TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Announces Relocation of Space Command to Alabama, 09.02.25
President Trump: Thank you very much -- it's a very important day and an important announcement with great friends of mine I think I can say. This group is -- every one of them, I rate a 10. I can't always say that, even if they're Republicans, and these are Republicans -- great Republicans. I want to thank you all for being here for this important announcement seven years in the making. As you know, this has been going on for a long period of time. And I am thrilled to report that the US Space Command headquarters will move to the beautiful locale of a place called Huntsville, Alabama forever to be known from this point forward as Rocket City, OK. So, Huntsville, Alabama -- we love Alabama. I only won it by about 47 points. I don't think that influenced my decision though, right? That didn't, right? But we had a lot of competition for this, and Alabama is getting it, Huntsville in particular. So, congratulations, everybody. Katie, congratulations. This will result in more than 30,000 Alabama jobs and probably much more than that and hundreds of billions of dollars of investment -- and that's billions because it can't be millions, it's billions and billions of dollars. Most importantly, this decision will help America defend and dominate the high frontier, as they call it. I want to thank Secretary Pete Hegseth. He's doing a fantastic job. And Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink. Troy, thank you very much. Great job you're doing, Troy. This is such a big deal. This is one that everybody wanted to know what are you doing. I also want to thank Senators Katie Britt, and I want to give my condolences, your grandmother -- her grandmother just passed away, she was 100, right?
Senator Katie Britt: And she loved you well.
Trump: And she was very proud of you, very, very proud of you. So, thank you, Katie.
Britt: A wonderful lady.
Trump: She must have been -- to produce you indirectly, I can tell you she had to be. Tommy Tuberville, who's a great coach -- and I won't say anything about what happened with Alabama football this weekend.
Britt: Let's leave that out.
Trump: but you're not -- you're not used to that, right? You're not used to that, but Tommy -- Auburn won is right. They did. So, you're happy. Tommy's been a great Senator, as you know, and a fantastic guy all around. He was also a tremendous coach. House Armed Services Committee Chair, Mike Rogers. Thank you, Mike. Where's Mike? Mike, thank you very much. Doing great, Mike. Representatives Barry Moore, all great friends, Robert Aderholt, Gary Palmer and Dale Strong. Thank you all very much, fellas, appreciate it. In my first term, we created, and I created a thing called Space Force. So important. You know, we were losing the race in space very badly to China and to Russia. And now we're far and away number one in space and reestablished space com with a mission to protect American space assets and detect any threat to our homeland. We initially selected Huntsville for the space headquarters, yet those plans were wrongfully obstructed by the Biden administration. And as you know, they moved them to a different locale. And today, we're moving forward with what we want to do and the place that we want to have this, and this will be there for hopefully hundreds of years. That's where it's going to be. I will say, I want to thank Colorado. The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting. They went to all mail-in voting. So they have automatically crooked elections. And we can't have that. When a state is for mail-in voting, that means they want dishonest elections because that's what that means. So that played a big factor also. In Huntsville, SPACECOM will play a key role in building the Golden Dome, as you know. That's going to be a big thing. Everybody wants to be a participant in it. Missile defense shield, we're going to be having a Golden Dome that the likes of which nobody's ever seen before. The finest, the best. And by the way, Canada called; they want to be a part of it and that'll be great. But Canada wants very much to be included in that and we're going to work something out with them, I hope. It will also ensure that our technological capabilities of which we're way ahead of anybody else's, nobody close, remain unmatched long into the future. So I'd like to ask Secretary Hegseth to say a few words. He was very much a part of it. And really, everybody behind me was. Every one of these people would call me and lobby me. I said, Katie, I don't want to talk to you anymore. I know. I know what you want. She said, that's right, sir, that's what I want, and they got their way. So I just want to congratulate -- these are really special people. They're politicians in many ways, but they're great patriots, I think even more so than politicians. So they fought very hard to get it and it's an honor to give it to Huntsville. Pete, say a few words, please.
Pete Hegseth: Thank you, Mr. President. As usual, right place, right time, for the right reason. In your first administration, you established the Space Force at a time when we knew we had to be looking to that domain of space. You also reestablished SPACECOM to ensure that priority was put in place. And you, through the Air Force, independently identified that Huntsville, Alabama was the right place to put it. For other reasons in the next administration, under Biden, they decided to move it somewhere else. Well, during that time, the DOD inspector general, the government affairs office, they did their own assessments and where did they say SPACECOM should go, Huntsville, Alabama. So what you're doing today, Mr. President, is restoring it to precisely where it should be based on what the Space Force, the Air Force, your leadership, believes will give us strategic advantage in the future. Well, during that time, the DOD inspector general, the government affairs office, they did their own assessments and where did they say SPACECOM should go, Huntsville, Alabama. So what you're doing today, Mr. President, is restoring it to precisely where it should be based on what the Space Force, the Air Force, your leadership, believes will give us strategic advantage in the future.
