TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Attends a Roundtable on Immigration in Ochopee, Florida, 7.1.25

[Video]

President Trump: Thank you very much. They've done a fantastic job. Even the microphone works well; that's good. Wow. Well, I'd like to just thank everybody for the incredible job they've done. I love this state. As you know, Ron and I have had a really great relationship for a long time. We had a little off period for a couple of days, but it didn't last long. It didn't last long and a lot of respect for each other. And it's a great honor to be deep in Florida, the Florida Everglades to open America's newest migrant detention center. It's incredibly built and you're seeing that yourself. That's why I said, let the press join us on our walk so they can see what's happening. It's known as Alligator Alcatraz, which is very appropriate, because I looked outside and that's not a place I want to go hiking anytime soon. But very soon this facility will house some of the most menacing migrants, some of the most vicious people on the planet. We're surrounded by miles of treacherous, swampland and the only way out is really, deportation. And a lot of these people are self-deporting back to their country where they came from, quite a few. We're amazed at actually the number. We took the FEMA money that Joe Biden allocated to pay for the free luxury hotel rooms where he was paying hundreds of millions of dollars in New York City. And we used it to build this project. And Ron, it was just a little fraction of that money, the money they spent on that project. I happen to know the real estate developer. He never really made that much, but he became very wealthy. With luxury, he didn't do well. With people that are not exactly luxury, he's made a fortune. I want to thank Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier. Where is James? Where is he? You do a very good job. I hear good things. I hear good things about you from Ron too. No, you really do. He's even a good-looking guy. That guy's got a future, huh? Good job, James. I hear you're really, really fantastic, worked hard. You're like in the construction business for a few days, right? Huh? Congratulations for all the hard work and to make this facility possible. It's amazing. Thanks as well to Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson. Where is Wilton? Where are you? Hi, Wilton. It's been a long time. Thank you. Congressman Byron Donalds. Where's Byron? Hi, Byron. How are you? Good. Florida Speaker of the House Daniel Perez. Daniel? Daniel? Thank you, Daniel? Why, you didn't want to sit up here with us, Daniel? Executive Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management Kevin Guthrie. Hi, Kevin. Good job. Acting Director of ICE, Todd Lyons. Todd, great job. And Senator Joe Gruters. He is a great guy. Hi, where is Joe? We love Joe.

Joe Gruters: Thank you, Mr. President. We love you. Welcome home.

Trump: Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Joe is great. With the help of those incredible Border Patrol agents, we now have the lowest level of daily border crossings ever recorded. As you know, last month, the month of May, just got released two days ago, the number of illegal aliens into the United States was zero -- zero. Even I find that hard to believe. Somebody must have gotten in, I think. I don't know, but they say zero. And the people that count them are radical left Democrats. So, when a radical left Democrat tells me it's zero, I believe them. But there is still much work to do. In the four years before I took office, Joe Biden allowed 21 million people -- that's a minimum, I think it was much higher than that -- illegal aliens to invade our country. He invaded our country just like a military would invade. It's tougher because they don't wear uniforms. You don't know who they are. More than the populations of New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Philadelphia combined. That's what came into our country from prisons, from mental institutions, from street gangs, drug dealers -- disgusting. This enormous country-destroying invasion has swamped communities nationwide with massive crime, crippling costs and burdens far beyond what any nation could withstand. No nation could withstand what we did. And we're in the process of doing it, but we have some great people doing it now. You see them up here with me. But it's a -- I'd call it like an unforced error. It's sort of like men in women's sports. It's sort of like transgender for everybody. How could they have done this to our country? And we're never going to forget it. Last year, 15 percent of all the hotel rooms in New York City were used to house illegal aliens at costs that they never got for luxury. They never got this much for luxury, people coming in from the wealthiest places on Earth. They made more money with the illegal immigrants with many rooms costing more than $300 a night, six times the rent of a typical American family. In Denver, Colorado, the city was forced to cut $10 million from its police and fire department budget as part of a $90 million plan to house illegal aliens. And it's a population that's growing and growing and destroying Denver and growing. And again, it's destroying Denver and it's destroying many other cities too. Likewise, one of the city's largest hospital systems is drowning in unpaid medical bills -- unpaid in the billions -- after their emergency rooms were flooded with tens of thousands of illegals leading to the closure of critical services. And these are really critical services. They can't even keep them open for American patients. The American patients were treated worse than any illegal immigrant. In Los Angeles, one in every four students in the public school system is from a household headed by an illegal and most of them don't speak English. So, they were in a school system, and they don't have interpreters, they don't have anything, they don't speak English. What a mess, what a mess, unforced error, all these people allowed to come in. The United States is now spending $78 billion a year on translation, OK? Think of that, $78 billion a year on translation. And smaller numbers on special education programs for non-English speakers in our public schools. So, $78 billion, I think that's not a mistake. I would say million dollars maybe, hundreds of thousands of dollars, $78 billion, Joe, on translators and non-English speaking work. The federal government, the Justice Department -- it's more than twice the cost of maintaining the United States Justice Department, what we're spending on translation and other things to help. In total the average illegal alien costs American taxpayers an estimated $70,000 -- that's each, $70,000. I think that number is even lower. If you care about balancing the budget, the single most impactful step we can take is to fully reverse the Biden migration invasion, one of the worst invasions we've ever had. We've never had an invasion like this. We've had invasions, but we've taken care of them. We've never had an invasion like this. And it's with us and we have some very bad people out there looking to do big harm. That's why the One Big, Beautiful Bill includes funding for 3,000 new Border Patrol officers and 10,000 new ICE agents. And I've gotten to know the Border Patrol and ICE very well. Unlike Kamala -- she was the border czar, but she never saw the border. She never made one phone call. She was some boarder czar, she would have been some president, probably would have been slightly better than Biden though. I had to run against both of them, you know. The one guy -- it's like a fighter, you knock out the one guy who's doing badly, then they put somebody else in. But fortunately, she was a stiff also. Otherwise, I would have been very angry. I would have been extremely angry. The heroes of ICE will also help round up and remove members of the savage drug cartels, which are coming back into our country. And we are -- we got them out. Now, some of them came back in, we just got them out again, and that's going to be a vicious cycle. But these are foreign gangs. They're horrendous people, killers, that have infiltrated our territory including eight which we have designated as foreign terrorist organizations, which gives us a lot more power for speed and getting them out much easier. And we had a great court victory, as you know, on Friday that allows us to do what we have to do from the Supreme Court of the United States. In five months, my administration has already arrested over 2,700 members of the murderous Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua, including a pack of these sadistic animals arrested last month with over 280 guns. And these are guns of the latest caliber. These are guns that were made over the last period of less than a year -- getting brand new guns, the latest and the greatest. Every day, our brave law enforcement officers are hunting down and deporting migrant criminals who have committed heinous crimes, including more than 13,000 murderers -- 11,888 to be exact, but I'd probably say the 13,000 is right also. Think of it, 11,888 and more than half of them -- they committed more than one murder. So, Ron, many of them are out of here already, but it's still -- it's a hell of a number to be confronted with. Just this year, ICE agents in Miami have apprehended illegals with arrests for murder, kidnaping, rape, child sexual abuse and arson, people of the worst order. We're getting these monsters out of the United States, out of Florida, out of all the places that they're in. And on January 20th, I signed an executive order empowering governors and state police to be deputized to enforce federal immigration laws. And Ron's already taken advantage of it. It really -- it's a tremendous advantage for the states. Most of them are doing it. Actually, the blue states tend not to do it. Even a couple of them have though. And I want to express my tremendous thanks to the state of Florida for embracing this opportunity and being a true partner. They've worked so well with the federal government. It's been just a beautiful, beautiful partnership. So, Ron, I'd like to thank you personally, you're my friend and you'll always be my friend. And we may have some skirmishes even in the future. I doubt it. But we'll always come back because we just seem to -- we have blood that seems to match pretty well. We have a relationship that's been a very strong one for a long period of time and I appreciate it, very much appreciate it. And also, Secretary Noem, I'd like to say have you say a few words. You have been unbelievable, the job you've done. You and our favorite person, Tom -- Tom Homan have done -- and your whole staff because it's a lot of people. And Tom acknowledges it all the time. He respects you so much. He respects the staff that you both built and you're really doing one of the great jobs. And it was great that you could work with Ron in Florida so well, build such a great facility. So, please say a few words. Thank you very much.

