TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Speaks at a Homeland Security Roundtable, 10.23.25

[Video]

Trump: Thank you very much. Thank you. Please. It's a great honor to have all my friends here. It's like old home week. What a job you're doing and thank you very much for that. We want to begin by thanking the people that have done such a great job at the White House. They have been doing really incredible work during a shutdown.

I don't even know if they're supposed to be working, but they wouldn't miss a day. So, I just want to thank everybody for that very much. And we're here today to discuss a sweeping, unprecedented and historically successful operation that my administration has carried out in recent weeks to arrest, prosecute and permanently remove members of foreign drug cartels from American soil.

And the people gathered around this table are the ones that are doing it, and in this room, some of them are sitting a little behind -- some of them I'm surprised they're not actually at the table. You people should be very insulted by that. [Laughter] But you've done a great job back there. On my first day in office earlier this year, I signed an executive order to officially designate the drug cartels and savage transnational gangs as foreign terrorist organizations.

It was my honor to do so. And on that same day, I also signed an order directing the creation of the Homeland Security Task Force to bring together all federal, state and local partners to achieve the national policy goal of eliminating the cartel presence in America once and for all. And the results are -- and it's early and the results are spectacular.

Led by ICE and the FBI, this task force includes the Department of Justice, the Department of War, DHS, the intelligence community, ATF, the DEA, the US Marshals and the state and local agencies in every part of our country. Other than that, we don't include too many people. That's a hell of a group, isn't it, when you think of it? That's not a group you want against you; certainly not at one time.

In addition to the task force members, we're pleased to be joined by representatives of law enforcement at every level, the highest level actually, but every level including national president of the Fraternal Order of Police, Patrick Yoes. Where's Patrick? Patrick? Thank you, Patrick. Thank you for the endorsement too.

That really hit it off. I would have gotten 98 percent anyway, but it was still good to have your input. [Laughter] Thank you, Patrick. I don't forget those things. President of the National Sheriffs Association, Chris West. Chris? Thank you, Chris, very much. Great, good job. Major Cities Chiefs Association Executive Director Laura Cooper.

Laura? Thank you, Laura, very much. Major County Sheriffs of America Executive Director Megan Noland. Megan, thank you. Thank you very much. And president of the National Border Patrol Council, my friend -- and a very good speaker by the way. Whenever he gets up and speaks, I say that guy can really speak.

I don't know, I don't want him to run for office. I want him to stay where he is -- Paul Perez. Paul? Thank you, Paul. Where is Paul? Hi, Paul. What are you doing over there, Paul? Good job. Good speaker you are, Paul. I mean it too, you've made some incredible speeches, and all from the heart too, right?

Some great ones. Today, you'll hear details from my national security and homeland security teams about the extraordinary historic achievements of this new Homeland Security task force since it became fully operational last month in all 50 states. The job they're doing -- what we inherited from this past administration is like disgraceful.

In a matter of weeks, the task force has made the largest number of arrests of cartel leaders, operatives and gang members in American history, more than 3,000 and counting. That includes members of the ultra-violent New Generation Cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel, the cartel LNFM cartel, MS-13 cartel. And you know MS-13, the gang.

And Tren de Aragua, another beauty, that's a group of real garbage we have to deal with that we shouldn't have to deal with. These are in addition to the massive numbers of dangerous criminals my administration arrested nationwide since January 20th, numbering over 120,000. It's a record. And 120,000 criminal arrests.

Thank you very much. Unfortunately for four long years before I took office, the last administration allowed the cartels and their operatives to frankly take over our country, to freely infiltrate America and all the communities nationwide. Along with transnational gangs, these groups have unleashed more bloodshed and killing on American soil than all other terrorist groups combined.

These are the worst of the worst. It should now be clear to the entire world that the cartels are the ISIS of the Western Hemisphere. In addition to their monstrous violence such as cutting off heads, burning their enemies alive, and burning innocent people alive, too, by the way, the cartels control large swaths of territory.

They maintain vast arsenals of weapons and soldiers, and they use extortion, murder, kidnaping to exercise political and economic control. Thank you very much, Joe Biden, for allowing that to happen. Biden surrendered the -- I mean, he just surrendered our country to the cartels. Don't worry, we're taking -- it gets better, we're taking it back.

It's really fast -- at levels that nobody's ever seen before. But what we had to put up with, what we inherited was just a disgrace. And while Biden was president, if he was president -- I think the autopen was president, not Biden -- nearly 100 percent of those who infiltrated our southern border did so because they were personally approved.

They admitted they were just -- what happened, assisted by the most dangerous and violent criminal organizations anywhere on the planet. The worst people on the planet they allowed into our beautiful country. Under the Trump administration we're finally treating the cartels as the core national security threat that they really are.

The cartels are waging war on America and, just as I promised in the campaign, we're waging war on them like they've never seen before. All you have to do is turn on your television and you'll see what's happening to them. Past administrations have tried to mitigate this threat, and our objective is to eliminate it. We're not mitigating, we're eliminating.

We're getting them out. The bad ones we're putting in prison. We hate to do that because that means we're stuck with them for 50 years or more. In recent weeks, our Homeland Security Task Force has seized more than 70 tons of deadly narcotics along with more than 1,000 illegal guns and that's just recently.

This is already the most successful anti-cartel and anti-gang operation in American history and it's just getting started. We have incredible people. A lot of them are in this room with us today and it's an honor to have them. But we're going to not stop until the threat has been fully and completely eradicated.

I want to thank task force members with us today, including a person who's doing a fantastic job, Attorney General Bondi:. Thank you, Pam. Thank you. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth -- sounds so much better than Secretary of Defense. I don't know. Do you guys agree with that? I don't know, it sounds -- you know, we won the First World War, the Second World War. I always say everything before and everything in between.

And then we got woke and we said, well, let's call it defense. I don't think -- I think we like it this way better. You know, it's funny, that's something I thought would be maybe controversial.

And it's only controversial that we changed the name in the first place. It's not controversial, you said it all. It's been unbelievably well accepted, Pete, hasn't it? It's been pretty amazing. I thought it would be controversial. People want to have our country back in. People want to do exactly what we're doing right now.

And we're getting a lot of credit for it. And we should. I want to thank, though, Pete. You're doing a great job, Pete Hegseth. Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. Kristi, thank you very much. Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi, good job and the heads of all of the law enforcement agencies all throughout the room.

You're really amazing the job you've done. To provide additional details on our mission, I would like also to ask General Bondi to say a few words followed by Secretary Noem, Secretary Hegseth, Director Gabbard, Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller. Stephen, you're such a superstar, Stephen. They called Stephen the other day, a very bad name.

And I said you should sue them, Stephen. And I think he will. I hope he does. FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch. And I just want to say it's an honor the job we're doing and -- and these people are doing, uh, absolutely incredible. I just add a couple of things. In Memphis, as you know, where the numbers are down in half already and it's only been about two weeks.