Trump: Thank you very much. Katie, would you like to say something?
Britt: Yeah. Mr. President, we are grateful for your leadership on this and restoring Space Command to its rightful home in Huntsville, Alabama. This delegation has worked together, both chambers, both parties, to make sure that Huntsville was the place that Space Command called home. As was mentioned, obviously, the Biden administration chose to make this political. What we want to do is put the safety and security of Americans first. We want to make sure that our warfighter is put first and we want to make sure that America continues to lead. And today, Mr. President, you've allowed that to happen. Thank you.
Trump: Thank you very much. Tommy, please.
Senator Tommy Tuberville: Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. This is a great day for our country, not just for our state of Alabama. We need help in our military. We need to catch up. And as Secretary Hegseth said, we're not behind in space, but we know where we're at and we need to expound on that. Now, this move will save the taxpayers $480 million. It’s not going to cost more. It's going to cut $480 million. We have the plans intact. It'll be behind a secure wall in Huntsville, Alabama, at Redstone Arsenal. We have 40,000 people there. We have the FBI there. We have missile defense there. We have NASA, Blue Origin and SpaceX. It is the perfect place for Space Command. I would tell you today, and again, I've spoke with the president for the last three or four years about this. If I thought it needed to go somewhere else because I understand the security of our country, I'd be for that. But the best place for Space Command is Huntsville, Alabama, because what we have and what it means to this country is going to be so important. So thank you, Mr. President, for this and we look forward to building a huge Space Command and having the Donald J. Trump Space Command Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Britt: There you go. Here, here. Here, here.
Trump: Thank you. JD, would you like to say something?
JD Vance: Sure. Well, Mr. President, thank you. I'll be very brief here. I lobbied the president hard to put it in Ohio, but he said these people behind us, these Alabama's are just too powerful and too persuasive. And so it's in Alabama. But as Tommy said, this is exactly the right place for Space Force and Space Command. I think Americans ought to appreciate the fact that you can't win the battle of the future unless you control the skies. The cyber security, the communications, the entire infrastructure of the battle in the 21st century will be in space. It was a visionary move in the first administration for the president to set up Space Force, and I think an equally visionary move to make sure that Space Force is right where it should be in Huntsville, Alabama. Thank you, sir.
Trump: Thank you very much.
Britt: Thank you.
Trump: Gentlemen, anybody want to say anything? Would you like to say?
Dale Strong: Mr. President, another promise made, another promise kept. You think about it, Redstone Arsenal is critical to national security. The president said when you were the 45th president, let's do what's right for national security. And today, that's exactly what we're doing. It's not because of this or that, it's because it's right for national security. You think of the 21 categories that were evaluated to determine what was best for national security, all indicators pointed back to Huntsville, Alabama and Redstone Arsenal. We have the right people at the right place at the right time. Mr. President, on behalf of the people of the fifth Congressional District and all of Alabama, thank you for keeping your word.
Trump: Thank you. Thank you.
Strong: Absolutely.
Trump: Thank you very much. Anybody.
Robert Aderholt: Let me just say, Mr. President, I want to say thank you, and thank you for doing this because it was the right thing to do. All the -- when they looked at all the numbers, Huntsville was the place to go. And like you say, it was unfortunately pulled out, but you made it right. So I want to just say thank you again for a grateful nation and to the state of Alabama, we're very grateful. Thank you and God bless.
Trump: Thank you very much.
Aderholt: Thank you.
Trump: Thank you very much. Please, go ahead.
Britt: Mike?
Gary Palmer: Thank you, Mr. President. Throughout history, military has always understood that whoever could hold the high ground held the advantage. Space is the ultimate high ground. And what we're doing with moving the Space Command to Huntsville is absolutely critical to our maintaining dominance in that sphere. And it goes hand in hand with what we're trying to do with the Golden Dome and missile defense, to defend against anyone else who tries to enter that sphere. So thank you, Mr. President.
Trump: Thank you very much. Please, go ahead.
Barry Moore: Thank you, Mr. President and obviously, national defense is a huge issue. And when you look at the scores, Alabama was number one and for political reasons, it was moved out of our state. But Mr. President, thank you for making priorities of defense and the warfighter and the safety of this nation. In the Big, Beautiful Bill, that Golden Dome will be built in Huntsville, Alabama and we're grateful for that. Thank you.
Britt: That's great.
Congressman Mike Rogers: Listen, I -- as chairman of the Armed Services Committee, I care very much about what's most important for our national security and the president held a nationwide competition to determine where we should have this command. If you all remember at the end of that competition where Alabama came in first, there was a lot of complaints from the other states who did not place well. He said, we'll do it over with new criteria to accommodate your concerns. Alabama came in first in that second competition. His secretary of the Air Force reviewed the results, said it was fair and the president named Huntsville. It was the Biden administration that decided to make it political, even though his own secretary of the Air Force said it was a fair competition and it should be in Huntsville. So I want you to know, I appreciate this president standing up and being strong, and saying he's going to make this right and put it where it rightfully belongs, and that's Huntsville, Alabama.
