TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Hosts a Ballroom Dinner at the White House, 10.15.25
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President Trump: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much. It's, uh, a real honor to be with you. I got back from the Middle East. We had a really historic trip, I would say would be the, the least of it. We, uh, had tremendous progress on peace in the Middle East, which a term that hasn't even been used in 50 years probably.
Trump: And it's, uh, 3,000 years we're playing with, so people thought that was something. And it, it really was incredible. We had tremendous, uh, tremendous friendships and we've developed some friendships even over the last few days. And it's going very well. And we got the hostages back, which is a big deal.
Trump: Getting the hostages back. Everybody feels that way. Everybody feels that way. And other things are happening. Even today, things are happening that are very positive. Everyone wants to see it happen. Countries that didn't get along with each other are now seemingly in love with each other. Now, in the Middle East, that'll change perhaps, but, uh, the deal will still be there and it's gonna be, I think it's gonna be something to remember.
Trump: We have -- we've settled now eight wars. If you think, it was seven. Now it's eight. Now we have another one left. One of the easier ones I thought was gonna be Russia. I thought the Russia-Ukraine would be easy. It would've never happened. It should have never happened. But a lot of people are being killed in that war.
Trump: That war is, it's the bloodiest war since the Second World War. Uh, I think that, uh, we'll get that one too and we'll stop. You know, it's not from the U.S., these soldiers that are dying all over the place. Seven -- 7,212, they say last week died. Think of that. 7,212 soldiers for, for no reason. It should have never happened.
Trump: Should have, if the right person were here, it wouldn't have happened, I can guarantee you that. But it did happen and, uh, we've made some good progress. We've interestingly made a lot of progress today because of what took place in the Middle East. Uh, only the deep-thinking business people would understand that, of which we have a lot of them.
Trump: We have a lot of legends in the room tonight, and that's why we're here, to celebrate you. Because you've gave, given, uh, tremendous amounts of money to see a ballroom built for the first time at the White House. The White House, uh, for 150 years plus, they've wanted to have a ballroom and it never happened because they never had a real estate person.
Trump: For me, I like it. For me, it's like -- I love it in between China, Russia, and everything else that we deal with. Uh, it's gonna be a great ballroom, gonna be a great ballroom. As an example, this has really been the ballroom for many years and it holds 100 people, of which we have 125 today, I'll tell you.
Trump: But, uh, you know, we have 128 and I've never seen it with 128. And by the way, you're gonna have a little good entertainment from the military band right after this. You'll see some really talented musicians. They're gonna do a few songs and you're gonna love them. They're very talented people. But, uh, so for years they've wanted to have it. And when they had the head of China, the head of any country, we have many, many of the countries came, and, uh, they'd always put the tent out on the lawn.
Trump: And if it was not raining, you'd get away with it a little bit. But it's still a tent and, uh, the biggest dignitaries in the world. Not only political in many way -- many other ways too. And so I always said that, if I pull it off again, we are going to build a ballroom. And I'm going to start right at the beginning.
Trump: And we had it designed by one of the top architects in Washington, who's very, very respected and, uh, very, very respected, actually. And we started the process and, uh, we have it concluded. And it's actually starting, uh, right behind us. And if you look, this is really a knockout panel. Should I show you?
Trump: I guess maybe you've sort of seen, right? So we don't really want you to walk on there, but you can take a look if you want, if you're curious. Because we took out all the strength from underneath. That collapsed. If we collapse it, that, uh, over the next few days, it's, uh, gonna be demolished. Everything out there is coming down and we're replacing it with one of the most beautiful ballrooms that you've ever seen.
Trump: And you have some pictures. And, basically, it's right here. Here's your White House, here's the West Wing, and here's the east side, which has been tinkered with for years and years and years. And, uh, they had a -- originally a very beautiful building. They called it the East Wing, but that was, uh, sort of semi-knocked down about five times and changed and redone and everything else.
