TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Signs An Executive Order in the Oval Office, 7.31.25
[Video]
President Trump: Nice to see you. How are you? We have a lot of athletic talent and great people behind me and they're going to do some very important things for our country. Nobody knows LT, greatest ever. Lawrence Taylor, you look good, you could play right now I think all day. If you only looked that way. Well, I'm delighted to be here with some of the truly great sports legends of all time as we formally announce the newest members of the President's Council on Sports Fitness and Nutrition. This is an important step in our mission to make America healthy again. It's something that's very important what we're doing, very important. Dating back to the administration of President Dwight D, Eisenhower, this council has championed the vigor, strength and vitality of the American people. Today we continue that very proud tradition. This group is led by two-time major champion and one of the greatest players in the world, one of the highest ranked. And he just had a phenomenal Open championship, as you probably saw, shooting one round that wasn't so good. And then he came back with about a 65 or something. He was getting a birdie on every hole. They were worried he might not make the cut, and he made the cut by about 200 strokes. It was pretty amazing. And he had a great week actually and he's also the longest hitter of a golf ball, I think ever. But you know they say ever, I would say ever, and the longest in the world today. And it's Bryson DeChambeau. He's a great guy, been my friend for a long time and from his storied amateur career where he won the US amateur I think once or twice. Did you win in once?
Bryson DeChambeau: It once in the NCAAs as well.
Trump: OK, you won a lot of other championships, but US amateur champion and then, as you know, he won at Wingfoot when in the US Open in Pinehurst. And Bryson has always been a phenomenal ambassador to sports and to golf, but to generally to life. In my opinion, he's a smart guy and a good guy. A great guy. He loves our country. We're also pleased to be joined by Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy, Jr. Bobby, you do a great job. He's got some big things happening. And he's got some big statements to be made very shortly in terms of -- over the next few months in terms of what they've been doing and finding answers to some very, very important questions. Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, who's phenomenal. Wherever you may be, Linda? Hi, Linda. What are you doing back there? [Laughter] And I mean, which -- look, you've been reading about her exploits and the job that she's been doing. And we're very proud of her. Council Executive Director Catherine Granito. Thank you very much. Thank you. Great job. And several other new members of the council, including JD here, our fantastic vice president, and Scott Bessent. And we're making a lot of deals. We're making deals for trillions, trillions and trillions. Nobody's ever seen anything quite like it. We just made a couple of others a little while ago. I don't know if you'd be interested right now. I won't even bother to tell you this is about sports and about health. One of the best defensive players ever, the I think probably acknowledged to be the greatest defensive player in the history of the NFL, a friend of mine for a long time, too long, right, Lawrence? [Laughter] Lawrence Taylor, he's an incredible guy. And just been my friend a long time, haven't we? I knew him -- knew him forever. One of the most accurate kickers in NFL history, a young guy still, and he can kick it long. I think he's uh, I guess he's considered the best there is in the business, Harrison Butker. So Harrison. Where are you Harrison? Your handsome guy, by the way. I didn't -- yeah, it's usually not my thing, but he is a good looking sucker. [Laughter] One of the truly greatest golfers ever to play on the LPGA Tour, a lot of people say the greatest female player ever and a lot of people would say just one of the best players ever. She's phenomenal. I've played a lot of golf with Annika Sorenstam. And uh, she's amazing, just had an incredibly, really storied career. Hall of Famer by -- easily a Hall of Famer, by the way, right at the top of the list. So it's great to have you with us, Annika. And say hello to the family. And then she was here not so long ago with Gary Player, where she got the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And so did he. He's won 168 tournaments and 18 majors, nine and nine. And she's the same in terms of uh, the women's game. But that was a great time. It was a great honor to give it to you. You really deserved it. It's the highest medal you can get outside of the Congressional Medal of Honor. That's the military version. And the other is the Presidential Medal. And you got it, so thank you very much. 14 time WWE world champion and he's a man who you're not going to mess around with. Even Bryson said, I think I'll take a pass on him, right? You're going to take -- [Laughter] And uh, he's another one that's been my friend for a long time. He's uh, really an amazing athlete, Triple H. Triple H. There he is. Oh, that's still very strong. [Laughter] He's a strong guy. And it's great to have you. And you felt very strongly about this about, uh, the council.