Kristi Noem: Thank you. I don't know if this will work well. Thank you, Mr. President. First of all, I want to thank you for putting the safety and the security of the American people first. And the way that you never lose focus on making sure that America stays our priority and that the families that live here get the chance to grow up and to raise their children in communities that are safe and that give them an opportunity to pursue the American dream. This facility here is a fantastic representation of what can happen when all of government works together, and when it's accountable to the taxpayers and to the citizens that live here. The president signed an executive order that allowed us to build partnerships with states and with local law enforcement officers, which is exactly how things should function in this country, more power, more authority given to people locally so that they can take control of their own destiny. And so, we have already been working under the 287(g) Program to deputize law enforcement officers, whether they be state highway patrol, local sheriff's departments in all of our states and allow them to go out with our ICE officers, our Border Patrol officers and make sure that we're getting the worst of the worst off of the streets. We also recognize that as we've been doing that and returning people back to their home countries, that we need detention facilities. We need beds to put them in place so that they can have their due process before they return home. And this facility is exactly what I want every single governor in this country to consider doing with us. What happened to start this conversation was that a young man named Jimmy Percival, in my office, my general counsel who came from Florida and used to work here, called up the attorney general and the governor and said, hey, what do you think about partnering with us on a detention facility that we could put in place that would allow us to bring individuals there? There's an airstrip close by. You guys volunteered the assets that you have and the connections that you have and worked with Kevin extensively so that we could come here, have their due process given and return them home to their countries. And in eight days, this facility has been stood up. And I want everybody to recognize that detention facilities that ICE adheres to is a higher standard than is required at state levels, at local Department of Corrections facility, sheriff's offices. This is a state-of-the-art facility, air conditioned, isolated though for security purposes, which is very helpful and I appreciate so many people being willing to work together to make a project like this happen. Right here on this location, we'll have about 3,000 beds. Other locations will have another 2,000 beds that will allow us to bring individuals across the country that we are bringing in and incarcerating for violating our laws and immediately get them out of the country as soon as we possibly can. It's exactly what we need to be perpetuating in other states. And what I would say is, I want all of you to notice these fliers that we've got, is that everybody who sees these fliers or anybody who sees these news clips should know, you can still go home on your own. You can self deport. If you go on the CBP home app and go home now, you will get the chance to come back to the United States legally. You will get the chance to come back and do it the right way. If you don't, you may end up here and you may end up here and being processed and deported out of this country and never get the chance to come back. That is the consequences of breaking the law in the United States of America. Listen, our job is to uphold the law. This is a country of laws. We have a border now and because we have a president that cares and recognizes that we need to be a nation of borders and a nation that upholds the law. If you break the law, there's consequences. We will deport you and you will never get to be a United States citizen. You'll never even get to come back here and work and to pursue the American Dream. But if you decide you want to go home now, go home and we'll help facilitate it. We'll buy your plane ticket. We'll get you there. In fact, I just got back from Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras. Those countries are excited to get their citizens home. They're setting up programs to loan them money to buy houses when they get there, help them with food assistance, get their children educated, scholarships. They want their citizens that are living here in the United States illegally to come home and to be a part of their economy and help their countries grow. So this is a win-win for everyone. And I just want to end, Mr. President, by thanking our law enforcement officers, by thanking our ICE officers and our Border Patrol officers for what they do every day. They are out on the streets and violence against them has increased over 500 percent since Trump has gone back into the White House, because he's upholding the law and because a bunch of liberals, socialists and Marxists are out there lying about what President Trump is doing. President Trump is upholding freedom by what he is doing, the freedom to live safely in this country and to do things legally and to have justice. And because those liberals and I'm calling out you, CNN, I'm calling you out because you lie every single day about what these operations are. We are going after murderers and rapists and traffickers and drug dealers and getting them off the streets and getting them out of this country because Joe Biden let the worst of the worst come in here. The other day I was talking to some marshals that have been partnering with ICE. They said that they had detained a cannibal and put him on a plane to take him home. And while they had him in his seat, he started to eat himself and they had to get him off and get him medical attention. These are the kind of deranged individuals that are on our streets in America that we're trying to target and get out of our country because they are so deranged they don't belong here, and they shouldn't be walking the streets with their children and they shouldn't be living in the communities with our families who just want to grow up, go to job -- raise their children to grow up and get a job and to live the American dream. This facility here is a fantastic representation of what can happen when all of government works together, and when it's accountable to the taxpayers and to the citizens that live here. The president signed an executive order that allowed us to build partnerships with states and with local law enforcement officers, which is exactly how things should function in this country, more power, more authority given to people locally so that they can take control of their own destiny. And so, we have already been working under the 287(g) Program to deputize law enforcement officers, whether they be state highway patrol, local sheriff's departments in all of our states and allow them to go out with our ICE officers, our Border Patrol officers and make sure that we're getting the worst of the worst off of the streets. We also recognize that as we've been doing that and returning people back to their home countries, that we need detention facilities. We need beds to put them in place so that they can have their due process before they return home. And this facility is exactly what I want every single governor in this country to consider doing with us. What happened to start this conversation was that a young man named Jimmy Percival, in my office, my general counsel who came from Florida and used to work here, called up the attorney general and the governor and said, hey, what do you think about partnering with us on a detention facility that we could put in place that would allow us to bring individuals there? There's an airstrip close by. You guys volunteered the assets that you have and the connections that you have and worked with Kevin extensively so that we could come here, have their due process given and return them home to their countries. And in eight days, this facility has been stood up. And I want everybody to recognize that detention facilities that ICE adheres to is a higher standard than is required at state levels, at local Department of Corrections facility, sheriff's offices. This is a state-of-the-art facility, air conditioned, isolated though for security purposes, which is very helpful and I appreciate so many people being willing to work together to make a project like this happen. Right here on this location, we'll have about 3,000 beds. Other locations will have another 2,000 beds that will allow us to bring individuals across the country that we are bringing in and incarcerating for violating our laws and immediately get them out of the country as soon as we possibly can. It's exactly what we need to be perpetuating in other states. And what I would say is, I want all of you to notice these fliers that we've got, is that everybody who sees these fliers or anybody who sees these news clips should know, you can still go home on your own. You can self deport. If you go on the CBP home app and go home now, you will get the chance to come back to the United States legally. You will get the chance to come back and do it the right way. If you don't, you may end up here and you may end up here and being processed and deported out of this country and never get the chance to come back. That is the consequences of breaking the law in the United States of America. Listen, our job is to uphold the law. This is a country of laws. We have a border now and because we have a president that cares and recognizes that we need to be a nation of borders and a nation that upholds the law. If you break the law, there's consequences. We will deport you and you will never get to be a United States citizen. You'll never even get to come back here and work and to pursue the American Dream. But if you decide you want to go home now, go home and we'll help facilitate it. We'll buy your plane ticket. We'll get you there. In fact, I just got back from Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras. Those countries are excited to get their citizens home. They're setting up programs to loan them money to buy houses when they get there, help them with food assistance, get their children educated, scholarships. They want their citizens that are living here in the United States illegally to come home and to be a part of their economy and help their countries grow. So this is a win-win for everyone. And I just want to end, Mr. President, by thanking our law enforcement officers, by thanking our ICE officers and our Border Patrol officers for what they do every day. They are out on the streets and violence against them has increased over 500 percent since Trump has gone back into the White House, because he's upholding the law and because a bunch of liberals, socialists and Marxists are out there lying about what President Trump is doing. President Trump is upholding freedom by what he is doing, the freedom to live safely in this country and to do things legally and to have justice. And because those liberals and I'm calling out you, CNN, I'm calling you out because you lie every single day about what these operations are. We are going after murderers and rapists and traffickers and drug dealers and getting them off the streets and getting them out of this country because Joe Biden let the worst of the worst come in here. The other day I was talking to some marshals that have been partnering with ICE. They said that they had detained a cannibal and put him on a plane to take him home. And while they had him in his seat, he started to eat himself and they had to get him off and get him medical attention. These are the kind of deranged individuals that are on our streets in America that we're trying to target and get out of our country because they are so deranged they don't belong here, and they shouldn't be walking the streets with their children and they shouldn't be living in the communities with our families who just want to grow up, go to job -- raise their children to grow up and get a job and to live the American dream. So thank you to all of our law enforcement officers, those in our military that have been helping our National Guard. Thank you to Governor DeSantis for stepping up and being an example to other governors. I hope my phone rings off the hook from governors calling and saying how can we do what Florida just did? How can we do exactly what they did? Because if this -- we need this big, beautiful bill. We absolutely have to have this big, beautiful bill that has the funding so that we can continue this operation and we can get those bad criminals off of our streets and have the officers to do it, so that when they go out in an operation, somebody's got their back, somebody's got their back, they can do it safely and they can go home to their families at night too. So this bill needs to pass through Congress, so we have the resources at the Department of Homeland Security to make sure that our homeland is secure. And Mr. President, thank you for Stephen Miller. I just want to thank you for him. This guy calls me night and day and tells me all of his wise advice and wisdom, but he's a rock star because he loves this country and he's passionate about making sure that nobody is prioritized over an American citizen. We love everybody, we do. We love everybody.

