TRANSCRIPT: Donald Trump Announces Military Deployment in Washington, 08.11.2025

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President Trump: Wow. [Laughter] I've been up here a lot. I've never seen a crowd like this. I think we need a ballroom. And that's happening. It's going to be a beautiful ballroom. This is really a lot of people, most I've ever seen in this room. And we're here for a very serious purpose, a very serious purpose. Something's out of control, but we're going to put it in control very quickly like we did on the southern border. I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse. This is Liberation Day in DC, and we're gonna take our capital back. We're taking it back. Under the authorities vested in me as the president of the United States, I'm officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, you know what that is, and placing the DC Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control. And you'll be meeting the people that will be directly involved with that, very good people, but they're tough and they know what's happening and they've done it before. In addition, I'm deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington DC, and they're going to be allowed to do their job properly. And you people are victims of it too. You know, you're reporters. And I understand a lot of you tend to be on the liberal side, but you don't want to get -- you don't want to get mugged and raped and shot and killed. And you all know people and friends of yours that that happened. And so, you can be any -- anything you want, but you want to have safety in the streets. You want to be able to leave your apartment or your house where you live and feel safe and go into a store to buy a newspaper or buy something, and you don't have that now. The murder rate in Washington today is higher than that of Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City, some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on earth, much higher. This is much higher. The number of car thefts has doubled over the past five years and the number of carjackings has more than tripled. Murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever. They say 25 years, but they don't know what that means because it just goes back 25 years. Can't be worse. Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people, and we're not going to let it happen anymore. We're not going to take it, you know, just like we did on our southern border. Nobody comes to our southern border anymore. Three months in a row, we had zero. I don't know if that's right. But the people that do the work, it's a very liberal group of people, actually, and they actually said zero for the last three months. Nobody thought a thing like that was possible. And, you know, when you say -- take a look at numbers, I just saw some -- some charts. These are different cities throughout the world. Red is -- ok? The red is a place called Washington DC. Look at these. Baghdad is -- we doubled up on Baghdad, Panama City, Brasilia, San Jose, Costa Rica, Bogota, Colombia, heavy drugs, Mexico City I mentioned, Lima, Peru, all double and triple what they are. So, do you want to live in places like that? I don't think so. I don't think so. And I think the people in this room, you wrote correctly, you'd say look at the kind of numbers we have. DC, 41 per 100,000, number one that we can find anywhere in the world. Other cities are pretty bad, but they're not as bad as that. That where you want to live, the reporters of the world? Juvenile offenders and crimes against persons, as they say, it's getting worse. Not getting better, it's getting worse. And we had a recent indication. There was a story about a man who was -- just left. He quit because he was asked to do phony numbers on crime, and we're going to look into that. I think Pam is going to be looking into that. But he was asked by the city, I guess, that we don't want to show the real numbers. Let me do numbers so it looks like it's going down. Not going down. And under Biden, it was a disaster and nobody did anything about it. We're going to do things about it like you wouldn't believe. Every American has a constitutional right to be able to access and petition their government in safety, and countless federal officials and employees likewise have the right to carry out their jobs in peace without being shot. As you know, I lost a very good person a while ago, was shot waiting for his wife. He was in the car. They robbed his car. They shot him. They killed him like it was nothing to it. She was walking to the car. She was -- it's a horror show. This issue directly impacts the functioning of the federal government, and is a threat to America, really. It's a threat to our country. We have other cities also that are bad, very bad. You look at Chicago how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore they're so -- they're so far gone. We're not going to let it happen. We're not going to lose our cities over this. And this will go further. We're starting very strongly with DC, and we're going to clean it up real quick, very quickly as they say. Days ago, a former member of the DOGE staff was savagely beaten by a band of roving thugs after defending a young woman from an attempted carjacking. He was left dripping in blood. He thought he was dead with a broken nose and concussion. Can't believe that he's alive. He can't believe it. In June, a 21 year old Congressional intern was tragically killed after being hit by a stray bullet in a drive-by shooting. A former Trump administration official named Mike Gill, fantastic person, was murdered last year in cold blood in a carjacking blocks away from the White House. We all knew him, great person, waiting for his wife as she was walking to the car. A Democrat Congressman was also carjacked at gunpoint not far from the Capitol. And in 2023, an aide to Senator Rand Paul was stabbed in the chest and head by a demented lunatic as he walked down the street just absolutely for no reason. Horrifically, last July 4th weekend, a three year old girl was shot in the head and killed while sitting in a car near the Capitol. It's becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness. And we're getting rid of the slums too. We have slums here. We're getting rid of them. I know it's not politically correct. You'll say, oh, so terrible. No, we're getting rid of the slums where they live. Caravans of masked youth rampage through city streets at all times of the day. They're on ATVs, motorbikes. They travel pretty well. Entire neighborhoods are now under emergency curfews. Just this past weekend, gunfire through -- went through, and you saw that, the Navy yard. I saw it this morning. I saw that they fought back against -- I see they fight back until you knock the hell out of them, because it's the only language they understand. But they fought back against law enforcement last night and they're not going to be fighting back long because I've instructed them and told them whatever happens -- you know, they love to spit in the face of the police as the police are standing up there in uniform. They're standing and they're screaming at them, an inch away from their face, and then they start spitting in their face. And I said, you tell them, you spit and we hit, and they can hit real hard. It's a disgusting thing. I've watched that for years, for three or four years, I've watched them, the police are stand -- and they're told, don't do anything under any circumstances. And you can see they want to get at it and they're standing there and the people are spitting in their face and they're not allowed to do anything. But now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want. This dire public safety crisis stems directly from the abject failures of the city's local leadership. The radical left City Council adopted no cash bail. By the way, every place in the country where you have no cash bail is a disaster. That's what started the problem in New York, and they don't change it. They don't want to change it. That's what started it in Chicago. I mean, bad politicians started it, bad leadership started it. But that was the one thing that's central, no cash bail. Somebody murders somebody and they're out on no cash bail before the day is out. We're going to end that in Chicago. We're going to change the statute. I spoke with Pam and Todd and everybody. We're going to change the statue and I'm going to have to get the Republicans to vote because the Democrats are weak on crime, totally weak on crime. They don't know why. They want it stopped because they get mugged too, but we're going to change no cash bail. We're going to change the statute and get rid of some of the other things and we'll count on the Republicans in Congress and Senate to vote. We have the majority, so we'll vote. We don't have a big majority, but we've gotten everything including the great, Big, Beautiful Bill got that done. And that's one of the greatest things that's ever happened to people in this country. They're starting to figure it out, how good it is. Biggest tax cut in history, so many things, but we'll be able to get that done. So Todd, if you and Pam can draw up things, working with the people, we will -- I'll get it passed. We'll get it passed with Republicans. Probably won't get -- think of this, probably won't get one Democrat vote because they have no idea what they're doing. That's why they want men playing in women's sports. That's why they want transgender for everybody, everybody transgender. And they just got walloped in an election in a landslide, and they haven't changed one thing. I saw the other day, the certain gentleman who is very well-known politician, Democrat, was fighting like hell that men should be allowed to play in women's sport. They just don't get it. They said it's an 80/20 issue and I think it's a 97 to 3 issue and I don't know who the three are. I've never heard anybody come -- Nobody's ever come up to me, sir, you have to let men play in women's sports. You have to do it, sir. Nobody's ever approached me. I don't know where this issue even comes from. I've never seen anything like it, but they turned our nation's capital into a sanctuary jurisdiction. That's the other thing, we have to get rid of sanctuary cities as quickly as possible. We're going to do it too. We have to, because it's sanctuary for criminals. Releasing illegal alien gang members onto the streets, in 2022, nearly 70 percent of criminals arrested in Washington went unprosecuted. That's not going to happen with the group we have standing aside and standing behind me. And at the Metropolitan Police Department, it's now reached a small number relatively compared to what it was, but it's thousands of people.You know, we have thousands of police. I was told today, sir, they want more police. I heard a number 3,500 police. That's a lot of police, 3,500. I thought they were going to say we only have 30 policemen or women. They said we have 3,500, we need more. You don't need more. That's so many -- I never heard -- that's like an army. How can you need more than 3,000? It just happened two minutes ago. Sir, they've requested more police. Oh, what do they have? About 3,500. I said, 3,500. This is not a big area. It's ridiculous. What you need is rules and regulations and you need the right people to implement them and we have the right people here. That, I can tell you. Look at the border, Biden said there's nothing you can do. Kamala was the border czar. She never called one of the Border Patrol agents who are great. ICE is great. Never spoke to anybody, never went there, but she was the border czar and everybody said it was impossible to fix. I fixed it in three months. No, really, I fixed it the first week, but really fixed it over the last couple of months. And I mean, literally to a point, where as I said, zero illegals entering our country in the last 90 days, pretty amazing. It's time for dramatic action. We're going to do the same thing over here. It's going to be a very safe city very soon. We're not looking to take years because a lot of people die in years. And we've got incredible people in this country, except we have to allow them to do their job and that, we will deliver like nobody's ever delivered before. I actually think it's easy. You know, if you're competent, it's easy. If you're incompetent, it's impossible. But I'm very competent. Last week, my administration surged 500 federal agents into the district, including from the FBI, ATF, DEA, Park Police, the US Marshals Service, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security. You know, a lot of nations, they don't have anything like that. They got some, some police and their rough police. They don't have DEA ATF, FBI Park police, US Marshals Service, Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security. They got some police, but they're rough police and they do their job. They don't have crime. We're not going to have crime either. They made dozens of arrests and that's what starts to happen. Again, cashless bail, watch what we do with that. Today, we're formally declaring a public safety emergency. This is an emergency. This is a tragic emergency and it's embarrassing for me to be up here. You know, I'm going to see Putin. I'm going to Russia on Friday. I don't like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once beautiful capital was, with graffiti all over the walls. It's another part of it, by the way, because we're talking about safety, but we're also talking about beautification. We have the most beautiful potentially capital in the world. We always had. But people come from Iowa, they come from Indiana, they come and then they get mugged, not going to happen. Keep coming because by the time you get your trip set, it's going to be safe again and it's going to be clean very quickly. We're going to replace the medians that are falling down all over the roads. We're going to replace the potholes. We're going to put a nice new coat of asphalt over the top, knowing we don't have to rip the road out and spend seven years building a new road because they cut everything -- because some designers said well, we need a quarter of an inch more turn for safety reasons. No, we're going to do it right. We're going to get it done quickly. So today, we're declaring public safety emergency in the District of Columbia and Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is fantastic, is taking command of the Metropolitan Police Department as of this moment. And I'll be making the appropriate notifications to Congress and to the mayor, our new DEA administrator who's one of the top in the country. He better be, Terry. If you're not, I'm going to get rid of you so fast. Terry Cole. Terry, thanks, very good. We just got him, most highly recommended person and you'll be designated as the interim federal commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Department. OK? And you run them tough. They're good. You have a lot of good people. You have people that shouldn't be there. You also have people that shouldn't be there. They got in there because of woke. But you have a lot of great police and those people are the ones that want to help you. This city will no longer be a sanctuary for illegal alien criminals. We will have full seamless integrated cooperation at all levels of law enforcement and we'll deploy officers across the district with an overwhelming presence. You have more police and you'll be so happy, because you'll be safe. When you walk down the street, you're going to see police or you're going to see FBI agents. We're going to have a lot of agents on the streets. You're going to have a lot of, essentially, military -- and we will bring in the military if it's needed, by the way. We're going to have National Guard. But Pete Hegseth will tell you about it. We will bring in the military if needed. People say, oh that's so terrible he's going to bring in -- it's been -- it's been used many times over the years. I don't think we'll need it. I think we've got so many great people, including the people that are in the police department with proper leadership. They'll immediately begin massive enforcement operations targeting known gangs, drug dealers and criminal networks to get them the hell off the street, maybe get them out of the country because a lot of them came into our country illegally. They shouldn't have been allowed in. They come from Venezuela. They come from all over the world. We're going to get them the hell out. They won't be here long. But some of these people -- a lot of them are homegrown criminals, and these are bad people. These are rough people. And this is just a list of some of the people that were given to me today that were criminals removed from the DC streets this weekend. They were rough, rough and tough. But we're rougher and tougher. Look at these people here. Nothing -- you know, they're not going to be your local school teacher. Look at this guy. He has killed people numerous times. They're not going to be an asset. They will never be an asset to society. I don't care. I know we all want to say, oh, they're going to be rehabbed. It's not going to be rehabbed. I'm going to ask Doug Burgum to come up and say a couple of words because he's in charge -- as you know, he's interior, but he's in charge of the US Park Police. And I have heard so many great things about the Park Police. They're proud of it. They've been there for a long time. Their families oftentimes grow into the roles. They love the country. They love this area. So, Doug, could you say a few words, please?