You're doing a fantastic job there. Thank you. Uh, incredible. Nobody thought it was possible. It was really a -- it was a very sick city. It was horrible what happened there. People would go from -- if you're on the board of FedEx, they would ride you one block to the hotel. They said you couldn't walk it because it was too dangerous.

And they're already feeling better about it. But the best example right now is Washington, DC. We have -- we went from one of the most unsafe places, uh, in the planet, I hate to say, but in this country, to a totally safe city. It's -- nothing is crime free, I guess, but this is about as close to crime free as you're going to get.

And you guys have done an incredible job with that. Every one of you have worked so hard on this one. And it's our nation's capital. And people would go to the nation. They'd go from, I always say, Iowa, Indiana, they'd go from Florida, they'd come up. They want to see the monument. I want to see the Lincoln Memorial.

I want to see one of the monuments, any one of them. And they'd go home in a coffin. But not anymore. It's not happening anymore. We haven't had that happen in a long time. It was averaging more than one a week, one person a week. Who would think that's possible? And it hasn't happened anymore. And we have a safe city.

We have a city where the restaurants are booming. People are going out. Nobody is being mugged, hit over the head with a baseball bat. None of it. That stuff is gone. We took out 1700 criminals, many of them career criminals, many of them given to us by Joe Biden and his ridiculous open borders policy. They came in from jails from all over the world, not just South America from all over the world.

Jails. They came in from mental institutions and insane asylums all over the world. Drug dealers. And we got them the hell out of here. They're either that or if they're so bad, as I said before, we put them in jail because we can't take a chance that they come back. But I want to just say that Washington, DC is such an example of what could be done. , And now the same thing is happening in Memphis.

We're just halfway through the process and already the numbers are far superior, far, far better than what we would have thought at this time. Uh and Chicago, uh, I just saw the number. Last week, it was last weekend four were murdered. 11 were shot. And then I have this guy, Pritzker's a very weak governor.

Let me be nice. I'm going to be very nice. He's extremely weak. He's pathetic. I have Pritzker get up and say how great they're doing in Chicago. They're doing very poorly. So four were murdered, four, 11 were shot. I would say -- and that was not a bad week for him, OK? That was not a bad week. He's had somewhere 18 or 19 were murdered.

And you know what his excuse was? Yeah, but that was a long weekend, OK. Can you believe it? He said that was a long weekend. He's bad. And then, mayor is worse. I mean, that mayor is worse. Low IQ, very low IQ. And we don't need low IQ people. We need people that are going to take care. And I love Chicago.

And I love those beautiful women, black women, beautiful women wearing MAGA hats. And they're all over the place in Chicago, they want protection. They don't care if it's the National Guard, if it's the Army, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, they'll take Space Force, OK? Space Force, send them in. They couldn't -- They just don't want to be mugged, killed, raped, shot in the head.

And we stopped it. So we're going to be given a very special -- uh, we're going to give Chicago a very special care. Uh, as you probably know, maybe you heard, we were going to do a big surge in San Francisco. But I got a call, a great call from some incredible people, some friends of mine, very successful people.

Uh, Mark, who's -- everybody knows him. And Jensen, everybody knows Jensen. Nvidia, uh, and others, call me from San Francisco. And they said we're working really, really hard with the mayor, and we're making progress. Would it be possible for you to hold off -- for you to hold off the surge? And I had four or five calls.

And I think they're making progress of their own. That would be the greatest. I mean, if they could do that, that would be great. And they have great confidence in those people. I mean, incredible competence, some of the smartest business leaders. And they're working very well with the police department.

They're doing a good job. So we are holding off that surge, everybody. And we're going to let them see if they can do it. I said I think we can do it much faster. I know we can do it faster. I think we can do it better than anybody. We can take criminals out that they're not going to know about. And probably they don't have the legal authority maybe to do what we can.

But I'm OK with it. And we're going to let San Francisco has the potential to be -- it was a great, great city has the potential very quickly to be a great city again. And these are the companies that are there that are all working. And those are the people that asked me, could you, uh, do away with the surge?

And let's see how it works. And we'll do that. If we need to, we'll do it. But it's possible that we won't need to and we will be focusing on other places like Chicago. And we'll have Chicago taken care of very quickly. But just remember, 11 people shot, four people murdered, OK? And that was this weekend.

And uh, that was Chicago. And then you'll see Pritzker get up and talk about, well, we have it under control. They don't have it under control. It's just the opposite. It's getting worse. So we'll take care of it as soon as we give the go ahead, which is all I have to do is give the go ahead. We won the big court case the other day on the National Guard.

That was a good case. Same thing with Portland, speaking of that because that's where we won it. But uh, I mean, I looked at -- I looked the other night, Saturday night, Portland is like burning to the ground and these people are saying it's just friendly stuff. The whole place is burning to the ground, so we'll, uh, take care of that one.

That's like an insurrection more than it is anything else. That's -- that's crazy. Portland's crazy. And then you listen to these radical left people talking about, uh, it's really OK. You're seeing things. You're really seeing things. So we're going to take care of Chicago. We're going to take care of Portland.

We're going to take care of Memphis. We're proud of DC. There's nothing to take care of anymore, but we're not going to let it ever go bad. It's never going to happen again to our nation's capital. And with that, I'm just going to tell you that Bondi: has done a fantastic job. And Pam, would you say a few words, please?

Pam Bondi: Thank you, President Trump and thank you for -- for your leadership. And this is all about collaboration around this table. I'm looking around this table. We all work so well together. I don't think another administration in our nation's history has worked so well together. We talk constantly Secretary Noem, Tulsi, Pete, constantly, but also all of our agencies working hand in hand and that's why this is so successful.

And these people around this table are working seven days a week, 24 hours a day, even though the Democrats have tried to shut down the government. Terry Cole, I'm laughing because you're around the clock. You're all over the world. Director Patel, you're unstoppable, what you're doing around this country.

Gaddy Serralta US Marshal, Rob Sakata and Dan Driscoll wearing your ATF hats. What -- Rob, I was on -- texting -- Todd Blanch and I were on texting you at 1 am on cases. I mean, that's how committed all of these people are to just keeping all of our citizens safe. And that's what it's all about. And this -- this project is the brainchild of Stephen Miller.

And you are doing so much to keep our citizens safe, our kids safe and get these drugs off our streets. Like, the mayor of San Francisco and I are going to be meeting on fentanyl in a few weeks and working hand in hand on that. Secretary Noem spoke to him. But the results of this last month have been historic. As the president said, in the last month, think about this, 3,200 -- more than 3,200 violent gangs and drug dealers have been taken off the streets --off the streets.

Now, Director Patel and all of these agencies have also been working so hard on getting the leadership, but we are getting all the gang members off the streets and the drug dealers, Sinaloa, CJNG, MS-13 and more, TDA. 91 tons of drugs have been seized as a result of this task force. We tried to put this in perspective for you.

