TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Signs Veteran Loan Bill, 7.30.25

[Video]

President Trump: Nice to see you. We've had a great weekend. And as you know, we made our deal with the European Union. The Japan deal is done. Many of the other deals are done. Indonesia was a very big deal, big country, actually and they're wonderful, and hopefully wonderful for both sides. But it's literally trillions of dollars ultimately being brought into our country. And it was something that had to be done and it is being done and it's being done properly. We're now negotiating with various other countries and the rest, we're just sending out the bill to. We send a bill. We send a letter saying that you'll pay a certain tariff. Obviously, that's most of them because you have, as you know, hundreds of countries. There are a lot of countries out there. So we look at the deficit or we look at the surplus and we look at the country and how the country has treated us and lots of other things go into the equation. And we make a decision as to what that tariff will be and it's a pretty standard letter from that point on. And I want to tell you, this is something to me. It's a VA bill signing and it's very important to me and to many of the people in this room. So I'm thrilled to sign the VA Home Loan Program Reform Act into law and that is something that they've wanted to do for a long time. This legislation provides desperately needed relief to veterans and their families who have fallen behind on their mortgages of which there are a lot because we have somebody that doesn't want to lower interest rates and probably won't lower them today. It's really, sort of an amazing situation. And it helps keep our promise to end veterans' homelessness and we're going to do that for America. We're going to do that for our great veterans. I'm thrilled to be joined by the bill's sponsor, Congressman Derrick Van Orden. Where is Derrick?

Derrick Van Orden: Right here.

Trump: Derrick. Hello, Derrick. I didn't see you back there.

Van Orden: Well, I'm a Navy SEAL. I snuck up on you –

Trump: Mike. How are you, Mike?

Mike Bost: Mr. President.

Trump: Good. These two gentlemen are terrific. They are working together and they've been working together, Mike, a long time.

Bost: A long time.

Trump: So I just want to thank you both and I'll ask you to say a couple of words. An estimated 61,000 American veterans are in danger of losing their homes, as you know. But thanks to this bill, the Department of Veterans Affairs will be empowered to pay loan holders the necessary amount to prevent foreclosures on our veterans, so our veterans won't be foreclosed and put out onto the streets. It's very important. This bill also creates a five-year partial claim program that could benefit up to 3.7 million veterans. That's the kind of numbers you're talking about. It's big stuff. The cost of the program are fully offset and will add nothing at all to debt. It's commonsense legislation, had overwhelming support and passed unanimously in the House and the Senate. Wow. That's -- when was the last time that happened?

Bost: Not often, sir.

Trump: That's pretty impressive. That's pretty impressive. My administration is committed to doing everything possible to ensure that our veterans are treated with respect and treated as well as anybody in this country. They're so important. They're so great. They've suffered so much in many cases. In May, I signed an executive order to open the National Center for Warrior Independence in Los Angeles, California, which will house up to 6,000 homeless veterans. Until we came along, they treated the veterans far worse than the illegal immigrants. They came in -- they were staying in hotels, luxury hotels and the veterans are staying outside on the sidewalk on the same hotel. Some pictures are just incredible. In addition, we'll also be opening a full-service VA center in New Hampshire, which is the only state in the union to not have a VA center. And I made that promise to the people of New Hampshire a long while ago and we got it done. It's the only state that doesn't have and yet you have a lot of veterans in New Hampshire. We're slashing the wait times at VA medical centers and we're bringing back VA choice and VA accountability, which I had and the Democrats abandoned, made it so much better. Accountability, meaning if you treat our veterans badly, we treat you badly. You get fired and beyond that. And VA choice is you can get out and you can -- if you don't -- if you don't have a doctor ready, willing and able to take care of you within the VA, you go outside, you go see a doctor, you get better and we pay the bill. And the veterans loved it. We had a 92 percent approval rating and what did the Democrats do, they came along and they ended both of them and they hired back many of the people that we fired. We fired people and replaced them with great, loving people, but we fired people who were sadists in many cases. They were sick. They were thieves. They were stealing and they hired them back. The accountability, meaning the VA accountability was a big deal getting it passed because you have unions, you have all sorts of problems to go through. We got it through everything. And the Democrats, as soon as they got back, they hired many of the worst people right back and we're getting rid of them. But I want to thank the two gentlemen standing behind me and I'd like to ask you just to say a couple of words and then we'll take a few questions if you'd like, and we'll sign the bill and our veterans will be very happy about it. Thank you. Mike, do you want to start?

