TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Holds a Bilat with Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa of Bahrain, 7.16.25
[Video]
President Trump: All set? Are you all set to go? Well, it's a great honor to have the prime minister and the crown prince of Bahrain. That's a fancy two titles. I want to tell you. I don't know if I'd rather be the prime minister or the crown prince. I think I'd take the crown prince. [Laughter] And very importantly your son, your beautiful son, who has a great reputation, you know that.
Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa: Thank you, Mr. President.
Trump: A reputation as a smart, hardworking guy, so it's good to say hello to you. Congratulations. We've had a tremendous relationship. I have personally with Bahrain over the years. And has been a fantastic ally. And anything they needed, we helped them and anything we needed, they helped us. And we're going to be talking about a lot of different things, including the most perfect military maneuver that anybody has seen probably in 50 years, which took place a few weeks ago in Iran. It knocked out their entire potential nuclear capacity. And it was obliterated. You know, I used that term. They said, well, maybe that's too much. I said no. It turned out, it was more than obliterated. They can't go back. And we're just really going to talk about some things, including trade. We're going to be discussing trade. We do a lot of trading with Bahrain. And, uh we're going to have lunch after this. But we'll take some questions. First, I'd like to ask the crown prince to say a couple of words. And he's, uh, he also has a father who's living and well and doing fantastically as I understand it.
Al Khalifa: He is.
Trump: And somebody, who's respected all over the Middle East and all over the world. So thank you very much for being here.
Al Khalifa: Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you one and all. It is indeed a great honor to be here on this fine morning to put into action the relationship that exists between our two countries. We will be discussing security issues. We'll be discussing trade and investment, which is very important.
Trump: Um-hum.
Al Khalifa: We're very happy to be announcing $17 billion worth of deals that are coming to the United States. And this is real, this isn't --
Trump: It's real money.
Al Khalifa: These aren't fake deals, these are real deals.
Trump: They don't have to borrow the money.
Al Khalifa: We don't have to borrow it. It's coming in. [Laughter] And it only builds upon a legacy that we're very proud of. We have had a relationship in the civil side between our two countries since 1893. And formally, since 1948. So, may it long continue, and we look forward to many, many more years of productive partnership.
Trump: Yeah
Al Khalifa: Thank you, Mr. President. You honor us.
Trump: We will have -- we will have that. Indeed, we'll have many good years and I would say right now is your top year. And I -- we appreciate the investment. It's a great -- we, uh left, as you know, Saudi Arabia. We were just there, Saudi Arabia. And we could -- Qatar was so great. The leaders great. We had uh, UAE. And we had a couple of other visits, but all great places. And we left with $5.1 trillion of investment. And uh, they all want to be investing in the United States.
Al Khalifa: Of course.
Trump: Now we have -- I think -- I think we have over $16 trillion of investment coming in, which is a record. And we're only a little bit into the year. And let's say the first two months, I sort of took it easy because we had to fix up the Oval Office. I had to devote my time to fixing it up. [Laughter] But no, we had to fix up our country. So we have -- I think everyone is saying we have the hottest country now anywhere in the world. We were dead a year ago. We were a dead country. And now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. And uh, it's a great honor to have you here.
Al Khalifa: Thank you, Mr. President.
Trump: Uh, any questions?
Question: On Syria, any comments on the developments in Syria at the moment?
Trump: Well, I can't comment. I think I'll ask Marco to say a few words on Syria.
Secretary Rubio: Yeah, it's complicated, obviously. These are -- these are historic longtime rivalries between different groups in the Southwest of Syria, Bedouins, the Druze community. And it led to an unfortunate situation and a misunderstanding, it looks like, between the Israeli side and the Syrian side. So we've been engaged with them all morning long and all night long with both sides. And we think we're on our way towards a real de-escalation. And then hopefully get back on track in helping Syria build a country and arriving at a -- at a situation there in the Middle East that's far more stable. So in the next few hours, we hope to see some -- some real progress to end what you've been seeing over the last couple of hours.
Question: Mr. President, on Jerome Powell, do you have plans or you're back considering firing Jerome Powell, um, and what is your justification if you're thinking about this?