Trump: It was originally done by McKim, Mead & White, great architects. And, uh, so that came down and mostly it's taken down already. And we -- we've started excavation. I'm very good at building things on time, on budget, that I can tell you. You're not gonna see like the Fed where they're up to $4 billion or something to paint some walls.
Trump: It's the craziest thing I've ever seen. This guy, he's too late. He should have been too late with that one and not done it. It would've been better. [Laughter] It didn't need to be done. He could have painted the ceilings. They ripped down a gorgeous ceiling like this. And then they say, "We have a problem.
Trump: Now we have to put one up. How do you do a ceiling like this?" And they're way over budget. They decided they wanted to do a basement, but unfortunately the basement is right next, you know, you're right next to the Potomac. And when it went down, they should have stopped immediately because they, they should have known, but they have a little thing called the Potomac River where the basement is. But they said, "We're gonna get it done anyway." So you build what's called a reverse bathtub.
Trump: And it's not that uncommon, but it is actually a reverse -- You, you seal it. The problem is nature always wins. I know a lot about reverse bathtubs. I've done it. And it's, uh, something you only do in emergencies. You don't -- There was no reason to do it there. They could have -- Actually, if you think about it, they could have added three floors on top and it would've cost about $2 billion less.
Trump: So they ended up in this disaster of building a basement in the Potomac River and keeping the water out. Very hard to do as you're pouring your concrete, which has to be dry, and it's been a disaster. And this the same guy that keeps your interest rate's too high. We should be --
[Laughter] We should be much lower in interest.
Trump: We're doing so well, but we would've been, uh, as good as that is even better. I don't think it's affected us much. You can't, we have an all-time high stock market. Everybody in this room is extremely happy with Trump. If you weren't, I would've postponed it. I would've said, (laughing) "Let's do it, let's do it some other time." But the stock market hits records almost, almost all the time.
Trump: Every once in a while we'll have a little, uh, situation come up that drives it down. But it comes right back. We're doing really well on trade. We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars on the tariffs. The tariffs are making this country so rich and they're making it powerful. Uh, we stopped a lot of these wars using trade.
Trump: We had, uh, as an example. India and Pakistan were going at it really hard. Uh, seven planes were shot down. It was gonna happen. Bad things were happening. And I was talking to both of them about trade. And I said, "How we doing with those two?" "Sir, we're doing very well. Like, great, well, we're not gonna do well.
Trump: We're not gonna do a trade deal unless they stop the war." And uh, I got 'em on the phone and I said, "Listen, we're gonna put a 200% tariff on your country for any product you sell into the United States unless you stop this war. 'Cause I'm not gonna be a party to it. You have two nuclear nations, by the way." "No, no, no. You can't do that." I say, "I can do that.
Trump: Very easily I can. We're not gonna have, lose millions of people from the planet." And frankly, that dust can blow over here too. It affects everything. It's a powerful, powerful weapon. Too powerful. So powerful, you don't want to talk about it. So they said, "No, no." I said, "Yes, yes. Here's the story.
Trump: If you're gonna go and do it, we're cutting off all negotiations. There'll be no trade with the United States of America." Both nations. I spoke to 'em both. I like both the leaders. I like 'em both a lot. But I said, "That's the way it is." And I get a call the next day, "We have decided to de-escalate." They said, "I thought you would actually.
Trump: We have, uh, decided that we will not fight." I said, "Have you come to a conclusion? Yes, we're not gonna do anymore." And they stopped. It stopped. Just like that. This could have been a nuclear or probably would've been. In fact, the, uh, prime minister of Pakistan came and saw me and he was emotional about it. And in front of a group of people, he said, "This man saved 3 million, 5 million, maybe an untold number of lives." And it was just recently that this happened.
Trump: And we did numerous of them like that. And part of the reason we did it was trade. I think of the eight, I would say five were because of trade, you know, the power of trade, but the power of tariffs. Tariffs have made us a, uh, a very, uh, a kind nation because a lot of people aren't dying. I use it for purposes of stopping wars.
