President Trump Participates in a Swearing-In Ceremony for the Secretary of Homeland Security

Mr. President, are you encouraging our allies in the Gulf to be more involved in the Iran operation?

Yeah, I mean, a little bit, but more, more NATO. I think our Gulf allies have been pretty good, to be honest with you. UAE's been hit so hard. They got hit by 1,400 rocket, shot them all out of the air with our great, with our great Patriot missiles. Think of it, they shot 100 missiles at one of our aircraft carriers, the Abraham Lincoln, one of the biggest ships in the world, actually. And out of 101 missiles shot, every single one of them was knocked down in the sea. Think of that. Think of what that means. 101 missiles, highly sophisticated, very fast missiles shot at of 101 all 101 were shot down and now for the most part lie at the bottom of the sea. Pretty amazing, right? Pretty amazing. Our military is amazing, Pete. You know the attack I'm talking about recently. 101 shot, I said 'Wow'. I saw it, you can see we have sort of pretty good equipment that we see. It's called the Red Line. Those red lines were thick, right? I said that's a lot. And then we saw them one by one just get shot. And these guys that do the shooting are the coolest cucumbers ever. You know, most people... you don't have a lot of time. When a missile's going at 2,500 miles an hour, I don't care how far away it is, you don't have a lot of time. But I watch them, I watch them sit down and think, great students, MITs, a lot of MITs, a lot of guys like this, they're not as much into the muscle as they are this one right here. And amazing, just watch them perform under great pressure because they have a matter of seconds to do it. If they don't do it properly, it's a big problem. You know, because these were powerful, these were very powerful missiles coming. And so a lot of people choke. They don't choke, these guys don't choke. They're the best in the world. We have the best in the world. Yeah.

Mr. President, what would be your message today to the TSA agents who have been staying home in recent days amid this impact?

Well, some of them are needing money, you know, because the Democrats cut off their money. I blame the Democrats more than anything else. But some of them, you know, they didn't get paid because they're not funded by the Democrats. This is a Democrat problem. In fact, I actually said to the Senate, why would you, so this is a Democrat problem. I think the polls are showing it's a Democrat problem. And they'll do anything actually to hurt our country so they can try and win the midterms. And if we ever went back to our old policies, we wouldn't have a country left.

If they get a deal, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to fund all but enforcement operations of ICE, to get those TSA agents paid and to open up the rest of the department, would you sign that?

Well, I don't want to comment until I see the deal, but as you know, they're negotiating a deal. I guess they're getting fairly close, but I, I think any deal they make, I'm, I'm pretty much not happy with it. These guys came in, they wouldn't pay people. You know, they had a deal to pay. They had to break their deal. The Democrats broke the deal that we had. It was all done, everything was fine, and then they just said 'Well, we're not going to pay anymore.' And they hurt our country, and at a very difficult time because, you know, we are at as they would say a war. They call it a war, I call it a military operation. A very successful one. Like successful like nobody's ever seen before. Hey, Venezuela was equally as successful as that was, a great, that was a great thing. No, the Democrats had a deal, it was a done deal, and then they said 'Well, we're not going to pay.' And so, they a lot of people suffered over that. And and put our country in danger. Do you have another question? You haven't been here in a while.

Well, on Iran, can you give us any more sense of who exactly in Iran it is either Witkoff, Kushner, or others are speaking with?

Well, you know, look. Yeah, we had, I hate to say this in front of these young people. They're not children, they're I spoke to most of them, they sound like adults to me even though they are sort of children, right? They'll always be your children. But, uh, I hate to say it, but we killed all their leadership. And then they met to choose new leaders and we killed all of them. And now we have a new group, and we can easily do that, but let's see how they turn out. It's we have really regime change, you know. This is a change in the regime, because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems. So this was, I think we can say, Jason, this is regime change, right?

What makes you trust them?

I don't trust anybody. I don't trust you. I mean, that's only because I know you, but if I didn't know you, I'd probably have more trust. But I don't trust anyone. Why do you, why do you say 'What makes you trust?' Do you think I trust them? I don't trust them. Well, then why bother talking to them? Because they're going to make a deal. They're going to make a deal. They did something yesterday that was amazing, actually. They gave us a present, and the present arrived today. And it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money. And I'm not going to tell you what that present is, but it was a very significant prize, and they gave it to us and they said they were going to give it, so that meant one thing to me: we're dealing with the right people.

Is that nuclear related?

No, it wasn't nuclear related. It was oil and gas related. And it was a very nice thing they did, but what it showed me is that we're dealing with the right people. Because, you know, you don't know, because the leadership was killed, all gone. Khamenei, all gone, as the expression goes. The past Supreme Leader. And then the new Supreme Leader was racked up, at a minimum racked up pretty good, and everyone else was gone. And then many of the people in the third tier are gone. But we're dealing with a group of people that I think have turned out and the, the present, the gift they made to us was very significant and they said they were going to do it and it happened. And they're the only ones that could have done it. Jennifer. Yeah, it was related to the flow and to the Strait, yeah, it was.

