TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Hosts a Breakfast for GOP Senators at the White House, 11.5.25
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President Donald Trump: [Chuckles] Thank you. Thank you very much. That was quite a formal entrance. I thought we were just going to sit down and talk a little bit. We'd talk about exactly one year ago we had that big, beautiful victory -- exactly one year. And last night it was, you know, not expected to be a victory. It was a very Democrat areas, but I don't think it was good for Republicans. I don't think it was good -- I'm not sure it was good for anybody, but we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot and we're going to talk about that and I'll say a few remarks. And then after that, I'll ask the press to leave. The press has been very, very nice to us the last couple of months. They were great to us in terms of the foreign visits with China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and they were actually terrific.
So, I want to thank you for that. I'm sure you'll get back to your normal ways soon. [Laughter] But we did a great job over in China and we've done a great job in turning off wars. We stopped eight wars -- eight wars. And we have one to go, as you probably know, and that'll get stopped also. But we've done a great job. So, it's really been an honor to do it and I did it with many of the people in this room. Every one of you I know and every one of you I like. I like our leaders, I like everybody. But I thought we'd have a discussion after the press leaves about what last night represented and what we should do about it and also about the shutdown and how that relates to last night?
I think if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans and that was a big factor. And they say that I wasn't on the ballot was the biggest factor, but I don't know about that. But I was honored that they said that. And I just want to thank everybody for being here, and a very special thanks to Vice President JD Vance, who's doing a terrific job. JD, thank you very much. As well as the Senate leadership team that has been working very hard -- working really -- I will tell you, nobody's working any harder representing the American people, including Senator John Thune. John, thank you. Great job. Senator John Barrasso, John, thank you very much. Senator Tom Cotton, wherever you may be. Tom, thank you.
Thank you, Tom. Thank you. So, Senator Shelley Moore Capito, who's been very involved. Thank you, Shelley. Senator James Lankford from one of my favorite states, 77 out of 77. I always say 77 out of 77. Reagan was 56, that was the record. We got every one of them. Thank you, James. And a fantastic friend of mine and an incredible advocate during the election a year ago, Tim Scott. Thank you, Tim. Thank you. So, as you know, we are in the midst of a disastrous Democrat created government shutdown. And it is Democrat created, but I don't think they're getting really the blame that they should. That's now officially the longest shutdown in American history. The Democrat radicals in the Senate have shown zero interest in reopening the government and I don't think they'll act so soon.
A lot of people disagree. I've been saying for the last 30 days -- we've had four or five different points. Yes, sir, they're going to get it right now. We should have it done in a day. I've heard that about four times. I heard it after kings. You know, they said I was a king, and I heard it after kings, I heard it after a couple of other moments in time. And I said, no, I don't believe so. And now I heard it's after the election, I don't believe so. I think they will -- I think they're kamikaze pilots. I just got back from Japan. I talked about the kamikaze pilots. I think these guys are kamikaze. They'll take down the country if they have to. So, I don't think so. Millions of Americans are going to be without SNAP benefits.
And I will say about SNAP benefits, so when I was president, we had $7 billion worth and now they have many times that because these benefits were given to anybody that asked. And they're up to, I hear, just many times, $47 billion. So, it wasn't the purpose of SNAP, it was for people that really had problems, down and out people that really had problems. But during Biden, they gave it to anybody that wanted it. I think it's something you have to talk about because the numbers are incredible, but countless public servants are now not being paid, and the air traffic control system is under increasing strain. We must get the government back open soon and really immediately.
We have to get it open. We have the hottest economy we've ever had and it's affecting the stock market now a little bit, but the stock market as of Friday has hit many record highs -- during the last nine months, many. And it will again, this is just the beginning because when these plants that are being built right now start opening up -- we've never had anything like this. There's a boom, there's a construction boom right now, but that's going to be bigger than that. That's going to be an economic boom as soon as they open up and it's going to be something special. We have car companies coming in. When I was in Japan, Toyota -- Mr. Toyota, I said what's your name? Toyota? I said, oh, you're rich. [Laughter] I said how much of the company do you own? 92.1 percent?
