Presidential Cabinet Meeting 12/02/25

Speaker 1 (00:00):

[inaudible 00:00:00].

Donald Trump (00:00):

[inaudible 00:00:02].

Speaker 1 (00:04):

Yeah.

Donald Trump (00:04):

And what is the [inaudible 00:00:05]?

Speaker 1 (00:05):

Yes.

Speaker 3 (00:05):

Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:05):

Sorry about that. Just a [inaudible 00:00:10].

Donald Trump (00:20):

Are you all set? Everybody ready? It's nice to be with you. Welcome to the final cabinet meeting of 2025, a year that will go down as the most consequential and successful first year of any administration. They're saying that, not me. Oh, I say it too, actually. A lot of people are saying it, and a lot of that is thanks to the men and women in the cabinet. The new and improved Cabinet Room, I might add. We took pictures down from the vaults, we have vaults downstairs. We brought the pictures that haven't been exposed to the world for, in many cases, over 100 years, we brought them up and we're using them, as they should be used, but the Cabinet Room looks beautiful, like it should now. The Oval Office looks beautiful, like it should. It was not. It was like the rest of the country, it was in disrepair.

(01:12)
One year ago, our country was dead, and said to me by many leaders, we had a dead country. Now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. It's true. The hottest country anywhere in the world. Think of that. In four long years of the Biden administration, there were just $1 trillion of new investments in the United States. In 10 months, we've secured commitments of over $18 trillion. So they had, in one year, they had less than $1 trillion. That's in a period of four years. Think of it. Four years, they had less than a trillion. In 10 months, we have more than 18 trillion. Is that right, Scott? It's even going to be higher than that.

Scott Bessent (01:54):

It'll be higher by the end of the year, sir.

Donald Trump (01:56):

And going up. And we're waiting for the Supreme Court case, and it's so important and so vital for this country, because we're not only respected again, we're putting out wars by our trade policies, and we're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars, and our country is wealthy again and secure again, and it's part of national security, and I hope that goes well. I think it's very important, but think of the number. We're going to be over $18 trillion in 10 months, which is a record times probably eight or 10 times, I think more than that, for any country. There's never been a country that's had that kind of an investment ever in history. And there's never been a country that's had half of that. It's a tremendous thing that's taking place.

(02:45)
We have companies moving in from all over the world, from Mexico, from Canada, from Europe, from China, from Japan a lot. Toyota's going to spend $ 10 billion, they just announced, on building new plants in this country, our workers. They're going to be our workers. But they're spending a tremendous amount. So, the stock market has set 46 all-time highs. And this last Friday, which is called Black Friday, was the biggest ever online sales that there's ever been, by a lot. More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country. These are the facts we have to get out.

(03:27)
And there's this fake narrative that the Democrats talk about, affordability. They just say the word. It doesn't mean anything to anybody. You just say it. "Affordability." I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. Nobody could afford anything. The prices were massively high. Do you remember when we took over, eggs? You did a great job on that, Madam Secretary. Agriculture, Brooke. Eggs were four, five times higher than they had ever been. They said, "Don't order eggs for Easter at the White House." And we ended up doing it and we got the egg prices way down, lower than what they were before. But the word "affordability" is a con job by the Democrats. They say affordable. I watched the other day, where some very low IQ Congresswoman talked about affordability, affordability, affordability. She had no idea. Their prices were much higher.

(04:25)
As an example, energy, gasoline. We're now at about $2.50 a gallon. We're going to be, I think, at $2 a gallon. We could even crack that at some point. I'd love to do it. And we could do it more easily if we weren't building up the Strategic National Reserves, which Biden emptied out before the election so that he could try and get elected. Meaning he started it, then he got thrown out of the race. Then she took over and she kept it going, and they emptied out these Strategic National Reserves, which are really meant for something else. They're not meant to keep people happy with the gasoline price, they're meant for war. They're meant for problems, big problems. He emptied it out, and then she continued it during the process of trying to get elected. Didn't work out too well for them. And they virtually brought it down to the lowest level, I believe, in history. And it didn't have much of an impact, because the prices were very high. But our prices now for energy, but for gasoline, are really low. Electricity's coming down. And when that comes down, everything comes down.

(05:32)
But the word "affordability" is a Democrat scam. They say it, and then they go onto the next subject, and everyone thinks, "Oh, they had lower prices." No, they had the worst inflation in the history of our country. Now, some people will correct me, because they always love to correct me, even though I'm right about everything. But some people like to correct me and they say 48 years. I say it's not 48 years, it's much more. But they say it's the worst inflation that we've had in 48 years. I say ever. But whether it's 48 years or ever, it's pretty bad. We had the worst inflation that we've ever had.

(06:10)
Since last January, we've stopped inflation in its tracks, and there's still more to do. There's always more to do, but we have it down to a very good level. It's going to go down a little bit further. You want to have a little tiny bit of inflation, otherwise that's not good either. Then you have a thing called deflation, and deflation can be worse than inflation, but we have it almost… We'll soon be at a perfect level, but we inherited the worst inflation.

(06:41)
But we have 20 states that are now selling gasoline at less than the $2.75. Think of that, $2.75. And it was at $5 under Sleepy Joe. Grocery prices are down, with the cost of Thanksgiving turkey this year down 33%. It was 33% lower than under the Biden administration. Egg prices are way down, 86%. Thank you. And mortgage rates, despite the fact that we have an incompetent chairman of the Fed, a real dope, who should reduce rates. I saw even Jamie Dimon said he should be reducing rates. I never saw Jamie Dimon say that. I wonder why he said that? But he really said it, because he's right. But we have a guy that's just a stubborn ox, who probably doesn't like your president, your favorite president. But they're going to be coming down.

(07:43)
We'll be announcing somebody, probably early next year, for the new chairman of the Fed. I talked to Scott about taking the job, but he doesn't want it. You got the greatest job here.

Scott Bessent (07:54):

Yes, sir.

Donald Trump (07:56):

Right? He said, "No, I want to stay, chairman. I want to stay right where we are, Treasury." And I think we're doing really great, aren't we?

Scott Bessent (08:05):

We're doing great, sir, and it's a great team to be part of.

Donald Trump (08:07):

Yeah. No, it's amazing.

(08:09)
Under my executive order to lower prescription drug prices, which I think is the single biggest thing we've ever done that nobody writes about, because you're fake news, I've made unprecedented deals, along with Bobby and Oz and all of the people that work on it, a lot of people, a lot of people that you wouldn't even think work on it, but they do, to slash drug prices by 200%, 300%, 400%, 500%, 600%, 700%, 800%. Nobody's ever heard of it before, because I instituted favored nations, and no nation agreed to do it. And then I said to the nations, "If you're not going to do it, I'm going to charge you 100% tariff, which is more money than we're talking about." And they said, "Sir, we'd love to do it. Please, we would be honored to do it." And they agreed that they would go along with the whole thing.

(09:10)
Nobody thought you could do it because they felt, number one, you couldn't get the drug companies to do it. So, we're paying, as an example, for the… Let's call it the fat drug, the fat drug, F-A-T, for fat people. Anybody use it at the table? Don't ask. But the fat drug was $ 135. Think of that. For certain people, $1,300 for certain countries, $1,300 in New York. So, in New York, it was $1,300, and in London, it was $135. And a friend of mine called me, he said, "What is this? Why is it?" He got used to paying $1,300. Well, now what we have it down to is… Bobby, what's the number? Like $150 or something? We have it down to a low number, don't we?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (09:59):

Yes, sir, we're at-

Donald Trump (09:59):

$150?

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (10:02):

… $125, $ 150.

Donald Trump (10:04):

Think of that. So, we got it down from $1,300 to $125 to $140, depending on various countries. In other words, we're paying the lowest price, tied for the lowest price in the world. People said you could never do that, because you couldn't get the countries to agree to it. I did. Every country agreed to it, because I said, "If you're not going to agree to it, that's okay, I'm going to charge you tariffs." And as soon as I said that, they said, "We agree." And then we had to be a little tough with the drug companies, but they came along. The bigger problem was the countries. The countries just wouldn't go along with it, but they did, every country. So, we have reduced drug prices by 500, 600, 700, 800, 900%, depending on the drug, depending on the company, depending on all of the different factors involved. Nobody's ever even thought of drug reductions like that, price reductions.

(11:02)
And I told you the story that in my first term, I was so proud of myself, because I reduced drugs. It was the first time in 28 years that drug prices were reduced. It was one quarter of 1%, one quarter of 1%. And I was so proud of myself. I said, "It's the first time in 28 years that drug prices went down over the course of a year, over the course of a presidency." One year, one quarter of 1%. I had a news conference, I was so proud. Now I got them down not one quarter of 1%, I got them down 400, 500, 600% and more. And the fake news won't write about it.

(11:41)
And it's going to have a huge impact on healthcare, because a big part of it's buying drugs, buying prescription drugs, drugs. It's going to have a huge positive impact, because Obamacare is a disaster. I said it years ago, and I say it now, and the money should be paid, taken away from the insurance company. Obamacare was made to make the insurance companies rich. Their stocks have gone up 1,000% in a short period of time, because the money goes to the insurance company. I want the money to go to the people, let all the money go to the people, and let the people go out and buy their own healthcare.

(12:21)
And I see on television, people are advertising now, "We will help you buy healthcare. We will go out and help you buy." That's becoming like an industry because of what I said. So, something's going to happen. It's probably not going to be easy, because the Democrats, frankly, they don't want to make a good deal for the people. They just want to make a bad deal for the country, they want to make a bad deal for the Republican Party. But the Republican Party is united.

(12:48)
And I will say that what I would like to do is the money doesn't go… Trillions of dollars get paid to drug companies, and you still have lousy healthcare. Obamacare's horrible healthcare. We want it to go to the people, and then let the people go out and buy their own healthcare, and they'll do great. They'll do great. So, we're negotiating that now with the Democrats.

(13:13)
While congressional Democrats want the largest tax hike in history, I proudly signed the largest tax cuts in American history with the great Big Beautiful Bill. The great Big Beautiful Bill, the biggest piece of legislation ever signed, and that includes the extension of the original Trump tax cuts, but it's the biggest tax cut ever signed, and it includes no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. So, think of that.

(13:46)
And, in addition, if you buy a car, this is great for our car industry, because we have a lot of car plants, we're bringing back the automobile business. 60% of it was stolen because we had incompetent presidents or incompetent trade people, but 60% of it was stolen over the years, and now we're bringing… I think we're bringing it all back. I think we'll be bigger than we've ever been in the auto business. That's not even to mention AI, where we're leading China. We're leading China by a lot. They're not going to catch us. We have to be smart, but if we're smart, they're not going to be able to catch us. They know that. They told me that.

(14:25)
Next year is projected to be the largest tax refund season ever, and we're going to be giving back refunds out of the tariffs, because we've taken in literally trillions of dollars, and we're going to be giving a nice dividend to the people, in addition to reducing debt. As you know, I inherited a lot of debt, but it's peanuts compared to the kind of numbers we're talking about. So, we're going to be making a dividend to the people. And additionally, we're going to be able to reduce debt. And as time goes by over the next two, three, four years, those numbers are going to go up.

(15:02)
And I believe that at some point in the not too distant future, you won't even have income tax to pay, because the money we're taking in is so great, it's so enormous, that you're not going to have income tax to pay. Whether you get rid of it or just keep it around for fun or have it really low, much lower than it is now, but you won't be paying income tax. We've slashed $1 trillion in costly job-killing regulations, saving Americans an estimated $ 2,100 for a family of four. The Biden administration was the exact opposite, but times four. They went up $6,000, we went down $2,100. Think of that.

(15:44)
To bring down energy, electricity, and utility prices, I ended the Green New Scam. They call it the Green New Scam, one of the greatest scams in the history of our country. They talked about global warming and all the crap, and what they've done to this country. What they've done by allowing 25 million people into our country, many of whom are criminals, many of whom… 11,888 are murderers. And we have to get them out, and we're doing it. We're doing it. I think what the job that our law enforcement groups are doing, Kristi, you and Tom and everybody, amazing. What you're doing is amazing.

(16:24)
I terminated the insane electric vehicle mandate. And, look, some people that make electric cars weren't happy with that. But we have to do that, because you have to have a choice, whether it's a gasoline-powered car… And we have so much gasoline. China doesn't have gasoline. We do. And whether it's a hybrid, which really are working really well, the combination of electric and gasoline-driven. But everybody was supposed to, by 2030, everybody had to own an electric car under the Biden stupidity. And not everybody wants to do that. I like electric cars. I like all cars. They're all good, they all have reasons. But you want to be able to go and buy what you want.

(17:14)
I imposed historic tariffs that are now bringing in so much money that we've never… Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And countries that were ripping us off, including allies, but they were ripping us off for years. I won't use the names. I won't mention Japan. I will refuse to mention South Korea. I will not mention names. But they were ripping us off like nobody's ever been ripped off before, and taking horrible advantage of your country. And now we're making a lot of money. We're making a lot of money, because of the tariffs that are pouring in. And it's really national security among everything else. It's national security.

(17:54)
We've also rapidly turned the worst border crisis in world history… I believe we had the worst border ever in history. I don't care if you had a Fourth World country. We allow Third World country in. We would allow Fourth World war countries in also. It doesn't matter. There was never a border that was as bad as our border. We allowed anybody in with no checks, no vetting. So, we've rapidly turned the worst border crisis in world history into the strongest border in the history of our country, and probably one of the strongest borders in the history of the world, because we have nobody coming through. And I want to thank our people, the Border Patrol is so amazing, ICE, and I want to thank the military for the backup, because they're standing right behind them, and that was really nasty for a period of months and now it's no longer nasty. Now they don't even come up. Nobody comes up. It's an easy job. I made your job a lot easier, because they know they're not going to get through.