Trump: Thank you very much, good job. I appreciate it. So thank you all very much. You are going to leave me alone now. You're not going to call me anymore and talk about this subject, right? You promise? They'll start something else. But I just want to congratulate you. It's a very big deal. When you come out and you leave the room, you'll see that we just, over the last few minutes, literally shot out a boat, a drug-carrying boat, a lot of drugs on that boat. And you'll be seeing that and you'll be reading about that. It just happened moments ago and our great general, head of the joint chiefs of staff, who has been so incredible, including what took place in Iran, knocking out potential nuclear power for a long time to come. I think within a month, they would have had it if we didn't do what we did. But he gave us a little bit of a briefing, and you'll see. And there's more where that came from. We have a lot of drugs pouring in from our country, coming in for a long time. And we're just -- these came out of Venezuela. And coming out very heavily from Venezuela -- a lot of things are coming out of Venezuela. So, we took it out and you'll get to see that after this meeting is over. Do you have any questions, please? Yeah, please.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Senator Tuberville, you talked about the cost savings associated with this announcement. Can you talk about the strategic benefits by having Space Force Command headquartered in Huntsville?
Trump: Well, it just works because we have so much else there and having a central -- you could call it a central command, but it really is a command station. Also, even locationally where it is, and when you think about flying distances, if you can save a half an hour as fast as some of these planes go and things go and even the rockets go, if you can save by having the best location. So, we went out, as you know, to experts and we had four different groups of experts. They all said this was the best location. I also loved it from the standpoint I know the people of Alabama, they are great people, work hard and there's no games and they're very proud of it. And I would say they fought harder for it than anybody else also. A lot of states -- five states really wanted it, but they wanted it more. And I kid you not when I say that these people, they spoke to me a lot. That's all they wanted to talk about. They didn't want to talk about the weather. They only wanted to talk about moving to this location, moving to Alabama, Huntsville in particular. So, we're honored to do it. They really wanted it badly and they got it. Peter.
Question: President Trump, something completely different, but a big viral social media trend over the weekend. How did you find out over the weekend that you were dead? Did you see that?
Trump: No.
Question: People didn't see you for a couple days, 1.3 million user engagements as of Saturday morning about your demise.
Trump: Really? I didn't see that. You know, I have heard -- it's sort of crazy, but last week I did numerous news conferences, all successful. They went very well, like this is going very well, and then I didn't do any for two days and they said there must be something wrong with him. Biden wouldn't do them for months. [Laughter] You wouldn't see him and nobody ever said there was ever anything wrong with him and we know he wasn't in the greatest of shape. No, I heard that, I get reports. Now you knew I did an interview that lasted for about an hour and a half with somebody and everybody saw. That was on one of your competitors. I did numerous shows and also did a number of truths, long truths, I think pretty poignant truths. No, I was very active over the weekend. They also knew I went out to visit some people at the club that I own pretty nearby on the Potomac River. And no, I've been very active actually over the weekend. I didn't hear that one. That's pretty serious stuff.
Question: I'm glad it was fake news.
Trump: Well, it's fake news. You know, it's just so -- it's so fake, that's why the media has so little credibility. I didn't -- I knew they were saying like is he OK. How is he feeling? What's wrong? I said I just left, and it's also sort of a longer weekend, you know it's Labor Day weekend. So, I would say a lot of people -- no, I was very active this Labor Day. I had heard that, but I didn't hear it to that extent. Go ahead, Peter.
Question: And something else. We know that this country has a huge problem with school shootings. You've said that you're open to sending the National Guard pretty much anywhere. Would you ever consider sending an armed National Guardsman to every school?
Trump: Well, we have a big problem with school shooting, but we also have thousands and thousands of schools that run perfectly. You know, they talk about, you can do things construction wise and that's really -- I think nobody knows more about construction than me. You can build the construction doors. You can build what they call safety doors, where they lock on the outside, the inside and everyplace else. well. But if one of these lunatics happens to get through, then the police can't get in, then they're looking for keys all over the place and it takes them -- a lot of disadvantages to doing, you know, spending billions and billions of dollars and actually making it safer in some way for some of these lunatics that we're dealing with. But I don't think so. You know, I've thrown out the concept. We have great teachers that love our children. The parents love the children; teachers love the children too. And if you took a small percentage of those teachers that were in the military -- that were distinguished in the military, that were in the National Guard, etc., etc., and you let them carry. That's something that a lot of people like. I sort of liked it, it'd have to be studied, but they're trained. They know about weapons. You can't do it with every teacher because most teachers don't know, but I always thought that would be an alternative. But it just -- we've had a lot of instances; other countries have also -- they have different kinds of problems than we have. But we do have this, something going on, something going on. And it's a bad thing. Yes, please.