Trump: Well, he's too late. He's always been too late, hence his nickname too late. [Laughter] He should have cut interest rates a long time ago. Europe has cut them 10 times in the short period of time and we cut them none. The only time he cut them was just before the election to try and help Kamala or Biden or whoever the hell it was, because nobody really knew. Obviously, that didn't work, but he tried to cut him for the Democrats, Kamala. And how did that work out? You'll tell me it. Didn't work out too well, did it? But he's -- he's uh -- I think he does a terrible job. He's costing us a lot of money and we fight through it. It's almost -- the country has become so successful that it doesn't have a big impact, but it does hurt people wanting to get a mortgage, people want to buy a house. He's a terrible -- he's a terrible Fed chair. I was surprised he was appointed. I was surprised, frankly, that Biden put him in and extended him. But they did. So no, we're not planning on doing anything. We're very concerned. He's doing a little renovation for $2.5 billion of the Fed. Building -- building a renovation and they have a close to $900 million cost overrun and it's a shame, but the biggest cost overrun is the cost overrun for interest rates because we should be paying three points lower and we would save $1 trillion a year in interest, if that were the case. And all it is, is the stroke of a pen. And that goes for his board, too, because his board is not doing the job because they should try and rein this guy in. So he's doing a lousy job. But no, I'm not talking about that. We get -- fortunately we get to make a change in the next, what, eight months or so and we'll pick somebody that's good and we'll pick somebody -- I just want a fair job. We want to see lower interest rates. Our country deserves it. We're making a lot of money. We're doing great as a country. We have no inflation. Record stock market, record business, record everything, everything's a record now. We had the worst inflation in history under Biden and now we have almost no inflation. We've done a great job and we should have the interest rates cut.
Question: So you were saying the other day that Scott Besset, you're so happy with at Treasury that, you know, he's not your top option to replace Chair Powell, whenever that may be, whatever you decide you want to do with him --
Trump: -- no, Scott's doing a very good job. I'm very happy with Scott.
Question: Was Kevin Hassett --
Trump: -- I'd rather keep him. Kevin's somebody would consider, sure. Kevin is fantastic. We have a lot of good people for that job. It's not a tough job, to be honest. Assuming you're smart, it's not a tough job. If you're dummy, then I guess it's a tough job. But it might be one of the easiest jobs I've ever seen. And now on top of it, he's building close to $3 billion, a little nest egg for himself. He's -- he's -- he's not doing the right job. We should be saving $1 trillion a year on interest. You know, when he talks about cost, we should be saving it. Think of it, $1 trillion a year, add that with the tariffs and everything else. But he just doesn't want -- he's a -- he's a knucklehead, but we'll -- we'll see how that -- we'll see how -- he's listening to this. Yeah, that's a strange conversation. But you know, we like to say it like it is, but we have a lot of people that want that job very badly and I'm only interested in low interest people, frankly, because you don't need -- I know -- so they had a, you know, the 71 different economists and people that they -- experts that they picked about a month ago. I was the only one along with one person from maybe the Wharton School of Finance, the two of us got it right. 69 people, including Powell, got it wrong and he wants to hire thousands of new people to help him decide where we're going in the future. It only takes one good mind. It doesn't take 5000 good minds. So they're expanding the Fed. It's the dumbest thing I've heard of. But you know, it's very autonomous.
Question: Just a -- just a follow up on that, sir -- Mr. President -- Is -- is there -- are you completely ruling out the idea of firing Jerome Powell?
Trump: I don't rule out anything, but I think it's highly unlikely unless he has to leave for fraud. I mean, it's possible there's fraud involved with the $2.5, $ 2.7 billion renovation. This is a renovation. How do you spend $2.7 billion? And he didn't have proper clearance, et cetera, et cetera, so you know that's going on. So you know, there could be something to that. But I think he's not doing a good job. He's got a very easy job to do. You know what he has to do? Lower interest rates.
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: -- go ahead --
Question: If and when you decide that you are going to fire him, have you drafted a letter?
Trump: -- no, I haven't drafted a letter.
Question: So you didn't show a letter to Republican lawmakers last night?