Bost: Sure. Well, first off, thank you, Mr. President, for signing this bill today. Let me tell you that not only this bill, which will help make sure that those veterans that have got themselves in a situation where maybe they would be foreclosed on, it gives them just a little bit extra help without the government going into a banking business like what we had with the previous administration. I also want to say thank you too, though, for appointing Doug Collins as our secretary for the VA. As chairman of the VA, having the opportunity to work with Doug, one, because we worked together before, but he has the right attitude. And the attitude is the VA is not about bureaucracy, it's about the veterans and we want to keep it that way. That doesn't mean we don't have a good workforce. What it means is that workforce is focused on the veterans, not on making sure that the VA grows, but making sure that the VA does the job it's supposed to do. And thank you, Mr. President. It's your leadership that allows that to happen.

Trump: Thank you.

Van Orden: Thank you everybody for coming here today. Thank you, Mr. President, for hosting us here. I'm the longest serving enlisted member of the United States military to ever get elected to Congress in the history of our nation. And I am unequivocally stating right now that President Donald J. Trump is the most positive, pro-veteran president in the history of this country. And so he backs up his words with deeds and this is another example of how President Trump is taking care of our veterans. So sir, I'm very thankful for you, for your leadership and let's get this thing done and get our veterans into homes. So God bless you and God bless the United States.

Trump: Thank you, my friend. Thank you. Let's sign first, then we'll take a couple of questions. All right? We'll get it done. We've been waiting a long time and I do want to commend Doug Collins, because I hear he's doing incredible.

Van Orden: He's doing a fantastic job.

Trump: He's done an incredible job. OK. That's a good one.

Van Orden: That's a good one.

Trump: No autopen. That's a very important bill and we want to thank everybody for the great help, but in particularly, you two guys have done.

Van Orden: Yes, sir. Thank you.

Trump: Fantastic job. Thank you very much. OK. Take a pen.

Van Orden: Oh, I'll keep that.

Trump: Take the pen.

Van Orden: Thank you, sir.

Trump: Take another pen. And we'll get that and leave them for the other people to have.

Van Orden: Very well. Thank you.

Trump: OK. Questions?

Question: Mr. President, you said that higher interest rates are making it harder for veterans to refinance. There was a stronger than expected GDP report this morning. What do you say to analysts who worry that lowering interest rates would actually lead to inflation?

Trump: Well, if that happens, then we just raise them. What you do is you lower them and let's see if there's inflation. Right now, there's no inflation. Everybody thought there would be. All we have is billions of dollars of cash pouring into our country from other countries that took advantage of us for many, many years. You know, they were taking advantage of -- we were like the stupid people that didn't know what they were doing. They took advantage of us. Other countries, friend and foe. And by the way, the friend was oftentimes much worse than the foe when it comes to trade. So if that happens, what you do is you raise your rates and you do what you have to do to stop inflation. But we're keeping the rates high and it's hurting people from buying houses and we don't want that. If for any reason that happened in a year or two, if there's some signs of inflation coming back -- right now, there's not. We have a great thing going. I think we're going to have the richest economy you've ever seen. We have money coming in that we've never even thought about, at numbers that nobody's ever seen before. We have a deal with Japan where they're going to pay us $550 billion. We have a deal with Europe where they're doing $750 billion plus $400 billion plus $300 billion and many other countries. It's likewise, you know, relatively. Those are two big ones, but likewise. So, we have a lot of money coming in and we have no inflation, and we should -- and we're very strong and we should be lowering the rates. You know, each point that this gentleman keeps up costs us $365 billion a year. Think of that, one point, $365 billion. If you bring it down a point, we save $365 billion. We should be the lowest interest rate and we're not -- we're 38, number 38, because of the fed. It's all because of the fed. He's done a bad job. Now he's got a meeting today, but I call him too late. You know, he's always too late. Even if he does it today, probably won't. I hear they're going to do it in September, not today. For what reason, nobody knows. But Europe, as you know, cut their rates 11 times in the last short period of time. But the good news is we're doing better than anybody anywhere in the world. Nobody's doing anything even close to us, even with the higher rates. The higher rates do affect housing though because people can't go out and get a loan or refinance their house, and it would be nice to have them be able to do that. That would be just another check of a box that would be very important. Yeah, please.