(18:55)
And we take people in, but they have to come in legally. For six months in a row, zero illegal aliens have been admitted into the United States. You believe that? Zero. We had millions of people coming in a year, millions. Now we have zero for six months, and these are given by radical left people that do the numbers. I mean, they're not doing me any favor. Our net numbers are unbelievable. But we had zero people in the last six months. The legal border crossings along the US-Mexico border have plummeted to the lowest level ever recorded. Ever recorded.

(19:37)
And nobody talks about that anymore. You know what's crazy? They don't talk about it. You think they'd say, "Well, Trump's done a great job on the border. This country is being destroyed by the border." But you always find something new, like, "Is he in good health? Biden was great, but is Trump in good health?" I sit here, I do four news conferences a day. I ask questions from very intelligent lunatics, you people. I give the right answers. There's never a scandal. There's never a problem. I give you answers that solve your little problems. You go back and you can't find anything, but you do stories about, "Biden was in wonderful health." The guy didn't do a news conference for eight months. If I go one day, I had one day where I didn't do a news conference. "There's something wrong with the president!" You people are crazy. I'll let you know when there's something wrong. There will be, some day. That's going to happen to all of us, but right now I think I'm sharper than I was 25 years ago, but who the hell knows?

(20:41)
By the way, I took my physical. I got all As, everything. But they said to me, "Would you like to take a cognitive test?" I said, "Is it hard?" They said, "Yes." I said, "Well, I'm a very smart person. Who was the last president to take one?" "No president has ever agreed to take one, because when you get into the mid questions," meaning 10, question number 10, 11, 12, 28, 30, "they get harder and harder." And they said, "Would you like to do it?" I said, "Well, no reason to do it. Nobody's ever done it. I'll do it, maybe, but there's really no reason." They said, "Sir, the problem is this is Walter Reed Hospital, and that's a military hospital. And that means that things are sort of open. It's not like private, where you have… If you do poorly, probably you'll find out." I said, "I won't do poorly. I'm a smart person, not a stupid person."

(21:48)
And, as the doctor will tell you, I aced it, right, Susie? I aced. I got every question right. And these are tough questions. These are questions that I would say 99% of the people that I'm talking to right now, meaning the people from the fake news, would not do well on those exams. But I'm the only one that took it. I got every single question right. And then I read in The New York Times, "Is Trump sharp?" Trump is sharp, but they're not sharp. That's why they're going out of business, The New York Times. I hear that they're losing so much money, it's ridiculous. They're a bunch of fakers.

(22:25)
But we can never let another thing happen like what happened to us with the fake election, with the rigged election, where a guy like Joe Biden assumes the presidency, because the man was grossly incompetent. And he was incompetent 30 years ago, but he was really incompetent for those last few years, and our country was put in great danger because of it.

(22:48)
So, for six months in a row, we had zero people. Illegal border crossings along the US-Mexico border have plummeted to the lowest level ever, ever, ever. Think of that. And the net benefit to our country is enormous, incalculable. America is strong and respected again. On the world stage, we're really respected. In fact, I went to a NATO, and they were calling me the president of Europe. We're doing very well. We have a lot of respect.

(23:20)
As you know, we have a problem with a war that our people are trying to settle now with Russia and Ukraine. We are not involved in the war monetarily anymore. Biden gave away $350 billion like it was candy. That's a massive amount of money. And much of it in cash, a lot of it in equipment. I don't give away anything. We sell the equipment to NATO. The European nations pay us for the equipment, 100% price, and then they bring it to Ukraine or whatever they do with it. But we're trying to get that settled. I've settled eight wars. This would be the ninth. And our people are over in Russia right now to see if we can get it settled. Not an easy situation, let me tell you. What a mess. It's a war that never would have happened if I were president, not even a chance. And it didn't happen for four years.

(24:12)
We've renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War, and I thought that would be controversial. And frankly, I tell you what, I haven't met one person, there's not one person I've met, that doesn't like it. Think of it. We won World War I, World War II, everything in between, everything before it. And then we said, "Let's change the name." So, we changed it back to what it was, Department of War, and Pete's doing a great job. We ended eight wars, think of that, eight wars, but we're going to do one more, I think. I hope. I hope.

(24:48)
Every time I end a war, they say, "If President Trump ends that war, he's going to get the Nobel Prize." So, I end that war. "Well, he won't get it for that war, but if he ever gets it for the next war!" Now they're saying, "If he ever ends the war with Russia and Ukraine, he's going to get the Nobel Prize!" What about the other eight wars? India, Pakistan, think of all the wars I ended. I should get the Nobel Prize for every war, but I don't want to be greedy. Actually, the woman who got the Nobel Prize said, "You've got to be kidding. Trump deserves the Nobel Prize." And that was very nice of her. I appreciate it, which is true, actually.

(25:29)
But I don't care about that. You know what I care about? I care about death. I care about all the people that are dying. And last month, 27,000 young people died, mostly young people, mostly soldiers, despite some missiles being shot into Kyiv and other places. But think of it, mostly young people, 27,000 people died, between Russia and Ukraine last month. What a shame.

(25:57)
So, we're restoring law and honor to our cities and towns, if you look at what's happened, and I want to pay my deepest respects to those two incredible people from the National Guard in West Virginia, they came from. I spoke to their parents. Sarah is gone. She passed away. She's looking down on us now, and she loves her parents and they loved her. Somebody said, "How are they doing?" I said, "The word is devastated." Doing? How are they going to do? They're devastated. For the rest of their lives, they're going to be devastated. She was an incredible person, highly respected. Top of her class, everything. She was like a perfect human being. 20 years old, just started. She was like a baby. She was so proud, they were giving her a promotion. And she told her parents that she was getting a promotion, and they were so proud of her. Then they get a call that this happened.

(26:54)
And we have one young man who's fighting for his life, he's fighting very hard. I think he's probably doing better than anybody. They said he didn't have a chance. I'll tell you, the one who said he's going to live is his mother. Spoke to his mother. "Sir, he's going to live." I spoke to her very soon after this horrible event took place with the scum that was able to come into our country. I spoke to his mother. "Sir, he's going to be okay, I'm telling you." No doctor thought that. Nobody thought that. He was hit in bad places. And she was so positive, it was incredible. And it's possibly… Right, Pam, right? Possibly right. Boy, it would be amazing. If he lives, it would be amazing. A miracle, actually.

(27:41)
But we're very proud of those two people. We're very proud of the National Guard. We're very proud of our military and our police and our firemen and women. If you go back and take a look a year ago, year and a half ago, it all changed, I think, on November 5th, the day of the election. But you go back before that, you couldn't get people to join the military, Pete, right? They didn't want anything to do with military, they wanted nothing to do with joining the police or the fire. They wanted nothing to do with anything. They had no spirit. The country had no spirit, nothing. And now we just had the highest recruitment in history and we're getting great people. We're getting great people.

(28:29)
And I will say, despite what just happened, Washington, D.C. has become a really safe place. And I guess this lunatic probably was upset that the National Guard is so effective because we were really, really effective, and we are. And Washington, D.C. is now considered a very, very safe city. We had crime numbers a year ago that was so bad. Embarrassment that the city, the capital of this country, could have numbers like that. And Washington now is… I mean, no murders, no this. It's been a miracle.

(29:08)
Also, what happened here, and now we're in Memphis and we're going to New Orleans pretty soon. Over there, the governor called me, he'd like to have us go there. Governor Landry, great guy, great governor. He's asked for help in New Orleans, and we're going to go there in a couple of weeks. And we're doing a real job. Even Chicago's down a little bit because of… We have a minor force there. We could knock it down within four, five weeks. We could bring it down to almost nothing, but we have a governor that's grossly incompetent, and we have a mayor that's even more incompetent than the governor. He's a very low IQ person. And typically, low IQ people don't make good mayors.

(29:50)
So, I want to thank all of our cabinet members. They're high IQ. Let me see, 1, 2… Generally speaking. Couple I'm a little concerned about. No, but I want to thank… We have a great cabinet, an amazing cabinet, amazing people. All of them sort of have become stars. We're getting credit for the good cabinet, actually. And I just want to wish everybody a great holiday.

(30:17)
We've, I think, done a great job with the White House, bringing the White House back. You see the Palm Court that was redone. The Lincoln Bedroom was redone. The Lincoln Bathroom is now gorgeous, like it should have been. It was terrible green tile that was never the way it was supposed to be. It was done in the 1940s, actually, but it was not proper. And we're restoring the White House, just like we're restoring the country, and people are thrilled. But the First Lady's done a beautiful job with the Christmas trees and all the decorations. I see the wreaths on the windows. I've never seen that before on the windows of the White House. And it's four stories high. I said, "How did they get that wreath…" They had people going up in a… A little dangerous. I wouldn't want to do them. But they put them up.

(31:07)
And we have wonderful people working in the White House, and they're really proud to bring the building back, because this building was a little bit like the country. It was mishandled, it was mistreated. And now it's being given love. And we're building one of the great, I think maybe the greatest, ballroom. We needed it. For 150 years, they've been asking. You see the trucks and cranes and excavators in the background. And you hear them, and every time I hear them, I love the sound. To me, I love the sound. I wouldn't say my wife is thrilled. She hears pile drivers in the background all day, all night. They go till 12 o'clock in the evening. Day, night, pile drivers. "Darling, could you turn off the pile drivers?" "Sorry, darling, that's progress." But no, we're doing great. I think it's going to be the finest ballroom ever built. And we're going to have it here. They've wanted it for 150 years, think of that.

(32:03)
So, I will just end by saying I want to thank the cabinet. It's been a great cabinet. Let's think of it, time flies, but this is our last of the year, as I said, and I just think you've done a fantastic job. And we're going to go around the room, we'll go quickly, but we're going to go around the room, and we'll start with Pete, and you'll tell us about some of the achievements. And some of you have achievements that are so big, I don't want you to go through the whole thing, because we don't have time. But we'll start with Pete and then, if you want, we'll take some questions at the end. Please, Pete.

Pete Hegseth (32:34):

Well, thank you, Mr. President. As you said, it has been a historic year at the Department of War. Recruiting and retention over this year are at the most historic levels our country has ever seen. I had a chance to be on a aircraft carrier destroyer over Thanksgiving. The spirit in our ranks since the election, under President Trump, is unprecedented. I've never seen anything like it as a soldier myself in uniform, and I know a lot of you feel the same way. We've ripped out the DEI and the political correctness. It's all merit-based at the department. We're getting back to basics: accountability, training, readiness, lethality, and that's reviving that spirit.

(33:12)
And Mr. President, we're rebuilding the military, historic investments. I just took briefings on the Golden Dome and F-47, next-generation capabilities that are going to make sure that, for generations to come, America has the most powerful, most capable, most lethal military in the world, which you have rebuilt once and we're rebuilding again. And then we're reestablishing deterrence and credibility. If you look at what happened, we deal with, every day, the outcome of what happened in Afghanistan, the debacle under Joe Biden. We just dealt with it in the streets of Washington, D.C. with those two National Guardsmen. And then what happened on October 7th with Hamas, what happened in Ukraine, a war that never would have started under President Trump, we're having to rebuild that. So, whether it's freedom of navigation and taking the fight to the Houthis; whether it's Midnight Hammer, those beautiful B-2s going 37 hours back and forth, undetected, delivering with precision, and Iran not getting nuclear capabilities; Europe and NATO stepping up to 5%; locking down our southwest border, it's been an honor to work with Kristi and Tom and everyone else down there to lock it to zero, operational control of our border.

(34:14)
And then it's getting after and going after narcoterrorists and designated terrorist organizations in our own hemisphere. As I've said, and I'll say again, we've only just begun striking narco boats and putting narcoterrorists at the bottom of the ocean, because they've been poisoning the American people. And Joe Biden tried to approach it with kid gloves and allowed them to come across the border. Cartels take over community, 20 million people, hundreds of thousands of Americans poisoned. And President Trump said, "No, we're taking the gloves off. We're taking the fight to these designated terror organizations." And it's exactly what we're doing. So, we're stopping the drugs, we're striking the boats, we're defeating narcoterrorists, and we're standing-

Donald Trump (34:55):

And Pete, you may say one thing, that drugs coming in through the sea, by

Donald Trump (35:00):

… I see are down 91%. And I don't know who the 9% is.

Pete Hegseth (35:05):

I'm not sure either, sir, because-

Donald Trump (35:06):

… but down 91%, I see.

Pete Hegseth (35:09):

We've had a bit of a pause because it's hard to find boats to strike right now, which is the entire point. Deterrence has to matter, not arrest and hand over and then do it again, the rinse and repeat approach of previous administrations, this is meant to get after that approach. And I will just end by saying, as President Trump always has our back, we always have the back of our commanders who are making decisions in difficult situations that we do in this case and all these strikes, they're making judgment calls and ensuring that they defend the American people. They've done the right things, we'll keep doing that, and we have their backs, Mr. President.

Donald Trump (35:45):

Good job. Thank you very much.