Paul Michael Levesque: 100 percent.
Trump: Yeah, well, it's a great honor to have you. The offensive lineman NFL very respected, very smart, Cody Campbell. Thank you, Cody, very much. Thank you very much. In addition to the people here, we have other council members that want to just pay their respects. Uh, one of the greatest players and athletes ever. Uh, you could say, uh, when you look at records, it's probably nothing like it. Tiger and Jack, uh, this is Jack. Tiger was here not so long ago, getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom also. He was -- he's a fantastic guy. And on the council, we have Jack Nicklaus. And he sends his regards. We have Gary Player. One of the greats, Nelly Korda, who's a phenomenal young, I think you'd say great, great young player, Annika, right? A fantastic person, too. NFL icons. Tony Romo, also a great football player quarterback, also a great golfer. Nick Bosa, who's -- you know him, he's a -- he's a modern day version of Lawrence. [Laughter] What you think? He's pretty good right, Lawrence?
Lawrence Taylor: Pretty good. [Laughter]
Trump: Yeah, pretty good. He is Saquon Barkley is on the council. And Tua Tagovailoa, the quarterback who is really he's -- he's been fantastic. He's been -- when he's not injured, he's great. He's got to stay healthy. But he's -- and he's a great guy. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is on the commission. NFL Commissioner Gary Bettman. And the great one, Wayne Gretzky is on. And a man who also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Mariano Rivera. And when I looked at his record, it was unbelievable. The Sandman. My wife said, why do they keep playing The Sandman when he walks in? And I said because he just puts the batter to sleep. He was great. [Laughter] When you look at his record compared to second. And Rollie Fingers was great, and he was really great. But when you look at the record, boy, Mariano had a record. I've never seen anything like it. He was so, so high up. The order that I'll sign today in a few moments, directs the council to develop strategies to improve America's physical fitness and renew the American spirit of excellence, competitiveness and sportsmanship. To that end, I'm pleased to announce that we're officially restoring the Presidential Fitness Test and the Presidential Fitness Award. And it's going to be a very big thing. From the late 1950s until the 2013, graduate scholars all across our country competed against each other in the Presidential Fitness Test. And it was a big deal. This was a wonderful tradition, and we're bringing it back. I think Bryson and everybody here wanted to see if we could bring that back. And it's turned out to be very, uh, very popular to do. My administration is also pressing forward with the important reforms in sports and athletics. And the group behind me and the others that I mentioned and others that have asked to join. We have many great athletes have asked to join the council, and we're going to let some of them come in. But they're going to also be working on college football in terms of, uh, what happened. It's a mess what happened. It's, uh, what they're doing with college football. And the fans are upset about it. And players are being taken from team after team and being traded around like playing cards. And a lot of money's passing and nobody knows what's happening. So these people behind me are going to be very much involved in figuring that whole thing out and working on it and trying to bring some sanity to that incredible, not only the football, college sports. Very, very bad for women, very bad what's happening. Because now all of a sudden, there's no women that are able to get the money that they're talking about. You know, it seems to be going mostly to football, some basketball. And women's sports are being totally decimated. We know that you know with -- with this. It's all going into football and some -- some to basketball and everything else is being left behind. And women are being left behind. And lesser sports are being left behind. And the Olympics is being decimated. Because that was like, uh, training for the Olympics. And now we're not going to have that many of those sports left. The smaller sports, they're almost going to be completely wiped out. This is crazy what's going on. We banned men from competing in women's sports. And last week, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee announced that they will be complying with that order. So there won't be men playing in women's sports. That seemed like an easy one. They say it's an 80 over 20 issue during the campaign. I said no, that's not 80 over 20. That's 97 over three. Maybe it's 98 over two, perhaps. And last Thursday, we terminated third party pay for play schemes in collegiate athletics and effectively saving -- we would have -- we saved college sports, but now we have to make it -- we have to heal it. Because it's really a mess. It's a real mess. This council will play an important role in shaping these new policies and ensuring that we