Question: Mr. President, you mentioned today that India, in addition to its 25 percent tariff rate, would pay an additional penalty because of its support of Russia. What is that additional penalty? And are other countries facing the same threat?

Trump: Well, we're negotiating right now, and it's also BRICs. You know they have BRICs, which is basically a group of countries that are anti the United States, and India is a member of that if you can believe it. It's an attack on the dollar. And we're not going to let anybody attack the dollar. So, it's partially BRICs and it's partially the trade, this trade situation, it's the deficit. We had a tremendous deficit. So, as you know, Prime Minister Modi is a friend of mine, but they don't do very much business in terms of business with us. They sell a lot to us, but we don't buy from them. You know why? Because their tariff is so high, they have one of the highest tariffs in the world. Now they're willing to cut it very substantially, but we'll see what happens. We're talking to India now. We'll see what happens. It doesn't matter too much whether we have a deal or whether we charge them a tariff. But you'll know at the end of this week. August 1st is a very big day for this country because money is going to pour into the United States like we've never seen before. Yes, ma'am.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Senator Hawley introduced legislation that would ban members of Congress from owning or trading individual stocks. It extends to the president and vice president. Are you in favor of that legislation?

Trump: Well, I like it conceptually -- I don't know about it, but I like it conceptually. And you know, Nancy Pelosi became rich by having inside information. She made a fortune with her husband, and I think that's disgraceful. So, in that sense I'd like it, but I'd have to really see the -- you know, I study these things very carefully and this just happened. So, I'll take a look at it, but conceptually I like it. And what I do think is, Nancy Pelosi should be investigated because what -- she has the highest return of anybody practically in the history of Wall Street, save a few and how did that happen? It happened by -- she knows exactly what's going to happen, what's going to be announced, she buys stock and then the stock goes up after the announcement is made and she ought to be investigated.

Question: Mr. President, Harvard is reportedly willing to settle with you for $500 million. Is that enough?

Trump: Well, it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. We're negotiating with Harvard now. They would like to settle. So, we'll see what happens.

Question: Mr. President, what is America's debt to our Afghan war allies that kept our veterans safe over there? There's been some talk about sending a lot of them back. Would you let our interpreters go back?

Trump: We know the good ones and we know the ones that maybe aren't so good. You know, some came over that aren't so good. And we're going to take care of those people, the ones that did a job, the ones that were told certain things. A shame what happened, one of the most disgraceful episodes in the history of our country, the way we left Afghanistan was just a disgrace. But I understand your question fully and we'll take care of 90 percent of your question, OK? I know what you mean. Thank you very much.

Question: Mr. President, on the tariffs on India, are you still open to negotiate with India on the tariff front or will you --

Trump: Well, we're talking to them now. We'll see what happens. Again, India was the highest or just about the highest tariff nation in the world -- one of the highest, 100 points, 150 points or percentages. So, India was one of the highest in the world. They had won 175 percent and higher than that. You know who's another higher one is Canada. Canada has -- they've been charging our farmers 200 percent, 300 percent, 400 percent for years and nobody did anything about it, but India is one of the highest. So, we're going to see -- we're negotiating with India right now.