I said I'm glad you said the 1; he wants to be ahead. I said, you're a rich guy, and he said, I'm investing $10 billion in the US and -- you know who I'm talking about, right? You introduced me, Mr. Senator. You introduced me originally when you were the ambassador to Japan. He's still good. He's still strong, but he's -- he had no interest in investing in this country. Now he's investing $10 billion as of one week ago in building new plants. We have auto plants coming in incredibly, but we have AI and all of them. And we can't be extorted to give $1.5 trillion to people that came into the country illegally. Many from prisons, many drug dealers, a lot of people came in from mental institutions.
They want to give a lot of money to the people that came in illegally. We have to get them out. We can't -- no country can sustain that. That's like an attack on our country and no country -- these are not going to be productive people. These are going to be anti-productive people. And we can be -- all have big hearts. I have a bigger heart than anybody, but we can't let that happen. It's time for Republicans to do what they have to do and that's terminate the filibuster. It's the only way you can do it. And if you don't terminate the filibuster, you'll be in bad shape. We won't pass any legislation, there'll be no legislation passed for three and a quarter -- we have three and a quarter years, that's a long time.
But when they can't do an extension -- and John, I think they've done an extension every single time they've ever been asked forever. This is the first time they haven't done an extension. Extensions are supposed to be easy, but if they won't do an extension, they won't do any bill, even a simple bill. And we should do our own bills, we should get out, we should do our own bills. We should open up. We should start tonight with the country's open, congratulations. Then we should pass voter ID. We should pass no mail-in voting. We should pass all the things that we want to pass, make our elections secure and safe. Because California is a disaster, many of the states are disasters, but can you imagine when they vote almost unanimously against voter ID. All we want is voter ID. You go to a grocery store, you have to give ID; you go to a gas station, you give ID. But for voting, they want no voter ID. It's only for one reason, because they cheat.
We would pass that in 15 minutes. If you don't get it, you'll never pass that. You'll never talk about mail-in ballots. Mail-in ballots make it automatically corrupt. If you have mail-in ballots, automatically, it's correct. Even Jimmy Carter -- they had the Carter Commission after he got out of office. And he had a group of very distinguished people, Democrats and Republicans, and they passed -- they recommended things take place. It was a long time ago and they said about mail-in ballots -- if there is mail in ballots, there will definitely be corruption because, you know, they pass through too many hands. I mean, you go in to vote, and they want your card. Even me, I went into Palm Beach, you go in to vote, they want your card, your this, your that.
They say I'm sorry to do this, sir, but I have to look at your identification. I said that's all right, I love that. But you know, you're really not going to get away with much. It was very, very professional, very good, the way it's supposed to be, but these people don't want that. They have legislation in California where it's illegal to ask somebody for voter ID. If you ask somebody for voter ID, if you're an official and you say I'd like to see your voter ID, they can arrest you, OK. They can arrest you because they want to cheat and they get away with it and the Republicans let them get away with it and we won't do that if we have the filibuster. So, I'm just going to -- we're going to talk about that a little bit and we're going to see if we can sway because I know we have a lot of -- not a lot. I'd say half feel this way, maybe a little bit less than half and it's time to have a really good talk. If I thought that they weren't going to pass the filibuster, I wouldn't even bring it up. They're going to pass it within the first hour.
If they take power -- and it's more likely that they take power if we don't do it, because we're not going to be passing any legislation, they're not going to approve anything. We're going to go three and a quarter years, there won't be one bill that we're going to pass. Because the easiest thing to pass is exactly right now what they won't pass, and they'll do that and they'll wreak havoc. But let's assume they get in, they're doing it anyway. So, it wouldn't matter. They're doing it anyway. And you know, I have a case where I have great US attorneys that can't be approved because of the blue slips. The blue slips, I think you should terminate blue slips too. It's a mental termination because it's really a custom. But if you have a Democrat Senator or two, two is bad, but it doesn't make any difference. If you have one Senator writes a negative letter on some great US attorney. We had it in Manhattan, Southern District, Jay Clayton, one of the most respected lawyers in the whole country -- by far one of the most respected and couldn't get approved.
