's a massive macroeconomic benefit to what we're doing today and the way to think about it is that uh the the car that has the best gas mileage that you could buy that has only gasoline is a Honda that gets about 36 miles per gallon. Joe Biden wanted to make every car on average be above 50. So there's no car made in the U.S. that you would be able to sell two years from now three years from now under that rule because what he wanted to do was make everybody have an electric car as you know. But but here's the thing that if everybody had an electric car then nobody would be buying gasoline anymore and they'd have to take all the uh miles that they travel and put it on the grid. And so we would have to increase the the production of electricity in the U.S. by 25 percent over the next couple of years if they had their way. And so you've really uh stopped at a massive disruption for the economy with this and so thank you sir.
And that wasn't the main reason and yet it certainly is a main reason you wouldn't have been able to do it even if you wanted to it's just so crazy. That was the mandate which we ended. Troy would you like to say something?
Uh great honor thank you I'm my family was a former dealer 48 years Chrysler Dodge dealer uh and then I got in the political world sir um I had more fun in the dealership world but um I missed I missed it uh but I still play a big role in automobiles and grateful I remember under President Obama uh when the cafe standards changed as Mike brought up and uh going through those challenging times as a Chrysler dealer before Stellantis came along it was Daimler before you guys got it so um thank you very much for being here and making these changes and as you said that interest on the car loan piece was big and I know that Bernie led the charge on that um in the Senate and getting the one big beautiful bill um that really is a big deal and people need to understand how big a deal that is.
They do they do great job and by the way we had a great victory last night all told. Matt Van Eps is going to be a great. He's going to be a great congressman I think so really like us right? Like us. One of my early endorsements right? Yes sir. Can we uh talk about it? right here is Matt Matt come in let me say hello to you. Please go ahead.
Uh I think thank you Mr. President for your leadership but the thing I've admired most you've been in business you've been in the battles over the years and you're helping us lead us out most people that are up here have no idea about business or small business makes a big difference. And uh one is number two is I would just say in terms of the tax stuff we're talking about one of the things that get missed in our I'm in Florida Sarasota region uh is the ability to deduct most people have a small business they'll have a lawn business they'll have this that they buy a new or used truck they can take that deduction let's say they're in a 20 percent tax bracket but the vehicle's 60 grand they can take 20 percent of the 60 grand get a 12,000 dollar write off. They can pay their payments for the first year. That's a powerful tool we don't talk about I don't know why but at the end of the day because of what you've put in place full expensing right? that's the tool that we'd use and you could just think about all the people in Florida just general places they're buying old vans or new vans they're buying truc- mainly trucks and they're getting a deduction they don't even have a payment for a year. So one of the best things for Florida you've ever done.
One of the biggest things in the the big one of the yeah expensing is a powerful tool they write the whole asset off the first year take that deduction put 12,000 in their pocket on a 20 thousand. Well let me mention one other thing they got into the EV vehicles electric cars and I'm talking to dealers come in and talk to me and basically they couldn't sell one they couldn't give one away and the when these companies or they got in because of whatever political pressure under Biden administration and they end up um realizing that they got no market a guy says the car's been sitting there a year I can't get rid of it. So they don't understand the market the the people produce the vehicles and that's made a big difference in your leadership but thanks for what you're doing here today it's big it's huge it'll make a big difference twelve thousand dollars on a sixty thousand dollar vehicle up front day one thank you. [24:41] Thank you very much. Great job. You know we're just talking about something that's interesting Ford would make and I don't want to speak for Ford because we have one of the top people right now. Mr. President it's fine if you want to talk about Ford. But Ford Ford would make numerous electric cars in order to sell one Ford 150. Because they'd make all their money with the 150 and they were willing to lose money on building two or three electric cars that they couldn't sell in order to make some money on the 150 because the 150 is a monster I'll tell you that no matter where you go they love that Ford 150. But isn't it a ridiculous model when you have to build two or three cars that you know you're not going to be selling or not be selling for much in order to really do something that you should have the right to do which is make a car that you want to make and that the market wants right? So congratulations on the 150. Best selling vehicle in the United States. Thank you. Just want to say that it's 100 percent built in the United States it's amazing. No but it really is it's amazing it's an amazing brand. There was a lot of there was a lot of stupid things done here. What would you like to say?