Howard Lutnick (35:49):

So we set out to stop the rip-off of the United States of America. This is about global change of trade. We've been ripped off since 1945 when we set this policy. So we set out, and together with my partners, Jamieson Greer and Scott Bessent, we set out to change that. So we started, the first one was the UK deal. Asymmetric, they pay us 10% and we get charged nothing, that allows us to export, and that began the process. Then we did the biggest, the European Union. 450 million people, $20 trillion economy. They completely opened their borders to us, and we charged them 15%, that makes America $100 billion a year and turns it back to where our economy is the best. And so, it proved that President Trump's trade agenda was the right trade agenda.

(36:45)
Then we go to Japan and Korea. They offer us 750 billion in cash to build in America at the President's direction, and we're going to start, as an example, nuclear. We need to have a nuclear arsenal in America of power, the generation of power. So we're going to build hundreds of billions of dollars, financed by the Japanese and the Koreans, meaning they give us the money, we build it here, and we split the cash flow 50/50. We're going to build ships, $150 billion worth of ships in America, that changes the way things work.

(37:22)
After those trade deals, then you go to how are we going to reshore. Let's start talking about the auto industry. We've been competed against by Koreans, the Japanese, the Europeans were kicking our tail. President Trump changed it. 25% tariffs bring it all home. This year, General Motor stock up 40%, Ford up 34%. And on the same day that we announced we had set all the tariffs, Shawn Fain, the head of the United Auto Workers, called and said, "I can't believe I'm calling a Republican secretary of commerce to tell the President that this is the greatest administration for auto workers in America." Stocks up and auto workers up, that proves that President Trump understands how to take care of the whole ecosystem, both the companies, and more importantly, the people who work there.

(38:20)
Semiconductors, we didn't build any… The Biden CHIPS Act was a $60 billion giveaway. We've now turned that. $300 billion is committed to America, that's going to go up to $750 billion in the next 60 days. And then, you go to pharmaceuticals, 250 billion being invested in America, and then working together with Bobby Kennedy, pounding away on that MFN, working together as a joint team, they're coming to over 250 billion and cutting prices in half. We did the golden share of US deal to make sure that Mon Valley is protected. Intel gave us 10% of the company, make tens of billions of dollars.

(39:02)
And the last thing I will say is a year ago today, I was working on transition with President Trump to build the greatest cabinet ever for the greatest president ever. And I, as I sit here today, I can't be more proud of how you did it, sir. You've created the greatest cabinet. It is a joy to be at this table.

Donald Trump (39:22):

Thank you. One thing we will mention, so they came to see me from Intel and they had a problem, I said, "Look, we'll fix your problem, but I think the United States is entitled to 10% of your company." And the chairman looked at me and he goes," You have a deal." How much money have we made since I made that deal?

Howard Lutnick (39:43):

It's only 40 billion.

Donald Trump (39:45):

40 billion. We made $40 billion. That was, what, three months ago. Does anybody write about it? Nobody writes it about it. That's okay. Mr. Secretary, how are we doing with transportation?

Speaker 4 (39:58):

Well, Mr. President, so just quickly on aviation, many of you have heard that we have an infrastructure made of copper, we have to transition to fiber. The last administration said it was going to take more than 10 years to complete the transition from copper to fiber. They had no plan to actually do it. We have already completed a third of this transition from copper to fiber. Now, it's going to take longer for us to go from analog to digital. By the way, the rest of the world transitioned 20 years ago from analog to digital, we are just going to do that at the FAA right now. But we're buying new radios. We're going to buy new radar. By the way, those radar are going to be made in America, Mr. President. This phase of the operation will be completed by the time you leave office, three years. I do need another $20 billion, Congress, to start the second phase, which is really important, and we'll try to get that done also in that three-year time period, but we need the money, critically important.

(40:57)
With regard to commercial driver's license, I think we've covered a lot the crashes that have taken place around the country. And what we've found is there have been states that have issued commercial driver's license to foreigners, and they've gone through sham schools and they're not safe on American roadways. And so, in partnership with Secretary Noem, we have driven those numbers down. We've got California, Gavin Newsom, to revoke 17,000 unlawfully issued licenses. We've closed down half of the fake schools that give out these fake licenses, all critically important. Governor Tim Waltz of Minnesota gave 33% of these licenses unlawfully. People that should never have a driver's license driving a big rig on American roads, endangering American people, shameful.

(41:49)
We've cleaned up Union Station here in D.C., per your directive. We're going to rebuild Penn Station in New York, we're going to break ground at the end of 2027, get that project operational. And Mr. President, I fly commercially, I fly back by the bathrooms, I don't know why that happens, they put me in the back. We've asked Americans to bring their better selves, to bring civility back to travel, let's say please and thank you. If someone's pregnant on your flight and you're as strong as Pete is, pick up the bag and help her put it in the overhead bin. Let's be nice to each other, is what we've asked, maybe not wear pajamas or slippers on the airplane. And I think it's been received fairly well, I think we can all have a better travel experience when we do that.

(42:39)
And just the last point I'll make is there was a big football game where the Merchant Marine Academy that falls under DOT actually beat the Coast Guard with Kristi Noem, we beat them by one point, and so we're very proud of that. So well done Kings Pointers.

Donald Trump (42:56):

So a little bit in a nutshell, we're rebuilding the air traffic control under Buttigieg, it's supposed to be Buttigieg, another grossly incompetent person getting his bicycle ride to work, and he was just terrible. What they do is they take the fiber optics and they take fiber, trying to hook it into copper, and fiber and copper don't mix, you can't do it. But people knew that for the last 30 years since they started doing the fiber and they spent billions of dollars and it didn't work, and you saw that by the helicopter crash into the plane, you saw that by a lot of things.

(43:41)
So we're doing a brand new air traffic control system, and it's going to be the best and it's going to be from top to bottom, and we have the three top companies in the world bidding on it, and it's going to be one bid and we're going to have one company responsible and it'll be the best system. Look, our skies are safe. Otherwise, we wouldn't let people fly. But we're going to have the safest skies, we're going to have the best system anywhere in the world.

(44:06)
We're also going to rebuild Dulles Airport, because it's not a good airport. It should be a great airport, but it's not a good airport at all, it's a terrible airport. It was incorrectly designed with a good building, actually, it's got a beautiful terminal. Saarinen was the architect, one of the greatest architects in the world at the time, a great architect. And so, they have a great building and a bad airport, but we're going to turn that around and we're going to make Dulles Airport, serving Washington and Virginia, Maryland, et cetera, we're going to make that into something really spectacular. We have an amazing plan for it and other things, but you're doing a really good job, I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (44:47):

The people movers of Dulles, we had a crash recently, so we're going to announce that later today, a request for bids on this. But again, it's not a great airport which we can make great in this administration, Mr. Presley.

Donald Trump (45:01):

We have a design that's amazing for Dulles. It's going to take Dulles and make it a really bad… It was a badly designed airport, we're going to make it into as good as there is in the country. It'll be exciting. Okay, please.

Speaker 5 (45:14):

Well, Mr. President, it's good to be here at this meeting, because in one year, you can look around the table and see the change. And I think one of the biggest changes is how this cabinet works together, and I want to start there. It's often been said, I've found out some things this year that I didn't know, that the department of what was defense, now the Department of War and the Veterans Department had never really communicated. Now, we're fraternal twins, in a way, Pete and I are. He lives better, I'm better looking. But in looking at this, he brings them in, he keeps them for a number of years, up to 20 or longer, and then they come in to what the country has committed to our veterans. And if you don't have both ends working correctly, then recruitments lags, morale lags, and we've been able to work and fix a great deal of that.

(46:01)
I didn't need to change our name, but I did do one thing, I put the veteran back first at the VA, and we did that in one year. How did we do that? We started taking things that have been neglected for a long time and put them back. We had a backlog in which we've dropped over 160,000. We're not talking year-to-year change at the VA, we're talking five, six years. We have to go back five to six years, prior COVID numbers, to see the change of backlogs that are now reduced. We did it in six months instead of the long time it took. In fact, it grew under the Biden administration, it shrank over 160,000 under us. Champion, which is the program we have, is basically back to day-to-day. It was at a terrible state, with delays in claims and everything that's going on, we've got that back.

(46:42)
We're doing things like taking a new look. I have one question that I ask when I go to my hospitals, probably over 170 hospitals, 1,200 clinics, and I ask the people one thing, Ms. President, I say, "What are you doing right now, that if you were just honest and I wasn't standing here, you'd say, 'This is stupid'?" It's been amazing what we've gotten and the feedback that we've had, we've been able to change how we do credentialing, how we do privileging, how we do hiring, we're all working through that, and it has all made a difference for our veterans as we go forward.

(47:09)
C&P exams, for veterans out there listening, this is the one for disability claims where they say, "Well, let me send you to a doctor to make sure." Most of the time, we have that already in the record. We're working now where those could actually be changed where we could just look at the record and not have to send them to the doctor. That's almost a $3 billion savings that we'd collect, and also [inaudible 00:47:27] we're also getting ready to announce here pretty soon a reorganization that's going to bring our hospital system organizationally in line with the 21st century. We are the largest healthcare organization, it's about time we acted like it, Mr. President, you gave that leadership, we're going to do it. And also, one thing, community care contract's getting ready to go out. It's one of the largest contracts in the federal government, but it does exactly what you and I have talked about before, making sure that our veterans can get care in the system or in the community wherever they want it, we're getting ready for that.

(47:52)
Now, I have one thing for all the press who really enjoyed the first of the year, saying, "Oh, they're going to cut all these jobs, 80,000 this, 80,000 at the VA." Mr. President, every success that I just gave you came after the fact, or pretty much after the fact, that we had 30,000 take early retirement. Early retirement, no risks. Although, you reported it is loss and risks, you can't help yourself. 30,000 took the retirement. Every bit of the success that I just told you about came with a reduced workforce, that was a motivated workforce, that said, "How can we take care of veterans?" That's what this cabinet does, that's what we're doing for you, veterans.

Donald Trump (48:27):

Good. And you've got the highest approval rating we've ever had at the VA, so that tells you something. You're doing a great job. Thank you very much. Jamieson, please.

Jamieson Greer (48:37):

There's been some activity on trade this year. For about 75 years, we had a global trading system that was premised on the United States having totally open borders, not just on immigration, but on goods and services, and everyone else generally kept higher tariffs, higher non-tariff barriers, et cetera. Obviously, the outcome is we had a huge trade deficit. You took it head on. You gave all of us who work on the file a lot of leverage. So we spent the past 10 months or whatever we've been doing now just going around the world and flipping the script.

(49:13)
So now, we're in a situation where we've protected our industries, we have the tariffs, and the other countries have decided to take their tariffs down and non-tariff barriers, and we've done it in a very constructive way. We've achieved agreements on reciprocal trade, which are a new kind of trade agreement that's really focused on making sure we have balanced trade. We have reciprocal trade that we're treating each other fairly, and it's been embraced by the international community. It's going to be exciting to see what it's like five years, 10 years from now, because you've changed it, and that's how it's going to be now, and I think you should be commended for it, and we look forward to seeing what comes in the next few years.

Donald Trump (49:54):

Thank you very much. You're doing great. He's doing a great job. Thank you very much. Please.

Speaker 6 (49:56):

Thank you, Mr. President. The last time I was here, I said that the amount of dereg that we had for regulatory was 30-to-one. Since then, it's up to 48-to-one. Your goal had been 10-to-one, which was in excess of six-to-one in the first term. It's actually much higher than that, but I made my team redo the threshold a little bit because it sounded so unbelievable. But the amount of work that's been done with this entire team is astronomical. And another detail in that is that when we propose a rule, some of the biggest ones that you care the most about don't go into that count until they are finalized. So next year, we should be even more eye-popping.

(50:34)
One of those to talk about is the federal acquisitions regulations, which you gave us a charge six months ago to dramatically reduce. In six months, we've lowered it by 25%, 500 pages, 2,700 mandates, which is a third of the mandates, that's going to lead to savings, competition and speed. So probably $40 billion for the agencies and savings over the course of 10 years. When we get up and running, it'll be north of between $200 and $400 billion. Competition, about 45% of government bids only have one bidder, so you got no competition in that situation, that will now change. And then, we're just getting faster, months hopefully will be turned into years, which means you all around this table can buy things that you need quickly and that you have better vendors to come, many of them small businesses, who want to participate in the federal procurement process. So making all sorts of improvements on that front, it's very exciting. Thank you, Mr. President.

Donald Trump (51:39):

[inaudible 00:51:39] regulations, we're cutting them at levels never seen before. And I have the record from the first four years, but we're blowing that record away, so it's been really great. Scott?

Scott Turner (51:51):

Yes, Mr. President. Great to be with everyone. And when you were giving your report, which was fantastic, and I listened to the report of all my colleagues here, and those that will come, it reminds me when I played in the NFL, we had this thing called game film. You know all about film. And we had a saying that said the film don't lie, the film tells the real story. And I hope that the American people, when they watch the film that's going on now and this time in our history, that they will see that America is greater today than it ever has been. And so, I thank you for that, and thank you for giving us good stories that we can tell for the American people.

Donald Trump (52:30):

Scott, we're saving our country.

Scott Turner (52:30):

Yes, sir.

Donald Trump (52:31):

And I don't want to be braggadocious, we're saving our country. Our country was going down and would never have been able to come back. We're saving all of us, but we're saving our country. Go ahead, please.