The courts approved him. The courts couldn't believe it, they did it like instantly. He went to the best schools, got the best marks, top of his class. Everything was perfect. I mean he was -- led the perfect life. Went to Sullivan and Cromwell, almost immediately became the head of Sullivan and Cromwell, you know the most prestigious law firm, I would say, in the country just about, whether it's Sullivan or two or three I could name. But Sullivan, I would say really may be number one. He was the head of Sullivan and Cromwell for like 20 years. He went to the SEC, was flawless. He did it for me. He was the SEC chairman. He was flawless. Then he went to Apollo, where he was the chairman of Apollo and was flawless. Everything went good. The stock went through the roof and everything.
I asked him to go to the Southern District, and he said I'll do what you'd like to do, sir. This is a very high-quality person, but he couldn't get approval from Schumer. Schumer didn't approve him, the best student, the best schools, everything, he's like flawless. And the courts actually said, you're not approving Jay Clayton? Right, Lindsay, you heard this. The courts actually interceded and they approved him. But that's an unusual guy. We have other people that are really good, but people don't know how good -- top students, top colleges and they're US attorneys. And they won't be approved; they're not going to be approved. We have one in Los Angeles who's is phenomenal, but nope.
The Senators, the Democrats are -- you know, again, they're kamikazes. The Democrats are not going to approve him. Blue slips are a disaster. So, the only people I can get approved are Democrats. I was told that by the Democrats -- we'll only approve Democrats. I said, really, is that right? I'm not going to work that way, not going to work that way with me. But the blue slips are a total disaster. We will -- I have 10 people right now that will not be -- that are doing a phenomenal job, and they will be out of office pretty soon. They've got another two or three weeks, a couple of them, and then they're going to have to leave. And it's actually a blight on their record because nobody knows why they left, but it looks like they served eight weeks and then they had to leave.
But they're not going to get the approval because the Democrat radical left lunatic Senators are saying you can't -- we're not going to approve you. And if we're not going to approve you -- I had actually one Republican who got two great letters, but it turned out that he was a RINO, but that was a nice term for him. Now, he got two letters of approval, and when I said two Democrats approved him, I had to fire him because I figured if two Democrats approved him -- they wrote the most beautiful letters I found out. Man, this is strange and he was no good. I fired him. He was really not much of a Republican. The recommendation of that one wasn't such a good recommendation.
Someday I'll tell you who recommended him, but it wasn't exactly the best. But when I saw two -- when I saw the two Senators from Virginia gave him glowing marks, Tim, I said, let me see this. I read the most beautiful letters I've ever seen and I said -- I called him up, I said, sorry, you're fired, get the hell out of here. But it's a horrible thing. Blue slips is a horrible thing because I have the right to pick judges and I have the right to pick US attorneys. And this takes away the right from me. And I think we're going to go to court on it and we'll see what happens in court. But it gives the president -- it takes away the right of the president to pick people to serve on the court and to serve as US attorneys, which is very important.
But the biggest thing is the filibuster. We have to get the country going. We will pass legislation at levels you've never seen before, and it will be impossible to beat us. By the way, if they do -- they're going to do it anyway and they are going to immediately do the filibuster. And when they do the filibuster, they're going to pack the court. They want five -- at least five justices. Now they -- I hear it's up to five, I actually heard up to seven and up to nine, OK. They want new judges, they want to pack the court, and they will do it the first day, maybe the week. Maybe they'll slow it down because there's no reason to rush, but they'll do it first week.
They'll vote on this, and I have friends over there that are Democrats, very -- I'm close to a lot of people. And I asked them about that because some people say, well, maybe they won't do that. I mean, they destroyed the career of Manchin and Sinema and they got them out. They were the only objectors, nobody else is going to object. They're going to do it the first day. They're going to pack the court, they're going to make DC a state and they're going to make Puerto Rico a state. So, now they pick up two states. They pick up four senators, ok? You think you have problems? They're going to do all of the things. They're going to pick up electoral votes.