Trump: Not everybody.

Noem: Well --

Trump: A lot of people, but not everybody.

Noem: But we shouldn't be putting people illegally above citizens. We should be making sure that we do things right and that's what America has always stood for. And we're an example to the rest of the world because we do it right. So Mr. President, you surround yourself with great people and I think that's because everybody wants to work for the greatest president that the United States has ever had, and that's President Donald J. Trump. So thank you, sir.

Trump: Thank you very much, Kristi. That's so nice.

Noem: Thank you.

Trump: Thank you. Thank you very much. And I have to say that when Kristi's name was put before me by Tom Homan, by the way, because I wanted him for the border and somehow, I thought that was going to be good and that sort, but he didn't want the upper job. And I said, who do you recommend? Kristi Noem. I said, are you kidding? She's great, but she's such a fine, elegant person. He said, sir, she's tough as hell. I said, are you sure? You are tough as hell, I tell you, and you do it in a very nice way, but you are -- if you ever saw a ride a horse, she rides a horse like she should be in the rodeo. She's like an unbelievable horse person and you've done a fantastic job and Steve Miller would even agree to that and he likes nobody, by the way. I don't think he likes anybody. And another one we like is Ron, and Ron, would you say a few words, please?

Ron DeSantis: Sure. Well, thank you, Mr. President. Welcome back to Florida and I think this is the first time you've been back since the events of a couple of weeks. So just let me say as somebody that was serving on active duty in Iraq back in the day, we witnessed the number of our troops that were killed or wounded by the Iranians. We know that they're a militant Islamic regime that was hell-bent on getting nuclear weapons. And under Joe Biden, they were about to get nuclear weapons. And because of your strong actions, those dreams and those ambitions have been reduced to rubble. And I thank you. I know a lot of veterans thank you. And people in Florida really thank you for stepping up and really making a strong, tough, but strong decision. I think we're much safer as a result of that. Now on the immigration, I think President Trump's election represented the chance for us to finally solve this illegal immigration and border problem once and for all. I knew he was going to do the border, although he did it very quickly and very thoroughly. I think that no one can say that that's been anything but a spectacular success. But then we have the issue of Biden let in how many millions of people and you had millions had been in over decades previous to that. You can't have a country if you don't have respect for the rule of law. You can't have a country if foreigners get to decide who comes in. No, we the American people make that decision who's allowed or not allowed to come into our country. We've seen Europe be overrun by open borders, so we're not going to let that happen here. So when president got elected, I knew that the states had an important role to play in facilitating this really, really historic mission. We're the only state in America, Florida, that requires full cooperation with ICE from all state and local law enforcement entities. And what is the net result of that? We have these agreements for these 287(g) task force with sheriff's departments, police departments, state agencies and it's really instrumental in rounding up a lot of really bad people who shouldn't be here. If you look at the number of those full-blown 287(g) agreements that have been executed around the country, the state of Florida accounts for 60 percent of those. If you look at the number of immigration arrests of illegal aliens on any given day, the arrests happening in Florida constitute between 15 and 20 percent nationwide. So we're all in on this because we understand how important it is to our citizens. It crowds schools, it crowds medical, it crowds housing. Yes, you have illegal alien crime as well, and people want the problem solved. And the only way we're going to solve it is if states like Florida step up and help the president, help Secretary Noem get the job done. Now this facility here was really in response to us working with DHS and ICE from the time the president got sworn in. And the number one thing they kept coming back to was, Biden decimated the agency. I mean, let's just be clear, you could have illegals in Florida, Biden would just release them. Even when they had notices or they had orders to be removed, Biden wouldn't send them back. So, the interior enforcement collapsed under Biden. So, they're building it back up. But they're like we need detention space in order to be able to bring about more deportations. And so, what we have here is -- can hold 3,000 now; we have a 2,000 facility up at Camp Blanding that we're going to be opening, which is our National Guard site. But think about what you have here, they come here -- say they already have been ordered to be deported. You drive them 2,000 feet to the runway and then they're gone. It's a one stop shop. And this airport that's been here for a long time is the perfectly secure location. It's going to make a big difference. And let me just thank everyone who was involved. We got the call from DHS a little bit more than a week ago and here we are eight days later with this facility open. And as soon as Air Force One departs, it will be swept, and it will be open for business to be able to do. But our goal here is to process them and be able to effectuate their return to their home country. This is the opposite of what they were doing in New York by just putting them up in a hotel and then just letting them stay there indefinitely. No, we want to be able to send back. And when you walk into the processing, the president and I, Secretary Noem, Kevin Guthrie walked through that initial intake. The first thing you see is information on how to go home on your own. Why would you want to come through Alligator Alcatraz if you can just go home on your own? I think a lot of people are going to make that decision. So, you're going to have a lot of deportations that are going to be done by the administration, but I think you're going to have a lot of voluntary as well. So, this is a force multiplier for the president's efforts. I would just say and echo what Secretary Noem says, there is no reason why other states can't be doing -- and I know Louisiana, Texas, a couple of them, but we've got -- I mean, if only the red states did this, they would be able to expand their capacity by tens of thousands, maybe 50,000 or 100,000 on a given day. That's how you really start to make a difference. And so, we're proud to be able to partner with the Trump administration on that. Mr. President, thanks for coming down. I think you highlighting this is going to move the needle in a big way throughout the country. And I think it's going to help all of us achieve the really big results that I think our voters want to see. Thank you. Great job. Thank you. Please, thanks.