Scott Turner (52:45):

So at Housing and Urban Development, in keeping with your executive order, sir, in making America's streets safe and beautiful again, we've been very intentional about making public housing in our country safe. And I want people to know, our colleagues know this, but people in America to know that we actually care about people that live in public housing around our country. A lot of public housing is fraught with crime, sex trafficking, drug trafficking, illicit drugs, illegal aliens living in public housing. But we put them on notice to let you know that it's not lost on us, we care about the people, we're paying attention to it and we're going to root out crime in public housing.

(53:23)
We've been very focused on working with the Memphis Safe Task Force, the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, working with Pam and Kristi and others and law enforcement. Our law enforcement is tremendous. Every single night, they go out and they go to public housing to make sure that our people are safe, mothers and children are safe. And so, at HUD, it's a different day, we're running new plays. The film was real bad when I came in, I'm going to be honest. But we are giving the people that live in public housing the assurance that they will be safe.

(53:55)
And we also announced a new crime hotline, sir, that people that live in public housing, if they see criminal activity, if they see illegals living there, if they see drug trafficking, if you see it, if you hear it, report it, don't be afraid. And so, I've worked with our Office of Inspector General, we've set up this crime hotline, and also working with Kristi and the Department of Homeland Security, making sure that everyone that lives inside the public housing is accounted for and that they are American people. And so, I say that and I emphasize that to know that we prioritize American people and American people only.

(54:32)
Lastly, sir, in Atlantic City, we took over the Atlantic City public housing, because the living conditions were deplorable, and they have people that have been living there for three generations and they were being treated very bad. And so, I took it so that we can now give people a safe place to stay. And working with the First Lady in the Foster Youth Initiative has been a great joy for me and our team. So thank you for doing that executive order to make sure that our fostered youth have a safe landing pad and have financial literacy as they age out of the fostered youth system.

(55:11)
And so, you talked about affordability, HUD has supported over one million Americans in home ownership and affordability, and over 560,000 are first-time homebuyers. So I hope that the press will write about that good news, that a million people are able to own a home and to refinance their homes. And so, we are moving our building from D.C. to Alexandria, Virginia. So thank you for your support.

Donald Trump (55:37):

Thank you.

Scott Turner (55:37):

We're going to save the American people about $500 million. So that's my report. Thank you, sir.

Donald Trump (55:42):

Thank you, Scott [inaudible 00:55:43].

Brooke Rollins (55:44):

Well, coming off of Thanksgiving, moving towards Christmas, I think it's the season of Thanksgiving, and two words for me are gratitude and joy. Gratitude to you for, as Howard said, bringing this team together. I say it a lot, but I'll say it again, that this is like family at this point, and I don't know that there's ever been an organization like this, at least a government like this, in the history of our country. These jobs are hard, but the joy every day in getting to fight for America and save the country is the privilege of all of our lifetimes, I believe, so thank you for that.

(56:24)
At US Department of Agriculture, the people's department, Abraham Lincoln launched this department in 1862, but under your leadership, we have finally, again, put farmers and ranchers in rural America first. In the last year, it's no longer DEI, climate change, sending out money based on the color of a farmer's skin. It's now about literally putting farmers back at the center of it. And under the last administration, we talked a lot about affordability, we'll continue to talk about that, but under the Biden administration and the destruction of our economy and the cost of inflation, interest rates for farmers and ranchers went up 73%, labor went up 47%, fertilizer went up, 36%, fuel went up 28%. So when you think about the extreme economic strain that a lot of our farmers are under and our farm economy, these are massive, massive numbers that will take some time to get out from under. But we've already seen the beginnings of the movement toward more affordable food, housing, fuel, et cetera, and that will only continue to trend as we work to solve those issues.

(57:37)
My partners in trade, of course, they do the work, but I'm constantly talking to them about selling more soybeans, selling more corn, getting more of our products out. But when we really think about how to solve for this idea that for so long, our farmers, many of them have been farming for government checks instead of moving their product around the world, these trade deals change that forever. And it isn't one trade deal or two trade deals, it's dozens of trade deals. And so, talking about rural prosperity and bringing the golden age back to rural America, which has been lost for too long, and we're going to focus on that next year, hopefully with our Vice President, many of our cabinet members, but the opportunity to do that under these new trade deals is unprecedented. And so, just putting farmers first, our ranchers first, Mr. President, is such a huge priority and an accomplishment of the last year.

(58:29)
The second quick thing is lawfare, and I know you know this better than anyone in the country. When a government politicizes and weaponizes their power to go after average everyday Americans, well, from you, the top of [inaudible 00:58:43] as president, but all the way down to the ranchers in South Dakota, the Maude family who were facing jail time over a fence line dispute that had been in their family for 130 years, we fixed that. The Henry family in New Jersey who were facing their farm being taken away for imminent domain to give to affordable housing, we fixed that. So being able to completely change the trajectory of private property rights, but especially as it has to do with our farmers and ranchers and our rural communities, changes everything for our country.

(59:15)
And then, the third thing, we have so much great things to talk about at USDA, but the third thing, which became very much a part of the national conversation during the Democrat shutdown, was SNAP reform, food stamp reform. When all of America saw what so many of us know and have been working on, but when you have so much rampant fraud in a program that 42 million Americans participate in, now a big good piece of news that I hope is written about, since you became president, about 800,000 of those 42 million have moved off of food stamps, which is hopefully the plan, with better jobs, higher wages, et cetera.

(59:52)
But still, when we found 186,000 dead people or dead people's Social Security numbers being used, 500,000 people receiving benefits more than twice, we had a couple of people receiving benefits in six states. In February of this year, we asked for all the states, for the first time, to turn over their data to the federal government, to let the USDA partner with them to root out this fraud, to make sure that those who really need food stamps are getting them, but also to ensure that the American taxpayer is protected. 29 states said yes, not surprisingly, the red states, and that's where all of that data, that fraud comes from. But 21 states, including California, New York and Minnesota, the blue states, continue to say no.

(01:00:40)
So as of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer. As Joe Biden was working to buy an election a year ago, he increased food stamp program funding by 40%. So now, we continue to roll that back. So the partnership in making America healthy again is also in food stamps, but a lot of what Bobby and I are doing together is really remarkable. But again, just gratitude and joy for this work and so, so grateful to you.

(01:01:19)
The final thing I'll say, a lot of gratitude to Secretary Marco Rubio for wearing his Aggie Maroon tie as a reflection of Texas A&M beating Florida handily about a month ago. So Marco, I want to thank you, and much gratitude and joy in my heart as well, yes. Thank you so much.

Donald Trump (01:01:42):

We also have to say something about China with one of the largest purchases ever in our country, the soybeans.

Brooke Rollins (01:01:47):

Yes, sir.

Donald Trump (01:01:48):

And so, I want to thank President Xi, we had a great meeting, we were in South Korea, and I went to a lot of other places too, but we met in South Korea. President Xi was great, and China gave us among the largest orders in the history of your world, agriculture.

Brooke Rollins (01:02:04):

That's right. And sir, may I say, this is the remarkable result of real leadership and your real leadership. Just a couple of days ago, China announced that they were going to halt all purchases from Brazil because they had found some irregularities in some of the soybeans they're buying from Brazil. And what that means is a continued signal that this country and our farmers produce the best, highest quality soybeans, sorghum, et cetera, in the world. And what you've been able to do is open those markets up, and again, move toward an era where our farmers are not so reliant on government checks, but they have the markets to sell their product. Having said that, we do have a bridge payment we'll be announcing with you next week as we're still trying to recover from the Biden administration.

Donald Trump (01:02:48):

To help the farmers, we're going to help the farmers. They did not help the farmers.

Brooke Rollins (01:02:52):

That's right.

Donald Trump (01:02:52):

Thank you very much.

Brooke Rollins (01:02:53):

Thank you, sir.

Donald Trump (01:02:54):

Scott?

Scott Bessent (01:02:55):

Mr. President, it's been a great year on the economy, but the best is yet to come. The tens of trillions of dollars that have come in investment, both the portfolio investment, investment by companies, investment by countries, is turning into a CapEx boom for the US. Capital expenditure's up 15%. In history, when CapEx is up, jobs will follow. The One Big, Beautiful Bill is an incredible, as you said, thanks to your leadership, along with Speaker Johnson, Leader Thune, we had that done on July 4th, which everyone said was impossible.

(01:03:34)
And the great thing about that bill, sir, for the American people, it's for industry, 100% expensing, build your factory here, you can write it off immediately, but you also insisted on the four benefits for working people, no tax on tips, no tax in overtime, no tax on Social Security, auto-deductibility for American cars, and that is retroactive. So as a result, in 2026, we are going to see very substantial tax refunds in the first quarter. So the best way to address the affordability crisis is to give Americans more money in their pockets, which is what this bill has done. We're going to see real wage increases. I think next year is going to be a fantastic year, taxes, deregulation, energy certainty, that's why everyone, with your leadership, is coming to America.

(01:04:29)
The bond market had its best year since 2020. Everyone said it couldn't be done. So we're going to have growth. We've had two 4% quarters before the Schumer shutdown, we're going to go back to that. So not only are we going to have great growth, but it's going to be low inflationary growth. And the stock market obviously is following, but next year is going to be the year for Main Street as all this kicks in. And you came in, immigration… I called it the three Is, immigration, interest rates and inflation that were killing the American people. Close the border, promise kept. Interest rates are down, and 10-year bond, again, best year since 2020, and inflation, led by energy prices, is going to roll next year. I think it's going to be a fantastic year. We can look back and be very proud of this year, but I think 2026 is going to be great for the American people, thanks to you.

Donald Trump (01:05:30):

It'll be great. Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President?

JD Vance (01:05:34):

Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to serve with this great team that you've assembled. I just want to pick up on something you said, Mr. President, because you hit the nail on the head, that it is absurd that Democrats talk about an affordability crisis that they created and the people around this table work every single day to address. You'll hear a lot of statistics today, you'll hear a lot of statistics in our political conversation. I think the most important statistic for the American people is that under the Biden administration, the average American family lost over $3,000 of household income, and under the first 10 months of this Trump administration, they have gained over $1,000 of household income. What that says very clearly is that we are fixing the problem that Joe Biden and the Democrats created in the last administration.

(01:06:20)
If you look at every affordability crisis that's confronting the American people today, it is traceable directly to a problem caused by Joe Biden and congressional Democrats. Why did homes get so unaffordable? Because we had 20 million illegal aliens in this country taking homes that ought by right to go to American citizens. Why did tax bills get so unaffordable? Because Democrats were raising taxes while congressional Republicans, under the president's leadership, we're now cutting taxes. Why did food get so expensive? Because we printed trillions of dollars and threw it into green scams that made our agricultural economy suffer while Americans were paying higher prices for food. On every single one of those issues, Mr. President, I think we've made incredible progress.

(01:07:04)
But it would be preposterous to fix every problem caused over the last four years in just 10 months. I think that we've done incredibly good. But what I see over the next year, and you heard Brooke talk about joy and gratitude, what I really think this season represents for me, and I think for the entire administration, is that we have now done incredible work to fix what Joe Biden broke. And I think that next year, in American growth and American prosperity, could be the best year that we've had in the United States of America. It's going to happen because we're all working hard, it's going to happen because we have the greatest country in the world. But I think for congressional Democrats in particular, if they want to talk about affordability, they ought to look in the mirror. We are fixing what they're broken. We're proud to do it, it's the job that we are elected to do. But I think 2026 is going to be the year where this economy really takes off.

Donald Trump (01:07:58):

Thank you very much.

JD Vance (01:07:58):

Thank you, sir.

Donald Trump (01:07:58):

Great. Pam?

Pam Bondi (01:08:01):

President Trump, thank you for talking about Sarah, heartbreaks for her family, and Andy is doing well. His parents, Melody and Jason, wanted me to tell you, and I was with them yesterday in the hospital, he's a miracle. I was there when the surgeons came in, and they wanted you to know this, he's a miracle, and if everyone in this country can continue to pray for that family, he's got a long road ahead of him, but he is a miracle. And of course, our D.C. initiative is led by our… Oh, and the monster will be held accountable who did this.

(01:08:34)
Our marshals, of course, are leading the D.C. Safe effort. We have made over 7,000 arrests at your direction. D.C. is safe again. Working with everyone around this table, Pete and everyone, Scott and I were in Memphis together last week, and everyone… And Bobby, your HHS doctors and medics are on the ground to help people in Memphis and D.C. In Memphis, we've made over 3,500 arrests so far. And Homeland Security, Kristi, you've been instrumental in this. But it's everyone working together as a team. We even have Treasury agents out there, it's unbelievable, on the ground in D.C. and Memphis. Of course, law enforcement first, FBI, Kash Patel has led the FBI. We have a 100% increase in the arrest of violent criminals thanks to your leadership.

(01:09:23)
DEA, led by Terry Cole, over 45 million fentanyl pills, 4,200 kilos of fentanyl powder, that is the equivalent of 347 million potential lethal doses, that's unbelievable, that you've taken off the streets of our country. And the weight of all the drugs combined taken off by DEA is the weight of 17 full semi-trucks of the drugs just since you've been in office, the drugs that had flowed into this country

Pam Bondi (01:10:00):

… under the previous administration. ATF, led by Rob Cekada, has seized more than 31,000 illegal guns. 31,000, unbelievable, at your leadership. 19,000 of those were from trafficking cases. On the legal front now, we have been sued 575 times. 575 times, more than every administration going back to Reagan combined. Most recently, yesterday, I was sued by an immigration judge, who we fired. One of the reasons, she said she was a woman. Last I checked, I was a woman as well. 24 Supreme Court wins, President Trump. 92% success rate. We told you it would take a while to get to the Supreme Court. We're doing it at record speed, led by John Sauer, of course, Sarah, and Hosh all working together. Immigration, we're winning. Nationwide injunctions, ending DEI funding, working to secure that our federal workforce is aligned with your America First Agenda.