Trump: I love stopping wars. And, uh, sort of interesting. I'll be the only president. I don't think any president stopped one war. I stopped eight wars in eight months. Did I get a Nobel Prize? No. (laughing) I said, "Can you believe it?" Even I said, "Yeah, that's an impossible one." But, uh, it's all right. I suspect they think next year will be better.
Trump: But I don't, I don't care. You know what I care about? I saved maybe hundreds of millions of lives, but certainly I saved millions of lives. So we're very happy about that. So now we'll get back to the point on hand. And, uh, that's we're you're really here because you've contributed to this incredible building that people have wanted for so many years.
Trump: Uh, and we show another building. It's an ark. It's the ark. So that circle, that's Arlington Memorial Bridge, as you know, that's sort of the, the most important one, a very important structure. And at the end of it, you have a circle that was built 150 years ago. Nobody knows really when, and in fact, they put a couple of columns on each side.
Trump: So you have two columns on one side, two columns on the other. But you have, in, in the middle just a circle. And everyone in the past has said something was supposed to be built there. And it's true. But a thing called the Civil War interfered. That's a good reason. I would say -- Ike, that would be a good reason, right?
Trump: The great Ike Perlmutter. Uh, the Civil War, if you said you're having a war, I think they have a good reason not to build. Again, you know, they were building the Washington Monument and they stopped. And you could see where they stopped because the stone is a little different color when you get up to the middle.
Trump: But anyway, they stopped here. And then they were -- In 1902, they were gonna put a statue of Robert E. Lee up. It would've been okay with me. A lot of people wouldn't have liked it, but would've been okay with me, would've been okay with a lot of the people in this room. But they didn't do that. And so for years and years it sat and every time somebody rides over that beautiful bridge going right to the Lincoln Memorial, that's so beautiful, right?
Trump: It's, uh, they literally, uh, say "Something's supposed to be here." And so we have versions of it, sizes of it, and it's gonna be, uh, it's gonna be really beautiful. I think it's gonna be fantastic. There's a rendering of what it will look like. You have three sizes. That would be the largest one. This is just a model of what it would look like in either of the three, any of the three sizes, which is right here.
Trump: I don't know if you can see it. It's sort of, it's Lady Liberty. Lady, did you ever hear of Laby, Lady Liberty? On top. But, uh, so the sizes would be very different. Now here's Lincoln. And this is sort of facing this way. And so, you know, there's a direct line. They did this, they didn't do that. So this would be -- I go small, medium, and large, right? [Laughter] Small, medium and large.
Trump: And uh, whichever one, they look good. I happen to think the large looks by far the best. [Laughter] Why are, why are you shocked to hear that? So we're gonna, you know, just do something for the city. 'Cause we're so proud of what we've done with crime. This is a very safe city. Now, this went from a very unsafe city where you were afraid to go out to dinner to a city that's extremely safe.
Trump: The, uh, people that we have working on this, it's been a miracle almost. It took 12 days. We took out 1,700 people, brought 'em back to their countries from where they came. Many of them were let in through the Biden open border. Brilliant thing where they let people in from jails, from, from prisons and, uh, mental institutions and insane asylum.
Trump: That's a mental institution on steroids. And, uh, I mean, they were literally emptying out insane asylums into our country. This is Venezuela, but other countries also, not only Venezuela. And speaking of Venezuela, we've, uh, you know, we have a lot of drugs. We had a lot of drugs coming in by water, uh, that stopped.
Trump: In fact, nobody wants to go fishing anymore, nobody -- [Laughter] -- nobody wants to do anywhere, anything near the water. They might have a beautiful boat and they might as well get rid of their boat 'cause they are very nervous about going on the water. It's been amazing. So now we were having literally, we were, it was like a subway train of people of, uh, and drugs coming into this country.