Kevin Guthrie: Thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity. My name is Kevin Guthrie; I'm the executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management. And I'd also like to thank President Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Noem for joining us here today and for their continued support. I want to thank by -- first by thanking the man to my right and that's Governor Ron DeSantis, whose bold leadership and swift action made this project possible. Make no mistake, this facility would not be standing here without the president, the secretary and the governor's vision and determination to uphold the rule of law. Florida is and will always be a law-and-order state. Even before the president took office, the governor made it clear that illegal immigration would not be tolerated in the state of Florida. When the president and the secretary asked Florida to help, the governor empowered our state and private partners to work collaboratively and deliver real results on a rapid timeline. The Florida Division of Emergency Management is best known for leading the nation in hurricane response and other natural disasters. We understand how to act fast without bureaucracy in the face of any emergency. Our teams built roads in eight hours, bridges in three days, base camps in 72 hours and full causeways in two weeks. Getting things done quickly, efficiently and correctly is at the core of our mission. We simply just want to be the best at what we do in the nation. When the governor called me we answered, and we were proud to bring our logistical expertise to the table. We know how to set up base camps for guardsmen, first responders, linemen, volunteers and other aid sources and distribute that in a matter of days before a storm. We were able to translate this knowledge to what we did here at Alligator Alcatraz. Florida has put the best teams together who check their individual logos and egos at the door to get this done, not just for you, governor, but Mr. President, for you as well. There are over 13 different vendors that came together to get this solved in eight days, truly a whole of private sector partnership to get that done. Behind you on these boards -- in only eight days, we have built a fully compliant detention facility with a detainee capacity of up to 3,000 people, with room for additional capacity if you asked us to do so. The detention facility includes over 158,000 square feet of housing and has a fully aluminum frame structure rated for winds of 110 miles an hour or a high-end category 2 for those people that don't think that we're taking that into consideration. This is Florida, by the way. Power supply is fully redundant with backup generators in place. We've put a staff village here on site with a capacity of 1,000. Our services are a hot meal three times a day, 24-7 medical facility, pharmacy, air conditioning, access to indoor and outdoor records, legal and clergy support services, laundry. Our security element is over 200 security cameras throughout the facility, more than 28,000 feet of barbed wire, 400-plus security personnel to include 200 men and women soldiers and airmen underneath Major General John Hoss's command as the Adjutant General of Florida. And it's all surrounded, as you pointed out, Mr. President, by 10 miles of beautiful Florida Everglades. Contingencies, as with all state correctional facilities, we have a hurricane plan. We will not wait for a cat 2. We will follow our normal evacuation procedures, as we do for any other facility statewide in our great state of Florida. We have on-site fire and EMS resources so that we do not locally -- we don't burden the locals with any type of response. All in all, sir, this has been a perfect state logistics exercise for this hurricane season. Everything we did here in the last eight days, God forbid, if we have a hurricane, we're going to do it again. This was a dress rehearsal for us, and we are ready, willing and able to support you, sir, the governor, secretary in everything that you need us to do. Just a week ago, it was a taxiway and a runway and now it's a fully functioning facility. We are happy to support you, Mr. President, governor, secretary.

Trump: Fantastic job. Thank you.

Byron Donalds: Ah, there we go. First of all, Mr. President, we all have to thank you for your leadership and for the mandate that the American people gave you to finally secure our borders and to deport criminal, illegal aliens and long-standing illegal aliens out of the United States. That is a mandate given to you by the American people. I know Secretary Noem, Stephen Miller, Governor DeSantis, myself, on behalf of the other members of Congress and the Senate and, of course, here in Florida, we are behind you 100 percent in that mission. To the governor, I really appreciate you and commend you for your leadership on this taking swift, decisive action to building this facility. One of the things that has occurred because of the work you did earlier this year with the legislature is that our sheriffs are out there every single day. They are arresting these criminal aliens in our streets, and they're seeing some backlog in their jails. So, this facility primarily goes to address some of that backlog, and then to help us fulfill the mission that the president has led us to. So, governor, thank you for your leadership and thank you for your decisive action on this. It really does mean a lot to all the people of Florida, of course the people of the 19th Congressional District. Secretary Noem -- I mean, what can I say? The president is right, you're double tough. So, we appreciate all your leadership. You and Tom Homan have been doing a great job and I'm actually going back to DC after this because we have to vote on One Big, Beautiful Bill in the House. We have to get that to the president's desk so we can get you the resources that you need to fulfill the mission that the American people have asked us to do. I totally agree with what Mr. Guthrie has said. This is a logistical marvel when something like this occurs. We've seen the Florida Department of Emergency Management answer the bell time and time again. The governor has said we need to accomplish this, and DEM gets that job done. And we had a side conversation about -- I know there were some concerns. People were like, well what happens if a hurricane comes? What happens if this happens? And I looked at Kevin Guthrie and I said you already have a plan, don't you? And he goes, of course, we have a plan, you know that we do. This is what Florida does, Mr. President, and so I want to commend you for your leadership and your vision on this. Governor, thank you for all that you've done with your vision and determination. Secretary Noem, we're going to get the bill done so you get the resources you need, see you sir.

Trump: Thank you very much.

Unidentified: The Big, Beautiful Bill just passed.

Trump: Oh, thank you, wow. Thank you. You know, I'm waiting, listening to these wonderful words and they are music to my ears. But I was also wondering how are we doing, because I know this is prime time. It shows that I care about you because I'm here and I probably should be there, but we do care. Thank you very much. James, please. We're all happy now, James.

James Uthmeier: Yeah. Well, I can speak on behalf of all of our sheriffs, state law enforcement, our police chiefs. We are going to continue to make arrests, our pedals to the metal, as many as we can. We want to fill this place up. The governor and Kevin have shown they can build bridges in three days, so why not some detention facilities? Hopefully, there's more to come and you really kind of were the inspiration for this. We like the idea of reopening the original Alcatraz. I don't know if that can happen or not, but we thought, hey, we've got our own natural Alcatraz in the middle of the Everglades, great runway, great perimeter, so let's make it happen. In Florida, we walk the walk and we will deliver for all of you. Thank you.

Trump: Well, I heard you were responsible for the locational pick and you cannot have picked a better location. I said, whoever the hell made this choice -- I know you're taking a little heat from some environmental groups, but I take it all the time and that's an honor. But I heard you were very responsible for that choice and that was a big choice. Thank you very much. Great job, James. Thank you. Do you want to finish over here, and then we'll go over here and we'll go back and celebrate the big, beautiful bill that just got passed. You sure that's right? Right, Brian?

Unidentified: Yes, sir. Vance [Inaudible]

Trump: Wow. Good. He's doing a good job. Wow.

Wilton Simpson: Mr. President, first of all, I just want to say how grateful we are that you're back here in your home state of Florida. You've been doing an amazing job not only at our border but around the world keeping this country safe and Americans. We are grateful for your leadership. God had a plan for us and it was Donald Trump, so thank you for that. As a member of the immigration board and as the commissioner of agriculture of this state, I've been happy to help lead with the governor and the rest of the cabinet on this issue. We're very proud, Secretary Noem is here today and others, to represent not only the United States and our efforts to make this commitment to keep our citizens safe. But we're going to continue in Florida to remove the barriers to have your vision come true of a safe United States. We're going to get these illegal criminals out of this state, and we really appreciate you and your leadership in this effort. So thank you for being here.

Trump: Thank you very much. You're doing a great job too. Thank you.