(01:11:07)
Representing pretty much everyone in this room, we met with your general counsel yesterday, Doug, working with everyone. It's nonstop. ICE, of course, we're winning there with Kristi. Brooks, SNAP benefits, won there. Marco, USAID. Pete, National Guard, of course, going nonstop. Our US attorneys are fighting violent crime, working around the clock to make America safe again, which was your directive. Our civil rights division, suing Gavin Newsom three times now. Prop. 50, keeping boys out of girls' sports, and in-state tuition for illegal aliens. We've sued over election integrity. We are litigating major universities with Linda. Thank you, our civil rights division, for everything that you've done to end DEI in our schools. Our civil division, fighting sanctuary cities every single day, and of course, our antitrust division with Google. Major settlement. Our attorneys are working on terrorism, TDA, MS-13, Antifa, President Trump.

(01:12:16)
We've charged more than 500 defendants with assault on federal officers thanks to your directive. And also, we have dropped countless cases against Americans that were prosecuted under the Biden administration, including J6, COVID, FACE Act, and more. And as everyone knows, we cannot talk about pending grand jury investigations, but no one is above the law, and that includes what happened in Arctic Frost. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, and happy holidays. Thank you for fighting for our country.

President Trump (01:13:00):

Thank you. Thank you very much. Please, Lori.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer (01:13:00):

Well, thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for allowing me to be at this table. When I came on board, I knew really none of you. In this last year, and it's been a year, Mr. President, since I've had the pleasure to serve this country on the workforce, everybody said the Department of Labor would be quiet, fly under the radar. You won't have to do too much. Absolutely not, because you made the American people realize the American dream is real for the American workforce. And it's been under your leadership, Mr. President, that over two million jobs that has been created since you started have been native-born workers. And that is the difference between this presidency, this administration, as opposed to the Biden administration were mostly foreign-born or federal government jobs. And I think through the private sector, over two million jobs of native born.

(01:13:51)
And so the Labor Department has wasted no time in putting that into action with our Make America Skilled Again either grant dollars… But the intentionality of the apprenticeship program, one million active apprentices across this country. We have done over 250,000 new apprentices so far in the first year, and registered over 2,000 new apprenticeship programs. Why do we need the apprenticeship programs with the men and women in the trades? Because of the leadership of onshoring and reshoring, and have a lot of these companies reinvest in America. We have to build this country. We cannot do that without the tradesmen and women and the craftsmen of this country. And I think that Howard and I, we talked about that from the beginning, and we're going to have to lean in on that, because we need the labor force, 700,000 new skilled jobs, with electricians, construction workers, machinists, and so forth.

(01:14:46)
And as I traveled with the vice president as well, we see that on the manufacturing floors of this country. They're in desperate need. The Department of Labor are going to get the workforce skilled again. Working with Secretary McMahon as we move a lot of the education out to our respective states, we are now working together, and we have deployed $86 million in investments, and a lot of that is in AI infrastructure jobs to have our new workforce proficient and literate in AI, if we're going to continue to lead the AI race. And we're working on that. And the Department of Labor is now creating and will soon launch the AI Infrastructure and Workforce Hub, which we will be able to track that metrics to see exactly if these dollars are going correctly. Integrating education and workforce with… Obviously, Administrator Loeffler and I are on the road a lot together, because we're talking about main street, as well as a lot of the manufacturing jobs, and how we're being an ally to our businesses, as opposed to an adversary.

(01:15:50)
For far too long under the Biden administration, we were adversaries to our business owners, and we want to give them a leg up always and make sure that we're paying attention. And we want our workforce to be educated. We do not need the numbers that we have seen across this country, where our fourth through eighth graders cannot read, write, or do any math, and they are our future workforce. We have to depend on the American worker first. Also, lowering healthcare costs. In line with the executive order, I'm working with Treasury and HHS, and rulemaking is underway to expand healthcare transparency and make pricing more affordable for our employers who offer these to their employees. Promoting retirement security, the department rescinded the Biden administration's guidance that restricted the use of crypto in the retirement investments. And we're seeing more and more of that, where we also rescinded the supplemental statement that discouraged the fiduciaries from considering the alternative assets for 401(k)s. And that will also come through the Department of Labor, that rulemaking.

(01:16:49)
Ending abuse of cheap foreign labor at the expense of the American worker, we launched over 200 investigations into companies who will have abused and are fraudulently against the American worker. So Project Firewall was released. Thank you, Mr. President. We want the trained workforce, but we will root out the fraud and abuse, and we'll protect the American worker first. And slashing the job-killing regulations, the department has rescinded discriminatory DEI practices. And I will tell you reducing compliance costs for businesses, as it was for DEI, has saved American businesses nearly $1 billion this year by just getting rid of DEI for that compliance cost that they've had to do.

(01:17:34)
So, Mr. President, continuing to skill the American worker, the American workforce, is going to be my mission. We have to do it faster. We have to do it quicker. We have to build, so that the American people can realize that American dream that you have laid out so eloquently. And it's an honor to serve under this administration and to talk to the American workers who believe in the American dream again, the pride on their face, the pride of the American worker, the skilled men and women who build with their hands. It's an honor.

President Trump (01:18:03):

Thank you.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer (01:18:03):

So thank you-

President Trump (01:18:03):

Thank you.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer (01:18:03):

… and Merry Christmas.

President Trump (01:18:04):

Very good job. Thank you very much.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer (01:18:05):

Thank you.

President Trump (01:18:05):

Chris?

Chris Wright (01:18:08):

Mr. President, I am honored, and frankly inspired, to sit at this table with this incredible team of leaders that work every day for one and only one constituency, the American people. Not this group or that group, the American people. The price of energy that's very much on the mind of Americans, the biggest determinant of the price of energy is politicians, political leaders, and policies. That's what drives energy prices. Under your leadership, what we've seen in the United States is just a steady drop in the price of gasoline, a huge consumer cost for Americans. As you mentioned early on, well below $3 a gallon right now and trending downwards. There are a number of stations in the heartland of America with $1.99 signs flying today. That's simply impossible without the leadership and changes you've brought. Now, of course, you can go to California, where the average price of gasoline is between 4.50 and $5 a gallon today in California. That's just bad political leaders there and bad policies in California.

President Trump (01:19:20):

And taxes.

Chris Wright (01:19:23):

And taxes.

President Trump (01:19:23):

Taxes they charge on gasoline are just insane, terrible.

Chris Wright (01:19:27):

And electricity prices is a very parallel story, but it's a bigger moving ship. So the changes are a little bit slower, but Americans are outraged at a roughly 30% rise in the average price of electricity across this country. But everything we are doing together is going to reverse that. Not just stop the rises, but start a downward trajectory in electricity prices. And I can say that with confidence, not because we think these policies will work. We know these policies will work, and I'll get to that in a second. We're going to stop closing power plants. We've already done that, of course. Stop closing the coal power plants and natural gas plants that were shut down. We've got over 30 gigawatts of generators just sitting there today, not allowed to run. Well, of course, we're fixing that immediately. We're going to bring on from our existing grid tens of gigawatts more capacity that'll drive down the cost of electricity.

(01:20:21)
But if we look at the last five years to see what works and what doesn't work, the most Trump-aligned policies in the electricity sector were by, no surprise, one of your cabinet members, Secretary Burgum, for eight years governor of North Dakota. Over the last five years, production and demand for electricity in North Dakota grew 35%. Think what data center boom's going to do. And what happened? Electricity prices went down, didn't rise slowly. They actually went down those five years. That's the answer. Trump-aligned energy policies increased demand for electricity. Nebraska and Texas, more Trump-aligned states, had significant gross in demand for electricity. They had electricity price rises, but well below the price of inflation. Unfortunately, Biden brought all of us a lot of inflation.

(01:21:10)
If you look at the other end of the spectrum, California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, I could go on, what happened in those states? Policies and politicians that forced the building of unreliable electricity generation, which requires new infrastructure and transmission lines. And what happened? Today, they produce less electricity than they did five years ago. A lot of spending money and less electricity, what does that mean? Of course, much faster rises in the price of electricity. Blue states have had one and a half times faster rise in electricity prices than red states. Red states alone, less than inflation. We need to bring those policies, you are bringing those policies, to the national level. We hope the blue states will come along with us, but your policies are going to start the decline of electricity prices nationwide under your leadership by just bringing back common sense.

(01:22:09)
So thank you for allowing me to be part of this team. For people here who are focused on winning, special thanks to Howard and Scotty, who were there with me to see the Denver Broncos win on Monday night. Now we want nationwide wins on energy for three more years.

President Trump (01:22:25):

And we're doing more energy production than we've ever done by far right now.

Chris Wright (01:22:29):

Records across the board that will continue to be reset every year you're in office.

President Trump (01:22:34):

Thank you very much.

Kristi Noem (01:22:36):

Well, Mr. President, thank you for giving me a very interesting job. Some days, it's a little controversial too, but it's been an honor to work for you. You are a great American. The fights that you pick are the right fights, and they're always on behalf of this country, so I appreciate the chance to do this job, heading up this department. If you think about what Joe Biden did with the Department of Homeland Security, he used this department to invade the country with terrorists. He opened up the borders, let anybody come in that wanted to. He put them on airplanes. He led them through our airports. If they could figure out a way to get to our shores and in our country, he just opened the door and invited them in.

(01:23:18)
So it's our job to get them out, and I want to thank you for this team, because I look around the table, and I think every single person here has helped me do my job over the last year. They've supported us at the border and given us resources. Marco negotiates all the travel documents and relationships with other countries to take their people home. Two million people have gone home already. The people that were here illegally you've removed from our country and sent home. And we're going to send more home for the holidays too, and make sure that they get to be with their families in their countries.

President Trump (01:23:49):

Mostly [inaudible 01:23:50].

Kristi Noem (01:23:49):

Yes.

President Trump (01:23:49):

Mostly the bad ones.

Kristi Noem (01:23:49):

That's right.

President Trump (01:23:49):

The focus is the bad ones-

Kristi Noem (01:23:49):

That's right.

President Trump (01:23:49):

… and there are a lot of them.

Kristi Noem (01:23:49):

They're terrible, horrible people. And Pam, make sure she's fighting for us in court, so that we can get up every day and be bold. We're going to have higher… Our 10,000th ICE officer will be on the job within 10 days.

President Trump (01:24:09):

Great.

Kristi Noem (01:24:09):

So we have hired 10,000. We've had hundreds of thousands of applications. Within the department, TSA went through this government shutdown without any delays. They all showed up for their shifts and worked hard, doing security, and they have been absolutely fantastic. Sir, you made it through hurricane season without a hurricane.

President Trump (01:24:33):

Yeah, [inaudible 01:24:34].

Kristi Noem (01:24:33):

And so FEMA… Even you kept the hurricanes away, so we appreciate that. And FEMA is deploying resources and dollars 150% faster than ever before. So somebody does have something bad that happens to them, you are immediately there, helping them and telling them they have the resources to get back up on their feet. So we have built and deployed hundreds of miles of border already. You have cut the fentanyl flow over the southern border by over 56%. You've saved hundreds of millions of lives with the cocaine you've blown up in the Caribbean. And you told me to look into Minnesota and their fraud on visas and their programs. 50% of them are fraudulent, which means that that wacko Governor Walz either is an idiot or he did it on purpose. And I think he's both, sir.

(01:25:27)
He brought people in there illegally that never should have been in this country, said they were somebody that they're not. They said they were married to somebody who was their brother or somebody else, fraudulent visa applications, signed up for government programs, took hundreds of billions of dollars from the taxpayers. And we're going to remove them, and we're going to get our money back. And we're going to, this next year, make sure that we only put people in leadership positions in this country that love this country and have its back. So thank you for letting us get up every day and have a purpose. We appreciate it.

President Trump (01:26:00):

Thank you very much. Thanks, Kristi. Appreciate it.

Kelly Loeffler (01:26:04):

Mr. President, you're exactly right. We are saving this country. We're doing it one main street at a time, and we're doing it at record speed and at record levels. Under your leadership, small business optimism, according to the US Chamber Index for Small Businesses, has reached an all-time high in the history of that index. So on main street, the economy is coming back, thanks to your leadership. Thanks to getting Biden inflation under control, small businesses' number one concern right now is finding skilled labor, and that's why Secretary Chavez-DeRemer and I have entered into an MOU to get to speed that workforce to small businesses that, under this administration, are now at record levels. 36 million small businesses have now taken on board for the first time in the SBA's history $100 billion. That's $45 billion in small business lending at 85,000 small businesses, most of that under your term, and 52 billion out to small business investment companies.

(01:27:02)
So we are running this agency like the best-run bank in the country. We are growing small businesses across main street, and we're deregulating to the tune of $100 billion, working with all my fellow cabinet members. And thank you for putting together the best cabinet in history. Iron sharpens iron, and thank you for bringing such a strong leadership group together. And then finally, I have walked factory floors from Alaska to Maine, and the workers, the small businesses… Most manufacturers in this country are small businesses. 600,000 of them, they are so grateful to your fair trade, low inflation, deregulation agenda that is creating national security and economic security in this country like never before. And so I want to also finally thank you for bringing faith back to the White House, to this administration. I want to thank Brooke for hosting the Cabinet Bible Study, and invite everyone tomorrow to Bible study, and making this country something that we can be so proud of under your leadership. And I'm so blessed and honored to be part of this team, so thank you, Mr. President.

