TRANSCRIPT: Donald Trump Speaks to Reporters After Air Force One Arrival, 6.10.25
Question: Afternoon, Mr. President.
Donald Trump: Hello, everybody. I thought that was incredible, the Army, which is one year older than our country. How are you? One year older than our country. I thought it was incredible, the display. I don't know if you got to see it. I think you did. But that was some great display. It's a incredible force, incredible people, and it was an honor to see it.
Question: Mr. President, is there's something that you think you can to de-escalate tension with Governor Newsom?
Donald Trump: Not with the governor, but, uh, there is -- I mean, I've always had a good relationship with him. He just doesn't do a very good job. He should've never been allowed to start. And if we didn't get involved, uh, Los Angeles would be burning down right now, just like the houses burned down.
Question: Are you concerned about anything that could go wrong by having the military there? They're trained for different situation.
Donald Trump: Yeah. No, it can only go right. By having the military, it de-escalates. I mean, that was the only way. These people are, uh, agitators. They're troublemakers. I believe many of them are paid. I watched them breaking up the sidewalks with a big hammer handing pieces of the concrete --
Question: Mr. President --
Donald Trump: -- to other people --
Question: -- who do you think is paying for that [Inaudible]
Donald Trump: Somebody's paying for it. Thank you.
Question: -- might have something to do with it --
Donald Trump: Thank you for saying that. Somebody's paying for that. I watched total professionals. He's banging the curb, banging the granite, banging the, uh, concrete, and he had a whole group of people. They lined up like totally professional, grabbed the big chunks, and they dropped it on the soldiers, they dropped it on the Los Angeles Police. These are insurrectionists. They are agitators or troublemakers. At a minimum --
Question: [Inaudible]
Donald Trump: -- they're troublemakers.
Question: Mr. President, Governor Newsom said he did not speak to you a day ago, as you said --
Donald Trump: Yep.
Question: -- uh, in the Oval Office earlier. What's your response to that?
Donald Trump: Well, I gave him -- It wasn't a day ago. It was a little longer than that. Uh, and I presented the phone conversation to, uh, Fox News, John Roberts and Molly Line at Fox News, because they were the ones that said it. And we actually spent 16-point-something minutes on the phone, and I told him he's gotta get his act together because you're gonna have some bad times in Los Angeles if he doesn't. We had a pleasant conversation. Uh, the pr- -- the proof was from the phone company. It was from the phone company. So I spoke to him at a certain time. I'm, I'm sure you all saw it. You saw that. You saw --
Question: Yeah.
Donald Trump: But why would you ask me that question if you saw it? You know, I mean, he asked --
Question: Well --
Donald Trump: -- he asked me a question and then he said, "Yeah, I saw that that you spoke to."
Question: [Inaudible] Friday.
Donald Trump: Yeah, I spoke to him for over 16 minutes. I spoke to him for over 16 minute, and I told him to get his act together. But he hasn't been able to do that. I mean, the, the man, uh, really we could, we could have a great -- You know, we have an Olympics coming up. We have to put the right foot forward. We have to do a job. We have a lot of people all over the world watching Los Angeles. We've got the Olympics, and we have this guy allowing this to happen. Let me tell you, when you watch these agitators break up concrete and hand it out to people as they stood on line to get it, these have to be paid troublemakers.
Question: Mr. President, [Inaudible] to say that the governor and the mayor paid them? Do you believe that the governor and the mayor pays the agitator?
Donald Trump: No, I don't say the governor or the mayor. I said somebody's paying them, I think. And if they're not, they're just troublemakers. What can I tell you? But I believe somebody's paying them. I mean, when you -- I've never seen somebody with a big hammer so professional. Now they took the bricks away from them. So they say, "How do we get in? The military did. How do we get in and what do we do?" They said, "I have an idea. Let's break up the concrete. And that's even better than bricks." And that's what happened.
Question: Yeah. You just witnessed an amazing spectacle, a flex on our military. What impressed you the most?