Yeah I thank you Mr. President and Secretary Duffy and all of us you know one of the last times I was here was when you signed the electric vehicle uh CRA congressional review act that all of us participated in. The beginning of really making common sense because it was going to impact 17 other states and really a large part of our economy. This is about affordability here. I'm just going to say one thing. Well maybe I already said one thing so now I'm going to say two things. When we talk about a car and auto we sort of talk about just oh we need a car. Do you know what a car does for a family? You can take your children to school, you can go to the store, you can visit your mother, you can go to church, you can have a job, you you have the flexibility that you need. A car for an American family is about a roadway to prosperity. It's a big deal. And so by making them more affordable, making them more choice driven by what families want and need, today is a great day for the American family. Absolutely.
And the American worker.
Well thank you Mr. President and Secretary Duffy and to my colleagues that are here. In Tennessee we make great automobiles and we have a fantastic workforce and whether you're GM or Ford with their new investment in Tennessee or Nissan or VW or Toyota with the engine plant what you see is the components that are necessary to build these cars and removing these standards and making cars more affordable does mean that more people will purchase them but it also means we're going to have to make more cars to meet that demand and for Tennessee that is a great thing.
So you know I'm just sitting here and I'm thinking like we have the biggest auto manufacturers in the world they're talking about investing billions and bil- they're investing it as we speak but billions and billions of dollars in our country thank you very much and they're here. They're not like well maybe we'll do it they're doing it because of tariffs and they're doing it because of maybe they like the president and we're doing things like this for them which frankly no matter who you are this should be done. And we're doing things like deductibility of interest when you borrow money to buy a car you're allowed to deduct it from your income tax that is a massive tax cut for people that probably are going to be trying to buy that car anyway and I really think that that interest factor is going to be one of the biggest things that what I I was proud of that because I thought of it and it seems so simple other people are allowed big interest if you're a rich person you're allowed to have big interest deductions for different things you do but if you're a middle income person has to buy a car you were never entitled to anything and now you're getting a full interest deduction on the loan and I think that's going to have one of the biggest impacts but we're here with companies that are investing tens of billions of dollars in our country as we speak it's not going to be in two years or three years uh a lot of it's because of the expensing provision in the bill and the big beautiful bill uh but a miracle is happening in our country. It's it's a miracle this is just the auto industry but we have other industries where it's the same thing they're building all over our country and something this is a revolution is happening it's a business revolution it's a jobs revolution uh it's a car revolution we're bringing back the car industry that was stolen from us because we had people that didn't know what they were doing sitting at this desk they and they put the wrong people in because they weren't advised properly and this is really an incredible thing that's happening. Uh Eric what what would you like to say?
Mr. President um thank you and on behalf of the people of the great state of Missouri um who we actually make things from F-15s to F-47s now thanks to you we'll be building the F-47 in the F-150s and those are real jobs and uh we make things in Missouri this is going to go a long way I think for making things more affordable for normal people nothing could be more American than driving a car on a highway and this is going to make that more accessible for more people so thanks for your leadership Secretary Duffy great job yeah well they love you too it's a great place thank you.
Please.
Thank you Mr. President. Um I'm going to talk to you just a minute from a rural perspective because these cafe standards were absolutely unworkable in rural Missouri. We need vehicles that are practical and affordable and can haul for our small businesses for agriculture and it just simply didn't work. Um those cafe standards didn't work so I applaud you um Secretary Duffy for your hard work and and what you're doing on behalf of um rural America.