President Trump (01:28:06):

Thank you, Kelly. Thank you very much.

Tulsi Gabbard (01:28:08):

Thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership. I am truly grateful to be a member of your team here at this table to help support you in delivering on the promises that you made to the American people. You came in with a very clear mandate of taking on the rampant weaponization, politicization of the intelligence community and federal law enforcement, experiencing yourself the deep state abusing their power as they have against you, your family, and so many of the American people, bringing out accountability, truly, for those who have abused their power, making sure that the intelligence community is supporting your efforts and keeping the American people safe, secure, and free, and being the president of peace. I'm grateful to be in this position as your Director of National Intelligence to support you in these efforts, and I'll cover very briefly what we've done over the last year under your leadership and what we look forward to continuing to focus on next year.

(01:29:06)
First of all, under your leadership, again, we've taken on a historic effort for transparency, declassification, and exposing these abuses of power by these deep state actors. We've declassified over half a million documents, many of which had never been seen before by the American people, put them online to bring about this level of transparency. We formed a weaponization working group again to be able to go after a lot of these abuses of power that have never seen the light of day to support the accountability that, under Pam Bondi's leadership and the Department of Justice, is coming about. Secondly, bringing about reform to the intelligence community to make sure that we have the most effective and efficient and focused workforce that's really working on bringing about the priorities you have laid out in ensuring our country's security.

(01:29:57)
And lastly, Mr. President, working with many of our partners here around the table is going after these domestic threats. We have threats coming from both Islamist ideology as well as Islamist terrorists, foreign terrorist organizations, and those who seek to do harm to the American people, many of whom were let in across our borders under the previous administration. We are focused on these tasks and this imperative for the American people, and just appreciate your leadership, Mr. President, in empowering us to be able to conduct this service. Merry Christmas.

President Trump (01:30:31):

Thank you very much. Merry Christmas. That's right. Merry Christmas. Say it loud and clear. Lee?

Lee Zeldin (01:30:38):

Mr. President, your team at the Trump EPA has been crushing it all year to fix the big mess that we inherited and deliver amazing results for the American people. I've had the opportunity to visit all 50 states since confirmation earlier this year, and to hear from real people where they meet, where they live, and to bring their great ideas and their asks back to us to be able to deliver for them. At the Trump EPA, we have proven that you can both protect the environment and grow the economy. On the environmental front, since you were sworn in earlier this year, we have averaged a big environmental accomplishment every single day. On the 100th day, the 200th day, the 300th day of your presidency, each time we released a list of our top 100 environmental accomplishments. That has included a historic LA wildfire cleanup that you ordered us to complete in record time, which we did.

(01:31:42)
And the Army Corps, under the leadership of our great secretary of war, did their part as well. The federal government completely did all of the work needed to allow these residents and businesses to be able to rebuild the poor leadership at the local and state level, unfortunately still resulting in these property owners unable to rebuild this wrong. We also were able to reach an agreement with Mexico to be able to implement a plan to permanently end a decades-old raw sewage crisis on the southern border with Mexico. And Secretary Rubio and his team, Chris Landau, Ambassador Johnson, they've been amazing to get that done.

(01:32:25)
On the deregulatory front, we have proudly launched a massive blitz that amounts to the largest deregulatory effort by any agency in the history of the United States. To put some perspective on it, in one year at one agency, we will do more deregulation than entire presidencies have done across all agencies. It's incredible. You could go back across four-year terms, eight-year terms. You've never seen this much deregulation in one agency, one year. In fact, when finalized, the proposed rescission of the 2009 Obama EPA endangerment finding amounts to the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States of America. From fixing the agency's definition of waters of the United States, which is important for our farmers or ranchers and other landowners, to the effort to end electric vehicle mandates and promote consumer choice, eliminating regulations designed to eliminate entire sectors of our energy economy, we're thinking big, and we're delivering big. We have reduced terrible deratements on diesel exhaust fluid systems. We're getting water moving faster, new pipelines, and power plants built, and we are helping to unleash energy dominance.

(01:33:46)
Mr. President, on the operational front, we have significantly reduced the size of the agency workforce, and we are accomplishing more with less. It's all about priorities, and our focus is on fulfilling our statutory obligations, helping to fast track project approvals that were taking way too long, and closely following the law, as well as key Supreme Court decisions like Loper Bright that overturned the Chevron doctrine. We inherited massive backlogs that we have been eliminating all year long. We've been implementing your executive order to end COVID-era remote work. We consolidated real estate, canceled expensive media subscriptions, and closed a Biden EPA museum that none of you knew even existed and I'm sure none of you actually visited. To put it another way, in 2024, the Biden EPA obligated and spent over $60 billion in one year, an agency with an operational budget of about $10 billion a year. In their own words, caught on camera, they were tossing gold bars off the Titanic, wasting precious tax dollars to pay off well-connected Obama and Biden officials, and they were doing it without any apology or regret. The Biden EPA, in fact, was amending grant agreements just days before you came into office to reduce agency oversight. But this year, 2025, at the Trump EPA, similar theme that you'll hear from everyone around this table. With our actions canceling wasteful grants and implementing other measures just mentioned, we have saved $30 billion. They spent over 60 billion. We have saved over 30 billion. The bottom line, by the way, is that the Green New Scam is dead. It's a new day at the EPA, where we will protect the environment and grow the economy. We will deliver on the Trump mandate every day, and we will fight with just one constituency front of mind, and that is the American people. Thank you, Mr. President, for being willing to take a bullet for this country.

(01:35:57)
And if you were to ask me what I'm grateful for, whether it's a Thanksgiving, it's a Christmas, a Hanukkah, a New Year's, anytime of year… the fact that this president, after four years serving in office, he could have just left it in the rearview mirror and went on to really enjoy retirement, but he is willing to take a bullet for all of you tuning in at home, because he believes in his flag, our freedom, our liberties, and to save the greatest country in the history of the world. So I'm grateful this holiday season for you, Mr. President. You're willing to take a bullet for all of us. And by all of us, it's the American public.

President Trump (01:36:29):

Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.

Linda McMahon (01:36:34):

Mr. President. Good morning, everyone. Well, in spite of the fact that your charge to me is to fire myself, we've really been incredibly hard at work, making sure that we can return education to the states. And as I sit and listen to all the emergencies that we are addressing in this country, from the economy to our borders to everything that we're doing, I would say, sir, that if we do not fix education in our country with this hard reset that you are expecting, I think the greatest national emergency we could face is our education, because if we are not going to educate our children, we're going to continue to fall behind the rest of the world.

(01:37:21)
When there are only 30% of 12th graders, eighth graders, and fourth graders that can read at proficiency level, that is an incredibly harsh statement to make about our country. And you told me when you first were elected president and you looked at… I think right after you took office, the first NAEP scores, which is Nation's Report Card, came out and showed how far down we were in educational proficiency in our country. And not only the NAEP scores, but the international scores as well showed us about third from the bottom. You told me you were not only embarrassed, but you were angry about this, and that we had to do something to change this in our country. And we took a hard look at it, and you absolutely said the bureaucracy of education in Washington is keeping its thumb on preventing growth that we should have, because it's best handled at the state level, letting states put their programs in place.

(01:38:22)
And some states are going to do it a lot better than others, but it's not going to happen from Washington DC. And when I hear things like… Well, with no disrespect to any other country in the world that have really great programs, Germany, Sweden, Norway, hear about this all the time, point of fact is they're this big. The United States is this big. We can't do it from Washington DC. It has to be done at the state level. So what we've been doing… As Lori brought up, Secretary of Labor brought up, we have a great working relationship. We have already signed and implemented one MOU or interagency agreement to handle the WIOA program and the Perkins grants to make sure it works. These are our programs, pilot programs that we're putting out there. And if these are going to work, we will be able to permanently transfer these programs to other agencies. They're working like a charm. We've taken some of our best people in education.

(01:39:27)
It still operates under the budget of the Department of Education and under the management of the Department of Education, but working with Lori's personnel. And when I hear pushback on that to say, "Well, how can this possibly work, to take Education and put it in Labor," let's be efficient. One example. In order to draw down on a lot of the grants that they are helping us with, we're using their grant system. The grant system at Department of Education is like held together with bubble gum and rubber bands, and it did not interact with any other agency. Now, we have this really smooth operation already in Labor. So that has prompted us to sign also other interagency agreements, two more with Labor, one with HHS, one with the Department of State, and we'll be moving other programs, but these are proof of concept. Let's make sure they're working and working smoothly before we ask Congress to codify these permanent moves.

(01:40:27)
So that's in the world of K-12, what we're looking at right now. But in the world of higher education, as Attorney General Bondi mentioned, we've been working really very hard to make sure that we've got antisemitism and DEI out of our universities, and put some pretty stiff fines on, worked some good deals. I enjoy working with Harmeet, who just is an incredible negotiator. So we're bringing all of that to bear as well. So I can say, sir, that we are moving to return education to the states and to bring the level of education back up, making sure our students can read by reintroducing the science of reading in schools. And going into next year, I can honestly say we've got a lean, mean machine operating at the Department of Education. So only half the workforce when we started, and we're more efficient, and I think we're going to see better results as we move into next year. So thank you for this-

President Trump (01:41:27):

Thank you.

Linda McMahon (01:41:27):

… incredible opportunity.

President Trump (01:41:29):

Thank you very much.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (01:41:30):

Thank you, Mr. President, during this holiday season for empowering us at HHS, me, Dr. Makary, Jay Bhattacharya, and Dr. Oz, to change the trajectory of this agency towards public health and away from the tradition of serving the mercantile interests of the medical industrial complex and the big pharmaceutical companies. Two weeks ago, we ended, under your leadership, a 20-year war on women by removing the black box warnings from hormone replacement therapy. The medical cartel was telling women that hormone replacement therapy during menopause was dangerous for them.

(01:42:14)
In fact, here's what the science said. It diminishes the risk of fatal heart attacks by 25%, cardiac disease by 50%, Alzheimer's by 35%, bone fractures by 50 to 60%. It improves appetite, it improves sleep, it improves energy, it improves happiness. There are tens of millions of women in this country who've been deprived of that therapy because of scientific malpractice by the medical cartel. We are now remedying that, and this remedy will now be available to all women who want it during one of the most difficult transitions of their lives. MFN is one of our greatest accomplishments that would not have happened without you. You were the only person who believed in it. You drove us to get it done. We've now made agreements with the five biggest pharmaceutical companies. We have 12 more in the lineup to make agreements. By the time this administration leaves office, 95% of the drugs in this country will be… We will have the lowest price of any nation in the developed world.

(01:43:28)
Americans are already getting the benefits from these. These companies are already lowering these prices dramatically, as you notice. And then this week, Howard at Department of Commerce and Jamieson at the US Trade Representative made a bargain with Great Britain to raise their drug prices in conformance with your promise that the Europeans would raise theirs to counterbalance us lowering ours, and therefore we would keep intact the ecosystem of innovation and protect innovation. So congratulations on that, Mr. President. When you first asked me to take this job, one of the first contacts we made was with a leading health economics professor at Harvard. And we asked him what's the one innovation that we could do that would most dramatically improve the healthcare experience for the average American, and he said, "There's no contest. It's to get rid of prior authorization." Thanks to your leadership, we were able to convene the largest insurance companies in this country and do something that every administration, every Congress has promised for the past 30 years.

(01:44:50)
We actually got it done. We convened the insurance companies, representing 280 million Americans, and got them to agree, most of them by January of 2026,

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (01:45:00):

2026 for two months from now, remove prior authorization for most of their procedures, for all the procedures we want them removed from. And that means that American patients at the point of care will be able to get an answer immediately. If your doctor says you need knee surgery, you will know before you leave that doctor's office whether your insurance company will pay for it or not.

(01:45:26)
Similarly, healthcare records, the tech industry has refused to share healthcare records. You asked us to change that. We convened the 60 biggest tech companies at a conference that you presided over about two months ago.

(01:45:48)
We now did a secondary conference which 400 leading companies all come in and agreed to remove any kind of blockages where individual Americans could get their own healthcare. Americans own their healthcare records, yet they were not able to access them.

(01:46:06)
And if you lived in New Jersey and you moved to Oregon and you got injured, you went to a hospital, you would have to spend maybe 45 minutes filling out forms on a clipboard because your doctors there could not get your healthcare records. They couldn't get your blood type, your allergies, all the things that they ought to know immediately so they can save your life.

(01:46:28)
Now that is all changed and all these companies have agreed to remove all the blocks on sharing healthcare records. Every American will have their healthcare records available on their cell phones. And it's already happening in the last six months. There have been over a hundred times the number of healthcare records shared by hospitals and during the entire previous administration.

(01:46:54)
On deregulation, HHS Bradley is now leading the pack. And thank you for your help on that, Russ. But today, we announced the retraction, the revocation of the Nursing Home Rule, which was overburdening rural areas across this country, Indian reservations, with regulations that were going to destroy the nursing home industry in those communities. And that is going to be a $25 billion savings.

(01:47:30)
Those are some of the things that we're doing because of your leadership, President Trump. Thank you so much and Merry Christmas to you.

Donald Trump (01:47:36):

Thank you, Bobby. Very much. Great job.

Secretary Burgum (01:47:39):

Well, Mr. President, you've assembled an incredibly talented group here. If you took a look at this group compared to any Fortune 500 leadership team, any group of startup folks, I mean, this is an amazing group and the breadth of what's being accomplished.