Doug Burgum: Thank you, Mr. President. On behalf of the US Park Police, this is the oldest federal police force in the nation. They were formed in 1791 by none other than -- than President George Washington. They've got the awesome responsibility of protecting our nation's most sacred monuments, the National Mall, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Statue of Liberty, and out West the Presidio and the Golden Gate area. These folks have tens of millions of visitors a year, the kind of people that President Trump's talking about that come from around the country and around the world to see our -- see our sacred -- and learn about our history and our sacred monuments. They've been doing a fantastic job. But they are so pleased. The rank and file, that President Trump is now allowing them to enforce the law. As those of you that live in the city may know, that the -- the circles and the triangle parks that are spread throughout DC are actually federal park property. So, the US Park Police also have responsibility for that. These became littered with homeless camps under the Biden administration. All of you saw that. Since President Trump's executive order on March 27th making DC safe and beautiful again, the US Park Police have removed over 70 homeless camps. And President Trump also talked about beautification. They're stopping the -- and enforcing the laws against graffiti on our monuments. They've removed over 80 specific attacks against our history with graffiti on our monuments. So, they continue to do a great job, whether it's in their vehicles, on foot or on the mounted police that you see around the National Mall. And President Trump, they thank you. The rank and file is so happy to be enforcing the law again. Thank you for your leadership, and they're -- they're excited about the announcement you're making today.