Question: Have you spoken with President Putin in the past week?
Trump: Yeah, I don't want to -- I have learned things that will be very interesting. I think in the next few days you'll find out.
Question: Are there any consequences if there isn't some type of announcement of a meeting with President Putin and President Zelenskyy?
Trump: Yeah, there will be consequences.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: We're going to see what happens. We're going to see what they do and what happens. I'm watching it very closely. Last week they lost 7,000 -- between the two countries, 7,313 soldiers to be somewhat exact, for no reason whatsoever. And they're Russian and they're Ukrainian, but you know they're soldiers. I want to see it end. Yeah.
Question: Mr. President, have you decided you're definitely going to send National Guard troops to Chicago?
Trump: I didn't say when, but the answer is -- look, Chicago's very interesting because I watched Pritzker get up and say about we don't need help, we're safe. But two weeks ago they had six people murdered -- murdered, and they had 24 people hit by bullets. Last week, as you know, it was seven people, 24 people hit and seven people died. And then over the last two days, it was the -- that was the crown jewel. They had, I guess, nine killed, nine or 10 killed and 50 hit with bullets. And you have this governor get up who's a terrible governor. Probably he and Gavin Newscum would be probably the two worst and most naïve -- they're naïve. Either they're naive or they're very untruthful. And he'll say we don't want any protection we don't need. So, in the last three weeks he's lost almost 20 people killed. There's no place in the world, including you can go to Afghanistan. You can go to places that you would think of, they don't even come close to this. Chicago is a hellhole right now. Baltimore is a hellhole right now. Parts of Los Angeles are terrible. If we didn't put out the fires, and I mean the other fires, the bullet fires, they didn't do a good job with it, they should have had the water coming down, like I said. You know we had to release the water, we had to go in and release the water to LA. It's so badly run, but if we didn't get -- if I didn't send the National Guard into Los Angeles, you wouldn't -- I would be making an announcement today. I'd be talking about Huntsville and I'd simultaneously be saying by the way the Olympics is not coming to Los Angeles. If we didn't do that, if we didn't do that -- and even the sheriff, the top law enforcement person in Los Angeles said we could not have handled it without them. So, that's what he said.
Question: [Inaudible] make your mind up on Chicago though.
Trump: Well, we're going in -- I didn't say when, we're going in. When you lose -- look, I have an obligation. This isn't a political thing, I have an obligation. When we lose -- when 20 people are killed over the last two and a half weeks and 75 are shot with bullets. So, let me tell you a little story about a place called DC, District of Columbia, right here where we are, it's now a safe zone. We have no crime. We have -- it's in such great shape. You can go and actually walk with your children, your wife, your husband, you can walk right down the middle of the street. You're not going to be shot, Peter, you're safe. Everyone likes you anyway; they probably wouldn't do it. But it's so dangerous. And there are people in this audience that have -- you've suffered greatly. There are people in this audience that have been mugged and hurt badly, and they don't want to talk about it. Maybe you were very brave in talking about it. You made quite an impression on a lot of people. I appreciate it. But there were other people in this room that have been hurt very badly just walking down the street in DC. Washington, DC is a safe zone right now. It's a safe city. The restaurants are open, they're booming. You can't get a restaurant. New restaurants are announcing that they're going to be open. This took place in 12 days. Now it's 15 days, but three days ago it became what's known as a safe zone. It's a safe city and this city was really bad, really, really bad. We took 1,600 people out, hardcore criminals that will not be coming back anytime soon. And we're very proud of it. You know, to have our nation's capital lose -- every week, you know, it was like years, many years where every single week somebody was killed for many, many, many consecutive weeks. This went on for years. And then we had -- last week it was announced that nobody was killed last week. And I made that announcement in front of a very distinguished leader of a country and I'm saying proudly, ladies and gentlemen, and nobody was killed in Washington D.C. this week. He looked at me like, was that -- what's that all about? I said, yeah, we have a little bit of a crime problem and we don't have a crime problem in Washington anymore. And the mayor has been very helpful. And the police commissioner has been very helpful. And it's been a great team. And I would love to have Governor Pritzker call me. I'd gain respect for him. And say, we do have a problem and we'd love you to send in the troops because you know what, the people, they have to be protected. I saw today on one of your networks, not a friendly network, exact -- really, the opposite, I would say, very unfriendly network. And they interviewed about 12 people on this morning, most of them were African American, they were Black, and they were saying please, please, please let the president send in -- these were people from Chicago. Please, we need help. We need help. We can't walk outside. We're petrified. If the governor of Illinois would call up, call me up, I would love to do it. Now, we're going to do it anyway. We have the right to do it, because I have an obligation to protect this country and that includes Baltimore. I saw where Governor Moore was asking me to take a walk down the street of Baltimore. Well, Baltimore is a very unsafe place. It's rated number four in the city. One of the worst -- one of the most unsafe places anywhere in the world. But you know we, took care. This was a beautiful thing that happened in Washington because we showed that it could be done. And this wasn't just sending big strong guys -- and they are big and they are strong. You know, we had a great decision from the Supreme Court that had to do with sort of talent. It had to do with, you are put down based on merit. You