Joe Gruters: Thank you, Mr. President. Joe Gruters, state senator. I'm a member of your Homeland Security Advisory Council, your vice chairman. Thank you for that appointment. And thank you for coming back to Florida and everything that you do. Every single day, you are delivering on the promises that you promised to us at all the events you've done throughout the years, but specifically this last campaign. deserve all the credit for everything and you are surrounding yourself with incredible people like Secretary Noem, Stephen Miller, and just like your big, beautiful bill, here in Florida, there was a lot of commotion about our immigration bill and we had three B's in that, beds, badges and bad guys. And this goes right along with our beds and the resources. And I give the governor, Ron DeSantis, a lot of credit for stepping up and making sure that we all work together, because at the end of the day, even sometimes there are skirmishes. As a result of the back and forth, we ended up with a better bill and we all win. And what we're doing here in Florida hopefully will happen all across the country. Your leadership is amazing. Keep up the great work and just know that Florida loves President Donald J. Trump. Thank you very much, Joe. Appreciate it, for a long time. Appreciate it. By the way, Okeechobee is something that we did together also and that was a lot of money spent. I hope it was well spent. I know we did a Rolls-Royce job, but it's a lot of money that we spent out there together and how is it going?

DeSantis: You can delegate that to us because we move faster than the Army Corps. So we will finish that reservoir. If you delegate it to us, I'll get it done much quicker.

Trump: Oh, I would do that. I'll tell you, let me ask myself permission, permission granted. Go ahead, get it complete. You want to do that?

DeSantis: All right. We're going to go talk to the Army Corps then after this.

Trump: Good. You can move faster, actually. Please.

Todd Lyons: I think -- oh. No, sir, just first on behalf of the men and women of ICE, we just want to thank you for allowing us to do our job again. You know, your vision and under Secretary Noem's leadership, this is what the American people want and I hope that you see great results of what we're doing out there every day, of getting the worst of the worst out of out of our communities. Because of you and Secretary Noem, I have the privilege to lead one of the most premier and the finest law enforcement agencies that we do have in the United States and the men and women of HSI and ERO Miami do incredible work, like you highlighted. And with the governor and the state of Florida, the partnership in Florida has been amazing. The 287(g) program is only going to help us to identify all those known got-aways and get the worst of the worst out of the neighborhoods and through our Homeland Security task force, we are going to make America safe again. So thank you very much, to both you and the secretary.

Trump: Thank you, Todd. Great job, really great job you're doing. Thank you. Please.

Garrett Ripa: Good morning, Mr. President.

Trump: Hi.

Ripa: Thank you so much for coming. Again, Garrett Ripa. I'm the field office director for ICE ERO here for the Miami field office, incredible collaborative work we've been doing together working with the state, working with our local partners. And again, just the 287(g) is going to open up that aperture and allow us to get those bad hombres off the street and get them into this facility and we're looking forward to it. And again, just appreciate all your support.

Trump: Thank you. Thank you. Always, thank you. You've always been so great. Thank you very much. Please.

Andres Blanco: Good afternoon, Mr. President. On behalf of Air Marine Operations, my name is Andres Blanco. I'm the executive director for Southeast Region. AMO continues to execute and support your executive orders. Air Marine operations brings a unique capability both in air and the maritime domains and in partnership with our Border Patrol OFO officers and ERO, we continue to conduct effective operations both interior along the border and along the maritime approaches.

Trump: Thank you very much. Good job.

Jose Figueroa: Good afternoon, Mr. President. Jose Figueroa. I am the acting special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations here in South Florida and our office covers from Key West to Fort Pierce. Tremendous collaboration here with the state and our federal partners. HSI is conducting criminal investigations into TDA, MS-13s that are involved in human smuggling, sex trafficking of minors and we will continue that effort with your support. Governor DeSantis, thank you very much for this facility, looking forward to continue the great work. Thank you.

Trump: Thank you very much. Steve, would you like to say something? Our star.

Stephen Miller: Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to say on a personal note, getting to watch what you've done over the last five months to deliver on a 50-year hope and dream of the American people to secure the border. When President Trump came into office on January 20th, the United States had endured the largest wave of illegal immigration in human history, not just American history, human history. And within just a few days, President Trump, through his strength, leadership, diplomacy and vision achieved the most secure border anywhere in the world has ever seen. When we recently went overseas to the NATO summit, I had senior staff in foreign governments come up to me and ask me how he achieved the Trump miracle on his border and could that be replicated in their countries? For individuals who don't work in this space, to have zero successful illegal entries in an entire month should be an impossible achievement. There's a 2,000-mile border with one of the poorest countries in the world and you have open travel from 150 countries into Central America and South America. There are two billion people in the world that would economically benefit from illegally coming to the United States. And through the deployment of the military, through the deployment of novel legal and diplomatic tools, through the building of physical infrastructure, through the empowering of ICE and Border Patrol and the entire federal law enforcement apparatus, President Trump achieved absolute border security. And now, once this legislation is passed, he will be able to make that, with those resources, permanent. Watching what you've done sir has been one of the honors of a lifetime. I'm proud to be able to play any role in it. And what President Trump is going to achieve next with the resources in this bill will make America safer, stronger, freer, more sovereign and more prosperous than it has ever been before. Thank you, sir.

Trump: Thank you, Steve. Wow. Thank you. And the bill is going to be great for Iran. It's going to be great for Florida too. A lot of set asides for Florida, some of the things that you've wanted, you wanted to do. And so it's great news to hear that it was approved. Do you want to take a few questions? Ron, we'll take a few questions from these -- Yeah. Please, go ahead. Yeah.

Question: Mr. President? Thank you, Mr. President. Given the likelihood of the one big, beautiful bill passing and we look forward to the success of this facility here, how many more facilities like this do you feel that the country needs in order to enact your agenda of mass deportations?

Trump: Well, I think we'd like to see them in many states, really, many states. I know Ron is doing a second one, at least a second one and probably a couple of more. And at some point, they might morph into a system where you're going to keep it for a long time. It's not that far away from jails that take years to build and the money is spent and wasted. And like the railway that they have [Inaudible] in California, they cost like 40 times more than it was supposed to cost. The same thing happens with prisons. You look at this; in a short period of time, Ron, James and some of the people that really worked on it, along with our people, they did this in less than a week. And you look at it, it's incredible. Look, the incredible thing is picking the site because the site was one of the most natural sites. It might be as good as the real Alcatraz site. It could be -- well, that's a spooky one too, isn't it? That's a tough site. But -- so, I really think it could last as long as they want to have it. I mean, you may morph this into your prison system frankly, which I know you always need, unfortunately. I'd like to say, you know a little controversial, but I couldn't care less. We have a lot of bad criminals that came into this country and they came in stupidly. It was an unforced error. It was an incompetent president that allowed it to happen. It was an auto pen maybe that allowed it to happen, and it did happen. But we also have a lot of bad people that have been here for a long time, people that whack people over the head with a baseball bat from behind when they're not looking and kill them, people that knife you when you're walking down the street. They're not new to our country; they're old to our country; many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too, you want to know the truth. So, maybe that'll be the next job that we'll work on together. But I think getting them out -- you know, we forget about them. We have some very bad -- we had some bad accidents in New York and they're not accidents. They were done very much on purpose. People being pushed into a subway just before it arrives going 40 miles an hour and they're 10 feet away from where the thing is, you get pushed right into the face of the subway train, get whacked and killed. These are sick people. I'd like to get them out of here too. Yeah, please, go ahead. White shirt, glasses.