Trump: Thank you. Very good. Great job you're doing. Thank you very much. Pete, could you say something about the military, if you would?

Pete Hegseth: Well, Mr. President, it's an honor to be here. And at your direction, this morning we've mobilized the DC National Guard. It'll be operationalized by the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, through the DC Guard. You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week. At your direction as well, sir, there are other units we are prepared to bring in, other National Guard units, other specialized units. They will be strong, they will be tough and they will stand with their law enforcement partners. This is nothing new for DOD. As the president noted, at the border we've got 10,000 troops down there who have been operating in defense cooperation areas, defense zones where there's zero, zero illegal crossings because of troops on Strykers scanning the border. We've been protecting other people's borders for 20 years. It's about time we protect our own. And we're working with ICE and CBP. In Los Angeles, we did the same thing, working with the California National Guard, working with ICE officers. ICE officers deserve to do their job and not be attacked. We will work alongside all DC police and federal law enforcement to ensure this city is safe, this city is beautiful. And as I always say about President Trump to the troops, he has their back. And my message to the National Guard and federal law enforcement in Washington is we have your back as well. Be tough. Be strong. We're right behind you. Thank you, Mr. President.

Trump: I'm going to ask Pam, because she's now -- as you heard me say, she's really in charge of a lot of what we're talking about. She's done an incredible job, and people are going to start to see the fruits of her labor. And Pam, maybe you could say a few words about what we're talking about here.

Pam Bondi: Sure, President. Let me be crystal clear. Crime in DC is ending and ending today. We are going to use every power we have to fight criminals here. President, thank you for caring about our capital. Families come here every summer. Our museums are free. We have the National Zoo. We have the National Gallery. DC should be a place where everyone can come and feel safe. Behind me and to my side, we have some of the best career law enforcement and prosecutors in the country who are ready to take this on. As the president said, Terry Cole is going to be supervising the Metro Police Department. Gady Serralta, our US marshal, is going to be supervising command and control, the entire operation. Our Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and I will be working with them closely, along with our great FBI director, Kash Patel. Kash is going to talk to you in a minute about what we did in Virginia recently with Governor Youngkin. Many of you covered that, and it was tremendously successful. Not only that, our secret weapon here in DC is US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, one of the toughest prosecutors and a former judge, and she is going to be talking about juvenile crime, how it's out of control here and what she's going to do to fight back. No more, no more crime rampant in our beautiful capital. No more teenage girls beating a disabled man to death. No more of that. No more drive-bys. We're going to do everything we can. And working with the ATF, ATF Director Driscoll and commander of the Army, we're going to all work together. That's what we all do in this room. We work together. We fight. Do not underestimate one person in this room. We're going to make DC beautiful. We're going to make DC safe again. One other thing, just at the wharf a few days ago, the area of the wharf, Terry Cole reached out to me. Not even nightfall on the weekend where so many families and tourists go, a guy's overdosing from fentanyl on a park bench in the middle of families around. They administer Narcan and saved his life. No more of that. The president of the United States is going to clean up DC, and we're going to be there to help him and we're gonna to be successful. Thank you.

Trump: Thank you, Pam. Kash, talk about Northern Virginia if you would. Northern Virginia, we had a big success.

Kash Patel: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Attorney General Bondi, for your leadership, Deputy Attorney General, the rest of our interagency partners. Mr. President, the following is what -- what happens when you let good cops be cops, and I just want to highlight that before I get into Northern Virginia. This year alone under President Trump's administration, we've had over 4,000 child victims identified and found. That's a 33 percent increase from the same time period last year, 33 percent increase. We've had a seizure of 1,500 kilograms of fentanyl this -- up to this date. That is a 25 percent increase since the same time period last year. And just to put it in perspective, 1,500 kilograms of fentanyl is enough to kill 115 million Americans, 115 million Americans. Cops are getting after it. The FBI has arrested 19,000 people this year alone. Thanks to President Trump's administrations, that's double than where we were this time last year. And we have also arrested 1,600 people who have committed violent acts against children, children. 270 of them are human traffickers of children. Mr. President, this is what happens when you have great leadership of the attorney general with Pam Bondi, your administration's priority of protecting the homeland and protecting American citizens and protecting our children. And the murder rates are plummeting. We are now able to report that the murder rate is on track to be the lowest in US history, in modern recorded US history, thanks to this team behind me and President Trump's priorities. And how did we do it and what are we going to bring to DC? What we did in Northern Virginia, thanks to Terry Cole and Governor Youngkin and the team, we stood up a task force out in my Northern Virginia field office, and we said, let's let good cops be cops. Let's get them the intelligence and what they need, and let's get the red tape out of their way. And let's get DOJ partnered up with us to bring great prosecutions, and that's exactly what we did. In one month, we arrested 545 violent felons, 545 in the state of Virginia thanks to Governor Youngkin's partnership. And that simplicity in law enforcement is what's coming to Washington DC. When you let good cops be cops, when you give them the intel they need, when you work with our Homeland Security Task Force, when you work with Terry and Gatty and I go way back to Miami. These guys are great leaders of their respective departments in law enforcement capacities. And when you have the DOJ and President Trump driving behind this mission, we are going to clean up Washington D.C. and we're going to do it the right way, the lawful way and we're going to make sure Washington D.C. is safe again. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Attorney General.

Trump: Thank you very much. Great job. Thank you, Kash. So the process begins right now. It actually started over the weekend and we confronted a lot of very bad people, but it's going to be something that will be pretty amazing to you as you watch it. And I think most of you say it's a beautiful thing to do it right. We're going to be removing homeless encampments from all over our parks, our beautiful, beautiful parks, which now a lot of people can't walk on. They've very dirty, very -- got a lot of problems. But we've already started that. We're moving the encampments away, trying to take care of people. Some of those people, we don't know how they even got there. Some of those people are from different countries, different parts of the world. Nobody knows who they are. They have no idea, but they're there. We're getting rid of the people from underpasses and public spaces from all over the city. There are many places that they can go and we're going to help them, as much as you can help. But they'll not be allowed to turn our capital into a wasteland for the world to see. The Metropolitan Police Department and the federal authorities will be supported in the effort, a really big effort, the 800 D.C. National Guardsmen that we'll put on and much more, if necessary, much more. You remember, I said I offered 10,000 once. Remember, I said to a certain person, a person who I thought always was highly overrated, not very competent, but I said, if you need them, we'll give you 10,000 of the military or the National Guard. They turned me down. But if necessary, we're going to move service members directly to joining the Guardsmen and that will take place very rapidly. And that will be done in conjunction with Pam and with Pete and everybody else. Washington D.C. should be one of the safest, cleanest and most beautiful cities anywhere in the world. And we're going to make it that. We're going to make it safe. We're going to make it smart. We're going to make it beautiful, so beautiful. Some of the buildings -- we're going to add to it. You see what we've done at the White House. This White House is a whole different building. I do that in my part time because it's a natural instinct as a real estate person. I was very good at that and I was very good at fixing things up. I like fixing things up. You see what's happening. The marble floors are being reinstalled, renovated, fixed. The whole place is becoming very beautiful. We're going to be adding a magnificent ballroom, most beautiful ballroom, I think anywhere. We need it. I would have loved to have had it today. I think we would have filled it up. A lot of you are standing outside, can't get in this room. I have never seen the room like this, which tells me that you want to talk about -- I mean, this was a D.C. news conference. It tells me that you want to talk about crime in D.C. and beautification of D.C., but I'm going to put that -- that's easy. And I think frankly, fixing the crime with the pros, fixing the crime is easy too. A person who I've known for a long time and she's been incredible. She was a fantastic, one of the best ever district attorneys in New York. She was in Westchester and she became a judge, very successful judge and then she went into showbiz. Because she was such a good DA and such a good judge, tough judge, but fair, always fair. Nobody ever complained about that, but she was tough. And because of that and her reputation, she went into showbiz. So a lot of people don't -- you know, they think of Jeanine as showbiz. Actually, showbiz was not her thing. It was -- and she did great. She was on along with a couple of other of my friends on the number one show and she did great, but this is what she loves doing. This is really her baby. What she's going to do is going to be incredible and I'd like to introduce to speak for just a few seconds on what she has in mind what she wants to do. We're going to be appointing some judges. You know, we have some open spots and we're going to take people because the judges are letting killers out. They're just saying, go, it's okay, don't worry about it. So we're putting some -- Pam recommended, Todd recommended some judges that are great. Jeanine recommended. Janine has given me three great candidates already. We have about 10 open spots and we could probably create some more we need them. Jeanine, would you say a few words, please?