can hire based on merit. So merit for a soldier or for a policeman, is strong, physically fit, something -- you know, having a certain ability, not a person that is woke and got the job through woke but wasn't strong enough to lift a gun out of the holster, etc., etc. No, I looked at the police -- as you know, last week I went over, we had a meeting with, there had to be 300 people and they were all very impressive-looking. And when the bad guys see them, they're not going to do a thing. And so I'm very proud of Washington. It serves as a template and we're going to do it elsewhere. But Chicago is certainly going to be high. I would love to have him call. I would love the governor of Illinois, I'd be honored to take his call. All he has to do is say, sir, we need help, it's out of control. And everyone knows it is. He's not kidding anyone. I would love to have -- I would say, Governor Moore call, because I watched him over the weekend trying to explain that Baltimore, what they need is housing. No, they don't need housing. They need to get rid of the criminals. These are hardcore criminals. You know, we took many people off the streets of Washington D.C. They're hardcore. They're not going to be good in 10 years, in 20 years, in two years. They're going to be criminals. They're going to be -- they were born to be criminals, frankly. They were born to be criminals, and they're tough and mean, and they'll cut your throat and they won't even think about it the next day. They won't even remember that they did it. And we're not going to have those people. Washington D.C. is now a safe zone. It's a safe place and you can walk -- Katie, you can walk right down the street with -- by the way, one of the biggest human beings I've ever seen, which is her husband. He was -- he was a football player for like 11 years in the NFL. He's a big person. But big doesn't mean anything when they have guns.
Britt: That's right.
Trump: And when they have knives and everything else that they have, right? But you can walk right down the street even by yourself and you're totally safe. Washington D.C. is a great thing. Yes, ma'am, please.
Question: Mr. President, as you're calling on Democratic leaders across the country to work with you on crime, do you see your efforts here in D.C., including for example, working with Mayor Bowser here, as a model for bringing more bipartisanship in matters not only with crime, but also issues that matter to everyday American people's lives?
Trump: So Mayor Bowser has been great. She could have taken the thing, oh, well -- and then after I clean it up, they'll take credit for it. You know, what they do is they take credit. Like, we cleaned up Los Angeles. We did a great job there and it was overwhelming what was going on. And again, the police chief made a statement that we could not have done -- There's no way they could have -- you saw what was happening out there. It was going to be a disaster. We stopped it cold. If we didn't do that, it would have been a very sad day. And you know, remember, we have the Olympics. We have the World Cup. We have all these things coming and we have 250, all of these things coming. But I watched Newsom get up and say, he's doing a great -- he's not -- we're the ones that did it. And that's OK, whatever it takes. But the main thing is we -- but he got up and said, we did it. Well, he didn't want us there and he's going to need us again because it's starting to form again. I see it. It's starting to form again. You know, we have to maintain. It's like maintenance on an airplane. You can buy it, but you have to maintain it. And if you don't maintain it, a good plane becomes very unsafe very quickly. So it's an honor to do it. A lot of presidents wouldn't do what I'm doing. I don't need this heat. But when I watched television last night and I'm watching the news and I see that nine people were killed in Chicago and 54 were badly wounded with bullets, I say, that's not this country. We have to do something. And I do say this, I say this very much, I'm not speaking to anybody, but them right now. I would love to receive calls from governors and mayors, saying they need help. We'll help them. We have a lot of people. We have a great force. We have a great military force. You know, Pete will tell you that when I was running for office, when -- and this was a big headline. I think -- you know, probably got me a couple of votes, but you couldn't sign people in the military. Nobody wanted to join the military. The Army, Air Force, any -- the Navy, Marine, Space Force, Coast Guard. We never forget Coast Guard because they've done such a great job, never. But nobody wanted to join any of them. We were way below what we wanted, every single one. The closest was the Marines, whatever that is. You'll explain that to me. But the closest was the Marines, but every service was way down, way down. And then I got elected and our country is the hottest country anywhere in the world right now. Everybody's talking about the USA. They're talking about the job that we're doing, everybody. We have the best economy. We have a very, very important decision being made by the Supreme Court because our country is the richest, the strongest, the most powerful. But if for some reason, some liberal court, I'm talking about the court that just ruled where even an Obama judge voted in favor of us, which I gave him a compliment yesterday, as you know. I said, that took great courage. But it's a liberal court and it's going up to the Supreme Court, who I think have been incredible people. I think they've made very wise decisions. But the tariff question, because without the tariffs this country is in serious, serious trouble. We've taken in almost $17 trillion of investment is coming in. Most of it has come in because of tariffs. And if for some reason somebody wanted to be politically correct -- I actually think it's unpolitically correct. I think politically correct is to approve it, because there's nothing so popular as what's happened to our country. Our country is doing so well. But we had a liberal court gave us a very shocking ruling. And that ruling is basically saying that the trillions of dollars that are pouring into our country, putting us in a position like no country is anywhere in the world, that they'd like to see us -- that taken away. By the way, a lot of the people behind that lawsuit, that particular -- are from foreign countries, I might add.