This would be filling four 18 wheelers, four, all the drugs just in the last month that have been taken off the streets. 58,000 kilos of cocaine. Think about a big backyard swimming pool. That would fill one and a half swimming pools, just the powder cocaine that has been removed, saving lives this last month, thanks to all of these people around the table. 2,300 kilos of fentanyl powder and 2.1 million fentanyl pills off the streets.

And as the president said, more than 1,000 illegal guns. The Biden administration was -- for way too long, all of these great law enforcement officers surrounding the table were not able to do their jobs. What they've said is now they've been uncuffed; they can do their jobs now. We've been watching transnational gangs grow in our country, become organized, set up infrastructure in all of our states.

But no longer under President Trump. We are destroying the infrastructure and we're no longer on defense. All of these great men and women are on offense. So, they better get ready. We're dismantling the cartels, and we are taking the leaders into custody and all of the gangs. We are going to supercharge this work.

This is not a pilot program; this is permanent. We are here to stay and, Secretary Hegseth, we couldn't do this without you and the Department of War. Thank you all so much for everything you're doing around this table working tirelessly. And President Trump, thank you for giving them the ability to do it.

Trump: Thank you, Pam, very much. Thank you.

Kristi Noem: Mr. President, since the year 2000, we have lost over 1 million Americans to drugs, to overdoses, to these cartels that have proliferated that kind of a disease on our people and have gone to war with our next generation of Americans. When you signed the executive order that was protecting the American people from invasion, what you did is that you took these cartels and gangs that we've known for decades, and you declared them to be what they really are and that's terrorists.

You declared war on them, and you didn't say we were just going to fight them, you said we were going to destroy them. And everybody around this table is so honored to be here to work with you to destroy these terrorists that have been killing Americans for years and getting rich off of it. I'm so proud of the work that was done just in the September surge.

You referenced that earlier. We had over 400 operations that went down in those first 43 days of the Homeland Security Task Force in operations that brought, as Pam referenced, 3,200 terrorists to justice, got them off the streets. Sir, we also have had over precursors and chemicals that were brought in. We've had the work at the southern border.

We've got border patrol here at the table with you. Fentanyl has been cut down by 50 percent coming into this country over our borders. We've continued to work not just nationally but internationally and on our maritime borders as well. The ICE agents that have so much violence against them and threats against them, sir, they get up every day ready to work with this task force to be able to keep people safe.

And then we've got Coast Guard who's been doing just a ton of our incredible interdictions out on the seas and the waters in cooperation with operations that you've targeted in the Caribbean with the Department of War. And sir, I just want to thank you for the leadership you put at this table, for your cabinet members, for Stephen Miller, for putting this in place to make sure that what you did -- when you consolidated the Homeland Security Task Force, you took 1,000 other task forces that were already established in the federal government and you streamlined them into this room, into this group right here, so that we can look at each other in the face every day and say what's our problem.

How do we address it? How do we fix it? And then we go to work together with our arm's length to do exactly what you told us to do. And that's not just protect the American people from invasion but to kill these terrorists. You gave us the task to eliminate them, destroy them so that they can't destroy the next generation of Americans. So, thank you, sir. Thank you for the people you put around this table.

Trump: Thank you very much. That's great job. Thank you. Pete?

Pete Hegseth: Yes, sir. Well, thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership. Chief, likewise, Tulsi and Todd and Dan and Pam and Kristi and Stephen and Kash. I mean, I could go around the table. From the Department of War, we are thankful and grateful for the incredible effort that your agencies put in. And we could not be more proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you.

Not superficially, not kind of over here, but front and center on the Homeland Security Task Force, right there with you. Because our department has spent over two decades defending other homelands and we're very proud to be defending our own. And if you talk to the troops down, say, on the southwest border, Mr. President, morale is sky high and continues to be, because they're proud to be defending their own communities, their own state and their own country.

So, when that executive order was signed, the mission was clear, protecting the American people against invasion. And so, the Department of War went straight to the southwest border. We still have 10,000 troops there. We have national defense areas. We're standing alongside the Border Patrol, and we've locked that border down, 100 percent control of the southwest border.

We stopped the invasion. And then we're proud to be going on the offense, counter cartel operations. And it's not counter cartel as was mentioned, these are designated terrorist organizations, foreign terrorist organizations. Our generation spent the better part of two decades hunting al-Qaida, hunting ISIS. Well, as the president said, this is the ISIS, this is the al-Qaida of the Western Hemisphere.

They intimidate, they terrorize, they extort, they poison the American people. The president's right; every boat we strike is 25,000 Americans whose lives are saved because of the drugs that were headed in our direction. So, our message to these foreign terrorist organizations is we will treat you like we have treated al-Qaida.

We will find you, we will map your networks, we will hunt you down and we will kill you. And you've seen that evidence in the maritime domain, whether it's in the Caribbean or in the Pacific with the last two strikes. We know exactly who these people are. We know what networks they work with, what foreign terrorist organizations they're a part of. We know where they're going, where they originated from what they're carrying.

And they know we know, and that will soon start to change the calculus of these boats. So, the critique of this is, of course as often is the case, wrong. We know our authorities, it's locked tight and we're going to treat them like foreign terrorist organizations on the offense. So, the Department of War is not going to degrade or just simply arrest.

We're going to defeat and destroy these terrorist organizations to defend the homeland on behalf of the American people, making the jobs of law enforcement safer in the process, making the communities of Americans safer in the process. We think it's a very core mission of the Department of War and we're proud to be here, Mr. President.

Trump: Thank you very much, Pete. Thank you. Tulsi, please.

Tulsi Gabbard: Yes, thank you, Mr. President. The key reason that you are hearing about these incredible effects is, number one, the team that you've assembled here and the leadership and the tone that you have set first and foremost about keeping the American people safe. The intelligence community plays a critical role in being able to support our law enforcement at the federal, state and local level to make sure that they are armed with actionable intelligence to be able to actually go after those who threaten the safety and security of the American people.

Mr. President, under your leadership for the first time, there is a newly created National Intelligence fusion cell at the office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Counterterrorism that has a very simple purpose, to make sure that we have two-way intelligence sharing of actionable information between the intelligence community and law enforcement.

I want to talk briefly about three successes that we've had just here in the last few weeks, Mr. President, through the success of this interagency fusion cell. Just this last week, our National Counterterrorism Center supported through actionable intelligence to both US law enforcement as well as Mexican law enforcement, the arrest of a Sinaloa cartel boss, El Plato in Juarez, Mexico, as well as his top three money launderers.

In a separate and recent successful interagency operation, NCTC worked closely with the US Marshal Service that led to the arrest of another dangerous Sinaloa Cartel member responsible for tracking huge amounts of cocaine and hundreds of thousands of dollars in this single incident with drug proceeds through his network.

I'll say the last example I'll share is probably the most insidious, was providing intelligence to the Mexican law enforcement that led to the arrest of a CJNG cartel affiliated baby trafficker called La Diabla. Her whole money-making operation was centered around luring pregnant women, performing illegal C-sections, harvesting organs and selling newborn babies.