Jeanine Pirro: All right. Thank you very, much Mr. President and thank you, Madam Attorney General and to all my partners here. We all want the same thing. We all want a safe city. We want a safe capital. We want to be able to bring our families here. We want to be able to come and enjoy the history that makes this place great. And unfortunately, we are not in that position right now. And Mr. President, I want to thank you for taking the step that we need right now to make criminals understand that they are not going to get away with it anymore. And I'm not going to stand here and go over and over the cases. But what I can tell you is this. I see too much violent crime being committed by young punks who think that they can get together in gangs and crews and beat the hell out of you or anyone else. They don't care where they are. They can be in DuPont Circle, but they know that we can't touch them. Why? Because the laws are weak. I can't touch you if you're 14, 15, 16, 17 years old and you have a gun. I convict someone of shooting another person with an illegal gun on a public bus in the chest, intent to kill. I convict him and you know what the judge gives him, probation, says you should go to college. We need to go after the D.C. Council and their absurd laws. We need to get rid of this concept of no cash bail. We need to recognize that the people who matter are the law-abiding citizens, and it starts today. But it's not going to end today because the president is going to do everything we need to do to make sure that these emboldened criminals understand, we see you, we're watching you and we're going to change the law to catch you. And my final note is this, these kids understand that the jurisdiction is through the state attorney general Brian Schwab. I did a poster of the young man from DOGE who was beaten bloody with a severe concussion, a broken nose and then I did a poster of what happens to those kids, because I can't arrest them. I can't prosecute them. They go to family court and they get to do yoga and arts and crafts. Enough. It changes today. Thank you, Mr. President.

Trump: Thank you, Jeanine.

Pirro: You're welcome.

Trump: Great job. Thank you. If I could, I just signed some executive orders, I'd like to have Will please come up and we'll let the people know what we signed. Do you want to put them down?

Will Scharf: Yes, sir.

Trump: Go ahead.

Scharf: A short while ago in the Oval Office, President Trump signed two crucial executive actions to deal with the emergency crime conditions we currently face in the District of Columbia. The first of these was an executive order, as President Trump said before, invoking his powers under section 40 of the Home Rule Act, to take federal control of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. Along with that executive order, President Trump signed the statutorily required notification letters to Mayor Bowser and to the relevant House and Senate committee leaders. The second major executive action that President Trump signed was a presidential memorandum directing the secretary of defense to utilize the National Guard to address the conditions we see on our streets here in D.C. It also authorized the secretary of defense to work with state governors to Utilize their National Guard units if necessary as well. These are bold, decisive steps intended to combat the out of control crime conditions we've seen on D.C. streets for far too long and I for one am deeply proud to be part of an administration that's finally coming to terms with these issues, sir.

Trump: Thank you very much.

Scharf: Yes, sir.

Trump: Thank you. So Just to conclude, Washington D.C. should be one of the safest, cleanest, most beautiful places anywhere in the world. It was years ago. We had one problem that was a pretty big problem. The radical left got out of control and they started trying to rip down statues and I said, let's go pass a law real fast. We're going to do it real fast, but we were blocked by the Democrats, who do not want safety. Nobody gets it. I don't get it, they don't get it because they can't get votes. I don't know how they can win an election with this, but they don't want safety. And I found an old statute, very old, early 1900s, that said, if you so much as touch or even think about destroying a statue or a monument in Washington D.C., you go to jail for 10 years with no probation, no anything. In other words, slightly different than we have today. Today, we have cashless bail. There you get jail ten years, no curtailed sentence, ten years. And we took it out. Nobody used it. It was never used because, you know, it's harsh. And you remember they started to rip down a statue of Abraham Lincoln. I said that's a tough one to rip down. That's -- he's -- he was pretty good, Pam. I think he was pretty good. When they -- when the ropes started going around Abraham Lincoln to pull him down, Andrew Jackson, others, and they were heading to the Jefferson Memorial, Thomas Jefferson, they were going to do a big number there, I said it's time, and I signed that statute immediately. We had it updated. We made it use the same -- all passed by Congress. And I announced it's ten years in jail, no probation, no anything, ten years, no curtailed sentence if you touch -- so much as touch a statue in Washington DC. And it was an amazing sight, beautiful sight. Everybody just left. The ropes were hanging around Andrew Jackson and there were two ropes around Abraham Lincoln. They left the rope. But everybody just left, and that was the last problem we ever had. You know, that was the last problem that we ever had with the statues. They were going wild. And we -- somebody came to me and said, sir, in 1910 -- I don't want to give you an exact because you'll say Donald Trump gave us wrong dates around -- like, early on. You know, if I'm slightly off, they make you sound a little bad. So, I won't be -- I won't put myself in that position. I won't put you in that position because I think everybody agrees with what we're doing today. But when I signed that thing, it was like a miracle. Everybody left. They -- they were gone. They were starting to march down -- they started to march toward Thomas Jefferson, and I figured he was always going to be safe. But they found something with him and they found something with Abraham Lincoln, and even in the name George Washington. And California, numerous places changed the name of George Washington High School and various other places. They took George Washington's name. This was a sick woke culture that I think we've largely ended. And a lot of those people that were woke are now turning out to be the opposite. I won't go so far as to say MAGA. It's a very special category. But they've gotten out of that. But we have -- we have people that love this country. And they love this -- this really beautiful capital. It is. I flew over it the other day and I said what a beautiful place. But where -- if there's crime all over the streets when you get there, it doesn't look so beautiful. But we're going to make it beautiful again. We're going to fix it with crime, and we're going to also -- as we're doing that, we're going to start doing things that we know how to do, that I know how to do better than anybody, I guess, because of my experience from previous life. But not only are we stopping the crime, we're going to clean up the trash and the graffiti and the grime and the dirt and the broken marble panels and all of the things they've done to hurt this city. And we're going to restore the city back to the gleaming capital that everybody wants it to be. It's going to be something very special. All of these people are really top -- can I shake your hand, Gady, please? You're going to be so important here. You are going to be -- you're going to be that guy. I hope I don't have to fire him in two weeks because he's too soft. [Laughter] I don't think he's too soft. If I do, I will, though. Is it ok if you -- if you're soft –

Gadyaces Serralta: Not soft [Inaudible].