Question: There's a video that is circulating online now of the White House, where a window is open to the residents upstairs and somebody is throwing a big bag out the window. Have you seen this?
Trump: No, that's probably AI-generated. Actually, you can't open the windows. You know why? They're all heavily armored and bulletproof.
Question: So that's a fake video.
Trump: It's got to be, because I know every window up there -- the last place I'd be doing it is that because there's cameras all over the place, right, including yours. No, but every window -- I've never seen a window that's -- in fact, my wife was complaining about it the other day. She said, I'd love to have a little fresh air come in, but you can't. They're bulletproof. And number one, they're sealed. And number two, each window weighs about 600 pounds. You have to be pretty strong to open them up. No, that has to be. Where was the window? Let me see.
Question: Maybe from the renovations?
Trump: Which is the window.
Question: It looks like this is on the 15th Street side, I think, so right here.
Trump: Yeah, those windows are sealed. Those windows are all -- they're all sealed. You can't open them
Question: Thank you. You were saying regarding the –
Trump: It's the kind of thing they do. And one of the problems we have with AI, it's both good and bad. If something happens really bad, just blame AI, but also, they create things. You know, it works both ways. If something happens, it's really bad, maybe I'll have to just blame AI, but there's truth to it because I see so many phony things. I saw something as I was growing up, from the time I was a baby till now, I said, who did that? It was AI-generated. So it's a little bit scary, to be honest with you, but those windows are all very heavily sealed.
Question: Mr. President, can I follow up with what you were saying regarding that federal appellate court that ruled against you and your administration as it relates to your ability.
Trump: Well, they ruled against our country, the court, and they ruled against us before. It's a very liberal court.
Question: You called it highly partisan in your –
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Well, it certainly is -- it certainly is.
Question: And in fact, it was along ideological lines seven to four.
Trump: Well, except that we actually got -- one of the Obama judges that was appointed by President Obama voted in favor of the tariffs because he felt it was imperative for our country to thrive and survive even, and I gave him credit. I said you know what, that took a lot of courage for him to do it because you don't see that often.
Question: So, my question is, I imagine, I suspect you're going to appeal that all the way to the Supreme Court.
Trump: Well, we already have, yeah. In fact, we're doing something else. We're going to be going to the Supreme Court we think tomorrow because we need an early decision. I mean, look the financial fabric of our country, we're a rich, incredible country right now and we're able to -- you know, other countries used tariffs on us for years and we never did any. I did a lot during my first term, but then we had COVID, and we had to focus on other things. You couldn't be tariffing Italy, Spain, France as they were dying by the thousands and millions. But we did with China and China paid us billions and billions of dollars. And I started the process, but then I had to end it a little bit because of COVID, we focused on that. But no, it's a very important decision. And frankly, if they make the wrong decision, it will be devastation for our country. We've taken in trillions of dollars and, by the way, all these countries signed agreements as an example, they signed -- they're all happy, everybody's happy. But some whack job put in a lawsuit. It went before a very liberal court, and the Liberal court ruled, it was 11, they ruled seven to four with one of the most liberal of them all voting in our favor because they're patriots. I think -- I give tremendous credit to that judge and now it's going to the Supreme Court. Now we're going to be asking for early admittance. We're going tomorrow and we're going to ask for expedited -- an expedited ruling because when you look at -- the stock market is down today, the stock market's down because of that. Because the stock market needs the tariffs, they want the tariffs. If you look at AI, all of those -- all of that money that's going to be invested. trillions and trillions of dollars. The biggest thing -- bigger than the internet, I suspect. It's the internet plus three or four other things combined. We are leading very substantially with AI. We're leading because of tariffs. We're leading because of talent and this is where they'd like to be. But without the tariffs, we wouldn't have a chance because we wouldn't be able to protect those investments of the companies coming in. So, if you took away tariffs, we could end up being a third world country. That's how big the ruling. So, we're asking for an expedited ruling.
Question: Mr. President, as a backstop to that, president, you have a Republican controlled Congress, you control the House, you control the Senate.