Trump: A lot of them coming from Venezuela. A lot of 'em come from Mexico and Colombia too, in all fairness. But we, uh, we wanted to knock out one track. And I can tell you we cannot find anybody anymore. We're looking down. They're looking down. There's, there's not a boat on the entire ocean that we can see, outside of the ocean liners, and even they're a little bit concerned about things. [Laughter] But it, but it shows you the power and the strength and the technology of, of our great military.
Trump: We have, you know, I rebuilt the military in my first term. We had a great first term. We had the best economy ever. We had, uh, a rebuilding of the military. We had the big tax cuts and the, uh, wonderful, the wonder -- all of the assets of the tax cuts, including the one-year depreciation. You write it off in one year.
Trump: Now we have better under The Great Big Beautiful Bill because we have no tick, tips for -- Think of this. You have no tax on tips and you have no tax on social security and you have, for your workers, you have no tax on overtime. It's really a middle, I would say a middle-of-the-road bill from the standpoint of who is it representing?
Trump: It's the workers. It's the biggest bill ever passed in the history of Congress. And I'm glad we did because we don't need any more bills. We have everything in that one. Plus we have the deductibility every single year for 10 years. The other one had it for one year. You had a rush. This year, this time you don't. Actually, I was in favor of rushing because that's awfully good for elections, but it's not about elections.
Trump: It's awfully good. So you have deductibility, you have so many different things. We have great social programs, $50 billion going to rural hospitals. So The Great Big Beautiful Bill, and we got it all in one -- I was very happy 'cause we had little arguments about that. A lot of people wanted to do it in small chunks.
Trump: I said, "If you do it in small chunks, you'll never get it approved. You'll get some approved, but not all of it. And not even close. You get much less, I would say less than 30%." So, they've never done this before. They put every single thing that I wanted for four years in one bill. And we call it, they, some people call it different.
Trump: I call it The Great Big Beautiful Bill 'cause that's what it is. And we, this will keep us -- What we wanna manage it now. We gonna manage it. All you have to do is that, but we got it all approved. And one of the things I thought though, while I do, 'cause it's so relaxing for me, real estate is relaxing.
Trump: For a lot of people real estate is a very trying business. I've always liked it. I've always done well with it. I love, uh, building things. And this way I can build some beautiful things. And this, again, has never been built. And we're gonna start that pretty soon. It's gonna be great. And then the ballroom for the White House is the thing that you people have really, really been very generous with.
Trump: And we're going to build a room that's going to be able to hold literally the inauguration if we want. Uh, all of the glass on the sides is bulletproof. It's, uh, 999 people it can hold. So, if we figure we have 125 people in here approximately now, which I've never seen before, I've always heard it's less than a hundred.
Trump: But it's amazing when you have too many people you can fit 'em in, you know. You can always fit a few more people in and pardon the fact that you're a little tight at your table, that's okay. That's better than lots of room for everybody 'cause nobody shows up, right? But, uh, you've been cun- -- you've been so generous in your contributions, uh, very substantial money, fully financed, it's fully taken care of now, and in fact, we'll have money left over and uh, we'll use that for something.
Trump: We'll use that probably maybe for the Ark or something else that will come, but we'd love to fix up Washington. If you went to the Oval Office, you'd see the Presidential Walk of Fame, and you've heard about it. And with the exception of one particular picture. [Laughter] There's no controversy, it's just, it's beautiful, it's a beautiful thing.
Trump: It's, uh, this beautiful long wall that existed for, it's just literally a wall with half windows on top. And that was, uh, originally built as a swimming pool, now it's where the press is on the other side of the wall. And it's very interesting, all these people over here with all their cameras. Uh, although they've been very respectful, I'll tell you what, they've been very respectful for what's taken place over the last week, so I want to thank you.
Trump: This is just a small little group, they, they have a big group downstairs. They have a lot of reporters downstairs wanting to be where they (laughs) are, I don't know these guess, are you special? This is Doug, who's the, uh, he won the highest awards there is in, uh, photography, including Pulitzer Prizes, right?