Trump: No, I talked about the concept of firing him. I said what do you think? Almost every one of them said I should, but I'm more conservative than they are. [Laughs]
Question: Mr. President -- Mr. President -- [Inaudible]
Trump: No, no, we didn't. We talked about it. In fact, we had 11 of the 12 people here yesterday for a very big bill having to do with crypto, et cetera, and -- and other things. And we -- all of the votes are going with us, every single vote. But during the conversation when we were talking about it, I asked what would you do about that? They all said would fire him.
Question: Thank you for taking my question, sir. You were in Pennsylvania yesterday --
Trump: -- yes.
Question: -- you unveiled $92 billion worth of investments. One of those jumped out, though. $15 billion in Homer City to build the largest
Trump: -- right. Yeah --
Question: -- closed down. You delivered for them yesterday. What message do you have for those –
Trump: -- well, I'm happy -- Homer city, I was there and I said I'm going to produce something. I don't know what -- because they shut down this massive coal plant, one of the biggest in the country and it was just purchased by the gentleman that you met yesterday, very substantial man. I don't know if he's a -- maybe not as substantial as you, I'm not sure. But he's pretty substantial. [Laughter]
Al Khalifa: He's pretty substantial.
Trump: : You know who I'm talking about. And they're going to spend billions of dollars on rebuilding it and it's going to be the largest plant of its kind in the -- in the world, I believe, actually in the world, and it's going to be great. So we really fulfilled that promise to Homer City, but it's to Pennsylvania, basically. We -- we -- I won Pennsylvania and very conclusively won Pennsylvania, so we -- I owe them a big debt of gratitude, but thank you for bringing that up. We raised 92 -- it's actually going over 100. So it'll be over $100 billion to be invested in Pennsylvania. It was Pennsylvania Energy Project. And we had -- everybody was there. Larry Fink was there. I mean, everybody was there and done a great job. The Senator did a great job and we were very proud. That was a great meeting yesterday. Thank you very much.
Question: Mr. President -- Mr. President, for -- for -- actually for each of you, so for the Crown Prince, you -- are you planning on taking any of the Patriot missiles that you're going to receive from the United States and divert those to help Ukraine?
Al Khalifa: We have no current plans as we have an operational requirement inside Bahrain to keep them there --
Question: -- OK --
Al Khalifa: -- for the present time.
Trump: He's got plenty of them, too.
Question: And Mr. President, on the fentanyl --
Trump: -- and they are -- they are.
Al Khalifa: They're wonderful. They're wonderful pieces of kit.
Question: They work very well.
Al Khalifa: American technology is the best.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: And on the fentanyl bill that you're trying --
Trump: -- and that's maybe the most important part of this. He has his choice of everything and we make the best military equipment by far in the world.
Al Khalifa: Bar none.
Trump: Yeah. Thank you.
Question: And on the Fentanyl bill that you're signing today, do you hope that that's going to restart law enforcement cooperation with China on getting the fentanyl --
Trump: -- yeah, I think China has been helping out. I mean, it's been -- it's been a terrible situation for many years with fentanyl. But since I came here, we're talking to them and they're making big steps. They're also, as you know, being penalized. You know that, right? They're being penalized with tariffs because of the fentanyl. But they want to do something. We'll see what happens.
Question: Mr. President -- Mr. President -- Mr. President -- [Inaudible]
Trump: -- from Tampa, Florida, has been killed in the West Bank. His family has been asking [Inaudible] prosecutor. Are you going to help --
Question: Thank you, Mr. President. An American [Inaudible] was beaten to death, was killed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. His family has been calling on you to help prosecute his killers. Are you going to do that? An American from Tampa.
Trump: An American citizen --
Question: -- yeah -
Trump: -- from Tampa, Florida, has been killed in the West Bank. His family has been asking [Inaudible] prosecutor. Are you going to help --
Question: -- do you know about this?
Rubio: Yeah, well -- so first of all, if you've seen yesterday, Ambassador Huckabee has asked the Israelis to conduct an investigation. We want to get all the information about who was involved. We protect all American citizens anywhere in the world, especially if they're unjustly murdered or killed. So we're gathering more information. But I hope you saw yesterday Ambassador Huckabee in Israel asked the Israelis authorities to produce an investigation and concrete information about who was responsible for -- for his murder.