Question: Julio Rosales, Blaze Media, sir. A couple of months ago, I ran into former DHS Secretary Mayorkas, and I asked him a couple questions about his disastrous handling of the border. He didn't like my questions. But the number one question that I heard from people in responding to my video was why hasn't he been arrested yet? Obviously, you guys are cleaning up the mess that was made deliberately for the past four years. And so, people want accountability. It's great to see that the border is secured and it's great to see the state level cooperation. But I guess I would ask you why hasn't he been held accountable or anybody really held accountable?

Trump: You know, pardons were given out by many -- to many people, and they shouldn't have been given out, like the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs was given a pardon, because they destroyed all of the information from two years of hearings and they should be arrested. But they were given pardons. Was he given a pardon, Mayorkas? Was he not?

Question: I don't believe so, sir.

Trump: Well, I'd take a look at that one because what he did is -- it's beyond incompetence, something had to be done. Now with that being said, he took orders from other people, and he was really doing the orders. And you could say he was very loyal to them because it must have been very hard for him to stand up and sit up and talk about what he allowed to happen to this country and be serious about it, so he was given orders. If he wasn't given a pardon, I could see looking at that. In fact, why don't you take a look at it, Kristi? He was impeached. But yeah, but it was just a fake impeachment -- it was a fake impeachment. Why don't you take a look at it? I think he was so bad -- they were all so bad. Look, it was the worst president in the history of our country. We've had some bad ones, but he was the worst president, but somebody told Mayorkas to do that, and he followed orders, but that doesn't necessarily hold him harmless. So, take a look at it. Very good question actually. Thank you. Yeah, please, go ahead.

Question: Mr. President, you and the secretary have both said that many people have self-reported since you came back into office. How many is many and has the rate gone up? How do you see the tempo of that moving forward going on?

Noem: We have had several hundred thousand, but also, we have many that have self-reported not even using the CBP home app. When I have gone to these other countries to negotiate security agreements and information sharing on criminals, who's coming and going into their countries, they report that hundreds of thousands have come home that weren't on our radar, that they are coming home on their own and self-deporting because they want the chance to be able to go back to America someday. So, we believe it's over a million, possibly more than that. I'm asking all of those countries for their information on what they have of individuals that may have returned home that they have taking advantage of their programs to help them become a part of their civilization again too. So, we know it's over a million, but we have to -- I'm getting more information and that number will grow.

Trump: If they don't leave, they never get the chance to come back. If we have to take them out, and we will, they'll go out, but they never get a chance to come back. The other way we actually make it a little bit easier for them to come back. OK? Thank you. Good question. Thank you.

Question: The bill is now passed in the Senate, but we are already hearing from some Republicans in the House who say they cannot get on board with the changes that were made to the bill in the Senate. What is your message to those holdouts?

Trump: Well, I just heard that about the Senate, and the bill just passed. And it tells you there's something for everyone. I mean we have -- it's a great bill, there is something for everyone. And I think it's going to go very nicely in the House. Actually, I think it will be easier in the House than it was in the Senate.

Question: And just to be clear on the Medicaid cuts, you've promised not to cut Medicaid, said this is all just targeting waste, fraud and abuse? Are you saying that the estimated 11.8 million people who could lose their health coverage, that is all waste, fraud and abuse?

Trump: No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying it's going to be a very much smaller number than that, and that number will be waste, fraud and abuse. And if you look, they took a much more liberal stance on the Medicaid situation than they could have. They had a tough stance and a weak stance. They took not a very strong stance on that to start off, and it's waste, fraud and abuse and everybody wants that covered.

Question: What number is that? What analysis are you seeing?

Trump: I'm not seeing a number, but I know it's much less than the number you gave. And we really were very, very cognizant of three things: Social Security, we're going to take care of it beautifully; Medicare; and Medicaid. And we are going to save it whereas the Democrats are going to -- you won't have it, they will destroy Medicare and Medicaid, and they have to because their numbers don't work. So, it's not going to happen. They're the ones that have destroyed -- they have made it so bad already. They're going to make it a lot worse. But now we'll be in charge, so we're going to have no problem with Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security. Thank you. Yeah.

Question: Mr. President, Claire Galt with WINK News in Fort Myers. What is your direction to ICE when it comes to arresting farm workers here illegally, other workers in industries that are pretty critical to Florida's economy?

Trump: Well, we're very much cognizant of that. And as you know, I won the farmers by 92 percent and I'm not going to be abandoning my farmers. We were strong on the borders, but we're also strong for the farmers -- and for others in the hotel industry, etc. You know, we have similar situations. And Kristi and I, and we'll be working with Ron and a lot of the states. We're going to work something where the farmers can be responsible for some of the people that have -- and they have people, Ron, for 10 or 15 years that they know very well. We're going to put them in responsible -- and have -- we're going to issue a form of a card or document, and the farmer is going to be responsible for these people. They're not going to have citizenship, but they'll be working, they'll be paying taxes. We need to get our farmers the people they need, otherwise our farmers aren't going to be able to do their land. You know, it was tried once before many, many years ago where there was a very strong guy and he got everybody out and every farm almost in the country, but every farm in California, every farm in Iowa -- almost all the farms went bankrupt, they had nobody to work and we don't want to have that situation. So, we're going to work it. We're going to put our farmers and others in charge of the people that they have under them. They know the people, and I think it's going to work out really well. We're going to take care of our farmer, but we're going to get the criminals out, OK? Yeah, go ahead, please.

Question: Thank you. Mr. President, how do you respond to critics who fear that a 3,000-bed detention center and the waste that that could produce will pollute the surrounding federal protected land, including land that both administrations have invested billions of dollars in restoring?

Trump: Well, I was one of those that invested billions of dollars and hundreds of millions of dollars right here in the Meadowlands, but -- in the Everglades. But -- and the Meadowlands too, in New York, if you look at what we did up there. Speaking of the Meadowlands, a lot of places like this, but this is a very unique one. One thing I'll say about this land, we'll be gone a million years, and this land is still going to be here. It's not going to be much different. You'll have the water moccasins, you'll have the alligators, you may not have people, but you're going to have all those animals, they're going to be around, and you've got plenty of them out here. I think it was a brilliant choice. And I think almost anybody in his or her right mind would say this was a brilliant choice. I give the governor a lot of credit for using this piece of land. And in addition to that, it's on top of something that was already developed. It's an airport -- you know, you have the runways, you have the -- so it's already been developed. So. it's not like you're dropping dirt right into the thing -- there was zero movement of that. That was done many years ago because the airport is very old, but it was an abandoned airport. And frankly, it's like perfect. And you can do expansion on this site substantially without doing anything. So, the people -- I heard them complaining about the Everglades -- there's no -- I don't think you've done anything to the Everglades. I think you're just enhancing it. This was already here. How long has the airport been here?

DeSantis: Decades.

Trump: Many decades. Yeah.

DeSantis: And they have, Kevin, all these guys have a waste plan. Like, the wastewater gets trucked out. Potable water gets -- literally -- they have -- even our DOT has put things up in case there's any seepage, which we don't -- so you are literally doing this on concrete that's already here. So I don't think those are valid and even good faith criticisms because it's not going to impact the Everglades at all. The president's been a champion, we've been a champion, really changed the game in Florida on it. I think it's just people don't want to see illegal immigrants deported and that's their ideology, and they have a right to that. But illegal immigration is unpopular, so they know that they're going to have less effect to try to do that. So they're going to say, oh, well, no, it's just about the Everglades. But really, I think a lot of those people, they just don't want to see illegals deported. Because if you actually -- here, everyone's here. You obviously know there's zero land that's being disturbed.