It's going to be a very, very bad situation. And it's done. It's done as soon as they attain power. Now, if we do what I'm saying, you'll -- they'll never -- they'll most likely never attain power because we will have passed every single thing that you can imagine, that it's good and all good for the country. And there'll be no reason to -- if we don't do that, people will say they're not doing much and they're in power. So, the good news is we did the Great Big Beautiful Bill, and it's the greatest thing we could have done. And the smartest thing with John and -- and our speaker of the House, who's so good, Mike, Mike Johnson, we did all in one bill.
If we didn't, John, it would be a problem because, you know, we would have gotten a small piece passed. A lot of people wanted to do that. A lot of people in the room wanted to do that. They went along with me and John and everybody, and we -- we got this thing passed. Honestly, it's four years worth of goodies. No tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on -- think of it, no tax on overtime. It's an unbelievable tax cut for the workers and for business where business is going to create jobs. And we are. We're creating jobs at levels that nobody's ever seen before. All these things are good. We have to be able to get the word out.
If we don't get the word out, we're making a very big mistake. So, I have this long, beautiful and very boring speech. I won't bother reading it. [Laughter] But -- because we can just start talking. And I think it's very important. We have to get the country open. And the way we're going to do it this afternoon is to terminate the filibuster. And it's possible you're not going to do that. And I'm going to go by your wishes. You're very smart people. We're good friends. But I think it's a tremendous mistake, really. It would be a tragic mistake, actually. It's time. It's time. If I thought they weren't going to approve, I'd -- I'd sort of be with you.
It'd be fine. I'd be neutral to with you. But knowing that they're going to pass it as soon as they get any semblance of control, they'll pass it first thing, then it's like we have to do it first. And we have two years. And we'll end up with two, three years and we'll have this country so perfect. We will have passed more legislation than any Congress, than any Senate -- group of senators or a group of Congressmen. And we will get it through. They'll send it to us. We'll send it to them. It'll be a beautiful machine. Otherwise, we're just going to sit around and argue with these people all day long. And -- and they're highly unrealistic, highly unrealistic. Many of them are radical left subversives, frankly. So, I want to thank everybody, and we're going to talk.
And I want to thank the press for treating us so -- really well for that foreign trip. It was an amazing -- we had a -- just an amazing meeting. Don't forget, two months ago it looked like the whole world was in trouble over rare earth, and that's no longer even a subject that people talk about. It was all worked out very quickly. Without tariffs, I couldn't have done it. I -- I put a 100 percent tariff on China soon as I heard it. Within 20 minutes, I put a 100 percent tariff on China. When President Xi -- who's really a friend of mine, as much as he can be a friend. He's a tough man. He's a tough man, smart man, actually, very smart.
The press doesn't like it when I call him very smart. You know, they think I'm not supposed to call him smart, but he leads 1.4 billion people without question. In fact, during the meeting, we were there -- a couple of you were there and some of you saw it. So, he's here, and he's got about six people on each side. And every one of those people was standing like this. They were at attention. And I made a comment to one of them and it got no response. I said are you going to answer me? I got no response. And President Xi didn't let him have any. So, if there's any question -- I said I want my cabinet to behave like that.
That's the way -- [Laughter] I'm demanding that my -- I want them sitting up like that, Tim, just nice and straight. I never saw posture like that. I've never seen men so scared in their lives. They have -- they have the equivalent -- the equivalent of a vice president. He was -- I said are you going to answer my question? And he's -- like, he doesn't move. I said what's wrong with this guy? I will answer all questions. [Laughter] Why don't you behave like that? JD doesn't behave like that. JD butts into conversations. What's -- I want to have -- I want to have that for at least a couple of days, ok, JD? We'll keep you long term, but a couple of days of that would -- [Laughter] A couple of days of that would be very, very nice.
Ok. I want to thank you. And we'll talk a little bit. And I see they set me up with a podium. I thought I'd just be sitting, but it's probably easier. I want to thank you all very much. Thank you to the press. And you can go and we'll speak to you later. Thank you. I'm going to Miami to make a speech today at a big group. And we have a nice big crowd and we'll see you there. A lot of you are traveling down with me. Thank you very much.