Trump: Weak and pathetic, like so many people, I will fire you so fast. [Laughter] You're not going to have to worry about that. No, I think you're going to do a fantastic job. And everybody in this room, they may not express it, but they all want that to happen. You know, they want to be safe. And they have families too. So, it's an honor to have such a large group. I've done this for years now, hard to believe. I've never seen this room so packed. In fact, I'm sure it's a violation of every fire code -- [Laughter] But we'll let you stay anyway. You've taken a chance. And with that, we'll say, maybe if you could -- oh, wow. [Laughter] We could be here all day long. If you could -- if we could -- if we could keep the first questions perhaps to this subject, and then we'll go on to a few others.

Question: Mr. President? Mr. President? Mr. President?

Trump: Please.

Question: Mr. President, thank you so much. Can you talk about how personal of an issue this is? You talked about flying over the Washington Monument and seeing the pride of what DC is. And do you believe that the status of the city, the cleanliness, the -- the way that crime is low, is a direct reflection on how the country is run?

Trump: Yeah, I do. I think the capital -- look, everyone comes here. They all -- they're all coming. All the leaders, they're all wanting to come. And I say it -- I've said it again, but I'm really just quoting other leaders from NATO, from the Middle East, king of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE. I was over there. We brought back $5.1 trillion of investment into our country. But I was -- a month and a half ago, I was at NATO. We had a great thing, agreed to put up 5 percent instead of 2 percent. 2 percent they didn't pay. 5 percent's already paid. We had a great meeting, and they all said the same thing. They said our country was dead. They thought our country was gone. One year ago, they said your country was dead, and now you have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We do. We have the hottest country in the world right now. The tariffs have helped. It's given us not only the money. It's billions -- trillions of dollars of money, but it gives us great power over enemies. We solved five wars, with Pakistan and India. With -- we just solved one, Azerbaijan and -- as you know, and Armenia. It was not -- a war was raging for 37 years, and the two leaders got up and they said we never thought this would be solved. Russia tried to solve it. They all tried to solve it. It was a very tough situation. But we got it done and -- got it done. And I said to the two men, I said are you guys friends? And they had a hard time. You know, they've been killing each other for 37 years, right? One was there five years. One was there for 22 years. He said my whole life I've been fighting this war, and you got it solved. But we did many of those. We did in the Congo and Rwanda. That's been going on for 30 years, eight to nine million people killed that they know of. But it was raging, and we got that solved. We got a lot of them done. It's a great honor. But you want to have -- when they come, their leaders come to our country to sign documents that the war is over or whatever, or for other reasons. They come for trade. And you want them to come through so beautifully. You ride down those roads. Everything should be perfect. You shouldn't have medians falling down into the roadway, median, you know, the metal things that are always -- somebody had a great -- a great lobbyist, because I've never seen them look good. I've been looking at those things with the little -- right? They're always broken bad, but here they're really bad. And we're going to either put new or fix it, and it's not expensive. It's not really expensive. And we're going to fix our roads a little bit. We're going to clean up our sidewalks. You have countries where every Saturday the people go out and they wash their sidewalks in front of their stores or their houses. They scrub -- they scrub their sidewalks. So, we aren't quite at that level yet, I don't think. Gady, we're not quite there yet. But maybe we will. They go -- they go out and they scrub. I think it's so beautiful to hear that and to see those stories. But we're going to make it clean. But just to finish with your question, it's a very -- very strong reflection of our country. And when they see a bad city -- you know, my father always used to tell me -- I had a wonderful father, very smart. And he used to say, son, when you walk into a restaurant and you see a dirty front door, don't go in because, if the front door is dirty, the kitchen's dirty also. Same thing with the capital. If our capital's dirty, our whole country is dirty, and they don't respect us. So, it's a very good question, actually.

Question: Mr. President? Mr. President? Sir, a question for you on the specific issue. Do you expect more cities to follow DC's path if this goes through? So, the idea is that Chicago, LA, San Francisco, would they expect similar action what we've seen in DC? And the other question, sir, there is reporting that the administration is going to reclassify marijuana. Would that send mixed messages that marijuana's ok, drugs -- some drugs are okay, but we're trying to clean up crime? How do they go hand in hand?