Trump: He won many Pulitzer Prizes for, uh, for his great work. One that I wasn't so happy with. He had one with a bullet moving along. [Laughter] He got, he caught the bullet, can you believe this? He got another Pulitzer, but anyway, it's great to have you gentlemen, it's really good. They have a whole group downs- -- a big group downstairs, I didn't think you'd like to have that up here 'cause they can be, some of them are sort of violent towards some of you, but not bad.
Trump: So we did, uh, a design that is being, you know, just lauded for the, for the ballroom. Showed it to the top people. One of the things that I like the most, I came in and I said to the people in the building, I said, so, I said, "If I make it back, I wanna build a ballroom for the country." Really, 'cause this is really, they, they call it the People's House, it's the country's house. "I want to build a ballroom, it needs it badly.
Trump: And, uh, a ballroom that could seat 600 or 700 people so that when you have state dinners or more of it's possible." And I said, "How long would the process take?" 'Cause I'm so used to zoning and I've done, I've done a lot of zoning over the years to these two guys, these two genius, like movie stars and, and they have a good brain besides, that's pretty nice, eh, nice to have you guys both with us. So they said, "How long?" I said, "How long would it take?" They said, "Sir, you can start tonight." I said, "What are you talking about?" "You have zero zoning conditions, you're the president of." [Laughter] I said, "You gotta be kidding.
Trump: You mean I can actually do something that I really want?" 'Cause I'm used to sitting with, uh, heads of community boards and politicians, and it's fine, it's part of the, the, uh, beauty, if you want to call it that, or sometimes it's not so beautiful, of being a real estate developer, especially in New York.
Trump: It takes you years and years and it's uh, you know, it's heartache. And they say, "Well sir, we'd like you to cut off 40 stories." I had one where I had it 67 stories was approved, and we go to the end and I get an emergency phone call from the head of the board. "Sir, may we see you." Yes. They come in, "Sir, we're gonna really not be able to approve it. We want you to cut off 42 stories." Cut off, in other words, I'm gonna lose 42 stories.
Trump: I said, "There's no way you're doing it." So we fought it out for two years, you end up getting what you want but it's a brutal process, you know. So over here, I said, "How long will it take me?" "Sir, you can start tonight, you have no approvals." I said, "You gotta be kidding." They said, "Sir, this is the White House, you're the President of the United States, you can do anything you want." So with that came great responsibility, and we did something that was, uh, really appropriate to the White House.
Trump: We didn't wanna dwarf anything, we didn't wanna make it so that, uh, it's inappropriate, and I was watching them very carefully and that's what we did. And so we're gonna have a phenomenal ballroom, this is gonna be one of the best, uh, anywhere in the world. There won't be anything like it actually. And it's four sides of glass or glass, beautiful glass, but totally, uh, appropriate in color and in window shape, and everything else with the White House, moldings.
Trump: So it's gonna be very much in keeping with the White House. You know, a new thing is you build a super modern building next to an old-fashioned building, and I think that's good, but I don't have the courage to do that with, (laughs) with the White House. It's good for a lot of places, it's not good, it's not good for here.
Trump: So everything's very much in keeping, and we'll be able to have state dinners, the kind, we, we would literally not even have state dinners because it's not set up, but for all those years they wanted it and now they're gonna get it, and because of you, they're gonna get it, and me too, we're all in this together.
Trump: Uh, and I mean, I have so many friends and so many of you have been really, really generous. I mean, a couple of you, I'm sitting here saying, uh, "Sir, would $25 million be appropriate?" I said, "I'll take it." [Laughter] You know, it doesn't take too many 25s to get it done, but, uh, a lot of, I mean a lot of you were, have been really fantastic, Ike thank you very much, you were great, you were great.
Trump: Ike Perlmutter. And they just felt it was something that's really good. It's the preservation, uh, of something that's, there's nothing like it to me. There's nothing like the White House. Even after I won the first night, I went up and I'm standing in the residential hallway with Melania and where I'm looking into the Lincoln bedroom, I said, "That was a surreal experience," I'm saying. "Do you believe this?