preserve the American athletic tradition for many generations to come. And in the years ahead, we'll will have the chance to showcase our nation's athletic dominance in the world stage as we host the America 250. So we have America 250, and we have -- it's going to be incredible the Patriot Games. But we have the Ryder Cup. We have the Presidents Cup. We have the 2026 FIFA World Cup. So we have the World Cup here. We have the 2028 Olympics. So when they cheated on the election and they picked somebody that wasn't supposed to be there, I was very upset before that because I got the Olympics, and I got the World Cup. I was the one that did it. I can't say I got America 250, It just happened to be 200 -- [Laughter] I'd like to take credit for that, but I don't think I'll be able to. But we have a big thing coming up, but I was very upset because I got them, and it was skipped an election season. And so it took place in the next term after the term that we were supposed to have. And I was extremely angry. And then when I won, I said wait a minute I think I just picked up the Olympics, and I just picked up the World Cup, so it worked out sort of cool. But I want to again thank everybody on the council. They want to work too. These are people that really -- we only do it by request and people, they want to work, and they want to make things better. And I think -- I hope they can make college sports better; they can heal it, they can find a solution. It's not going to be that easy, but you have a lot of smart people.So, I'd like to begin by introducing Bryson to say a few words and then we'll have Triple H and we'll have a couple of other people say something, and then I'm going to sign that good looking couple of pieces of paper. And it means a lot, it's going to be a very important council and thank you all for being here. Bryson, please.
DeChambeau: Thank you, everybody, for being here. And first off, I'd like to say thank you to President Trump and Vice President Vance for your support and this initiative and council. And to be honest, I never would have thought that this opportunity would have been here right at our doorstep. We have an opportunity at being the 70th anniversary of the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition to literally change the fabric of kids' lives. And our first initiative is to bring back and reignite the president's fitness test, and then also reestablish some key other metrics on guidelines around building some communities and also, again, with the president's initiatives around college, we think we can help in that regard too. But we've got a great established council with us that we believe we can change the fabric of our communities and kids' livelihoods for the future generations that are to come. I can't thank you guys enough and looking forward to make making massive changes in kids' lives and in our -- America's future. Thank you.
Levesque: Thank you. First of all, I'd like to say the same, thank you to President Trump. Thank you for this honor. I'm humbled by it. I'm truly honored to be on this. Vice President Vance, thank you very much. Secretary Kennedy. Truly appreciate all that everybody is doing for the health and wellness of the entire country. For me, since I was 14, this has been such an important part of my life, health, fitness, sports, nutrition, all of it. I think learning that at a young age sets you up for success in life and without it you're at a lesser place for it. So, I look forward to the opportunity to do this. I look forward to the opportunity to help make our youth healthy, help get them engaged in sports, and let them learn what it takes to be successful in life. So, thank you very much for the honor. Thank you.
Trump: Thank you. Bobby, please uh.
Robert Kennedy Jr.: Thank you very much, Mr. President. In December of 1960, a month after he won the election, my uncle, who was about to be president, wrote an article for physical for Sports Illustrated called The Soft American. And he was lamenting the fact that America had prided itself on its beef jerky toughness and that we were losing that. We were falling behind Europeans, we were falling behind other nations. And he was signaling with that article that he was going to make physical fitness of our kids, the centerpiece of his administration. And I'm so grateful to President Trump for bringing back this tradition. I was talking to Paul before we went in here. We were part of the Council on Physical Fitness when we were kids, and you had to do sit ups, you had to do pull ups, you had to do shuttle runs, you had to do one-mile runs. And they awarded the top 15 percent with a patch and with recognition and with certificates. And for me, it was a huge item of pride when I was growing up. And we need to re-instill that spirit of competition and that spirit and that commitment to nutrition and physical fitness. And I'm so grateful to President Trump for your leadership in bringing this back for our country.
Trump: Thank you very much. Anna, representing the great women in sports, please.