Trump: We're only looking at that. That's early. But, you know, somebody reported it, which is fine. We're looking at it. Some people like it. Some people hate it. Some people hate the whole concept of marijuana because, if it does bad for the children, it does bad for people that are older than children. But we're looking at reclassification. And we'll make a determination over the next -- I would say over the next few weeks. And that determination hopefully will be the right one. It's a very complicated subject, these -- you know, the subject of marijuana. I've heard great things having to do with medical, and I've had bad things having to do with just about everything else. But medical and, you know, for pain and various things, I've heard some pretty good things. But for other things, I've heard some pretty bad things. The other part of your question, I mean, we're just going to see what happens with -- with it all. You're going to have -- we're going to have a tremendous success on what we're doing. Other cities are hopefully watching this. They're all watching, just like everyone's watching here. They're all watching and maybe they'll self clean up and maybe they'll self do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused the problem. I mean, if you go back, this whole thing with cashless bail is a disaster. So many problems came that we never had before. So they're watching us today. And if they don't learn their lesson, if they haven't studied us properly, because we're going to be very successful. I have zero doubt about that. It's going to be. It's a question of will it be really fast like the border. You know, everyone said, they used to say -- Biden used to say, I need legislation, I need -- you didn't need -- I didn't get any legislation. I called up our people and we did a great job. Tom Homan was great. As you know, our secretary did a great job. They did a great job. There's no games. They didn't play games. And we're going to have the same thing here. But then I'm going to look at New York in a little while. Let's do this. Let's do this together. Let's see. It's going to go pretty quickly. And if we need to, we're going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster. We have a mayor there who's totally incompetent. He's an incompetent man. And we have an incompetent governor there. Pritzker is an incompetent. His family threw him out of the business and he ran for governor, and now I understand he wants to be president. But I noticed he lost a little weight, so maybe he has a chance, you know. You never know what happens. But Pritzker is a gross incompetent guy, thrown out of the family business. But when I look at Chicago and I look at LA, if we didn't go to LA three months ago, LA would be burning like the part that didn't burn. If he would have allowed the water to come down, which I told him about in my first term. I said, you're going to have problems, let it come down. We actually sent in our military to have the water come down into LA. They still didn't want it to come down after the fires, but that was it. We have it coming down. But hopefully, LA is watching. That mayor also, the city is burning. They lost like 25,000 homes. I went there the day after the fire. You were there. And I saw people standing in front of a burned down home. It was -- their homes were incinerated. They weren't like -- even the steel was literally -- it was all warped and literally disintegrated because of the winds and the flame and the whole thing. It was like a blowtorch. They were standing on this beautiful day, maybe a couple of days after. We gave it a little time because what they had suffered, almost 25,000 homes, and you see what's happening now. They didn't give their permits. I went to a town hall meeting. I said, we're going to get you the permits, which are much harder, almost immediately. Lee Zeldin is a star. He did an incredible job. They have all their federal permits. They don't have their city permits. And the mayor said to me, we think we can have them in two years. I was walking down the street and I met with firemen and police and I was saying hello to many people that were standing in front of their homes with yellow tape. You can't go in. You can't go onto the lot. And those people wanted to start rebuilding their homes then and there and the mayor said we should be able to get them the permits within two years. I said, that's a shame, two years. Are you kidding? I'm going to get them the federal permit like almost immediately, two years. And she threw it back, well, maybe one year. The place was booing her out of the place. They don't have their permits to build their homes and now they're talking about putting -- this is among the most beautiful areas was in the country. Now they're talking about putting low income housing there. Can you believe this? I love low income housing. I made money with low income housing. I built low income housing. I know more about low income housing and luxury housing. I know about everything real estate. They want to replace some of those homes with low income housing. They haven't gotten their permits yet. We've gotten all the federal permits, which are much tougher to get and it was done almost immediately through Lee Zeldin and Federal Environmental. And I watched the other day, those people are angry and now, you know, they had tremendous -- they love that area. They love the whole big area, different places. But they loved it, it was all luxury stuff and beautiful stuff. And some wasn't that luxury, but the level of love for that neighborhood, their neighborhoods, was incredible. And you know what, I watched people on television, they want to go, they want to leave. They've lost their spirit. They've lost their heart, because the mayor is incompetent and Gavin Newsom is incompetent. You've got a good line of bullshit, but that's about it. He's incompetent. And you have -- Los Angeles is -- you know, it's amazing. You know, I called -- the first thing I did, I got the Olympics to go there. I was the one that got it. And by a rare thing that happened, I'll be the president. I was very upset because I got the Olympics and I said I won't be president when it comes, but bad things happened and illegal things happened. Really, illegal things happened. Now it turns out one good thing is I'm going to be the president for the Olympics for 2050, for 250, which is going to be fantastic and also for the World Cup. So we have a lot of good things and I hope 250 is going to be -- 250th anniversary is going to be the best. But when I looked at those people and I saw last night on television that they still don't have their permits, it's a disgrace what's happened in Los Angeles.

Question: Mr. President? Oh, yeah, thank you. The China tariff deadline is tonight. Do you plan to extend that?

Trump: We'll see what happens. China's been -- we've been dealing very nicely with China, as you probably have heard. They have tremendous tariffs that they're paying to the United States of America and we'll see what happens. They've been dealing quite nicely. The relationship is very good with President Xi and myself. Please.

Question: Mr. President, you mentioned your upcoming meeting with President Putin.

Trump: Yeah.

Question: Can you tell us what you hope to get out of that? And whether you consider inviting President Zelenskyy to join?

Trump: So you have to understand, this is a war that should have never happened. This is a war that wouldn't have happened if I were president. It would have never happened. It wasn't -- it was the apple of his eye. I got along very well with President Putin. But if you look under President Bush, they took a lot of territory. Under President Obama, they took a lot of territory. Under Biden, they essentially took the whole thing. You know, it's just a question of time. Under Trump, you know what they took, nothing, nothing. I was the one that said, you can't build your pipeline, that was half built. I came in, I stopped the pipeline. It's called Nord Stream 2. Nobody knows that. You know, nobody ever heard of Nord Stream 2. You might have not even heard of it, biggest pipeline in the world. I stopped it. I was not a friend of Russia, but I got along well with Putin. It's always good to get along with other countries, if possible, but that doesn't mean you're -- you roll over like Biden did. Biden came in and he immediately approved the pipeline. I couldn't believe it. Then they say Trump wasn't tough on Russia. I wasn't tough. I was the toughest -- Putin said, if you're not tough, I would hate like hell to see you -- I stopped the biggest economic development job, the biggest job that Russia had ever built, I stopped it. It was dead. And this low IQ president came in and he let them build the pipeline and supply oil and gas all over Europe, you know. So this is really a feel out meeting, a little bit. And President Putin invited me to get involved. He wants to get involved. I think, I believe he wants to get it over with. Now, I've said that a few times and I've been disappointed because I'd have like a great call with him and then missiles would be lobbed into Kyiv or some other place and you'd have 60 people laying on a road dying. I said that's cold, that's cold. But it's a violent war, 5,000 to 7,000 people a week are dying. And you know, there's nobody from here. They're all Russian and Ukrainian people and some people from the cities, much smaller number. But still, those missiles do damage and they kill a lot of people, but mostly soldiers and they're young soldiers. Although, in the case of Ukraine, they're getting much older. They're drafting 60-year-olds now. It's a terrible thing to witness. And I think I have an obligation. Look, this is Joe Biden's war. This is not my war. I made a deal with NATO a month ago. You covered it very accurately, actually, where we don't pay anything anymore. You know, we're not paying anything. They are buying things from us and NATO is paying us. I got it raised from two percent of GDP to five percent, and they're paying us for everything that we send. We're not paying. But Biden approved $350 billion. Europe has spent $100 billion. The money that's been spent and the death is incredible. It's the worst thing that's happened, by far the worst that's happened since World War II. So I'm going in to speak to Vladimir Putin and I'm going to be telling him, you got to end this war, you got to end it. And he wasn't going to mess with me. This war would have never happened. You know, we had a discussion about it one time and we never had that discussion again, would've never happened. And when the election was rigged and then Biden took office, which was -- barely took office. The autopen took office. Bad things started happening, bad things, stupid things were said and it ended up in a war. And you know, the big -- and I don't believe this will happen anymore because I have that pretty well covered. This could end up in a third world war. This could have been a third world war. I don't think that's going to happen now, but I thought it was very respectful that the President of Russia is coming to our country as opposed to us going to his country, or even a third -- third party place. But I think we'll have constructive conversations. Then after that meeting immediately, maybe as I'm flying out, maybe as I'm leaving the room, I'll be calling the European leaders, who I get along with very well. And, you know, I have a great relationship, I think, with all of them. And I get along with Zelenskyy, but, you know, I disagree with what he's done, very, very severely disagree. This is a war that should have never happened, wouldn't have happened. But I'll be speaking to Zelenskyy. The next meeting will be with Zelenskyy and Putin or Zelenskyy and Putin and me. I'll be there if they need, but I want to have a meeting set up between the two leaders. I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy was saying, well, I have to get constitutional approval. I mean, he's -- he's got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap. Because there'll be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody, to the good -- for the good of Ukraine. Good stuff, not bad stuff, also some bad stuff for both. So, there's good and there's bad. But it's very complex because you have lines that are very uneven. And there'll be some swapping. There'll be some changes in land. And the word that they will use is, you know, they -- they make changes. We're going to change the lines, the battle lines. Russia's occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They've occupied some very prime territory. We're going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine. But they've taken some very prime territory. They've taken largely ocean -- you know, in real estate we call it oceanfront property. That's always the most valuable property. If you're on a lake, a river or an ocean, it's always the best property. Well, Ukraine -- a lot of people don't know that Ukraine was largely a thousand miles of ocean. That's gone, other than one small area, Odessa. It's a small area. There's just a little bit of water left. So, I'm going to go and see the parameters. Now, I may leave and say good luck, and that'll be the end. I may say this -- this is not going to be settled. I mean, there are those that believe that Putin wanted all of Ukraine. I happen to be one of them, by the way. I think if it weren't for me, he would not be even talking to anybody else right now. But I'm going to meet with him. We're going to see what the parameters are. And then I'm going to call up President Zelenskyy and the European leaders --

Question: How soon?