Are you negotiating on who's going to control the Strait from now on? Are you...

No, we're going to be we can we'll have control of anything we want. Look, if we can end this without more lives being down, without knocking out $10 billion electric plants that are brand new and the apple of their eye, I'd like to be able to do that, you know. But, but we they can't have certain things. I mean, you you know the things. I don't have to go over the list. But again, it starts with no nuclear weapons, and they've agreed to that. There won't be any nuclear weapon, they're not going to have and they're not going to have enrichment, any of those things. But, look, I hate to say that we're in a very good bargaining position, but and I hate to say that they're defenseless because, you know, till that last missile is fired they have little power. But we are in about the best bargaining position, we're way ahead of schedule. And again, they have no navy and they have no Air Force and they have no missile protection and most of their missiles are gone, most of their launches we've killed. You know, we've killed about 82% of their launches. So even if they had a missile they can't launch it. We've been very fast. We have the greatest military in the world, nobody even comes close. We have the best military equipment in the world. Go ahead.

On Saudi Arabia, there's been some reporting that you've been talking to the Crown Prince. Have you been focused on normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel?

What'd you say? Normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Well, no, we have a great relationship with Saudi Arabia. What do you hear with Saudi Arabia? Just hearing that you've been talking and that he has been encouraging you to do certain things related to Iran. Can, can you share? Well, he's a warrior. He does, yeah, he's a warrior. He's fighting with us, by the way. Saudi Arabia's been excellent, and UAE, excellent. And I will tell you, Qatar, incredible. Qatar took a hit, pretty bad hit. Qatar's very close, you know, they essentially you can walk right over the border. Qatar took a hit, they've been great, they've been very strong. Kuwait, they had a little mishap. They shot down three planes with our missiles. Uh, they happened to be our planes. But the pilots made it. Can you imagine the pilots making it? The pilots saw what was coming, and they said 'There's a Patriot, we're not going to escape Patriot,' and they got out of there pretty quick, Pete, right? Pretty amazing that they got out. The three pilots lived, they're fine. In fact, they're flying today.

Was it the Kuwaitis that accidentally fired the missile?

Yeah, it was the Kuwaitis made a mistake. They fired, they thought they were firing at the enemy. It was, as the expression goes, friendly fire. But the pilots are great, they're flying today. Pretty amazing when you think of it. Yeah.

President Trump, on a human level, how hopeful are you that this peace deal will work out? Like as a human, as...

You talking about to end it? Well, I think we're going to end it. I can't tell you for sure. Uh, you know, I don't like to say this. We've won this, this war has been won. The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news. I mean, the New York Times, you read the New York Times, it's like we're not winning a war where they have no navy and they have no Air Force and they have no nothing. And we literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country. They can't do a thing about it. For instance, if I want to take down that power plant, that very big powerful power plant, they can't do a thing about it. It's like 'take me'. That's all they can do. And yet if you read the New York Times or if you watch ABC fake news or NBC fake news, you'd say it's a close battle. It's not a close battle, they're totally defeated. You know, we killed their navy in would you say three days, Pete? Gone. In fact, I was a little upset with Pete. I said 'Why didn't you save the ships? We could have used them,' right? He said it's more fun shooting them down. But the navy was, the navy was wiped out, uh, in a very rapid order. Pretty impressive for you guys, you champion wrestlers, right? When you hear this stuff. But you don't, if you read the news, you don't hear this, you know. You read like 'Oh, they're doing wonderfully.' They're doing terribly. They're wiped out militarily, they are dead. Yeah.

On Ukraine, is there a new sense of a timeline? Do you want to get something done before the midterms?

Well, we'd like to see President Putin and President Zelenskyy sit down and make a deal. I think they're getting close, but I've been saying that for a while. I've settled eight wars. All of them should have been more difficult than this one. This should have been the easiest one. But these are two people that truly hate each other. You'll find out that hatred is not good for making deals. These are people that, they don't like each other very much. Yeah.

I know you said there's a bunch of people from the administration who are negotiating with Iran. There's been reports that the Vice President is leading those negotiations. Is that true?

Well, he's involved in them. JD is involved, and Marco's involved, and Jared Kushner's involved, very smart guy, and and Steve Witkoff, smart guy, is involved. And I'm involved. I'm involved. Why? I'm not going to be so big, 'Oh, I don't want to talk about it, I'm the President of the United States, Tom.' And I'm not going to talk about it. It's beneath me to talk about saving millions of lives, because that's what you're talking about. You're talking about saving millions of lives. If Iran had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it. And if I didn't end the horrible Barack Hussein Obama Iran nuclear deal in my first administration, they would have had a nuclear weapon three or four years ago. They would have used it. I would have never gotten the chance probably to be President, who knows of what, it would have been so devastating. And if we didn't send those beautiful B-2 bombers, they took them off my desk, they were right there. I don't know why. But if we didn't have those the B-2 hit, what was so we obliterated, despite CNN. CNN said 'Well, maybe the word obliteration shouldn't...' no, we obliterated it. Just obliterated their nuclear potential. You would have had them having two weeks after that attack had we not made the attack. They would have had a nuclear weapon, they would have absolutely used it. And they would have used it on the entire Middle East, including Israel. And you know why you see that? Because unexpectedly when this war broke out, unexpectedly they started sending missiles to UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and elsewhere. And nobody thought they were going... were you equally surprised by that, Pete? Pete, do you want to give about a three-minute statement on how we're doing in this, as I call it, military operation? People don't like me using the word war, so I won't. But the Democrats call it a war. Uh, how about a little statement? I think he's done a very good job. Do we agree he's done a great job, Markway? Can we take some of your time?