Mr. President, it's your leadership that has made all of this possible. I can tell you in the midst of this government shutdown, our folks, like everyone around this table, are working 24/7 without pay, and eager to get after this because they believe in your leadership and the mission that you have presented to them. Thank you, Mr. President. I'll hand this off to Homeland Security Adviser Stephen Miller, the leader of this task force.

Stephen Miller: Let me just say Mr. President that this country was going to die without you, this country was going to actually die without you. That's what we were facing in 2024. We've been invaded for four years. Our communities were sinking. Our public safety had gone to zero. Cartels were running entire communities.

Sex trafficking, child trafficking, labor trafficking was out of control. Overdoses were out of control. The cartels were claiming more and more territory. City services were buckling. This was a country on the verge of dying. And you alone saved it. And when you stepped forward, originally in 2016, you started the movement to Make America Great Again.

And that means Make America Great Again in every way. And that means safety and prosperity and peace and freedom from cartels and crime and gangs. And your vision and your leadership in declaring war on the drug cartels is the single most successful public safety initiative in American history. And I need the media to understand what President Trump has done.

People have been talking about drug cartels for longer than I've been alive. And everyone has just taken for granted that they can't be touched or stopped. They're too big. They're too powerful. They're too evil. They're too murderous. They can operate with impunity. In just nine months, President Trump is the only American leader, not just in our lifetimes, but ever to actually take the fight to the drug cartels to actually seek the eradication.

And it is happening. And so while the Democrats are shutting the government down and fighting for free healthcare for illegal aliens, look at what President Trump has assembled here. He's assembled a team under his vision, direction and leadership that is saving hundreds of thousands of lives, hundreds of thousands of lives.

And only President Trump could have done this. And I will say one last thing, which is that his courage has been an inspiration to everyone else in this room. There are people in this room. I'm looking at, for example, at Todd Lyons, who have been relentlessly doxed and harassed and threatened, but when -- when they see President Trump's courage, what he's been through for ten years to save America when they came after his family, his businesses, his safety, his freedom. Everyone at this table knows we can give whatever it takes to get the mission done. So President Trump, thank you for your leadership, your boldness, your courage and your vision. We're honored to serve underneath you.

Trump: Well, I want to thank you, Stephen. And -- and I have to say that, you know, I've been making the rounds. I'm leaving tomorrow for some very big meetings, including with the president of China where I think we're going to come out very well. And everyone's going to be very happy. But uh, everybody said the same thing a year ago.

We had a dead country. We were a dead country. We really were. In a lot of ways, not just this. We were dead as doornails on this. But we were a country that was in serious trouble and beyond that. And we have the hottest country anywhere in the world right now. The whole world is talking about it. We have the hottest country anywhere in the world.

We're going to clear up this crime in our cities. We can do it quickly too. They showed how quickly we could do it in DC. It was a real bad place. It was a real mess. Dirty, filthy, disgusting. Graffiti all over the place. Tents on every ounce of parks that we had. Just disgusting. And I rode around last weekend.

I rode around the city. I felt very safe in that car. [Laughter] But you know, I would have done it without it. I wouldn't need that car so much anymore. I will tell you. But uh, the place was clean. Uh, we -- we've started that also. Not only law and order, but we -- you know, the cleanliness is important.

I think cleanliness is almost a part of law and order. If you see dirty, disgusting streets and potholes all over the place and railings falling down and graffiti all over the marble beautiful statuary or marble columns. Those gorgeous columns where they had graffiti, it's all gone. And I think it's a part of it. I really do. I think it's a big part of it. But we have a city that we can be proud of. It's going to -- we're going to be that way with every city we have.

That's why with San Francisco I wish him luck, but we could do it so much faster. I told the mayor. I love what you're doing. I respect it. And I respect the people that are doing it. They're the biggest people in the country. They're the biggest people in the world. A lot of the high tech. Some people like them, some people don't, but they're smart.

And they want to do it. And I said I am so honored to let you do it. And if it doesn't work out, we'll do it for you very quickly. But I just want to thank, the people around this table are amazing. Kash, please go ahead.

Kash Patel: Mr. President, I'll just keep it short, but I think what the media should realize is the amount of courage it takes to do this. And you led that mission. You led it during your campaign, and you brought it to the American people. I think the media should focus on some of these numbers the attorney general just rattled off.

Those aren't just numbers. Those are lives. Lives saved by the millions, the millions. Enough, excuse me, enough fentanyl to kill over 200 million Americans gone, evaporated off our streets permanently. Your vision to safeguard American freedoms and our children and our future is the most courageous thing I've ever seen a president of the United States ever do. And your ability to marshal it out in eight months, in eight months.

These statistics would have taken other administrations decades, decades. And the partnership that you see around the table, I just want to, you know, sum it up with the following. When I call these folks around the table, when I call our state and local law enforcement partners who have been absolutely critical to this mission.

When Stephen Miller called me and said, we're going to create the Homeland Security Task Force, and the FBI and DHS are going to co-lead it. I said absolutely. The country has been yearning for this and needing it. And the one thing I see different than any other administration is when I call these people, they pick up. I don't get a voicemail.

When I make an ask, they answer. And the same is true. And so the FBI is playing a pivotal role in your administration in helping lead out this mission. And Steven's vision has finally come to life. And instead of attacking the people at this table, maybe the media should go out there and talk to the lives that have been saved forever and the communities that have been safeguarded.

Because it takes courage to do that. It takes courage to implement that plan. And it takes a president in President Trump to put a leadership team like this together. We are actual friends. And I know the media doesn't want to call us that, but we do do that. We do hang out. We do work together. It's a 24/7/365 mission that doesn't turn off, Mr. President.

And as Stephen said, we're inspired by your leadership. And this country is thankful for these eight months. And I can't wait to see what the next four years looks like.

Trump: Thank you very much. Thanks, Kash. Great job. Todd, please.

Todd Blanche: Thank you, Mr. President. The number that I think matters, um, the three -- over 3000, 3266 terrorists have been taken off the streets in two months. And for each of those arrests there's anywhere -- anywhere from between 4 to 20 law enforcement agents, federal, state and local executing those arrests. And that, that means every one of them are putting their lives on the line to make these arrests to make our community safer.

And so what I will say to them is, thank you. But also, what I will say to them is that to the extent that there are politicians as recently as today suggesting they are doing something wrong. We have governors, district attorneys, mayors and even congresswomen suggesting that our federal law enforcement and the state and local law enforcement that are helping them are doing something wrong.

That is -- that is disgusting and something that we will not tolerate. That -- that everyday Attorney General Bondi and I talk with all of our partners making sure that they know that if any one of our federal agents, our state or local agents working under the HSTF banner are even touched by any of these terrorists or rioters, they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

When politicians aid these terrorists by trying to give them comfort or protection or suggesting that somehow our men and women are doing the wrong thing, same problem. We will not tolerate it, Mr. President. So thank you to all of our state and local, um, men and women that are helping us, and our federal law enforcement officers that are literally putting their lives on the line every single day. We will always protect you. Thank you, Mr. President.