Annika Sörenstam: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, Vice President Vance. This is truly an honor. I want to thank the team behind me here for giving us trust to be able to do this. This sport has always been part of my life and the importance of living a healthy active lifestyle cannot be any more important than nowadays. So, thank you for the trust and I can't wait to get to work to make a difference in kids' lives, but also in people's lives. I think the time is so important, obesity is the highest it's ever been, mental health, as we all know, the need ought to be tackled. So, thank you for the trust, and look forward to going to work with the team behind me. Appreciate it.
Trump: Thank you. Lawrence, you want to say a few words? Come on up, come on? You know, he's a little shy but once he gets going, nobody can stop him.
Taylor: I'm no DeSantos. I'm just proud to be on this team. I don't know why, I don't know what we're supposed to be doing, but I'm here to serve and I'm here to serve you, OK. So, I'm going to do the best I can for as long as I can. Thank you very much.
Trump: Nobody like him. Come on, young superstar.
Harrison Butker: Obviously very excited to be here. Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to serve on the council. Just excited to do my part to help make America healthy again, to help our youth be healthy and thrive and grow up and be great citizens of this country and be great family members and contribute to this great country. And I think you have to be strong in mind and body and soul. So, thank you so much for allowing me to be here. Thank you.
Trump: Thank you very much. JD?
JD Vance: OK, sure. Well, thank you all. And thanks to the president for setting up this important commission. Thanks to all the great athletes for lending their credibility to it. I think all of us who have young kids at home just know that kids are healthier, they're happier, they do better when they're out there. They're being active, they're playing in sports. They're hanging out with their friends. I think all of us have thought at one point in the last few years that kids spend a little too much time on their phones, maybe a little bit too much time in front of the TV. And we just want kids to do better. We want them to be healthier, we want them to be happier. And we know that getting out there playing in sports and being active and healthy and physically fit is a critical part of this. So, all due credit to the president and Secretary Kennedy's leadership. This is all about just making our kids better citizens, better people and happier in their daily lives. And I think this is a great team to get it accomplished. Thank you, sir.
Trump: Thank you. OK, let's sign this. Come on, go sign this, Linda. Yeah, she's doing pretty well, right? Isn't this amazing? Good job. OK, we got it. I think we're good. OK. OK. OK, that is not signed with an autopen. There's no autopen. We don't want autopens in the White House. OK. Any questions, please?
Question: Mr. President, what has sports meant to you? And did you have a sports hero growing up?
Trump: Maybe Lawrence Taylor. Could be Lawrence. I know him so well. But a lot of sports heroes. I have met a lot. I was always a person that loved playing sports. I was good at sports. When you were really focused on sports, you thought about nothing else. There was nothing else outside, it kept you -- and to an extent, this is one of the reasons I like golf. You get away for a couple of hours, I play quickly and get through it. And for two hours, you're not thinking about all of the nonsense and all of the important things frankly. But it cleans your mind. No, I think sports is so important. I think what this council is doing is going to be very important. And it gives you a little exercise, sometimes a lot of exercise. It's a great thing. It's a great thing. Sports are -- you learn about people, and you learn about how people compete. Now it doesn't mean that if somebody is not a good athlete, and a lot of people just are not good athletes so they can't compete. But you learn about people playing sports and playing sports with and against some. So, I've always loved it. It's been very important to me. These people are, you know, inspirations. These are the top people in their individual sports. The council itself, I mean they have the greatest -- some of the greatest champions -- for the most part, the greatest champions in their sport. So, they really understand sports and understanding is very important. Thank you for the question. Yeah, please. Please, go ahead.
Question: Mr. President, can you talk about your plans for the new ballroom that was announced today?
Trump: Yeah.
Question: The $200 million, that's going to be paid for by yourself.
Trump: By me, yeah.
Question: Via donations.