Trump: Right after the meeting, yeah. And I'm going to tell them what kind of a deal -- I'm not going to make a deal. It's not up to me to make a deal. I think a deal should be made for both. I think Russia has to get back into building their country. It's a massive country. I think they have 11 time zones, if you can believe it. It's a massive -- it's by far -- from the standpoint of land, it's by far the largest. They have tremendous potential in Russia to do well. They're not doing well. Their economy is not doing well right now because it's been very well disturbed by this. It doesn't help when the president of the United States tells their largest -- or second largest oil buyer that we're putting a 50 percent tariff on you if you buy oil from Russia. That was a -- that was a big blow. And then they say, gee, he wasn't so tough. Nobody else would have done that. And I haven't stopped there. I mean, look, I was all set to do things far bigger than that. But I got a call that they'd like to meet, and I'm going to see what they want to meet about. I'd like to see a ceasefire. I'd like to see the best deal that could be made for both parties. You know, it takes two to tango, right? So, ultimately I'll have a meeting next week. I had a great relationship with him, considering the fact that, you know, I was not nice to him because of the pipeline. I -- I ended the pipeline. I also gave the Javelins. Do you ever hear of a Javelin? Javelin is called a tank buster. They say that Obama gave them sheets, and I gave them Javelins. If it weren't for me, all those tanks that were destroyed at the first days of the war -- because the tanks got stuck in the mud. Some commander made a better -- you know, they would have been -- they would have been in Kyiv in four hours going down the highway. But a Russian general made a brilliant decision to go through the farmland instead. And they'd just had torrential rains, and the rains were so bad and it was mud, and those tanks got stuck in the mud. I don't know who that general is, but knowing Vladimir he's probably not around any longer, because all those tanks were stuck in the mud and they went along with the Javelins. I got -- I gave them the Javelins. You know that, right? I gave them Javelins. They gave them sheets. But I'm going to -- I'm going to meet with President Putin, and we're going to see what he has in mind. And if it's a fair deal, I'll reveal it to the European Union leaders and to the NATO leaders, and also to President Zelenskyy. I think out of respect I'll call him first and then I'll call them after. And I may say lots of luck, keep fighting, or I may say we can make a deal. If not? I will tell you this. I've seen a poll coming out of Ukraine. 88 percent of the people would like to see a deal made. And if you go back three years, everybody was gung ho for war. You know, everybody's gung ho for war until you have it. It's an amazing thing. I had it with a couple of countries where I couldn't get a deal done with one particular country and -- I just couldn't. The guy's great. He's a friend of mine, great -- good leader, tough as hell. I couldn't get the deal done, and then he went into war for a short period of time. You know where I'm talking about, first term. And it was nasty, guys being killed all over the place. And he went through one week of war, and I was able to get the deal done. He said this is nasty. Yes, please.

Question: Just -- just just to follow up on -- on what you were saying there, first of all, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not invited on Friday.?

Trump: He wasn't a part of it. I would say he could go. But he's gone to a lot of meetings. You know, he's been there for three and a half years. Nothing happened.

Question: And what is the definition --

Trump: I mean, do you want somebody that's been doing this for three and a half years? What's the definition of a good deal? I'll tell you after I hear what the deal is.

Question: Well, I was gonna ask you --

Trump: Because there could be many definitions. You know, you're talking about a -- a very large and complex situation. I'll tell you, the war that I just settled with Azerbaijan and with -- as you know, and Armenia was almost as complex as this one, having to do with routes, trade.

Question: But what is a successful meeting on Friday with Vladimir?

Trump: Well, we're going to have a meeting with Vladimir Putin. And at the end of that meeting -- probably in the first two minutes, I'll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made.

Question: How will you know that?

Trump: Because that's what I do. I make deals.

Question: Mr. President? Mr. President?

Trump: Please, go ahead.

Question: Yeah. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm going to ask you two questions, one about China, one about Russia, if I could. On China, your administration agreed to send the most advanced -- or advanced Nvidia and AMD chips to --

Trump: No, obsolete. No.

Question: Obsolete chips. Well -- and then 15 percent of the --

Trump: You mean the 20s. No, no, that's -- this is an old chip that China already has. And I deal with Jensen, who is a great guy, and Nvidia. The chip that we're talking about, the H20, it's a -- it's an old chip. China already has it in a different form, different name. But they have it, or they have -- a combination of two will make up for it, and even then some. Now, Jensen also has -- Jensen's a very brilliant guy, and Jensen also has a new chip, the Blackwell. Do you know what the Blackwell is? The Blackwell is super duper advanced. I wouldn't make a deal with that, although it's possible I'd make a deal, a somewhat enhanced in a negative way, Blackwell. In other words, take 30 percent to 50 percent off of it. But that's the latest and the greatest in the world. Nobody has it. They won't have it for five years. But the H20 is obsolete. You know, it's one of those things. But it still has a market. So, I said, listen, I want 20 percent if I'm going to approve this for you for the country, for our country, for the US. I don't want it myself. You know, every time I say like -- like 747, I want -- I want, yeah, for the Air Force. So, I just want it -- so, when I say I want 20, I want for the country. I only care about the country. I don't care about myself. And he said, will you make it 15? So, we negotiate a little deal. So, he's selling a essentially old chip that -- Huawei has a similar chip, a chip that does the same thing. And I said good. If I'm going to give it to you because they have a -- you know, they have a stopper, what we call a stopper. Not allowed to do it. They restrict it. It's really known as a restrictive covenant. And I said, if I'm going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something, because I'm giving you a release. I released them only from the -- the H20. Now, on the Blackwell, I think he's coming to see me again about that. But that will be a unenhanced version of the big one. Like, I don't know if you know it, we will sometimes sell fighter jets to a country and we'll give them 20 percent less than we have. You know what I mean, right? That’s the same.

Question: Mr. President, so on Russia -- Mr. President? Do you -- do you see a time, Mr. President, when there could be normal trade between the US and Russia should your meeting go well, should there be peace?