Trump: Thank you very much, Todd. Um, a really good job you're doing too. Thank you. Uh, any questions? Maybe pertaining --

Question: Mr. President?

Trump: How about pertaining to this for a little while?

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Question: Mr. President --

Trump: Would you have any questions of these incredible people?

Question: Mr. President? Mr. President?

Trump: Yeah, go ahead, please.

Question: Who, me?

Trump: Go ahead.

Question: Mr. President, um, thank you. Mr. President, thank you. Good to see you. Um, if I could just ask both of you, including Secretary Hegseth, um, there's reporting the US just sent B-1 bombers near Venezuela to ramp up some military pressure there. Is that accurate? And can you tell us more about that mission?

Trump: No, it's not accurate. No, it's false. But we're -- uh, we're not happy with Venezuela for a lot of reasons, drugs being one of them, but also they've been sending their prisoners into our country for years under the Biden administration. Not anymore. We have a closed border. We had actually nobody for the last four months, I guess five months.

They say -- they report nothing, they report zero. I don't know if that can be possible, but that's -- we'll accept it, right fellas? But we have closed borders. We have people coming into our country, but they only come in legally. We have the strongest borders we've ever had. We might have the strongest borders of almost any nation right now.

And that's a big difference from what it was two years ago when everybody was pouring in. But we're very unhappy with Venezuela because of what they've done. They've emptied their prisons into our country. Nobody can do that. Only a stupid person would have accepted it. And that's what we had running our country, very stupid people. So, we're not happy with Venezuela. I will tell you. Yeah?

Question: Mr. President?

Trump: Go ahead.

Question: Mr. President? Mr. President? Thank you, President Trump.

Trump: Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead.

Question: Um, on -- on --

Trump: Are you OK?

Question: Yes. [Laughter] On fentanyl, President Trump.

Trump: We have some good medical help right over here. That's all right. [Laughter]

Question: On fentanyl, according to CDC data, nearly 330,000 Americans died over the past five years from fentanyl. That's one in every 1,000 Americans who died.

Trump: It's more than that. But that's all right.

Question: Yes, it's more -- we think it's even more --

Trump: I'll be discussing that with President Xi.

Question: So, that's actually my question.

Trump: I figured it was.

Question: I was wondering, since it mostly comes from China and has caused such carnage in the US, what are you going to say to convey the seriousness? And also, a second question for you or Secretary Hegseth. Is there any evidence that China is now smuggling fentanyl through Venezuela to bypass US and Mexican port controls?

Trump: They are doing that, yes. But they are paying right now a 20 percent tariff because of fentanyl. That's billions and billions of dollars that they're paying. We're actually -- on November 1st, the tariff on China goes to 157 percent, which is record-setting territory and we don't want that because that's not sustainable for them.

They can't sustain that. We don't want them to have to go through that. So, I'm meeting with President Xi, and I would say the first -- we have some big issues like with the farmers and various other things. But the first question I'm going to be asking him about is fentanyl. And if you think about it, they make $100 million.

Think of this, they make $100 million selling fentanyl into our country, $100 million. They lose $100 billion with the 20 percent tariff. So, it's not a good business proposition. It's $100 billion approximately that they have to pay. It's a big penalty to make $100 million. So, I think they want to do something.

They want to put it on the list. It's on the list. It's one of the things we're talking about, and I'm putting it right at the front of the list. So, they pay a very big penalty for doing that. And I don't think they want to be doing it, and we'll see what happens at the end of next week because I'll be meeting next week, as you know, along with we're stopping in Malaysia, we're stopping in South Korea, we're stopping in Japan.

I'm meeting with President Xi actually in South Korea. So, it'll be the first thing on the list. Yeah, please.

Question: Mr. President, on the drug boats -- on the drug boats, sir, has there been any discussion about capturing one so that you can show the amount of narcotics?

Trump: Well, we know everything about them. Yeah, yeah, Jennifer, we know everything about them. We know where they're coming from, who they're coming with, generally who's in the boat. I'll let Pete discuss it a little bit, but they have incredible intelligence. And you know, usually when you see five engines -- I've never even seen that before, but when you see five engines on a boat going about 65 miles an hour loaded up with white powder in silver cases.

Generally speaking, that's not a good sign. They're not going fishing, right, and you don't see any fishing rods, right? So, Pete, I'll let you discuss that a little bit, please.

Hegseth: Yes, sir, likewise generally you don't see fishing in submarines either, sir. [Laughter] So, the US military, as I mentioned, nobody better in the world at mapping networks, identifying who's connected to who inside terrorist organizations. It's just the media is used to hearing that when it pertains to Afghanistan and Iraq and ISIS and al-Qaida.

But if you reframe how you understand the world and our own hemisphere, that's exactly what these foreign terrorist organizations are. And so, we will track them, we will map them, we will network them, and we will hunt them and kill them because they're trying to, and they are, killing and poisoning the American people.

And inside that, we have all the license necessary, all the authorities necessary to take these kinetic strikes and we'll continue to take them. And we've been, you know, just to add, because I think it's important, we've been capturing them for years. You know, it's not like, gee, let's capture one. We've been doing that for years, for 25 years we've been doing it, not at a level like we're doing it now, I mean just with the hits we're hitting. But we have much more intensity than any administration has ever had.

Trump: But we've been capturing these boats for years and they get back into the system and they do it again and again and again, and they don't fear that, they have no fear. The thing I can tell you right now; it's very hard to find any floating vessel right now on the Pacific or in the Gulf. And I would like to call it by its official name, the Gulf of America, another little triumph of the Trump administration.

I said for years, I said why aren't we calling -- why do we call it the Gulf of Mexico? It's 93 percent -- the shoreline is 93 percent ours. I never understood that. So, I made that change. I never realized how easy that was going to be other than I guess AP -- AP fought us in court and the judge said -- but that's the name.

And actually, they were sort of semi prohibited from even covering us after that. It was pretty amazing. But we have the Gulf of America and there are very few boats, very, very few boats, not even fishing boats to be honest. I don't want to do that to the fishing industry, but it's been so effective. And our sea drugs, as they call them, they use the term sea drugs, the drugs coming in by sea are like 5 percent of what they were a year ago, less than 5 percent.

So, now they're coming in by land. And even the land is concerned because I told them that's going to be next. You know, the land is going to be next. And we may go to the Senate, we may go to the Congress and tell them about it, but I can't imagine they'd have any problem with it. I think, in fact, while we're here, I think it's a good idea, Pete.

You go to Congress, you tell them about it, what are they going to do, say, gee, we don't want to stop drugs pouring in? They're killing 300,000 people a year. I think that's the real number, 300,000 people a year. So, between that and my discussion with President Xi, I think we have never made progress like we've made.