Trump: They're reporting that tomorrow, we have a meeting on it. They're going to be reporting that to me.
Question: Do you think that the Gulf area is more secure? And if you believe that a negotiation like Iraq is necessary at this stage?
Al Khalifa: Well, I definitely believe that the volatility of the situation has been reduced and we didn't know where it was going to go on the Sunday. We were very glad when we found out on the Monday. Let me put it that way. And should the Iranians want to negotiate, I believe the ball's in their court. That is the true reality of where we stand today. They are the ones that stand to benefit from a negotiation.
Trump: And they do. They want to negotiate. They want to negotiate badly. We're in no rush. Because you know, we said we could have made a deal. They should have made a deal. And then we bombed the hell out of their various places. We're in no rush, but if they want to negotiate, we're here. Yeah?
Question: Mr. President -- Mr. President, I know you want to move past all this intrigue over the Epstein files, but I just want to ask you to clarify something you said this morning. You said this was all a hoax.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: Has your attorney --
Trump: It's a big hoax.
Question: told you this was a hoax? What evidence --
Trump: No, it's not the attorney general, no, I know it's a hoax. It started by Democrats. It's been run by the Democrats for four years. You had Christopher Wray and these characters and Comey before him. And it's a bad group. It started actually look at the Steele dossier, that turned out to be a total hoax. The 51 agents, the intelligence -- so-called intelligence agents, it was a hoax. It's all been a hoax that's perpetrated by the Democrats. And some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net. And so they try and do the Democrats work. The Democrats are good for nothing other than these hoaxes. They're bad for policy. They're bad for picking candidates that can get elected. Like in New York, we have a communist running. He may get elected too actually, but he's going to -- he'll destroy the city. Uh, no, no, it's -- I call it the Epstein Hoax. It takes a lot of time and effort. Instead of talking about the great achievements. We've had a great gentleman, uh, yesterday, as you know, went on CNBC and he made the statement that Trump may go down as the greatest president of all and the United States. And instead of talking about the things we've achieved, we've had tremendous achievement. They're wasting their time with, uh, a guy who obviously had some very serious problems who died three or four years ago. Uh, I'd rather talk about the success we have with the economy, the best we've ever had. And all of the things we've done, including the Middle East. I mean, you see it. Instead, they want to talk about the Epstein Hoax. And the sad part is it's people that are really doing the Democrats work. They're stupid people. Yeah, go ahead.
Question: Mr. President, there's lots of reports coming into this meeting that you planned on firing fed Chair Jay Powell.
Trump: Is that right? Those are reports, but they're not true.
Question: So what would be useful to know, are you committed to picking someone from the outside or are you going to intervene -- interview --
Trump: I have so many people that want that job. I have people that I've known a long time. They're calling me begging for the job. You know what you need there? A smart person with common sense, but you need a very smart person for that job. I think it's one of the easiest jobs in government. You show up once a month and you make a statement about where the economy is going. And we're going to raise our lower interest rates.
Question: It is a [Inaudible].
Trump: It's -- it's probably the easiest job I've ever seen. That's what I'm trying to figure why does he want to expand and add more people. He's going to add more economists to tell them what to do. But the economists -- I was right, all the economists were wrong. They admitted it.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President --
Trump: They admitted it this morning, quiet. Quiet. Quiet. Go ahead.
Question: Mr. President -- Mr. President -- Mr. President, you mentioned fraud in an earlier answer. Are you saying you want to investigate the fed chair for fraud related to this recommendation?
Trump: Well, I think he's already under investigation. He spent far more money than he was supposed to on rebuilding. I didn't see him as being the kind of guy that would, you know, want to have parks, rooftop parks and everything else on top of buildings, but who wants to spend that money for the fed? The fed is supposed to sit there and say where interest rates are going and a couple of other very easy things to do. And he spent $2.5 billion. I think he's -- you know, I think he's got some problems.
Question: Mr. President -- Mr. President --
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Yeah
Question: Mr. President, thank you, sir. You also reported a surplus -- monthly surplus in the month --
Trump: That's right, $25 billion.