Trump: We're in the White House and that's the Lincoln bedroom." And it takes a while to get used -- I'm still not probably really used to it. It's just a special place. What can I say? So we have to take care of it. And we have, uh, little things like at the Lincoln bedroom. The bathroom was done by the Truman family and you know, long time ago.
Trump: And it's done in a green tile and it's done as a -- In a style that was not exactly Abe Lincoln. It's uh, a style that's not good. [Laughter] So, so we -- It's actually art Deco. And Art Deco doesn't go with, you know, 1850 and Civil Wars and all of the problem. But what does do is statuary marble. So we -- I ripped it apart and we built a bathroom.
Trump: It's, it's absolutely gorgeous and totally in keeping with that time because the Lincoln bedroom is, uh, so incredible, for those of you that have seen it. We have so many different -- Downstairs, we have the Palm Room and they had, uh, one-by-one tiles that were put there probably 20 years ago by somebody, and they were broken and bad.
Trump: It's embarrassing. And I took it out and we did a magnificent, uh, book-matched statuary marble floor. We fixed the room and we put up the right -- you know, the proper lighting and chandeliers and everything. It looks incredible. People walk up, they can't believe how beautiful it is. And so we like to fix it up and it's a little bit of my heritage.
Trump: Fix up and clean up and make it nice. And we're doing that, uh, with the White House. So the largest room in the White House was the East Room. That's this room right here by far. And it currently holds, let's say, as we said, a hundred. And for this reason, during major functions and events, administrations going back many, many decades, were forced to severely limit the number of events they had and certainly limit the number of people.
Trump: And they had some catastrophic events. Some of the biggest events were a tent being built on the lawn and the rain started and it -- For some reason, every time they put up a tent here, it rains. And that's not good. And, uh, they tended to use a lower level, which is, you know, they have pretty big land here, but they used a lower level where the rain would just seep into the ballroom and it wasn't pretty.
Trump: When you're sitting down having dinner, talking about, "Hello, President Xi and how have you been? And Hello, Emmanuel," from France and all the different people that we've had here. And, uh, you've got about four inches of water. Literally it's going over your shoes and you're trying to pretend that it's not happening, but it is. [Laughter] So we won't have that stuff anymore and it'll be great.
Trump: It's -- We really need it. The United States is the greatest and most powerful nation on earth. And American presidents need to be able to host events at the White House that reflect the demands of the time. And that can be -- Carry out the prestige of what we're all doing. I mean, we, we are, uh, a country that a year ago was dead.
Trump: We were a dead country a year ago, as many of you know. And today we're, uh, the hottest country anywhere in the world by far. Every, everybody admits it. King of Saudi Arabia told me that, I, you've heard me say it, but uh, Qatar, UAE, the European Union came in. Every country. They said, "It's unbelievable." What's happened with the United States, we're hot.
Trump: And I'll tell you what, had this other group of lunatics been elected, this country would've -- I think you would've actually failed. So we, uh, we went from being a country that was dead, a country that was really in trouble, open borders, everything they did wrong, men in women's sports, transgender for everybody.
Trump: Every single thing they did was wrong. Just go the opposite and you couldn't miss. And, uh, we had an election that was a landslide. It was so big. We won the popular vote by a lot. We won all seven swing states, or seven swing states, as you know. And if you win three or four, you do great. But to win seven is very rare that you see that happen.
Trump: We won all seven. We won, uh, the electoral college by a lot. We're 312. Remember? They said, "Well, I don't know if he can get above 250." No, we didn't. We got 312 and it was great. We beat them by a lot. But we have another where you would call it districts or you would call it -- There's a map split up, beautifully split up in tiny little quadrants, and uh, they call 'em districts.
Trump: They call 'em just areas, and we were 2,750 to 525. That's why when you look at a map of the election, it was all red with two blue stripes down on one end and the other. And even them, I worried about because I don't, I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I think we did great there. And uh, so we've, we've had a, we've had an amazing time.