The sea drugs are almost dead and they can't come in that fast from the land. And the land drugs are much more dangerous for them. It's going to be much more dangerous. You'll be seeing that soon. So, that's the way it is. Yeah, go ahead, please. Yeah, go ahead, please, with the glasses, go ahead.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. I wanted to ask what's your reaction to Representative Dan Goldman calling on NYPD to arrest ICE agents who he says are acting illegally. He says they are illegally assaulting people and illegally detaining people at immigration courts in New York.

Trump: Well, you know, I know Dan and Dan's a loser. You understand, he's a guy that doesn't have what it takes. He's been trying so hard and they're exhausted. I mean, it's so ridiculous, right, a suggestion like that. So, you know, they're just trying so hard and it's not working. They've even now started imitating me, of all people they want to imitate me, and they start using foul language, but they use too much of it. You know, you can't use the F word seven times in one sentence, it doesn't work.

It might work once every seven news conferences, but you can't do it -- you can't do it seven times in one sentence. So, I don't know, they're really -- they're in big trouble that party. Go ahead.

Question: On the boat strikes, some alleged smugglers have survived some of these recent strikes and been sent back to their home country.

Trump: Two.

Question: If they're terrorists, why not just arrest and detain them?

Trump: Go ahead.

Hegseth: Two points on that. First, when I served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, we used to, instead of a gallows humor way, talk about the Iraqi catch and release program. The reality that we would catch a lot of people, hand them over and then they would be recycled back through and we'd have to recapture them or attack them again.

And that's why changing the dynamic and actually taking kinetic strikes on these boats ought change the psychology of these foreign terrorist organizations. To those two that survived a shot on the semi-submersible. It's -- think again compared to Iraq and Afghanistan, the vast majority of people that we captured on the battlefield we handed over to the home country.

Did we always like how it shaped out? Sometimes we did; sometimes we did not. But 99 percent would go to the Afghan authorities or the Iraqi authorities. So, in this case, those two, they were treated by American medics and handed immediately over to their countries where they came from hopefully to face prosecution, which is a very standard way of handling something like this.

Question: And you'll do that with future survivors, anyone else who survives.

Hegseth: We've got protocol of how we'll handle it.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: Not that guy, he's so hopeless. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Question: Yesterday there was a vote at the Knesset on annexing the West Bank. Do you see it as a challenge to your peace efforts?

Trump: Could you say that louder, please?

Question: Yes. Yesterday, there was a vote at the Knesset in Israel on annexing the West Bank. Do you see it as a challenge to your peace efforts?

Trump: Will you answer that, please? Because I could not understand a word she's saying? Where are you from? Where are you from?

Question: I'm from France.

Trump: You're from France, beautiful accent, but we can't understand what you're saying. Huh?

Bondi: She said a vote at the Knesset on the West Bank.

Question: I have another question.

Trump: The West Bank is -- don't worry about the West Bank. Israel is not going to do anything with the West Bank, OK? Don't worry about it. Is that your question? They're not going to do anything with the West Bank. Don't worry about it. Israel is doing very well. They're not going to do anything with it. Yeah, please.

Question: Thank you, President Trump. Are there any safeguards in place to protect Americans from fentanyl and cartels when you leave office in 2028? Any protocols that could be put in place in case a future administration comes in that wants open borders? And I also have a question for the Secretary of War as well after your answer, if that's OK.

Trump: Well, the biggest thing we can do is make sure they don't come in because open borders, it's -- they would destroy. It's amazing that our country is even surviving with what we went through, coming in by the millions. And coming in from the wrong places. You know, I know all these people that run these countries.

And they're smart. They're very street smart. And they're not sending their best. You know, they're not sending them here. They're taking them out of their prisons and their mental institutions, as I say, over and over again. They're the drug dealers. They're the drug addicts. They're people that don't work.

I mean, the best of them are people that don't work. They don't work. They're on welfare, their form of welfare, which is tiny. Do you know what their form of welfare is? They give you a piece of paper. They give you give you nothing. But they want people that work. They don't let those people come out because they want those people.

You know, they cherish those people. Those are the people that make their country run. They give us all of the people that don't work and -- and are murderers. 11,843 murders came in. 11,800, many of them committed -- more than 50 percent committed more than one war -- murder. Now why do we want them? Why would Biden and that group of thugs that he had working for him, why would they accept these people?

Why would he accept? Nobody understands it. You know, they say maybe they wanted the vote, but I did great with the Hispanic vote. But these are people from all over the world. Why would they do it? It's the one question no matter what I do, I can't -- you always like to know the opponent. You have an opponent, what are they getting at? And usually you can.

Why would they allow 20 million, maybe 25 million people into this country, almost all of which, but most of which should not have been allowed into our country? It's one of the great enigmas. What they've done to this country should never be forgotten in history, should never ever be forgotten. And now it looks like we're going to have a communist mayor in New York.

That will be a lot of fun. [Laughter] But remember this, they have to go through the White House. Yeah, please go ahead.

Question: President Trump, thank you so much. Thank you so much, President Trump. Today, you pardoned the founder of Binance. Can you explain why you chose to pardon him? And did it have anything to do with his involvement and your families --

Trump: Which one -- who's that?

Question: The founder of Binance. He has an involvement in your own families crypto business.

Trump: Oh, the recent one, yes. The -- uh, I believe we're talking about the same person because I do pardon a lot of people.

Question: [Inaudible]

Trump: I don't know. He was recommended by a lot of people. A lot of people say that -- are you talking about the crypto person?

Question: Yes.

Trump: Uh, a lot of people say that he wasn't guilty of anything. He served four months in jail and they say that he was not guilty of anything. That what he did --

Question: He admitted --

Trump: Well, you don't know much about crypto. You know nothing -- you. Know nothing about nothing you're fake news. But let me just tell you that he was -- somebody that, as I was told, I don't know him. I don't believe I've ever met him. But I've been told by a lot of support, he had a lot of support. And they said that what he did is not even a crime. It wasn't a crime. That he was persecuted by the Biden administration. Uh, and so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.

Question: Mr. President? Mr. President? Mr. President?

Trump: Yes, please.

Question: Mr. President?

Trump: Yes, Daniel.

Question: Mr. President, thank you so much. The number --

Trump: This is the kind of Question: I like. Right here. [Laughter]

Question: Yeah. The -- the -- the , numbers from this task force are jaw dropping. I wanted to know this question for you and both Stephen, since it was said this is your brainchild. What -- what are the lessons to be learned from the success of the task force? And what are your continued goals with this task force now that you have about three years left?

Trump: Well, the best thing we have going is we have such talent around this table. I could go over every one of these men and women. And we have unbelievable talent. They've got -- their naturals. You know, like somebody that hits a baseball or a golf ball or a you know, that you see more. It's more evident. It's beautiful because it's sports.