Trump: Yeah, but we don't have 60 votes. We don't have 60 votes. I'd love to do that. Oh, if we had -- if we had 60 Senators, if we got the 60 votes, we would get them. But we need 60 votes, and we need a certain number in the House. We'd get, I think we'd get -- I don't know, we have about five of them here, would everybody agree with me on tariffs? Without tariffs, we're a different country. We have taken in so much money and here's the thing. We signed a deal with Japan. They're paying us hundreds of billions of dollars. We signed a deal with South Korea. We signed a deal with the European Union. We signed a deal with Europe, and those countries are paying us $950 billion. And they're happy about it. They're OK. As one of them said, it's amazing that we got away with it so long, one of my friends, a leader of one of the countries. And they're fine with it; they all signed. If that ruling ever went against us, I guess we'd have to give back hundreds of billions. We would have to give trillions and trillions of dollars back to countries that have been ripping us off for the last 35 years. And I can't imagine it happening. On a legal basis, they have no legal basis whatsoever, but on a commonsense basis, it would destroy America. OK.
Question: Mr. President, you talked about controlling the sky. On Sunday, the satellite signal of Ursula von der Leyen's plane was –
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: With Ursula?
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: Well, she had an interesting event. She's a tremendous woman, and so what are you asking me about her?
Question: NATO is concerned about having [Inaudible]
Trump: True, NATO is concerned about it. Well, nobody knows where it came from, but they did take away her ability to use her phone. You know, sometimes that's a good thing. Sometimes that could happen to me, I'd be very happy. Mr. President, reducing the tariffs on India from 50 percent. What does that mean?
Question: Are you considering taking away some of the tariffs that you've imposed on India this -- you had posted?
Trump: No, we get along with India very well, but India has -- you have to understand for many years it was a one-sided relationship. Only now since I came along, and because of the power that we have with tariffs, India was charging us tremendous tariffs, about the highest in the world. They were about the highest in the world, number one. And we therefore weren't doing much business with India, but they were doing business with us because we weren't charging them -- foolishly we weren't charging them. So, they would send in massive -- you know, everything they made, they'd send it in, pour it into our country. Therefore, it wouldn't be made here, which is a negative, but we would not send in anything because they were charging us 100 percent tariffs. And I'll give you an example, Harley-Davidson. Harley-Davidson couldn't sell into India. There was a 200 percent tariff on a motorcycle. So, what happens? Harley-Davidson went to India and built a motorcycle plant, and now they don't have to pay tariffs, same thing as us. So, what we're doing is literally thousands of companies are coming into the US, car companies, AI, but more traditionally car companies. We have so many car company factories under construction or being designed right now and they're coming from China, they're coming from Mexico, I must tell you, and they're coming from Canada, a lot of them coming from Canada. But they're coming into our country because they want to build here, and they want to build here for two reasons. Number one, they'd like to be here; and number two, the tariffs are protecting them. And number three, they want to avoid paying tariffs. When they build their cars here, they don't have any tariffs to pay. You know, when you build here, you don't have any tariffs.
Question: Mr. President?
Trump: Go ahead, please.
Question: In light of the Minnesota shooting last week, the Department of Homeland Security is now awarding more than $100 million to hundreds of faith organizations across the country to help them ramp up security. What's your vision for further protecting religious liberty across the country amid incidents of threats and violence?
Trump: So, religious liberty is so important, and we're talking about every religion now, and we're doing things on that that nobody else has ever done. And we're going to be announcing -- we're going to be having a big announcement in about two weeks on that question. Yeah, please.
Question: On Space Command, sir, are you concerned that people may not be willing to relocate from Colorado to Alabama?
Trump: No, I'm not worried, then we'll get somebody else.
Question: Colorado –
Trump: I mean the problem with Colorado is they have a very corrupt voting system? Look, I have so many friends in Colorado. Anytime you have mail-in voting, you have corrupt elections, very simple. It's very simple. Even Jimmy Carter said it with his commission, they set up a commission with him and Scoop Jackson and some people -- highly regarded people. And they said the one thing -- the finding was if you have mail in voting, you will have corrupt elections. Well, your radical left governor decided that he was going to have all mail-in voting in Colorado. Once you have all mail-in voting, and for whatever reason, the Democrats cheat. And they cheat like -- you know, they're not stupid. They're no good on policy, they're no good on management, they're no good at government, but they're great at cheating, and they stick together too. I give them credit for sticking together. Please.
Question: Obviously, this is a big win for national security, moving this to Alabama. We've all agreed with that. Is there any idea of the economic impact this has on the state and on that local area?
Trump: Katie, do you want to answer that?
Britt: This is going to be tremendous. I mean, the state of Alabama, what we've seen through this process is the worst of Washington. We've seen politics get in the way of what's best for the warfighter, what's best for national security. And the state of Alabama is about to show the country the best among us. So, we know the economic impact is going to be tremendous. There at Redstone Arsenal we're proud to house everything from the FBI to headquarters there for material command to a number of things. We obviously have mash-up with Marshall Space Flight Center. And so, this naturally fits within. When you look at the decision matrix that they place in front of us, that's why we ranked so high is because we have the resources necessary and the ability to build out quickly to meet the needs in front of us. As far as economic impact, it would be tremendous. Does anybody have an exact number? 1,600 jobs with 3,000 spin-off. Look at this, this is teamwork right here. So, we are really proud. And the people of Alabama are ready to get to work.