(01:47:53)
And the timing couldn't be better because with your leadership and vision, you've set us up for this age of abundance as we head into next year, the 250th anniversary of this country. And what are we heading into that year?

(01:48:05)
As we've talked around the table, you've heard about massively lower taxes, massively lower regulation, abundant energy, record capital investment coming in, job growth. I mean, we are set up to really have something to celebrate next year.

(01:48:20)
And I just, again, want to say thank you to everybody around the table. You gave us one big assignment at Interior. Of course, Interior, the largest balance sheet in the world.

(01:48:28)
In the Department of Interior, if it was a standalone company, 500 million acres of surface, 700 million acres of subsurface, over three billion of offshore from Guam to the Virgin Islands.

(01:48:38)
And you said we had to take care of that balance sheet. We got to develop those resources. And what have we done across that? Producing record amounts of oil, record amounts of gas.

(01:48:48)
And, again, we set out with a gold energy diplomacy, sell energy to our friends and allies. We're exporting a record amount of energy to all of our friends and allies around the world, that's helping do that.

(01:48:59)
And you're giving a gift to America as we head into this. You're giving us peace abroad and you're giving us prosperity at home. That bodes so well for our country.

(01:49:09)
One small little gift that we're giving all Americans from one teeny part of Interior, which is the national parks, is that not only are we keeping prices low for all American citizens, offering 10 free days for our national parks next year to coincide with our holidays, but also $100 surcharge for non-residents. That is going to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for helping restore and preserve all of our best parks.

(01:49:35)
So, as we close out with it, I want to also say a big celebration going on here in Washington DC. We've been thrilled to be part of the National Park Service, the US Park Police. Part of this great effort across a number of us on making DC safe and beautiful.

(01:49:49)
This will be the safest, most beautiful capital in the world. We are doing so many things, whether it's hundreds of homeless camps, thousands of graffiti sites, cleaning up ponds and fountains, preparing this thing. The United States is never going to be performing better economically. It's never going to be looking better, just like the White House has never looked better, all because of your vision and leadership.

(01:50:11)
So, again, thank you, sir. You've given an incredible Christmas gift to Americans by setting us up for an incredible 250th anniversary.

Donald Trump (01:50:20):

That's very nice. Thank you, Doug, very much. Marco?

Secretary Rubio (01:50:23):

Well, thank you, Mr. President. First of all, this is a very talented team as you've seen and as you know, because you picked every single one that's on, you deserve to manage credit for doing that. It's an honor to be in this role.

(01:50:31)
It's also an honor to be involved in and be a witness to what I believe is the most transformational year in American foreign policy since the end of the Second World War, at least. And it's transformational because for the first time in a long time, we have a President who basically puts America at the forefront of every decision we make in our relations with the world.

(01:50:51)
And that may sound weird to people like, of course you always do. No, that hasn't always been the case until about a year ago. And I think we've all witnessed in our own respective spaces how in every interaction the President has with the world, the goal he has in mind is very simple.

(01:51:06)
Does what you want us to do or is it going to make us stronger? Is it going to make us richer? Is it going to make us safer? If it is, he's for it. If it's not, he's against it.

(01:51:15)
If something's going to make America weaker, or poorer, or less safe, the President's going to be against it. And every single thing he has done in our foreign policy has been driven by the American people in mind.

(01:51:26)
And I can go down the list. Why has he focused on mass migration? It's very simple because no country is safe if you can just walk in without us knowing who you are into your country. We've seen the destruction that that's wreaking, not just in our own country, but the impact that it's having in Europe and in many other parts of the world.

(01:51:42)
You talk about trade deals and the trade situations we've been involved in. People, all this reporting on it. It's very simple. The President views the last 40 years as an era of which American and American workers and American farmers have been ripped off. They've been ripped off.

(01:51:56)
And what he's saying is we want to have a trade with the world, but it has to be a trade in which American businesses and American workers and the products they make, and what American farmers grow and produce has a fair shot to be sold around the world.

(01:52:08)
On issue after issue, that's been the case. You talk about foreign aid reforms. This is not our money. This is taxpayer money.

(01:52:15)
When the President says, "We're going to do foreign aid, but we're going to do foreign aid for countries that are aligned with the United States, and in a way that doesn't waste the taxpayer's money." Mr. President, you deserve tremendous credit for that.

(01:52:25)
Many of us, the Vice-President, by the way, I want to acknowledge, has played an extraordinary role in our foreign policy and he, too, has been a witness to all of this as it's been occurring and he's been a big part of it, as well.

(01:52:34)
You talk about NATO. President's not against NATO. He went to NATO and basically said, "Look, you guys, we're paying all the money." And he got them to do the 5% commitment, which everybody said was never going to happen. It was impossible.

(01:52:45)
Everything this President does is driven by the American people. You don't have to agree with the actual move, but understand the motivation. The motivation is always you, the American people, and what's good for you, for your family, for the country, and for our economy. But the President is also committed to peace in a way that all of us have seen. He achieved in Gaza, and he does it, by the way, not just because he hates war and he thinks wars are a waste of money and lives, but because he's the only leader in the world that can.

(01:53:13)
No other leader in the world could have pulled off what happened in Gaza. And I can tell you, I can't get into the details. The Vice-President knows what I'm talking about. That deal doesn't happen without the President's direct interaction with the leaders that were involved in this decision making.

(01:53:26)
And everyone said that deal couldn't hold. And then the President shepherded through the United Nations, of all places, to get a global coalition of countries that line up behind the peace deal, behind the board of peace, and it's still not, every day is a challenge, but it's been driven personally by the President.

(01:53:40)
It's the reason why we're involved in this whole Ukraine/Russia conflict. That's not our war. It's not the President's war. This war started, it never would have happened if you've been President. But this war is going on and the President is trying to end it, not because…

(01:53:52)
Listen, we got a million things to focus on in the world as a country, but he's the only leader in the world that can help end it. And that's why even as we speak to you now, Steve Witkoff is in Moscow trying to find a way to end this war to save lives of eight, 9,000 people, Mr. President, as you well know, are dying every week.

(01:54:09)
More people are dying a week in that war than have died in the entirety of the US's involvement in Afghanistan or Iraq. Just think about that, how bloody and destructive it is.

(01:54:18)
The President's taken on this issue of Sudan, personally, not send out deputies to do it. Again, far away from the United States, because he's the only leader in the world that can bring it about to an end. Not to mention all the other peace deals, very dangerous ones like India and Pakistan, or Cambodia and Thailand.

(01:54:35)
And so, on all these things, Mr. President, I think you deserve tremendous credit for the transformational aspect of our foreign policy. For the first time in probably four decades, the American foreign policy is driven by what is good for America and Americans, whether it makes us safer and stronger and more prosperous. If it is, he's for it. If it doesn't, he's against it. And that sort of clarity is transformational.

(01:54:56)
I close with this and I know I'm last, so I wanted to be fast, but there was a lot to cover. I do want to say this is the most wonderful and magical time of the year. By that, of course, I'm referring to the college football playoffs.

(01:55:07)
And I just want to say as a point of personal privilege, and I'm a Florida Gator, but if the University of Miami gets screwed out of the college football playoffs after going 10 and 2 and beating Notre Dame, the whole thing should be scrapped and you're going to have to take over it next year, Mr. President.

Donald Trump (01:55:23):

That's great.

Speaker 10 (01:55:23):

Amen.

Donald Trump (01:55:24):

Thank you all very much. I hope it wasn't too long, but it was very concise. And we've done a lot. This group has done a lot.

(01:55:35)
Everyone, everybody at this table has done a fantastic… And Susie, thank you for doing a great job as our Chief of Staff. First female Chief of Staff in the history of our country, which is pretty amazing when you think of it, right? And she's the best. Thank you very much. Great job.

(01:55:58)
So after that, do you want to ask any questions?

Speaker 7 (01:56:05):

Mr. President, there's been a lot of speculation about who the next Fed Chairman could possibly be. You said you have somebody in mind. How many names were you given on the final list? And does that person currently work on the Board at Federal Reserve?

Donald Trump (01:56:17):

Well, I'd say that we probably looked at 10. And Scott interviewed some people that I didn't know, but he knew. And a lot of people were involved in the process, actually, and Howard was involved. But I think we probably looked at 10 and we have it down to one.

Speaker 7 (01:56:39):

I want to ask you about Elon Musk, if I could. You talked about Elon Musk, you had him in dinner here in the White House. Is he now back in your circle of friends?

Donald Trump (01:56:46):

Well, I really don't know. I mean, I like Elon a lot. He really helped during the election with his endorsement and he felt strongly.

(01:56:55)
We had one problem. I didn't want to have everybody have to have an electric car and he makes electric cars. And, yeah, I think we get along well.

Speaker 7 (01:57:05):

Yeah. When you talk about affordability, going forward, are the American people, do you believe, getting impatient with the reforms that you're making? They've talked about, it's about-

Donald Trump (01:57:23):

I think they're getting fake news from guys like you. Look, affordability is a hoax that was started by Democrats who caused the problem of pricing and they didn't end it. Look, they lost in a landslide. We won every swing state. We won the popular vote. We won everything.

(01:57:41)
You take a look at districts, it was 2,750 to 500 or 525. Because that was an affordability problem. We brought it down. Look at energy. Look at the gasoline price. That's like the simplest. And it's the biggest because if energy comes down, everything comes down. That's the way it works.

(01:58:03)
We're going to be at 2.50, you said 1.99 in some places of the country, right? You said it. I didn't say. And they won't check you. They'll check me.

(01:58:13)
So I'd like to use your number. 1.99 a gallon. Unthinkable. If you go back a year and a half ago, it's unthinkable.

(01:58:23)
So, now we're bringing the prices down, way down. Beef is coming down now. We've done certain magic and beef is coming down.

(01:58:33)
But we inherited horrible prices. We inherited really the worst, again, the worst inflation in history. We inherited that. When I came in, that's what he had. And we fixed inflation and we fixed almost everything, if you want to know the truth, including eight wars. We got one to go, but including eight wars.

(01:58:56)
But when they always say, what's today, where they have a race going on right now in Tennessee? And this woman goes, "Affordability, affordability." They're the ones who caused the problem. The prices were way high. We're bringing the prices down.

(01:59:10)
But they're like scam artists. They're con, I call them con men and women. They come out, they say affordability like, "Oh, I see price."

(01:59:20)
We're going to get prices down still further. But we brought them down from the prices they cost. The reason that they had the highest inflation in the history of our country is because they had the highest prices. But we brought them down and now we have normal inflation.

Speaker 8 (01:59:36):

Mr. President, thank you so much for taking questions with your assembled cabinet.

Donald Trump (01:59:41):

Thank you. Sure.

Speaker 8 (01:59:41):

I wanted to clarify something that you had said on Sunday regarding the boat strikes near Venezuela. You had said that you didn't know if the second strike on that one boat had happened, but you wouldn't have wanted it.

(01:59:51)
Now that your administration has acknowledged that it happened, do you support that second strike? And Mr. Secretary, I wanted to clarify something you had said in an interview back in September, I believe, on Fox News.

(02:00:02)
You said that you had watched that strike live on television. In real time, did you know that there were survivors after the initial strike?

Donald Trump (02:00:10):

Well, look, all I know is this, every boat that you see get blown up, we save 25,000 on average lives, 25,000 lives. They've been sending enough of this horrible fentanyl and other things like cocaine and other things.

(02:00:26)
But fentanyl right now is the leader of the pack to kill our entire nation because a little speck on the head of a pin can kill somebody. It's very dangerous stuff. I know so many people with their sons were drug addicts. They had one little sample and they died. They died. They couldn't believe it.

(02:00:47)
As far as the attack is concerned, I still haven't gotten a lot of information because I rely on Pete. But to me, it was an attack. It wasn't one strike, two strikes, three strikes.

(02:00:58)
Somebody asked me a question about the second strike. I didn't know about the second strike. I didn't know anything about people. I wasn't involved in it. I knew they took out a boat.

(02:01:06)
But I would say this, they had a strike. I hear the gentleman that was in charge of that is extraordinary, extraordinary personal. Let Pete speak about him, but Pete was satisfied. Pete didn't know about second attack having to do with two people. And I guess Pete would have to speak to it.

(02:01:28)
I can say this. I want those boats taken out. And if we have to, we'll attack on land, also, just like we attack on sea. And there's very little coming in by sea. I think we've knocked out over 90% of it. There's very little… And I understand that. There's very little.

(02:01:42)
We're saving hundreds of thousands of lives with those pinpoint attacks. It's an amazing thing when you see a boat going along. And a lot of the press would like to say they're not… You see the boat. They're not maybe drugs. You see these boats.

(02:01:56)
First of all, who has five engines on the back of a boat going in weird directions and loaded up with lots of white containers? They're bags of things.

(02:02:10)
No, they've done an amazing job. And Pete has done an amazing job. You could probably better answer the question.

Pete Hegseth (02:02:15):

No, you're spot on, sir. I think you got to start with the baseline, which Marco laid out, everybody's laid out. We've got 20 million people invading our country over four years. We don't know where they're coming from.

(02:02:25)
That includes [foreign language 02:02:27] and cartels and violent criminals. They bring drugs, and you mentioned it, Mr. President, poisoning, an intentional poisoning of the American people, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.

(02:02:37)
So the President had the courage to designate these cartels as designated terrorist organizations. A number of us here served in the military and spent 20 years fighting terrorists like Al-Qaeda and ISIS on the other side of the world.