Trump: It's, uh, the most powerful nation on earth now. You see that, you see the weapon. We have the greatest weapons, the greatest manufacturer of weapons. Some of you are in that world, and some of you, yeah, the greatest in the world. We have the greatest in the world. I wish we could make 'em faster, if you wanna know the truth, everybody, all of our allies want 'em, and they want 'em as quick as they can.
Trump: And the American presidents need to be able to, uh, showcase our country. So, we'll begin the hysteric, a really historic effort to add the, we'll call, presidential ballroom that'll expand the space, uh, for tens of thousands of people will be able to come during the course of a year if you add it all up and have the kind of, uh, the kind of space that you need.
Trump: It's very exciting to me. It's exciting as a person in real estate, 'cause you'll never get a location like this again. Even contracts, I gave, I gave out the contracts myself. Can you believe it? And we had -- We just gave out the excavation contract, and I guess he was in for 3.2 million. I said, "Can you do it for 1.5?" "No, I can't do that, sir.
Trump: I can't." I said, "This is once in a lifetime. This is the excavation of the White House grounds for what will be one of the best, most beautiful ballrooms in the world." "Sir, I can't, I can't." So, but I got 'em down to 2 million, so it's not terrible, so we got it. And, uh, so many people were so great.
Trump: Uh, Carrier, it's a great company, air conditioning. He called, he said, "Uh, sir, we'd like to donate the air conditioning." I said, "That's a beautiful thing." I appreciate that he's donating it to the -- Not giving it to me, giving it to the country. He donated the air conditioning. A steel company, a great steel company, a great man, actually.
Trump: He said, "Sir, I'd like to donate the steel for your ballroom." I said, "Oh, that's nice," and I found out how much is the steel. I called the contract, "Sir, it's down for 37 million." I said, "This is a nice donation, right?" He wants the steel, and he wants to make it great steel as opposed to garbage steel 'cause they dump a lot of garbage around, you know.
Trump: Uh, steel is, uh, like everything else, including human beings. Steel could be high quality, and it could be low quality. He wants to make sure it's high quality, but -- And so many different people are donating services, and they're donating products to, to the ballroom. It's, it's amazing. If we keep going like this, I may be able to build it for nothing, you know, we'll get it built for nothing, but, uh, we're gonna be projecting, um, a cost that's gonna be -- We're gonna come in under budget.
Trump: We started with a much smaller building, and then I realized, I mean, we have the land, let's do it right, and so we built a larger building that can really hold just about any function that we want. Uh, it'll be done with really exquisite taste, the finest designers, and I, you know, I consider myself an important designer 'cause they come in with things that they may be good designers, but boy, the things they can recommend are horrible.
Trump: And we wanted classic, the utmost respect for the historic beauty and grandeur of one of the most iconic buildings anywhere in the world. I mean, you go to the White House and you see that picture when, when you ride up in the drive, like tonight, probably some of you realize, you drive up that drive and you're looking at that building all lit up and gorgeous and perfect, and we take good care of it too.
Trump: It wasn't taken good care of. The Oval Office is now at a level that it's never seen before. We take really great care of it. They weren't taking good care of it for four years, I'll tell you that. This addition will be completed in the classical style that complements everything else around it, inclu- -- including the Treasury Department, which is right next to it. We have been working very closely with the incredible people of the National Park Service.
Trump: They really are. They love this place. They're very proud of it. The architects, historians, and everyone else, and many others, to ensure that the project will be beloved and loved for years to come, for such years to come. It's gonna be up for a long time, I hope. To the cherished White House staff and everyone else that worked so hard, I want to thank you very much.
Trump: And it's from James Monroe, who added the South Portico, I don't know if you know that South Portico, to Andrew Jackson, who added the North Portico, to Theodore Roosevelt, who added the West Wing. Did you know that? Theodore Roosevelt. Long time ago. And Harry Truman, who added the Truman Balcony. He wanted the Truman Balcony.