Question: A ton of money, uh --
Trump: Yeah.
Question: With these new tariff rates coming into effect on August 1st, we'll be bringing in even more tariff revenue, specifically. How much revenue do you think we can consistently bring in from these tariffs? And how big of a game changer is this not only for the economy but also for --
Trump: Well, we're going to be bringing in -- already, we've brought in over $100 billion. We'll be bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars. And the tariffs really haven't kicked in that much other than automobiles and steel. Uh, August 1st is a big day. August 1st is one very substantial, money comes into our country. Uh, we've made deals with a lot of great places, but we had one yesterday and that was announced. We have another one coming up maybe with India. I don't know yet. We're in negotiation. When I send out a letter, that's a deal. In other words, that's a deal. They don't want to ever say that. Oh, how many deals have you made? And the best deal we can make is to send out a letter and the letter says that you'll pay 30 percent, 35 percent, 25 percent, 20 percent. In one case, 50 percent, Brazil. And because what they're doing to their former president is disgraceful. I know the former president. He fought like hell for the people of Brazil. That I can tell you. And I believe he's an honest man. I think what they're doing to him is terrible. So uh, yeah, we have some -- we have some pretty good deals to announce. But every time we send out a letter, that's a deal. The big one really is going to be on the 150 countries that we're really not negotiating with. And they're smaller. We don't do much business with them. Because you have a lot of countries. You have over 200 countries and a lot of people don't know this. But -- but we'll have a, you know, well over 150 countries that we're just going to send a notice of payment out. And the notice of payment is going to say what the tariff is. And we're -- it's all going to be the same for everyone for that group. They don't, you know, it's not -- they're not big countries and they don't do that much business. It's not like the ones that we've agreed with like China, like Japan, where we're negotiating with them. But I think probably we'll live by the letter with Japan. We're very close to a deal with India where they open it up. Indonesia yesterday was -- it wasn't an open country now it is. And they have tremendous copper. Quality copper and probably the most copper. And we made a deal with Indonesia, we pay no tariff, zero, and we have total access to trade. That's a phenomenal deal for our companies. And we've agreed with them, as you know, on 19 percent. They pay 19 percent. And it's a good deal for them. It's a good deal for us, so, in that case, but we have a number of them coming up. But overall, we're doing well and we're -- we're taking in a lot of money, a lot of money. We have the number one, you know, we have the most oil of any country in the world, even more than them, which is hard to beat, but we have a little larger piece of land, right?
Al Khalifa: We do, sir. And let it be so.
Trump: But we have -- we're number one in the world in oil. And we're drilling. And today it hit $64 a barrel, which is great. And that'll help stop wars. Actually, if you want to know the truth. It's going to help stop wars. And we hope to get it down a little bit more. But we have oil down to $2, $2.25, $2.50. And numerous states, we had one at $1.98 a gallon and that's a great thing. That's one of the reasons that inflation is in check.
Al Khalifa: Um-hum.
Trump: When you can do that, you stop the inflation.
Al Khalifa: Um-hum.
Trump: What Biden did is he ended -- our policies went to his policies. He doesn't have a policy. Some lunatic around the desk had a policy. Whoever operated the Autopen had a policy, which is by the way, I think the biggest scandal. That's the scandal they should be talking about, not Jeffrey Epstein. The scandal you should be talking about is the autopen. Because I think it's the biggest scandal, one of them in American history. So the economy –
Question: Mr. President -- Mr. President -- Mr. President --
Trump: So the economy is doing really well. And uh, people are saying it. Yeah? Please. Go ahead.
Question: Mr. President, will you ask Attorney General Pam Bondi to release more documents to finally put this controversy to an end?
Trump: Yeah, whatever's credible, she can release. If the -- if a document is credible, if a document is there that is credible, she can release. I think it's -- I think it's good. But --
Question: Of you talk to her about it?
Trump: But it's just really -- it's just a subject. He's dead. He's gone. And uh, all of this is the Republicans, certain Republicans got duped by the Democrats. And they're following a Democrat, uh playbook. And no different than Russia, Russia, Russia and all the other hoaxes. They're -- they're started by the Democrats and some Republicans, in this case, I was surprised, but uh, they got duped.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Go ahead.