Well it was keeping a lot of manufacturers out of our country too. They said we're not going are you crazy? They thought outside manufacturers thought we were absolutely insane with all of the different things that were just made up nonsense it was like made up it was really made up by people that hate our country I really believe. Do does anybody else have anything to say?
I'd say about two two quick things Mr. President two two quick things I think are really important. So the person who sat behind this desk before you gave seven thousand five hundred dollars in subsidies to multimillionaires who are leasing electric Rolls Royces, electric Porsches, electric Lamborghinis we're getting seven thousand five hundred dollars from a taxpayer and these Democrats sit on this floor and say that uh Republicans are for millionaires and billionaires we are the opposite of giving seventy five hundred dollars to multibillionaires to lease foreign electric vehicles. Number two because of your policies at the beginning of the year fifty one percent of the cars made at sold in America were made in America fifty one percent before you got sworn in last month that number was fifty seven percent. We moved it six points which nobody thought would be possible in four years we did it in ten months that's something that maybe the news should cover a little bit more and we've driven down the price of automobiles the car prices for consumers are down before you did this.
Just about everything is down. You know this whole thing is they use the word affordability. It's a Democrat hoax. They're the ones that drove the prices up. And all they do is say affordability and you're supposed to say oh that means they had low prices. No we inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country. They say 48 years but let's say that's history I don't believe that. Biden had because of his stupid ways and his between his energy policies and his spending policies we had the worst inflation in the history of our country and now our prices are coming down and they're coming down for cars and they're coming down I mean did you hear yesterday when Chris Wright from energy the head of energy in our country said there are now parts of our country it's parts it's all happening one dollar and ninety nine cents for gasoline a gallon. And we have it at 250 260 it was at five dollars. And that's bigger than any tax cut we could give you know for the average family that's considered bigger than any tax cut. So the word affordability when they mention it ever watch them? it's all about I saw the young lady that lost last night she lost by a lot more than they thought and we have a great new candidate in the in the in congress really great Matt Van Eps but I saw last night she said it's all about affordability all about they never talk about like specifics. Everything was through the roof eggs when I took over eggs were four times higher than they ever were we got the prices down to the lowest level. I mean amazing. But they never you got to watch they're they're great con people it's like the inflation reduction act and after they got it approved because everybody said inflation reduction they admitted it had nothing to do with reducing inflation. It's a conjob. I think affordability is the greatest conjob they look at you and they say affordability they don't say anything else everyone says oh their prices were so low no they had the worst inflation we had the highest prices we ever had and now they're all coming down including beef is coming down beef was up there a little bit our ranchers did well but we got to make them do a little bit less well perhaps but the beef is now coming down coffee is now coming down it's all coming down and it's a beautiful thing to see but remember this when they use the word affordability they just say they never say anything else this election's about affordability and then they go onto the next subject it's a conjob they caused the highest prices the history of our country the worst inflation in the history of our country and we're getting those prices down and they're coming down rapidly and you'll see those results very soon anyone else want to say a few words? Oh Ted I Ted.
I'm easy to miss. Very rare that I would miss him. Go ahead Ted. Well Mr. President I want to congratulate you on behalf of everyone here for the leadership that you're showing and and this is a victory today for consumers this is a victory for affordability your critics like to say the word affordability under Joe Biden the Democrats they put mandate after mandate after mandate on cars and trucks and they drove the price up thousands and thousands of dollars and with the actions you're taking today and you put on top of that the one big beautiful bill you know most of the senators here on the senate commerce committee and on the commerce committee we worked together to zero out the cafe standards we wrote that into the law that the cafe standards went to zero what does that mean? it means you can now as a consumer buy the car you want. It also means people's lives will be safer because what these regulations did is they forced cars to be more expensive and made of plastic instead of steel because you had to make them lighter to comply with these standards so you'd get in a wreck and people would die the result of what you're doing you're literally saving people's lives and you're making it where families can afford to get a new car these actions will drop the cost of cars and trucks thousands of dollars that's makes a real difference and I'll make one final point you know about half the members here are car dealers and I will say my good friend Roger Williams out in the lobby he tried to sell me a car which didn't surprise me but I just just want to give props to Mike Kelly he showed he was savvier because he tried to sell you a car and you can afford a much nicer car than I can so well done Mike Roger you you just went to the wrong customer.