Trump: Well, you know, when we talk about popularity, though, I will say I ran on the issue of illegals and we have to get them out. And I won 82 percent on that issue. So I think that they may not like certain aspects of it, but ultimately, they do not want them in their country. And if this is a part of a use. But I think from an environmental standpoint, it's incredible. In fact, when we landed that very big heavy plane today, they came out and checked it fairly -- I think they want the president to be able to land on a piece of concrete that's not going to go six feet underground and they checked it and they came back and they said, this thing is really solid. So it's been there a long time. It's going to be here a long time and it was a great choice of a site. Thank you. Yes, please. Brian, go ahead.

Question: Yes, sir. The people of Syria were recently seen on the streets waving American flags, chanting Trump, Trump, Trump. They're so appreciative of the economic sanctions that were lifted on that country, giving them a little bit of hope for prosperity. Do you want to comment on that?

Trump: Well, they're great people and the man that is leading them has a reputation and he was the head of some pretty tough organizations and a lot of people criticized me for that. I said, well, what are we going to do, take him out of a day school, a country day school, you're going to -- it's going to be by nature. I would think, Ron, they'll be pretty tough. And he is pretty tough, but I think -- I met him, spent a lot of time with him, good guy. I took off the sanctions because if I didn't do that, they wouldn't have had a chance and Syria has a chance. You know, the people are great. They work hard. They're very smart, used to be a place of professionals, accountants and lawyers and doctors and high academic credentials in that part of the world. And I think it's going to work out great. I took off the sanctions and they were very appreciative. They were shocked, but they were very appreciative. And we're giving them a chance at survival. With the sanctions, it couldn't have worked. Thank you.

Question: Mr. President, your beloved New York City may well be led by a communist soon, Zohran Mamdani, who in his nomination speech said he will defy ICE and will not allow ICE to arrest criminal aliens in New York City. Your message to communist Zohran Mamdani?

Trump: Well, then we'll have to arrest him. Look, we don't need a communist in this country, but if we have one, I'm going to be watching over them very carefully on behalf of the nation. We send him money. We send him all the things that he needs to run a government. And by the way, they get already -- they get about three times what you get, Ron. If you look at the per capita, Florida gets one third of what New York gets in terms of the numbers. Why don't you give us those numbers, because that's what we should send him.

DeSantis: Yeah, like, sometimes people say Florida gets more because they count Social Security recipients, but that's not money to the state. Those are seniors that live here. If they move to North Carolina, you could count it there. So it has no interaction with the state government. They get more in the city and state governments than we get.

Trump: Right, substantially. We're going to be watching that very carefully and a lot of people are saying he's here illegally. We're going to look at everything. And ideally, he's going to turn out to be much less than a communist. But right now, he's a communist. That's not a socialist. I've always said we will not have socialism in this country. And the speeches, I said -- well, they skipped socialism and you got a lot of them like that. And you see AOC, she's out there with her bad IQ. She's out there ranting and raving about how wonderful he is and look so far, he's winning. He still has a race to win, but so far, he's winning and he has an advantage as a Democrat in New York City. I was there a long time ago and it was a long time since a Republican won the city, but you would think that a Republican would be able to win, or you have a good independent running, Mayor Adams, who's a very good person. I helped him out a little bit. He had a problem and he was unfairly hurt over this question. He made a statement to the effect that this is terrible. New York City can't have all these immigrants come in, and he was indicted the following day. And I said that was a phony indictment and it was a phony indictment. That was a Biden indictment. I said, don't feel bad, I got indicted five times. Every time you opened your mouth. That was a bad group. That was a very dangerous group. I will tell you, these were not nice people. That was the only thing they could do. They had no policy. They had no skill, they had no anything, but they were very good at that. They were vicious, vicious, horrible people. Thank you very much. Yeah, please, go ahead.

Question: Anna Giaritelli with the Washington Examiner. Governor DeSantis has proposed using National Guard, deputizing them as immigration judges to get through this massive backlog of people in the immigration court. Would you be open to that?

Trump: Yes, he has my approval. That wasn't too hard to get, was it, Ron? He didn't even have to ask me, James. You didn't even need James to ask me. He has my approval. OK? Good. I also like what he's doing in Okeechobee. He has my approval for that too. I don't know how we work that out, but we'll work it out.

DeSantis: We'll follow up.

Trump: Go ahead, please.

Question: President Trump, Jake Stofan Action News Jax from up in Jacksonville. There's some talk about a facility similar to this up in Camp Blanding. Has that been approved by DHS? If not, what's the timeline? When could we see ground break on that? Well, I'll ask Ron or James to talk about it. Do you want to mention it, James?

Uthmeier: The overarching plan, I think the secretary has said she supports the whole plan. So the guys are going to keep going.

Guthrie: Mr. President, just specifically, the response for proposals is out for that today. It closes, I can't remember what day of the week it is, but it closes on Wednesday at 5:00. Then we will do notice to proceed. So I would say right after our wonderful Independence Day, we will be starting construction here at that facility.

Uthmeier: You have another big runway there too.

Trump: That's great. Wow. Well, I love these runways. It's very convenient, I must say. Having a runway is a nice thing. Today you don't get runways approved, I will tell you. It's tough to get a runway. Although in the age of Trump, you get them approved fast. We're approving massive electrical bins, whether you call them bins, but big electrical facilities for all of the factories and the AI that's coming in. They're going to build their own electric. They're going to be made into electrical providers. They're going to have a lot left over. They'll put it into the grid. I think they're going to end up doing so much, they'll put it into the grid, won't even cost anything from their standpoint, but -- so we have a lot of that happening. We get approvals fast so -- but I was just saying runways are hard to get, but we'll get them now. But in the past, I would say over the past 30, 40 years when you can get a runway, that was considered gold. OK. Please, go ahead. Go ahead. Sure.

Unidentified: Who is it?

Trump: OK. Go ahead. Yes.

Question: President Trump, Laverne McGee, News 6 Orlando. You have fulfilled several campaign promises along with the help of Governor Ron DeSantis. What is the next campaign promise that you plan to fulfill to the American people?