Question: Mr. President, first off, you were -- high ranking officials with your -- your FBI director or you may have made some inconsistent statements in the past --
Trump: Well, I don't know. I can't speak about him, but I can say that Pam Bondi, I -- I really think that she's done very good. She says I gave you all the credible information. And if she finds any more credible information, she'll give that to. What more can she do than that? I mean, honestly, what more can she do?
Question: Have you talk to her about it?
Trump: And we do have bigger problems. You know, we have problems with, uh, millions of illegal people that came in here. And they're killers and murderers. We have 11,888 murderers that were allowed in to our country by Biden, it be Joe Biden, Stupid Joe Biden. He allowed them into our country. And you know what? We've got to do something about it. She's got a lot of things she's working on. And uh, you know, it's -- it's very sad that somebody can be waylaid, they just get waylaid. But she's -- she's -- I think she's doing a great job, personally.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Go ahead.
Question: You mentioned sanctions this morning. And you mentioned past supporters when you were talking about the Epstein issue. Does that mean that you are effectively disowning any supporters who are --
Trump: No, but I lost a lot of faith in certain people. Yeah, I lost -- because they got duped by the Democrats. The Democrats are good for nothing. They've done a terrible job. They almost destroyed our country. If I didn't get elected, all these numbers you're hearing about, they found $25 billion and another $25 billion is coming in and hundreds of billions of dollars is pouring into our country. And we just got the biggest tax cut in history. We just got the biggest regulation cuts in history. There'll be no tax on tips. There'll be no tax on Social Security. There will be no tax on overtime. There will be no tax on so many other things. You're allowed to deduct your interest from a car payment. That's never happened before. You borrow interest. You borrow money to buy a car if you -- if the car is made in America. And by the way factories are being built all over America car factories, AI, factories, but you get a deduction on your interest. Nobody ever thought of that before. It never happened before. And you know, these are the things that they should be talking about. The Big, Beautiful Bill is one of the greatest pieces of legislation ever in this country. And the Democrats have nothing to combat it. So they say, oh, it's death, death. Oh, that's good. And then they give it to the fake news, which is you and a few others. And the fake news talks about the bill is death. The bill is actually life. The bill is life, and it saves our country. This bill is incredible. Look at the results already. So we have $16 trillion being invested in our country. And this great gentleman and his family just came in with another billions of dollars.
Al Khalifa: That's true.
Trump: And if he didn't like the country, if he didn't like where we were going, he's very smart, he wouldn't -- he'd come -- maybe he'd come, maybe he wouldn't even come. I think maybe he wouldn't even come. You'd save your time. [Laughter] But you know it's one of those things. But uh, if he didn't like where this country was, he wouldn't be investing billions of dollars in this country. But think of it, $16 trillion more than has ever been even contemplated before. And we haven't even started yet. So that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the success. And the Democrats have nothing to show for what they do. They almost destroyed -- they allowed 25 million people to come into our country. Gang members, jailbirds, from all over the world, not South America, from all over the world. They allowed them to come into our country from mental institutions, insane asylums. Just walk right through it. They couldn't come into your country. They couldn't come into any country in the world except our country. And they came in from the worst places. Gang members. Drug dealers. They all came in –
Unidentified: [ Phone Rings]
Trump: Turn it off please. They all came in. And I'm doing something about it. We have it under check right now. We got rid of a lot of the murderers already. Some of them we put in our prisons because they're so bad, we don't want to take a chance in putting them in a foreign prison and have them come back. But uh, we've done a great job. Our country is in great shape. We -- we literally have the hottest country anywhere in the world right now. And it's true what the king said, what a lot of people said. We were a dead country. One year ago, one year ago we were a dead country. We were laughed at all over the world. We had Afghanistan with that horrible embarrassment. The most -- most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. Look what happened with Russia and Ukraine. That should have never happened. Look what happened with Israel. That would have never happened. Hamas had no money. Iran had no money. There was no money to do an attack like that. All these things that happened that wouldn't have happened if you had good leadership. And that's what you should be talking about. Thank you very much everybody.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, guys.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Transcript courtesy of Roll Call