Question: I've got a [Inaudible] question, if you could just for a second, Mr. President.
Trump: Yeah, please.
Question: Owning a home and going about the American dream seems like it's out of touch for a lot of Americans.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: Just recently, you put out a statement about addressing an emergency housing situation.
Trump: That's right. We're thinking about doing that.
Question: Yeah, can you just –
Trump: Well, we need a little help from the fed. We have a man named Jerome, too late, Powell. You probably heard of him. He's too late, way too late. And the economy is so strong that it's pushing through that. Normally, it would have been much tougher. But we're doing so well that we're pushing through it, but it makes it very hard for people to get mortgages because too late is too late. Very simple, he's too late. And probably political, whatever. He wasn't too late before the election. Before the election, he was cutting rates, right, because he was hoping that, I guess, Biden would get in or that Kamala would -- he was a big Biden guy. Explain that one. And then he was Kamala person, but he was hoping, I guess, she'd win, I guess. I don't know. It didn't work out too well. But yeah, we need a -- we need a very serious cut. You know, I think that if you look back many decades ago, the United States was always the lowest. Even if they were doing badly, the United States was -- because without the United States, everything in the world would die. It's true. It's so powerful. It's so big and I've made it real -- I made it really big in the first four years. Then it started to degenerate with what this Biden administration did. But we built it up to a level that I never thought we could be at this quickly. We're the hottest, we're the best, we're the best financially. The money coming in is so big because of tariffs, and other things, but because of tariffs. Tariff gets us even those other things, plus it gets us great negotiators. I settled seven wars and numerous of those wars were because of trade and numerous of the trade deals that I made were because of tariffs. It gives you a great negotiating ability. If that ability were taken away from us by a liberal court acting on essentially foreign nations asking to get help from the United States government, when they've been doing this to us for 40 years. That's why we have $38 trillion in debt. We won't have it for long if they let us -- if they allow us to do what everybody knows we should be able to do. Yeah, please.
Question: Mr. President, another Biden-era action that you are now reversing is that you [Inaudible] last week to make federal buildings adopt and embrace classical architecture styles again. Can you talk to us about why you do that? And also, what's your vision for –
Trump: Well, we want to see beautiful buildings. Now, you know, it's in the eye of the beholder. I've seen architectural reviews over the years. I'm an expert at it. I've gotten a lot of great reviews, but I've seen buildings that I didn't think were very good, get great reviews and I've seen great buildings get bad reviews. But it's just a standard. We want to have a good standard. We're building something here. You know for 150 years they wanted a ballroom at the white House. We're doing something at the highest level, using great architects and all. And you know, it's very exciting, but we have a lot of interesting things happening architecturally in D.C., and D.C. is like a different place. And you know, even the contractor said, sir, we walked down today, we feel like, much safer. It's like a different place. Washington D.C. is great. Now we're going to also beautify it. We're going to put a topping on the roads. We're not going to rip them apart and take four years to build a road that was exactly the same by the time you build it. But we're going to put toppings. We're going to put new medians in. We're going to get the graffiti off. We're going to put tiles up in the tunnels where the tiles are missing and we'll do the whole tunnel instead of, you know, a little area where you see new tiles, old tiles that never look too good, but they could use it. You know, they've been up for 50 years. They've served their duty, but we're going to make this within about a 20-mile radius from the White House. We're going to have this place spic and span. It's going to be crime free and it's going to be spic and span. It's going to be -- you'll be proud of Washington again. Go ahead, please.
Question: Sir, China's having a massive military parade that President Putin and Kim Jong Un will be attending. Do you interpret that as a challenge to this?
Trump: No.
Question: And are you concerned at all about those countries not trying to be some sort of counterweight?
Trump: Not at all. China needs us and I have a very good relationship with President Xi, as you know. But China needs us much more than we need them. No, I don't see that at all. No. And I had actually a very good meeting with President Putin a couple of weeks ago. We'll see if anything comes out of it. If it doesn't, we'll take a different stance.
Question: [Inaudible] today in California ruled that your deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles was illegal. Do you have any response or reaction to that?
Trump: Well, it was a radical left judge, but very importantly, what did you not tell me in that question or statement that you made pretty much of a statement, I think?
Question: Well, I was asking for your response.
Trump: No, no, you didn't say what the judge said, though. The judge said, but you can leave the 300 people that you already have in place. They can continue to be in place. That's all we need. But why didn't you put that as part of your statement? Because the judge -- the same judge ruled exactly as you said, except the judge said that you could leave the 300 people that you already have in place. They can stay, they can remain, they can do what they have to do. Thank you very much, everybody. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.