Well, thank you, Mr. President. Uh, you're spot on. Never in history has a modern military... Iran had a modern military, a modern Navy, a modern Air Force, modern air defenses, leadership, massive bunkers. Never has a modern military been so rapidly and historically obliterated, defeated. From day one with overwhelming firepower. The air campaign that we've conducted, that Israel's conducted alongside us, was one for the history books, truly. And it's because we have a President of the United States that when he sends his warfighters out to fight, he unties their hands to actually go out and close with and destroy the enemy as viciously as possible from moment one. And that's why we see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well. Uh, we're... we negotiate with bombs. You have a choice, as we loiter over the top of Tehran, as the President talked about, about your future. President has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon. The War Department agrees, our job is to ensure that, and so we're keeping our our hand on that throttle as long as as hard as is necessary to ensure the interests of the United States of America are achieved on that battlefield. This is not Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not a President who's interested in in vague end states. He's been very clear with us about what we need to accomplish, creating the conditions for them never to have a nuclear capability, and that's exactly what we're doing in historic fashion. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Pete. Appreciate it, great job. You know, the only two people that were quite disappointed, I don't want to say this, but I have to. I said 'Pete and General Raisin Cain, I think this thing's going to be settled very soon.' Here they go. 'Oh, that's too bad,' right? Pete didn't want it to be settled. It's, these guys are doing a great job. That's a good attitude though, Tom, right? They were not interested in settlement, they were interested in just winning this thing. Yeah, please.

Mr. President, can you just taking things locally, hopefully not doing international affairs for a second. Do you support the construction of the Second Avenue subway in New York City and will your administration...

Wow, that's really from far out of cry. I'm Mr. New York, you know the Second Avenue subway's been under construction for you're a young guy, as longer than you are old, okay? Huh? That's been under construction. I haven't heard about the Second Avenue subway in 20 years. What the hell kind of a question is that? I guess you got to get it finished, they've been they spent trillions of dollars practically. No, they spent more money on that than on anything I think in the history of our city, in New York City, and it's been under construction for a long time. It's very sad, actually. The only thing maybe worse was Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California, his train. I call it his train wreck because it's a wreck. Uh, that's been years. It's, it's literally 30 times over budget. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And it doesn't go to San Francisco and Los Angeles like it was supposed to. They decided to cut it way short because there was no way they could finish it. But it's one of the worst... I've never seen anything like it, other than the worst, the Federal Reserve building for almost $4 billion. A little building that's going to cost a renovation for $4 billion, headed by our highly incompetent head of the Federal Reserve.

Mr. President, would you be open, would you are you hoping to see the Senate pursue reconciliation 2.0 to fund ICE and pass the Save America Act?

Well, we'll see about reconciliation. We're certainly talking about reconciliation. I think, Markwayne, right? Do you want to talk about that for a second? Now that he's working, we can get him to do this, you see?

Thank you. Uh, Lindsey Graham, the chairman where the where the reconciliation will will funnel through, he is committed to making sure we get reconciliation through, if that is in some form uh with funding ICE, uh possibly backfilling from the one big beautiful bill, but also more importantly the Save America Act. Uh, there's a framework that we can do through reconciliation, uh paying for it, put some of the policies that that cost money in. Because there's nothing more important than the Save America Act. I mean, that's what that's what the American people want. There's 80% of the population say they want uh only Americans voting, citizens that are registered to vote, citizens that are have done it the right way. And and I believe that everybody wants an election integrity. So uh fortunately Lindsey Graham has said through uh reconciliation he's willing to put the framework out for that.

And I think that was said so beautifully, so concisely, so well. Your father, that we should let him have the last word. And that was it, that was the last word. Did he do a good job? Are you impressed with your father? Better than anybody in my life. How about me? Don't answer. Don't answer. No, you like your father better, okay. Come here, look at this guy, come here. This guy, don't wrestle him. It was Steele over here. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. I want to thank the family, because without the family, he's not here. You know, it's he's a different person. And that goes especially for Mom, who looks like she's about 22 years old. I don't know, I see these kids, but she looks very young. But it's a great couple. Congratulations to you both. Thank you, thank you Markwayne. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thanks. Come on in. Thank you.