Trump: It's a private thing, yeah, I'll do it, and we'll probably have some donors or whatever, but it's about $200 million. So, we've been planning it for a long time. They've wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years. But there's never been a president that was good at ballroom. I'm really good. In fact, I looked at one that we just built in Turnberry in Scotland and it's incredible. We're good at building. I'm good at building things. And we'll get it built quickly and on time. It will be beautiful, top, top of the line. We've retained the best architects and engineers and everything else. It will be built over on the East side. And it will be beautiful. It will be views of the Washington Monument. It won't interfere with the current building. It won't be -- it will be near it but not touching it. And pays total respect to the existing building, which I'm the biggest fan of. It's my favorite. It's my favorite place, I love it. But they've wanted it. And you know, when they have big events, you entertain the president of China, or the president of any place and you have big crowds. They've always had to get a tent. And you've probably been to some of them, Bobby. When it rains, it's a disaster. And the tents 100 yards, that's more than a football field away from the main entrance. And people are schlepping down to -- to the tent. It's not a pretty sight. The women with their lovely evening gowns. All of -- their hair all done, and they're a mess by the time they get there. And they've always wanted to have it. And I said, you know, in the first term I said, you know, if I get another shot at this, I'm going to do a ballroom. I was pretty busy in the first term because I was running the country, and I was also fighting for survival with all of the lunatics I had to beat. But it worked out. Obviously, it worked out very well because here we are. But I always said I was going to do something about the ballroom. Because they should have one. So we'll be leaving it. It will be a great legacy project. And I think it will be special. You saw some renderings of the initial. I think it will be really beautiful.
Question: -- and no government to tell us no.
Trump: No government to tell us no.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President? Mr. President, I know you've had an extremely busy week between this executive order, trade, Russia, Gaza, but also the family of Virginia Giuffre released a statement overnight in response to some of the comments that you made this week. You said that Jeffrey Epstein stole people from Mar-a-Lago. At the time, did you know why he was taking those young women, including Virginia --
Trump: No, I didn't know. I mean, I would -- I would figure it was ABC fake news that would ask that question. One of the worst. But no, I don't know really why. But I said if he's taken anybody from Mar-a-Lago, he's hiring or whatever he's doing, I didn't like it. And we threw him out. We said we don't want him, you know, at the place. This is a story that's been known for many years, as you know. But it's, uh, I didn't like it that he was doing that. Yeah, please.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Say it again.
Question: If Canada moves forward with recognizing the Palestinian state, is that a deal breaker?
Trump: Well, we're going to see. No. I didn't like what they said, but you know, that's uh, that's their opinion. I didn't like that. Uh, not a deal breaker. But we haven't spoken to Canada today. He's called and we'll -- we'll see. But we have made a few deals today that are excellent deals for the country. You know, we're taking in literally trillions of dollars for the country. This is making our country very rich and respected again. We have, you know, I tell these people, and I say it as much as I have to say it, but every leader is at NATO. And I was in the Middle East with -- three great countries, three great leaders, Qatar, you know, Saudi Arabia, UAE. And everybody said the same thing, all of the NATO countries. Essentially, they said that we were a dead country. One year ago, we were a dead country. Now we're the hottest country in the world. Look at you people. We're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're doing great. Yeah. Do you have a --
Question: What's the holdup with the negotiations with Canada?
Trump: Well, they have to pay a fair rate. It's all -- it's very simple. They have been charging very, very high tariffs to our farmers, some over two -- 200 percent. And they've been treating our farmers very badly. They've been treating our country very badly for years. And look, we -- we like Canada. I love Canada. I have so many friends in Canada. But they've been very poorly led. They've been very, very poorly led. And all we want is fairness for our country. That's all. You know, they want to be under the -- as we call it the Golden Dome. And I said, well, you know, you're going to have to pay for that. They want to -- they want a lot of things from our country. And for years we did it. We basically protect them with our military. They spend very little money on their military, as you know, not an acceptable amount of money. Yeah, please.