Question: Did you know that Kash Patel reportedly found burn bags of Russiagate materials and we'd love to get your thoughts on that.

Trump: He said what?

Question: Burn bags of Russiagate materials the FBI supposedly found.

Trump: I don't know that. I don't know what you mean by that statement.

Question: Bags full of Russiagate documents.

Trump: A burn bag, I thought you said appointed a man named Burn Bag. Go ahead. You've got to speak up.

Question: Thousands of documents in these bags, supposedly burn bags, at the FBI in a secret room.

Trump: Well, I want everything to be shown. As long as it's fair and reasonable, I think it will be shown, and it should be shown. And I think he feels that way and I think Pam feels that way. But it's got to be stuff that really doesn't hurt people unfairly because you have so many people involved. And if they can do that in a fair way, I think it's great. I think it's really great. The whole thing is a scam; it's a scam set up by the Democrats and they love talking about it. But I would like to see people exposed that might be bad and we'll see how that all works out. But it's getting to be very old news. You know, if they had anything they would have done it the week before the election because they were losing by a lot. If they had anything they would have done it. They controlled the file, the Democrats controlled it, Comey and all these, you know, sleazebags, every one of them that you read about all the time. And I guess they've got some problems now having to do with yet a different scandal, very big one, but they control that file. So, I would think that if they would have had something in the file, they would have released it about a week before the election. Maybe two weeks, right, Brian, go ahead.

Question: Mr. President, welcome home, by the way. Good to see you.

Trump: It was a great trip. It was an amazing trip -- for the country. For me, it was OK. But for the country it was an amazing trip. Go ahead.

Question: It was. Many parents are preparing to send their kids back to school in a few weeks. Now this will be the first time they've gone back to school under the second administration for you. Now the previous administration labeled a lot of parents domestic terrorists for showing up to school board meetings. What's your message to parents now as they return their kids to school knowing that they have the support of you?

Trump: Well, the beautiful thing is, as you know, we've gotten rid of the woke. Woke is gone and I think pretty well buried. We're going to keep -- we're going to make sure it's buried. But the parents are now taking over the school boards. They're getting rid of these people that probably didn't like the children very much based on what they were doing. And it's a big difference. And you know, one of the other things, and I keep watching these talking points that the Democrats have. They say, oh, prices are up. No, prices are way down, fuel is down, groceries are down, things like eggs are way down. You know, when I came in my first week, the eggs had gone up like four or five times. Nobody had ever seen anything like it, and they were hitting me about eggs. I said I just got here, I literally was one of my first -- maybe my first news conference and we have eggs down now to a point where they were actually lower than even before. So, I just want everyone to know prices are way down and that's a big thing. Groceries, everything. If you look at fuel, $2.35 a gallon, a lot of that, but we actually had three states, four states where it's down $1.99 -- $1.99 as opposed to $3.50, $4. And it went up a lot higher than that. They got rid of my policy and then it went through the roof and then they brought my policy back, but it was too late. They blew it. We had the highest inflation in the history of our country and now we have no inflation. We have nothing but cash coming in. The world respects us again. We're a really great proud country. And I say it, I'll say it again, many, many leaders of other countries, I'm dealing with a lot of them today on their tariff situation. They owe us a lot of money. But many countries said to me, and almost in the same words, you were a dead country one year ago and today you're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We are the hottest country right now anywhere in the world and that's why we're taking care of our veterans, OK? Thank you very much, everybody.

Question: On China -- Mr. President, on China, did Secretary Bessent greet you today?

Aide: Thank you, guys. Thank you, press.

Trump: We're moving along with China. We're doing fine with China. I think it's going to work out very well. We're right in step. I think we're going to have a very fair deal with China. Thank you very much.

Aide: Thank you, press.

Question: What did you think Epstein was stealing these women for?

Transcript courtesy of CQ Factbase.