Trump: So we have turned this country around in less than six months. And when I was away and I was telling Ron, I was telling some others, I've said it a little publicly, I guess, but I met a lot of very important people. The king of Saudi Arabia. I was there two weeks ago, and Qatar, the leader of Qatar, who's great and the leader of UAE, who's great. He's a very substantial people, very smart people and good people. And all three of them said essentially the same thing, along with many other people because I just left NATO and NATO is going to -- we took it up to five percent. Nobody can believe that one, Ron. That would be a hard one. Nobody believes that, what happened in NATO, over $1 trillion a year from, like, nothing. It was an honor. But every leader said that a year ago this country was dead. They had no confidence in the United -- they really felt it was a dead country and it was going to -- bad things were going to happen. But they used the term, it was a dead country and now they said you have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're the hottest country in the world right now and we turned it around fast. I thought it would take longer than this. We turned it around fast. Some of it was psychology and we had to know how good we were, but others was getting rid of rules, regulations and all of the things that I got rid of already. I signed more executive orders than anybody in history, times like three or four and I got rid of just one -- I got rid of the other night, you buy a house, they have a faucet in the house, Joe, and the faucet, the water doesn't come out. They have a restrictor. In areas where you have so much water, they don't know what to do with it. You have a shower head, the shower doesn't -- you think it's not working, it is working, the water is dripping out and that's no good for me, I like this hair nice and -- I like that hair nice and wet. Takes you -- you have to stand in the shower for 20 minutes before you get the soap out of your hair. And I put a thing in, and it sounds funny, but it's really not -- it's horrible. And when you wash your hands, you turn on the faucet and no water comes out. You're washing and the water barely comes out, it's ridiculous. This was done by crazy people, and I wrote it all off and got it approved in Congress so that they can't just change it because I did it in my first term. Everyone was so happy. And then one of the first things that Biden did when he came back, is he put the restriction on showers, toilets and sinks, put this restriction -- and washing machines. The washing machine, they give you like a quarter of this bottle to do your clothing and people needed 10 of these bottles. And the people came to me from Whirlpool, and they said we can't make a machine that's competitive. We can't make a machine; it just doesn't work. Why? They don't let us use water. Do you have any problems with water? No, we have so much, we don't know what to do with it. You know, it comes down from heaven, right? And I approved all of that, the washing machines, the whole thing. The dishwashers, that was the other one, they give you like this much water right up to there to do your dishes. So, people, you know what they do, they keep pressing the button. So, they end up doing the dishes 10 times. They end up using more water than you would have used if you did it right in the first place. So, all of that stuff has been written off. It sounds crazy, it's little things. The straw -- I let you go back to a plastic straw. The other -- I was tired of having straws melt in my mouth, you know. It wasn't working, the paper wasn't working too well. So, these are little things that I did. Then we have the big things. We have the biggest things and that has to do with some of the subjects we're talking now. I think the things we're talking about now are the biggest because if you don't have borders in this country, borders and good elections and we're working on that next. There are some bills coming in that's going to make sure that you're a citizen, that people aren't counted in the voting when they were here and they're here as illegals and they're criminals in many cases and they give them a count and you end up with extra congressmen. We're going to work on that. We're going to straighten that out next. That's going to be easy compared to what we were doing. But we did the big things too. But little things like that, a straw, little things like a washing machine with no water, people go out, they spend all their money on a washing machine, the damn thing doesn't work. You can't use the water. Then you go to your sink and that doesn't work either. You're stuck. You know what you do? You have dirty plates the next day, that's it. And we solved so many commonsense problems and they weren't easy. You know, there are people that really believe in this stuff. But you know, most states have so much water, they don't know what to do with it. And look at North Carolina. I mean, they had a lot of water, and they have to get restrictors on their kitchen faucets. So, we're very proud of the things we did and we're going to do a lot more of them. Yeah, please go ahead. Guy's in good shape.

Question: It's Eric Bolling, how you doing, sir? Something we've talked about for, I'd say, the better part of 20 years. I think it's something near and dear to your heart, energy, our energy security. Under Joe Biden, the average price of oil for the four years was about $79 a barrel. He drained the SPR halfway down, promised to replenish it, never did. Under your first term $53 average price for four years. Biden was $78 for eight years. It was never refilled. The question is now it's $64 or so.

Trump: Yeah, and we're coming down rapidly.

Question: Coming down and what a great opportunity to do -- fix another one of Joe Biden's problems, one of the things he broke in America -- giving us the energy security of an emergency SPR, fill it to -- maybe even go beyond and fill it to a billion barrels this time at a much cheaper price. Thoughts on the energy sector?

Trump: So, it holds 77 million barrels, and we had it up to the top, if you remember. And I was proud of that, and I made a deal to buy it at the lowest price of oil, it was a good deal, good instinct and we filled it up. And when he came in, he started using it to keep oil prices down because he blew our energy policy out. Energy is what caused -- energy and his bad spending is what caused inflation. So, now we have no inflation. Gasoline just hit $1.99 today in five states -- $1.99, isn't that a nice sound? It was up to $4 and going up to $5, $6 and $7. In California it was $7.70. But we just hit in five states, $1.99, $1.98. And it's coming down to that level. So, that will be a big thing. And one of the reasons the prices and costs are going down when you go to the supermarket, because I said I was going to get costs down, we're getting the cost down. Food is coming down. When I came out of my first week, if you remember, I had a lunatic reporter screaming at me saying eggs are going through the roof. What are you going to do about eggs? I said I just got here; I didn't know anything about eggs. I had to call you. I said, look, I just got here. Tell me the problem. Well, they're doubled in price and they're going to be five or six times higher. They were right, actually. I said, let me work on it, and now we have eggs down to the same number as it was when I first came in. You know, we lowered the cost of groceries. A simple word like that, groceries, it was like almost a strange word; I hadn't heard the word in so long. But what could be more beautiful than the word grocery? And we have the prices way down. We have the energy way down. Energy brought the groceries down, if you want to know the truth. So, we think we're going to get it lower and we're going to fill up the national strategic. It's called the strategic national reserves. I had it topped out and this guy would use them -- every time before the election he'd use them. Whenever they had an election, it was artificial. But believe it or not, as big as that, tens of hundreds of millions of barrels of oil all filled up at low prices. But it was really meant for wars. And it wasn't meant for keeping your prices down during a holiday so that somebody could get elected. But they used it and they didn't bring -- the only mistake you made, they didn't bring it a little down, they brought it right down to the bottom. The thing is practically empty. They never filled it up. They never spent $0.10 in filling it up. And we'll do that -- when the market is right, we'll fill it up. I want to fill it up when the market's right. Thank you. How about one more question? OK, please. In the back.

Question: Danamarie McNicholl, Fox News Channel. Mr. President, is there an expected time frame that detainees will spend here, days, weeks, months? And does that have anything to do with the immigration judges you just spoke about being trained and staffed here?

Trump: When you say -- what was the first part of your question, who?

Question: Is there a specific time frame you expect the detainees to spend here, days, weeks, months?

Trump: In Florida?

Question: Yes, here at Alligator Alcatraz.

Trump: I'm going to spend a lot -- look, this is my home state. I love it. I love your government. I love all the people around. These are all friends of mine, I know them very well. I mean, I'm not surprised that they do so well. They're great people. Ron has been a friend of mine for a long time. I feel very comfortable in the state. I'll spend a lot of time here. I want to -- you know, for four years I've got to be in Washington and I'm OK with it because I love the White House. I even fixed up the little Oval Office. I made it -- it's like a diamond, it's beautiful, it's so beautiful. It wasn't maintained properly; I will tell you that. But even when it wasn't, it was still the Oval Office, so it meant a lot. But I'll spend as much time as I can here. You know, my vacation is generally here because it's convenient. I live in Palm Beach, it's my home and I have a very nice little place, nice little cottage to stay at, right. But we have a lot of fun and I'm a big contributor to Florida, you know, pay a lot of tax. And a lot of people moved from New York. And I don't know what New York is going to do. A lot of people moved to Florida from New York, and it was for a lot of reasons. But one of them was taxes, the taxes are so high in New York, they're leaving. I don't know what New York's going to do about that because some of the biggest, wealthiest people and some of the people that pay the most taxes of any people anywhere in the world for that matter, they're moving to Florida and other places. So, we're going to have to help some of these states out I think. But thank you very much. I'll be here as much as I can. Very nice question. With that, I'd like to just end by saying I want to thank Ron and James and all of the people that have done such a great job, all of your staff, really fantastic work. And it really started with site selection. You can do a great job but if you have the wrong site -- in real estate, you have the wrong site, you're dead. And this was a great site selection, despite what you may read in the environmental press. Good job. And this was an honor for Kristi and myself and Steve and all of our people to be here. And I also appreciate the media. They've treated us very fairly. Over the last few weeks I've been treated very nicely and it's so unusual, I'm not used to it, but we've gotten great accolades. Brian, I want to thank you for calling out because I was waiting here because I knew the vote was taking place and I'm answering questions, right? So, I want to thank you very much and say hello to our friend and I will see a lot of you. Thank you very much. We're going to make America great again. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Transcript courtesy of CQ Factbase.