Trump: That's, uh, right up here so you have the balcony off the residential. Chief executives throughout the history have contributed to making the White House special and, uh, nothing of this magnitude has been done. But, uh, the first -- Real -- The really big, recent renovation was the West Wing and the Oval Office and that's pretty major in terms of what it stands for.
Trump: It's actually not big but it's really big in another way. It's the biggest, I would say, in another way and, uh, that was around 1900. So that's a long time ago. That's a long time ago and this is gonna be something that's gonna make you all very proud. So now, we have the Presidential Ballroom. We're ensuring that the people's house will continue to serve the American people properly.
Trump: And we can have all the people in the world come and they'll say, "Boy, what a place that is." But I wanna thank and just leave it by thanking everybody in this room. You've been unbelievable. Some of you have been just incredible. Uh, you, you really felt it was very important to do this and it happened so quickly.
Trump: I mean, I thought I'd have this dinner, like, in a year from now, a year and a half from now. And we have it already because it's -- Uh, it's fully taken care of and I just want to thank you all. You're very special people, really. But somehow the, the ballroom at the White House, it really hit a nerve with a lot of people.
Trump: They wanted it. You love the country -- You know, this country has spirit again. This country didn't have a lot of spirit two years ago, three years ago, four years ago. It developed spirit on November 5th where a lot of you were with me. Some of you weren't but you quickly became with me. [Laughter] It's amazing the way a victory can change the minds of some people.
Trump: But most of you were with me and, uh, Pepe, you were fantastic. He's got his little sugar business. He has a monopoly -- [Laughter] -- he has a monopoly on the world's sugar. I would say that's a good business. I know nothing about sugar but I would say a monopoly on sugar is pretty good, Pepe. Thank you both very much.
Trump: Thank you, darling, for being -- Well, thank you both for -- (laughs) Yeah. That's right. He's ends up with good real estate. It starts off as sugar, then all of a sudden he's in the middle of a city and he ends up -- But he's been great and, and a supporter right from the beginning for years. And I see you sitting out there and I appreciate it and so many others.
Trump: So I just want to -- I just wanna say, "Thank you, all." Uh, simply behind me so is a knockout panel. This panel, the next time you come here, will be opened up and gone. No -- Uh, no problem with any of the surrounding areas. This, this room will be fixed. This will be like a cocktail. The whole floor will be cocktails or pre-briefings or whatever it may be, lots of different things.
Trump: So the entire floor. So you come in, the entire floor sets up. We didn't have to do any of that. Usually, you have to do that. You need different rooms to go along with a ballroom. They're already built and they're built better than anybody would ever build 'cause this is beautiful stuff. It doesn't get better.
Trump: So we have this one, we have another one similar on the other side. And then, we have various meeting rooms and, uh, rooms in between that are served for, you know, different dinners for different people. And all of this is utilized just the way it is. It'll be enhanced. It'll be even more beautiful but it'll be -- and, and really brought into the future a little bit from the standpoint of, uh, life and lifespan.
Trump: So this will be your area and then you get the bell, bing, bing, bing. And you walk into the ballroom and you'll have close to a thousand seats if you need them or much less. We have separating panels so it could be less or it could be actually even more than that. So I think it'll be something you'll be very proud of. And what we're going to do is when we open up, you'll be among the first groups.
Trump: Maybe the first group, if we -- If I still like you at that time which I'm sure I will. [Laughter] But, uh, you'll be here. Uh, it will be here and you're gonna be very happy. You're gonna be very impressed we get it done. So I wanna thank everybody very much and it's -- So many friends in the audience and I just want to thank you all.
Trump: You're very special people. You love the country, you love the White House, and, uh, what you've done is very important. And, uh, we'll have a little dinner and we'll ask the press to now go home to your wives, family, say hello to them. If I don't like you, don't even bother. [Laughter] But, uh, you've been great.
Trump: Thank you very much. And Doug, thank you very much and congratulations on a great career. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much.