Trump: I do, yeah. Russia has a very valuable piece of land if Vladimir Putin would go toward business instead of toward war. You know, it's a warring nation. That's what they do. They fight a lot of wars. A friend of mine said Russia's tough because they just keep on fighting. They beat Hitler, so did we, and they beat Napoleon. You know, they've been doing this for a long time. I asked a question to a very, very smart man that some people like and some people don't like, Viktor Orban, right, from Hungary, the head of Hungary. And he's in that same area and knows the two countries very well. I said, this was before Biden didn't do anything to get us out of it. He could have gotten us out of that. It would have never happened. I said, so can Russia be beaten by Ukraine? He looked at me like, what a stupid question. He said, Russia is a massive country and they win their country and they win their life through wars. They fight wars. That's what they do. He said, China beat you with trade. Russia beats you with war. That was a very interesting statement. China has not beaten us with trade, not when I'm in charge, but they were beating Biden with trade, but they never beat us with trade. Don't forget, China had to pay $400 billion worth of tariffs when I was -- last time. That was last time. And if we didn't have COVID all of this stuff would already -- we would be loaded. We -- you know, we're finding hundreds of billions of dollars of cash is pouring into our country now because of tariffs. And all we're doing is we're doing what they do to us. It's so beautiful to see it. They find -- they found last month, as you saw, $25 billion of excess cash flow. They say, where did it come from? I said, I'll tell you where it came from. It came from a place called tariffs and we're doing very well. We're really doing well. But I expect to have a meeting with Putin that I think it will be good, but it might be bad. And I have -- hey, I'm here for one reason, to get rid of a war that somebody else started, should have never happened. And if I could end it, great. Complex war, a lot of -- a lot of bad blood, a lot of bad blood, but Zelenskyy's been there for three and a half years. So if you put them in a room -- now, I will say this, ultimately, I'm going to put the two of them in a room, I'll be there or I won't be there and I think it will get solved. Yeah, please.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President.

Trump: Excuse me. I'm going to suggest -- because, could you -- do you have any other questions on D.C., because I don't want them to be -- wait, wait, wait. These are incredible people. I don't want them to be standing up here on subjects that -- does anybody have a question of them? And then -- and then you guys can leave. OK. A question -- Brian, go ahead.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. All right.

Trump: And by the way, this is only on D.C., and then they're going to leave because it's unfair to have them stand up here all day long.

Question: I agree. I've got two questions for you. First about D.C. This is personal for me as well. Last year, I was robbed on the streets by one of these teenage thugs, had a gun, got away with it. Let's talk about the effort between law enforcement, prosecutors and judges, because it's a recycling belt that these kids go -- they don't fear the police. They know it. If you talk about how we've got to get these judges and put these kids behind bars --

Trump: Right

Question: Adult crimes deserve adult penalties. And my second question after you answer that, please.

Pirro: Do you want me to answer it?

Question: Whoever wants to take it.

Pirro: OK. OK. It's real simple. Do you want me to answer it?

Trump: Go ahead.

Pirro: Here's the problem. Assuming that there's 17 years -- older than 17 years old, I can get the case. If they're under 18 years of age, I can only get the case if it's murder, rob one, rape, even if they shoot a gun but don't kill you, I can't get it. So the law has to be changed. As the President said, cashless bail, that has to be changed. All right. Then even assuming I get the case, I get jurisdiction, I get a conviction, the D.C. Council has given the judges the ability to give probation on shootings, and so then it's up to them. All of these things, the Youth Rehabilitation Incarceration Reduction Act and now they want to seal records. So if we work hard, we get a conviction, they want to wipe it out. So that needs all to be changed. That's all.

Question: OK. [Inaudible]

Trump: Pam, would you answer that also?

Bondi: Yeah, and just back to that topic, let's be clear though, we're going to charge them and we're going to track every single thing they do throughout every step of the court process and report back to you and let all of you know what's happening to them. Because the people who are prosecuting them, the judges who are trying them, they also need to be held accountable.

Question: Mr. President, you also made the comment -- you made the comment [Inaudible] this is the most people we've ever seen in this briefing room.

Trump: Never. I've never seen --

Question: Ever, right?

Trump: I've never seen any -- where is Karoline? Where is my superstar? Karoline, is Karoline in the back? Where is Karoline. Come here, Karoline. Come here, Karoline. Come here. Is she doing a good job, by the way? Come here, Karoline. Is this the largest crowd that you've ever seen?

Karoline Leavitt: Yes. This is definitely the most packed briefing, and I think all of you would agree. I think it's why we need to build a ballroom.

Question: Mr. President, I have a better idea.

Trump: Good. All right. Brian, go ahead.

Question: My question is this, you're building the big, beautiful ballroom.

Trump: Yeah.

Question: Could we build a big, beautiful briefing room, update technology, more seats.

Trump: No. I don't want to do that. I don't want you to be comfortable. I'm sorry. So no, I don't want to make life comfortable. So look, look, look, let's just do this. Let's do this. It's going to be a big thing. We're going to Russia. That's going to be a big deal. What happens, happens. I'll let you know what happens. You'll be the first to know. I'll be calling the European leaders. I'm going with totally -- I mean, we have -- we have a lot of talks. They're great people, they're great leaders actually, and they want to get back -- honestly, as one of them said, I've OD'd on trying to settle Ukraine. They've OD'd, meaning they've overdosed on the settlement of Ukraine. Not a nice expression, but boy, is it accurate? They're tired of it. They want to get back to spending money on their countries. You know, they're in -- Biden gave them $350 billion. Europe gave $100 billion. It should be much more than that. It shouldn't have been that kind of. They should have had equalization, but they didn't, but you know what? Still a lot of money they want to get back to building their own countries. They really want it resolved. My relationship with the European leaders, as you saw, is extremely good. Like it's perfect -- it's beautiful. Wait, wait, wait, wait. And we're going to try -- I'll be in touch with them. I have five of them call me. You think it's easy. There are a lot of European leaders, but they rely on me, very much rely on me. If it wasn't for me, this thing would never get solved until the last person breathing is dead.

Question: Would you talk to them before meeting with President Putin?

Trump: Yeah, I did. I'm talking to them right now. So I'm talking to the European leaders. I'll be talking to President Zelenskyy. I'm going to get everybody's ideas. I go into that thing fully loaded right up there and we're going to see what happens. Now, I think one of two things is going to happen. It's could be a good meeting and we'll go a step further and we'll get it done.I'd like to see a ceasefire very, very quickly, very quick. I'd like to see it immediately, but I'd like to see it very quickly. And we're going to be dealing with the European leaders and we're going to be dealing with President Zelenskyy and hopefully we're going to have a great success. As far as this, what we did today and I think you were here for DC more so than even Russia, because Russia will be -- you know, we have a couple of days to go, but the Russians are going to be very interesting. But to me what is very exciting and we're going to take back our capital. We're going to make it beautiful again, but we're going to make it more importantly, safe again. It's going to be so safe, it's going to be a model, and then we'll look at other cities also. But other cities are studying what we're doing and you have some capable people in other cities. They can do it too. But we have a great group of professionals. We're going to have a safe, beautiful capital and it's going to happen very quickly. Thank you, all. Thank you all very much.

Leavitt: We'll see you guys tomorrow. We'll have another briefing.

Transcript courtesy of CQ Factbase