You can tell somebody right away. Are they good or are they not? These people are the most talented people at what they do. And when we started talking about this, Stephen and all of us, it was -- it seemed so easy. What -- what is surprising to me is how quickly we can straighten out a large city, a big city, a mean city, a city that's sick, that got very sick with guns all over the place, with bullets shooting all over.

Where you -- I mean, you take your life in your hands if you go out and buy a loaf of bread. That's not America. That's not our country. And those people don't care how you do it. They just want it done. They really do. You know, when you go to the people on the street, they're not -- they don't know, is it National Guard?

They just want it done. They want to be safe. And we've gained a great following of Americans, real Americans, people that want to be safe. But I think the biggest thing we -- we say is we have tremendous talent. We were able to recognize, like a football team, like a baseball team, we were able to recognize the talent.

And the talent is largely in this room. For the whole country, it's largely in this room. There's really nothing like it. And that's why in I think we had DC done not perfectly, but pretty much done at least normalized in 12 days. Wouldn't you say 12? Would you say 12 days? On the 12th day, it felt different.

And then -- and you know, we took a lot of bad people out never to -- never to come back again than most of them never to come back again. But there's great talent. And there's also great courage. It's -- you know, it's -- I've been watching what goes on. And then you have the radical left lunatics. And what's that all about?

I mean, they're fighting us because we want to stop crime. Where do these people come from? They're paid money. I guess they're paid a lot of money. But like I saw that ridiculous march the other day. I say these people are not representative of our country. And not all of them, of course, but many of them are total lowlifes.

These are lowlifes. These are people that are paid agitators. And they're not representative of our country. So I don't know. I can just tell you that our country has tremendous spirit right now. You know that better than anybody because you cover it well. But we have a lot of people that are very happy right now with the direction.

They did a poll the other day. The direction of our country is better than it's been in 37 years. And I'm upset because I think it's bet -- it should be better than that. [Laughter] I actually said we should be better than that. So you know, thank you very much for your question. Brian? Brian?

Question: Mr. President, yes. Thank you, Mr. President. You guys have done an amazing job in Memphis.

Trump: Thank you.

Question: Some of those numbers are staggering. And we've gotten message on social media wanting to thank you for that. But I think can you talk about the number of missing children you guys have discovered in Memphis?

Trump: Yeah.

Question: That's amazing.

Trump: Well, it's hundreds of thousands were lost through Biden and the Biden administration. And we are getting a lot of them back, but they're either dead, they're slaves, they're captured in some form. But think of it, hundreds of thousands we're talking about. Not even believable. And they came in through the border.

They were sold. They were bargained for. And this was all Biden, meaning Biden and Obama, the same, you know, the same mentality, frankly. I think it's the same mentality. Let me tell you, Barack Hussein Obama was a lousy president. A lot of bad things happened. Remember when they used to talk about Trump with the jail cells?

Well, he built the jail cells for the children. He built those in jail cells. Remember, that came out. But sir, they were built in 2014. Do you remember when that came out after me going through that stuff for about two weeks. And then they found out it was Barack Obama that built those jail cells. No, these people are -- they were bad leaders.

I hope -- I hope we don't have it again. I hope we don't have it again. Because you know our country has come back a long way, but it can only withstand so much, and we don't want to ever go through that again. We never want to have open borders again. We don't want to have them. We don't want to have men playing in women's sports.

We don't want to have transgender for everybody. We don't want that. We want to have a great country with low interest rates, nice housing, great education, a strong military. The basics. Yes, please.

Question: Mr. President? Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President? Mr. President? Thank you. In last night's New York City mayoral debate, um, Zohran Mamdani said, he would close Rikers Island if elected. What kind of impact would that have on public safety?

Trump: Well, it's not good. I guess it's not a very nice place. But uh, you need it. You know, you need -- you need something. You have a lot of additional people in New York City that should not have been here. They came here through the open border, through Biden's -- you know, I don't know how they even do it. New York City has always been tight for money.

And then they spend, you know $8 billion, and nobody complains about it on people that just showed up and they just came out of nowhere. Where did they get the money? All of a sudden they have money. Uh, I'll tell you what. Uh, we have to keep our prisons very fair and very safe. But you got a lot of criminals.

We have a lot of additional criminals. I used to talk about it. They used to say, well, only good people come in from foreign countries. I said that's not right. I didn't know that for a fact, but it had just started, right, the open borders and people flowing in by the millions. They make our criminals look like the nicest people on earth.

Trump: That's the only good thing. They make our criminals look like nice people. They are the meanest the most vicious. Tren de Aragua you don't get any sicker. They cut people's fingers off because they called the cop. Did you call the cop? Yes. They cut off his finger, so he can't call the cop anymore. And then they say next time we're going to cut off your hand if you call them.

Because they took over his apartment in Colorado. You know, Colorado, they took over a town, then they took over another town. And governor over there. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing so he lets it go on. But we're getting them out of here. We're getting them all out.

Trump: They're going back to lots of -- not just Venezuela, they're going back to lots of countries. Venezuela would be one, however. Yeah, please.

Question: Thank you, Mr. President. A moment ago you said that if Secretary Hegseth went to Congress and briefed them on the operations against these --

Trump: No, we will go, I said.

Question: You will go and it will be difficult for them to object.

Trump: We're going to go. I don't see any loss in going. No reason not to. You know, they'll always complain, oh, we should have gone. So, we're going to definitely -- I'd like to just say let's go, we'll go -- we're going to tell them what we're going to do, and I think they're going to probably like it except for the radical Left lunatics.

Question: And Mr. President, if you are declaring war against these cartels and Congress is likely to approve of that process, why not just ask for a declaration of war?

Trump: Well, I don't think we're going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK. We're going to kill them. You know, they're going to be like dead. OK.

Question: Mr. President, I have a question.

Trump: Yes, red hair, beautiful red hair.

Question: Thank you. I'll tell my hairdresser that. She'll love it. This is a question for both you and the Secretary of War, Mr. Hegseth.

Trump: Who are you with?

Question: I'm with The Center Square, we're newswire service. With everything that's going on between the narco terrorists in the Caribbean and then also with more Chinese, Iranian, Russian ships also taking part in Venezuela. Do you have any plans of expanding operations out of Roosevelt Roads, in fact, placing some -- homeporting some ships there?

Trump: Yeah, go ahead, Pete.

Hegseth: We're familiar with the location that you're referring to and we'll make sure that we're properly displaced in order to deal with the contingency we're dealing with there, and also any ways in which other countries would attempt to be involved also. So, we can walk and chew gum, we're definitely keeping our eyes on near-peer adversaries at the same time.

But we think sending a message on these cartels, these narco terrorists is an important -- important inside our hemisphere, which for far too long other presidents, as the president pointed out, they've ignored our own backyard and allowed other countries to increase their influence here, which only threatens the American people. We're changing that.