I was a hundred dollar cheaper too. The thing that Ted just said it's true plastic instead of steel think of that and people died because of that the plastic was plastic in an auto accident and it broke up and people were shattered because of that crazy deal but uh that's a really good point go ahead. And Mr. President I'll tell you the senate commerce committee on january 14th we're going to have a hearing with all of the big three there and Tesla and the entire hearing is going to focus on how your leadership has reduced the burdens on carmakers that's lowering costs that's giving consumers more choices and it's producing more jobs in America and it's highlighting that's a real record of success. [38:48] Yeah well we're really it's an honor and you know they were going by California we had like two different countries California and fifteen that followed California because you had fifteen states follow California and the rules from California were just like everything else that's why people are leaving that's why it's it's such a mess it's got such there's a state with such unbelievable potential but what they did with the car industry is incredible and that was you know the car companies didn't know what to do because they had two standards and you can't build two different cars for the same country and what we're doing today is very big would anybody like to say something would you like to say something my friend?
I just want to say thank you.
Thank you very much. Brian? Okay. And we love you Brian. Oh I love you too Mr. President. Okay he's he's he's a good man. Go ahead.
Uh I've always said you tackled three the three Ms mortgage munchkins and marriage you've solidified all of those. I'll add motor vehicles to that now. My question I got one about consumer confidence we just came off one of the record high uh black friday up 9.1 percent. Record high highest ever biggest amount ever purchased in one day yes. [40:03] Which I think counters this narrative of affordability because apparently the Americans are spending money so I want to see how do you view that for a consumer confidence being so high going into christmas and going into next year and I do have one for the auto group after you.
Yeah I just think that we do we have tremendous confidence in the country you know one of the things in terms of confidence when if you go back a year and a half you know it's amazing we're like into ten months already but you go back a little bit before the election because after November 5th it started changing rapidly even though we were running it until January 20th. But when when you look back and you look at the enlistment of soldiers people that wanted to uh join the military the army navy air force marines coast guard it's like booming it's all space force. But we had we had a very very we had the worst recruitment in the history of our country. A year later we have the greatest recruitment in the history we you can't even get in getting in is like getting into a top college that you couldn't get in. The people want to be in the service now and that includes the police and firemen and other things you couldn't hire police you couldn't hire anybody in the army or the navy you couldn't get people in and we now have gone from that to record recruitment we're getting and we're getting high quality people amazing people wanting to be in the military they have a spirit now you know call it what you want but that's part of it but they have great spirit now so it's a great thing go ahead ask your second question.
Okay my second question I've got a lot of close family friends in the automotive business own dealerships all across Southern California they sent me a question to ask you. There's a thing called a mileage blocker that that is installed on vehicles it's a type of computer chip which alters the actual mileage driven on the vehicle so that when you have a leased vehicle that's turned in they're losing thousands of dollars they've got to go chase down these manufacturers. What can we do to track down these manufacturers of this illegal computer chip that's really hurting automotive?
Have you heard about this?
Yes sir they're getting built in China and most of them are come out of uh Great Britain sir. They're being distributed through China to to distributors selling them online through Great Britain yes sir.
Wow that's that's not so good. What do you think?
Yeah. Do Bernie do you know anything about this? It's uh it works on older vehicles and um obviously uh we got to do a better job and keep them out at the border.
Yeah I think it's something we never heard of. Very good. We never heard of it that's pretty good.
Mr. President Mr. President you released video of that first boat strike on September 2nd but not the second video will you release video of that strike so that the American people can see for themselves what happened?