Donald Trump: I think the total love for the military. I mean, I, I was with the generals. They are explaining the different maneuvers and the love they have for the army and the military is, it's beautiful. They're really great people. And I've never seen anything quite like that. I don't think any other president has, either. You know, they really, they really put on a good show. I asked them did you do that for Biden? They said, no, (laughs) they didn't do it for Biden. I wonder why.
Question: There could be some pretty big protests this weekend.
Donald Trump: I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I know this. As long as we have the military there, uh, the protests won't mean anything. Last night, if we weren't there, they would've burned down the city. But they did not a lot of damage, other than they broke up a lot of concrete looking for weapons. You know, those are weapons. If that hit somebody in the head, the person's dead. You know that, right?
Question: Yes, sir. Are you planning – What did you mean by a very heavy force will be met, uh, with the protestors –
Donald Trump: Well, the military will be very heavy force. That's, I'm very proud to tell you that. Uh, they might as well turn around. They're wasting their time. Uh, some of them will end up in jail for a long period of time. Uh, they used weapons. That concrete is a weapon, a dangerous weapon, worse than a brick, heavier than a brick. And they were dropping it off bridges and throwing it at soldiers and police. They're not doing that. They're not doing that. You know, I went, uh, in my first term, I waited for governors to call in the military and they didn't wanna do it. And I watched Minneapolis and other places burn for a long time, and I said, "When are you gonna call? When are you gonna call?" And I said, "If I ever do this again, if they're not responsive at the beginning, not at the end -- " You know, I called in the military in Minneapolis, but it was seven days. I waited for this guy. The same guy that ran for vice president. He was a very dumb person. He is a very dumb -- He's a low IQ individual like many Democrats are. But I waited for him to call him in. I kept wait -- I'd call him every day and say, "When are you calling him?" And finally, I called him because I'm not gonna wait. They were destroying the city. The whole city was burning down. Horrible. Okay.
Question: [Inaudible] set a hearing for Thursday on, from Governor Newsom's lawsuit, do you think your administration will be successful Thursday for the hearing?
Donald Trump: Well, even Senator Fetterman said very strongly that this is horrible what they're doing, and that the Democrats are making a big mistake by not talking about it. And I agree with that. I think this is in a league with, and maybe even worse than a true sense, what they're doing is now worse than men playing in women's sports. I think that's a ridiculous thing. Uh, open borders. You take a look at open borders. Open borders is what caused it. Many of these people, many of them, not all of them I guess, but many of them came through the Joe Biden stupid open borders. Really sad to watch. It's very sad to watch this being our country. Now, with our National Guard and our, you know, fairly low number of Marines, they had no chance. And if you look, they were a little bit tougher than police. Did you notice that?
Question: Yeah.
Donald Trump: The police are trained not to do it. You know, they're really trained. They're under tremendous political constraint. They're great police. I know the police in L.A. I know the force. They're very good, but they're not allowed to do their thing. They're just not allowed. They're restricted by radical, left politicians.
Question: As command --
Donald Trump: Who are pretty, pretty shameful.
Question: As commander in chief, sir, what rules of engagement do you want for the military? What limitations of --
Donald Trump: A very simple rule of engagement. If they're dangerous, if they're throwing concrete or bricks, if they're spitting in the face of the police or whoever's in front of them, if they're punching people, if they're doing all of the things that you see done for the last three nights, uh, that I would say is engagement. We need to keep our city str- -- I wanna save Los Angeles. And Newsom is totally incompetent. He's not gonna do it. Look at the fires he had. He had fires where half the city it seemed burned down. What was it? 25,000 houses, all because he wouldn't take water. I released the water from the Pacific Northwest and it came down, millions of gallons a day. And it's right there, right now. They'd like to send it back. There's something wrong with these people. All I want in terms of engagement, I just wanna see peace. If there's peace, we get out. If there's even a chance of no peace, we stay there until they're at peace. And a lot of people are being arrested. They, the rioters or whatever you wanna call 'em, they better know, a lot of people are being arrested. They're gonna be in jail for a long time. Thank you very much.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President.