Question: Mr. President, your tariffs policy goes into effect tomorrow.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: As you know, a federal appellate court today heard oral arguments about whether or not you had the authority to unilaterally impose those tariffs. I'm not going to get you to weigh in on the legal arguments, but you're weighing your decision to do that, your authority to do that based on a 1977 law that's never been invoked before. Why didn't you invoke this law --
Trump: Well, we've been winning all along, just say it --
Question: Well, I just want to ask you, why didn't you invoke this law in your first term? You could have taken in billions upon billions of dollars in your first term, but you waited until your second term --
Trump: Yeah, because in my first term, I was fighting lunatics like you who were trying to do things incorrectly and inappropriately to a president that was duly elected. And we did do certain tariffs in the first term. If you look at China. China, we took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China. But when COVID came, the last thing I was going to do is tell France and Italy and Spain, and a couple of other countries that we're going to hit you with tariffs. We had to fight the COVID situation when that came. But if you look at my first term, we took in hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of tariffs, but you people didn't cover it very well.
Question: Mr. President? Mr. President?
Trump: Yeah, please. Go ahead.
Question: Mr. President, thank you so much. I'm representing the foreign policy. I'm asking you to question foreign policy. The first one, do you plan to reengage diplomatically with Iran, go with direct talks with them or are you happy with the current situation having no deal with Iran?
Trump: Well, Iran has been acting very badly. They were decimated, their nuclear capability, that potential, which could have been -- could have happened within three or four weeks was decimated. It's been obliterated. The Atomic Energy Commission said the place is just decimated. Now they can start again, but they'd start in different sites because they were hit. I tell you what the -- the job these pilots did with their B-2 bombers, those unbelievable machines, they travel 36 hours without stop. And they hit every single target. Every bomb hit every -- they went right down the chutes. And then, as you know, we shot 30 rockets from submarines that were hundreds of miles away. And they hit every target. So they can start again, but they haven't been saying the right thing. I will say Iran has not been saying the right thing. They have not been speaking nicely. And they should be. Yeah, please.
Question: Mr. President? Yes -- Mr. President? Not lowering interest rates. Again, many people say that he's playing politics with the futures of --
Trump: Well, he is. He's a -- we call him them too late. He's too late. It's his new nickname.
Question: What's your message to --
Trump: It's too late, pal. He's terrible, the federal reserve chairman. Not only that, he's building a building -- he's at $2.9 billion. It's actually $3.1 if you include other areas that are essentially the same thing, way over budget, has no idea what he's doing. And I would say he's probably good at that compared to what he does with interest rates. But you know, we have him there. And it was a mistake. I put him in and then Biden extended him. And Biden only extended him because he knew I couldn't stand him. And that turned out to be not a good thing for Biden. Although he did lower Interest rates just prior to the election. It didn't work out too well for them, but he did lower them pretty substantially just prior to the election. Now he's a political hack, not very good.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: Not -- he's not -- he's not a smart guy. Brian?
Question: Mr. President, sports fans have been very supportive to go back to the original names of Cleveland Indians, the Washington Redskins.
Trump: Yeah. Oh, I love that. I love the sound of that.
Question: Well --
Trump: I do the Washington Redskins. I think they should do it. I told the mayor, and I told people that they should bring back the name. If they bring back the name, you'll have a lot of excitement. And I mean, Cleveland Indians, how about that? That was an original franchise, 1903 or something, 1906, an original -- the Cleveland Indians. And what do they do? They change the name from Indians. What's wrong with the word Indian? Do you know who is upset about it? The Indians are upset about it. They're upset about Redskins, too. So Redskins, I guess, you'd say it was a little bit lesser of a case, but people want to see the Redskins and the Indians want to see the Redskins back. No, I recommend it. I was asked that question the other day. I would -- the Washington Redskins, it's a fabled franchise. And now I don't even know what the hell their last name is. What are they, the Commanders or something? Is it Commanders?
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: That's not a good name.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Mr. President? Mr. President? Titans, sir.
Trump: Wait a minute.
Question: Mr. President, may ask a question?
Trump: Wait a minute, no, not you, you.
Question: Mr. President, Kamala Harris, as you know, is not running for governor of California. She's not going to do it. What do you see in her political future, sir?