(02:02:50)
How do you treat Al-Qaeda and ISIS? Do you arrest them and treat them, pat them on the head and say, "Don't do that again?" Or do you end the problem directly by taking a lethal kinetic approach? And that's the way President Trump has authorized the War Department to look at these cartels.

(02:03:06)
And I wish everybody could be in the room watching our professionals. Our professionals like Mitch Bradley, Admiral Mitch Bradley and others at JSOC and SOCOM and other commanders. The deliberative process, the detail, the rigorous, the intel, the legal, the evidence-based way that we're able to, with sources and methods that we can't reveal here, that make sure that every one of those drug boats is tied to a designated terrorist organization. We know who's on it, what they're doing, what they're carrying. All these white bales are not Christmas gifts from Santa. This is drugs running on four motor fast boats or submarines that we've also struck. No one's fishing on a submarine. And I have empowered them to make that call.

(02:03:47)
Now, the first couple of strikes, as you would, as any leader would want, you want to own that responsibility. So I said, "I'm going to be the one to make the call after getting all the information and make sure it's the right strike." That was September 2nd. There's a lot of intelligence that goes into that building that case and understanding that a lot of people providing information. I watched that first strike live. As you can imagine at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do.

(02:04:11)
So I didn't stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs. So I moved on to my next meeting.

(02:04:19)
A couple of hours later, I learned that that commander had made the, which he had the complete authority to do. And by the way, Admiral Bradley made the correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat.

(02:04:31)
He sunk the boat, sunk the boat, and eliminated the threat. And he was the right call. We have his back. And the American people are safer because narco terrorists know you can't bring drugs through the water and eventually on land if necessary.

Donald Trump (02:04:47):

I have to do-

Pete Hegseth (02:04:48):

To the American people, we will eliminate that threat and we're proud to do it.

Speaker 8 (02:04:52):

So, you didn't see any survivors, to be clear, after that first strike, you personally?

Pete Hegseth (02:04:56):

I did not personally see survivors, but I stand… Because the thing was on fire. It was exploded in fire and smoke. You can't see anything. You got digital… This is called the fog of war.

(02:05:07)
This is what you and the press don't understand. You sit in your air-conditioned offices or up on Capitol Hill, and you nitpick and you plant fake stories in the Washington Post about, "Kill everybody." Phrases on anonymous sources not based in anything, not based in any truth at all.

(02:05:23)
And then you want to throw out really irresponsible terms about American heroes, about the judgment that they made. I wrote a whole book on this topic because of what politicians and the press does to war fighters.

(02:05:34)
President Trump has empowered commanders, commanders to do what is necessary, which is dark and difficult things in the dead of night on behalf of the American people. We support them and we will stop the poisoning of the American people.

Speaker 8 (02:05:46):

And Mr. Secretary, on the second strike, you said it happened more than an hour after the first. Did I hear it correctly?

Pete Hegseth (02:05:52):

I couldn't tell you the exact amount of time.

Speaker 8 (02:05:53):

[inaudible 02:05:53] is what you're saying?

Pete Hegseth (02:05:56):

I already stated my answer quite clearly.

Donald Trump (02:05:58):

So, remember this. We lost last year, I think it was more than that, but people don't like saying it because they always said 100,000, 115,000, the numbers we've been hearing for years.

(02:06:09)
So we lost last year, more than 200,000 people, dead people, ruined families beyond the 200,000. And those 200,000, that family will never be the same. But these people have killed over 200,000 people, actually killed over 200,000 people last year.

(02:06:26)
And those numbers are down. Those numbers are down. They're way down. And they're down because we're doing these strikes and we're going to start doing those strikes on land, too.

(02:06:36)
You know, the land is much easier. It's much easier. And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live and we're going to start that very soon, too.

Speaker 9 (02:06:48):

Thank you so much, Mr. President-

Donald Trump (02:06:50):

You know what? When we start that, we're going to grab those things down so low. And then you're going to have families be able to live without the fear of their son or daughter just having a pill to have a little fun and ending up dying within a period of 60 seconds, right?

(02:07:08)
No, we're not going to let that happen. We're not going to let it continue to happen. What Biden did to this country by allowing all these people, and I call them animals in many cases. I think they're animals to come into our country and destroy our country and let all those drugs pour in, let people just walk across the border like it was nothing.

(02:07:26)
You look at them, a lot of them. They say, "Oh, let's not discriminate." I'm not talking about color. I'm just talking about, you look into the eyes of some of these people.

(02:07:34)
We're smart and you see a killer. "Come on in, just come on in." 11,888 murderers, many of them committed more than one murder. He allowed them into our country, totally un-vetted, totally unchecked, but he also allowed drugs to come in at record numbers.

(02:07:53)
And hundreds of thousands of people a year died and we're taking those son of a bitches out.

Speaker 9 (02:07:59):

Thank you so much, Mr. President, for taking our questions. I think this is the most transparent administration I ever seen.

Donald Trump (02:08:04):

I'm impressed by these people that… I'll tell you how strong are you? You've been holding [inaudible 02:08:09]. For two hours, there are very few physically. There are very few people who could do… I'm very proud of you. I have no idea who you are, but you're strong.

Speaker 9 (02:08:21):

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, last week, ministry groups in Iraq, I talked to the [inaudible 02:08:28] which even the US companies invested in the energy sector in the Kurdistan region.

(02:08:32)
And the Kurdistan Prime Minister requested the United States to provide them some sorts of means and defense system to defending their civilian infrastructure and US investment in the Kurdistan region.

(02:08:41)
Are you willing to providing them the support? And if I had this portion tomorrow, the United States is going to open and integrate one of the-

Donald Trump (02:08:46):

Can you speak louder?

Speaker 9 (02:08:46):

Yeah, of course.

Donald Trump (02:08:54):

Is that possible? You have the most gentle, beautiful voice, but you're a very gentle person. Go ahead. Just take fewer words and louder.

Speaker 9 (02:09:02):

Yeah, sure. I remember my first question last week, the Iraqi ministry groups attacked one of the largest gas field in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, which even the US companies have invested in this gas fields. And then-

Donald Trump (02:09:18):

Are you from Iraq?

Speaker 9 (02:09:18):

I'm from Kurdistan, Iraqi, Kurdistan.

Donald Trump (02:09:19):

Okay.

Speaker 9 (02:09:23):

Yeah. Working for [inaudible 02:09:23] network. And the Kurdistan region Prime Minister, he requested the United States to providing them some sorts of defense system to defending these guys, builders and US investment in the Kurdistan region. Are you willing to helping them?

Donald Trump (02:09:34):

Well, we're going to look at it. I heard about it and I'm hearing about it more now, frankly. It wasn't at the top of my list.

(02:09:41)
It's a very unusual question, I think, but I presumed it from the area and to you it's a very important question. And to me it is also because people are being killed.

(02:09:49)
I will say this Iraq has been much different in terms of us than they were prior to us taking out the nuclear capability of Iran. Iran has gone down many, many steps in terms of its fear factor. They were the bully of the Middle East and they're really not the bully of the Middle East anymore.

(02:10:12)
And Iraq was being bullied by Iran. We had a president that thought it was brilliant to blow them up and they blew them up and all of a sudden instead of having a power that was basically equal to Iran, they had Iran ruling the Middle East for a long period of time. But Iraq, from the day we hit him with those B2 bombers and knocked out and obliterated because CNN said, "Well, maybe it wasn't totally…" Well, it turned out it was totally obliteration. It was every single one of those missiles hit its target. It was actually amazing, but it was wiped out, totally wiped out.

(02:10:52)
I will tell you, Iraq has been a much friendlier place. They talked to us. The Prime Minister actually nominated me along with about 78 other countries for the Nobel Prize.

(02:11:04)
I'm the only one that was nominated by almost a hundred countries that didn't get it, but that's okay, but I saved a lot of lives. I saved a lot of lives.

(02:11:14)
But Iraq nominated us for the Nobel Prize and that was a great honor. We didn't expect that from Iraq. Iraq has been a much different place since the taking out of Iran, the nuclear capability.

(02:11:29)
Yeah. Let's get to another person. Here we go. This guy's a beauty. Go ahead.

Speaker 10 (02:11:39):

Secretary Rubio, [inaudible 02:11:40] in Russia today. Do you have any updates from Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner?

Donald Trump (02:11:40):

No, because I've been spending too much time with you. I mean, we're spending a lot of time in here. We wanted to do this very… You talk about being open and transparent. This has to be the most transparent administration in history.

(02:11:55)
We spent a lot of time answering your questions and giving you a lot of good results. I mean, I think everybody here gave you good results. But no, I don't. I will have after I leave here.

Speaker 10 (02:12:07):

But do you hope for a breakthrough or is it not [inaudible 02:12:10]-

Donald Trump (02:12:10):

I don't know. Look, I don't know. All I can tell you is that we're trying very hard to save 25 to 30,000 people, mostly men, mostly soldiers every month. 25,000 to 30,000 soldiers. It's impossible. That's half a stadium. Take a big football stadium. Take half of those people in a stadium and they're wiped out. They're killed every month. It's crazy. That war is crazy. That would have never happened with me and it didn't happen for four years.

Speaker 10 (02:12:46):

And you just mentioned potential land strikes. Can you elaborate anything on that?

Donald Trump (02:12:48):

Yeah. I will elaborate. If they come in through a certain country or any country, or if we think they're building mills for whether it's fentanyl or cocaine. I hear Columbia, the country of Columbia is making cocaine. They have cocaine manufacturing plants, okay?

(02:13:07)
And then they sell us their cocaine. We appreciate that very much. But, yeah, anybody that's doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack.

Speaker 10 (02:13:16):

So not necessarily just Venezuela?

Donald Trump (02:13:18):

No, not just Venezuela, no. Venezuela has been very bad. Venezuelan has been really bad in something else, probably worse than most, but a lot of other people do it, too.

(02:13:28)
They would send murderers into our country. They would empty their jails into our country. They sent people into our country that we don't want.

(02:13:37)
They sent their drug dealers and their drug people into our country. They sent people from their mental institutions into our country, and we're getting them out. That was bad. That was real bad. And they also sent drugs. Yeah.

Speaker 11 (02:13:52):

On Tim Walz, Mr. President, do you think he should resign over the fraud scandal in his state?

Donald Trump (02:13:56):

That who should?

Speaker 11 (02:13:57):

Tim Walz. Over the fraud scandal in his state, do you think-

Donald Trump (02:14:00):

Look, I think the man's a grossly incompetent man. I thought that from the day I watched JD destroy him in the debate. I was saying, "Who was more incompetent, that man or my man?" I had a man and he had a man. They were both incompetent.

(02:14:15)
And I had a man and a woman. I thought she was very incompetent, too, but now she's leading the field. And I think she's leading the field in the nomination.

(02:14:26)
Anyway, look, that's up to them. That's up to the Democrats. The problem with them is they have really bad policy.

(02:14:36)
And I'm not going to say what it is because I don't want them to change it necessarily because I want to run against it, whether it's… It's not going to be me. It's going to be somebody that's going to probably sitting at this table.

(02:14:47)
It could be a couple of people sitting at this table. Could be a couple of people running together sitting at this table. You know?But I want them to win because we've done a great job for this country and I want that to be be carried forward. I think we have a tremendous bench, really a tremendous bench.

(02:15:10)
I think that Walz is a grossly incompetent man. There's something wrong with him. Okay? There's something wrong with him.

(02:15:17)
And when you look at what he's done with Somalia, with Somalia, which is barely a country, they have no anything. They just run around killing each other. There's no structure.

(02:15:29)
And when I see somebody like Ilhan Omar, who I don't know at all, but I always watch her for years. I've watched her complain about our Constitution, how she's being treated badly. Our Constitution, the United States of America is a bad place.

(02:15:45)
Hates everybody, hates Jewish people, hates everybody. And I think she's an incompetent person. She's a real terrible person.

(02:15:56)
But when I watch what is happening in Minnesota, the land of a thousand lakes or however many lakes they have, they got a lot of lakes. But this beautiful place, and I see these people ripping it off.

(02:16:10)
And now I'm understanding, and you're going to look into this… I hear they ripped off… Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars, billions. Every year, billions of dollars.

(02:16:27)
And they contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88%. They contribute nothing.

(02:16:35)
I don't want them in our country, I'll be honest with you. Okay? Somebody would say, "Oh, that's not politically correct." I don't care. I don't want them in our country.

(02:16:42)
Their country is no good for a reason. Their country stinks and we don't want them in our country. I could say that about other countries, too. I can say it about other countries, too. We don't want them the hell. We have to rebuild our country.

(02:16:57)
Our country's at a tipping point. We could go bad. We're at a tipping point. I don't know if people mind me saying that, but I'm saying it. We could go one way or the other. And we're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.

(02:17:13)
Ilhan Omar is garbage. She's garbage. Her friends are garbage. These aren't people that work. These aren't people that say, "Let's go. Come on. Let's make this place great." These are people that do nothing but complain. They complain. And from where they came from, they got nothing.

(02:17:32)
They came from paradise and they said, "This isn't paradise." But when they come from hell and they complain and do nothing but bitch, we don't want them in our country. Let them go back to where they came from and fix it. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you, everyone.

Speaker 12 (02:18:04):

You can come this way. Thank you. Thank you, press. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you, press. Thank you, press. Thank you.

(02:18:19)
Hey guys, keep going around to the right. Thank you, guys.