Trump: Well, she can't speak. [Laughter] She can't talk. She can't do an interview. I thought it was a very strange campaign that we had. Uh, but you know, I had two of them. We were up by like this massive number of points on Biden. And they said let's change to Kamala. Nobody knew who Kamala was, nobody knew her last name, Harris. They said we're going to get the Vice President Harris. Everyone said who the hell is Harris? They only knew her by the first name. But no. I thought she was a terrible candidate. Look, don't forget, she didn't really get the nomination. I mean, that whole nomination was strange. She was the first one out. You know, she took a good -- a good amount of points with her when she announced, but nobody knew her. Once they got to know her, they -- they, uh, she dropped out very shortly after she started. And she started with a pretty good, you know, she was like in second or third place, but uh, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't call her a skilled politician, would you?
Question: She's also coming out with a book. Any plans to buy it?
Trump: I don't know -- yeah, I think I'm going to buy it. I'd love to see it. No, I'd find it -- look, I find everything in politics interesting. I sort of enjoy politics. She wasn't a skilled person. You know, you have skilled politicians, really skilled politicians. And then you have some that aren't. And she was put in a very tough position, I think. She did have a six-week honeymoon. They told me, the pros said, you know what, she's going to have a six-week -- and she did. She was like untouchable in terms of everybody thought great. But she didn't do any interviews or anything which was strange, not even friendly interviews with friendly reporters like her right there, a really friendly reporter. And you know what happened, people said what's wrong with her, why isn't she doing? She made a mistake; she should have done interviews. She didn't run a great campaign, but we beat Biden and then we had to beat -- nobody's beaten two. I had to beat two. That's like Dana White, the great Dana White has a fight and he has a fighter that's getting the hell knocked out of him. They say, well, let's take him out and put somebody else in; didn't seem fair to me at the time. But where are we? We're in the White House. So, I mean you know, so it worked out.
Question: Sir, a very serious question here, Russia today hit Kiev with missiles and drones, more than 100 people --
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: I think it's -- Russia? I think it's disgusting what they're doing. I think it's disgusting. This is Biden's war, it's not my war. But I said, if I get in, I'll try and get the thing stopped. But I think what Russia is doing is very sad. A lot of Russians are dying. You have a lot of Russians -- more Russians are dying, but Russians are dying, Ukrainians are dying. You know, the United States isn't really involved in that war. It shouldn't be. And by the way, I made a deal with NATO where NATO pays us for everything that we send, we send them ammunition, missiles, etc., and we're not paying anything for that war. But I will tell you this, it should be stopped. It's a disgrace. And the ones that are dying are -- they're losing 7,000 Now. It was 5,000. They're losing now 7,000 soldiers a week, Ukrainian soldiers and Russian soldiers. And they're also losing people now in the towns and cities because Putin's hitting them with rockets. No, I think it's disgraceful.
Question: You have a 10-day deadline [Inaudible] -- that you [Inaudible]
Trump: Yeah, we have about eight days. Yeah, we're going to put sanctions. I don't know that sanctions bother him, you know. They know about sanctions, I know better than anybody about sanctions and tariffs and everything else. I don't know if that has any effect, but we're going to do it. Europe is extremely upset, but this is a war that should have never happened. This is a war that wouldn't have happened if I were President and this is Biden's war. This was a stupid war to get into, should have never gotten into this war.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: -- traveling to Israel.
Trump: Yeah, going to Israel and then he's going to Russia, believe it or not.
Question: Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has said that what is occurring there is a genocide. Do you agree?
Trump: Well, it's terrible what's occurring there. Yeah, it's a terrible thing. People are very hungry. You know, the United States gave $60 million for food and it's a shame because nobody -- you know, I don't see the results of it. And we gave it to people that in theory are watching over it fairly closely. We wanted Israel to watch over it. Part of the problem is Hamas is taking the money and they're taking the food. But we gave $60 million a couple of weeks ago. Nobody said anything about it. Nobody said thank you. But I didn't need the thank you. I just wanted the people to get fed and we're helping out financially with that situation. It's a terrible situation. So, just to conclude, I want to thank everybody for being here. I want to thank you for being here. This is a great group of people and it's a good feeling. You know, when we were -- when we first came to office, this country was really in trouble and now we're rich as hell and we're doing amazing things. And we really are -- we're the hottest country in the world and I like that. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
Transcript courtesy of CQ Factbase.