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: One big thing that has happened though, because you mentioned expansion and expand our efforts. So, when I was running for office second term, everybody was talking about the fact that nobody wanted to join the military; nobody wanted to join the great police force. You know, they didn't want to join New York's finest or any of our police forces.

They didn't want to join anything having to do almost like with the country with the uniform. We are setting records with the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Space Force, Coast Guard. We're setting records. We've never had anything like it. And I'll tell you when it started, November 5th, we didn't even have to wait until January 20th. They saw a spirit, and now we have people coming in that are -- it's unbelievable.

And if we wanted to increase our military force, if we wanted to increase any one of these including police forces, they can now get men. People didn't want to be policemen and women. They didn't want to be firemen and women. They didn't want to go into the military. We were having tremendous recruiting problems, and now we're setting records.

We literally -- last year at this time, you were doing stories that the recruitment was a disaster. We couldn't get men and women to go into the military. Now we have such an overabundance. We've never had -- I mean, as I understand it, it's like record setting recruitment. This is in less than a year. It's been amazing. So, this is a good time to expand if we want to do it and I think we should -- I think we should and we probably will. Yeah, please. Yeah, blue, blue.

Question: Mr. President, a couple questions for you. First for you and Secretary Hegseth. Is the administration supportive of sending National Guardsmen to cities for the express purpose of aiding deportation and immigration enforcement efforts?

Hegseth: To expand deportation efforts?

Question: Sending National Guardsmen to US cities for the express purpose of aiding deportation and immigration enforcement.

Hegseth: What we've done so far is stand alongside federal law enforcement in every way, facilities and personnel. But also, we have -- we have a great deal of lift inside the military. We're able to move assets in a way that no other aspect of the US government can. And so, where we can rapidly assist with mass deportations, we have been happy to do that.

Question: And then one more question if I may. Is the administration at all supportive of potential measures to crack down or regulate or even ban apps that track ICE agents' locations?

Trump: What do you mean by that?

Question: Like specific apps that are used to track the location of ICE agents.

Trump: I guess we'll do that. I'm not a big app guy. I'm not into that too much. I think Pam might be. Let's go. Good answer there.

Bondi: Yes, these organizations, President Trump, are coming in and there are apps to track our federal law enforcement officers, and it jeopardizes their lives, where they're going to be their location. And we've actually been working really well with the tech companies who have been cooperating because they don't want our law enforcement officers to get injured. So, yes.

Trump: Well, I mean I see it with ICE where they're having -- you know, where they define where they live, who they are. And you know, I wasn't -- I didn't take -- I didn't have a big view on the masks, but I now understand why they should wear masks. I think it's very dangerous for them not to wear masks, they can do whatever they want.

I noticed some do it and some don't, but it's pretty dangerous. But when you look at, you know, you talk about that question, I think it's very dangerous and I think you're coming down on that very hard, right.

Bondi: We are.

Trump: Yeah, please, sir. Go ahead.

Question: Mr. President, thank you, sir. When you were running for reelection in 2024, you released a video statement where you did this -- you made this exact promise to show no mercy on the cartels and employ every military asset necessary to combat them. In that same video you also said that you plan to expose all the bribes and corruptions with politicians and the cartels.

Trump: We're doing that. Yeah, we're trying to do that.

Question: Has your task force been looking into that in American politicians?

Trump: Yeah, where the money's coming from. Because you see it, like even that garbage deal they had this weekend, which was embarrassing to them, and the crowds were much smaller. The crowds were not big. Those crowds were not big at all. But when you look at signs, and they're all made beautifully, the yellow signs, I saw the yellows, the blues, but they're all made professionally in a printing shop, looks like on Madison Avenue someplace.

Some guy is paying for all that stuff. And we don't mind protests. A protest is a good thing. I protest, I'm always protesting, right? But when you see some of these people, these people are going crazy. They're going crazy because they're getting paid, because there's no reason for them to be going crazy.

Trump: But you watch some of them and they're professional agitators and we are finding out who's paying them, yeah. We have a lot of information about who they are. You're going to be very surprised when you find out.

Question: And I have a question for Secretary Hegseth. Sir, a memo circulating on social media details the establishment of a National Guard response force that's going to be trained in crowd control and civil unrest and deployed in all 50 states by April of 2026. Can you verify the authenticity of that memo? And do you have any more information on the operations?

Hegseth: I'm not going to answer particulars on something that may be in the planning process, but we definitely do have multiple layers of National Guard response forces, whether it's in each state, whether it's regionally, whether it's Title 10 active duty, whether it's Washington, DC. We've got A lot of different ways that constitutionally and legally we can employ Title 10 and Title 32 forces, and we will do so when necessary.

Question: Thank you. President Putin basically said today that Russia is immune from US sanctions. He said that it would not impact the Russian economy in any serious way. Is he wrong?

Trump: Good. I'm glad he feels that way. That's good. I'll let you know about it in six months from now. OK, let's see, let's see how it all works out. Yeah, go ahead, please, blue.

Question: One question about the task force; one about the shutdown. I'm Taylor Poplars with Spectrum News. The same day you established this task force back on January 20th, was the same day you pardoned the January 6th, defendants.

Trump: Yeah, very proud of that, yeah.

Question: Just last weekend one of them was charged with allegedly threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. And a big theme of this task force has been allowing law enforcement to do their job and holding accountable people who go after law enforcement. Do you worry that your actions back on day one undermines what this task force is trying to accomplish?

Trump: No. You have thousands of people that we're dealing with and, you know, if one goes haywire -- look at what this guy in Virginia said where he wanted to kill his opponent. He's going to kill his opponent; he's going to kill his opponent's children, and I think wife, and he continues to run, and the Democrats continue.

He's running for what, Attorney General in Virginia? Look what he said. So, now do you think all Democrats should be prohibited from living anymore? I mean, think of what he said, he's going to kill his opponent and he's going to kill the children of his opponent, and I think the wife. I said this guy is sick.

Trump: That is a sick guy and how do you vote for somebody like that? But I don't view that every Democrat would say that because not every Democrat would say that. So, you can't -- you know, you could have one person, but I don't know of the incident.

I can say we're very proud of what we did. We had the courage to do something that should have been done. The problem, sometimes the Republicans are too nice. They're a very nice party. The Democrats play a much dirtier fight. Uh, you know, it's amazing. You go after dirty cops like Comey, and you go after -- these are dirty cops.

Uh, Letitia James is a dirty cop. You go after these people and they say how -- horrible, horrible you are. And yet, I got indicted five times and impeached twice. Nobody says anything about that. You know they say, oh. They actually said the other day. Oh, he's trying to indict somebody. I got indicted for five times, huh, Todd?

Maybe more than that. [Laughter] Yeah, I think you could -- you could say 87 times if you really think about it, right? With the 80 -- with the charges. A bunch of phony guys, but nobody says anything about that. But uh, they mentioned it the other way. No, the Democrats play a very dirty game. It's all they're good at. They're good at a couple of things, cheating on elections and playing very dirty.

And they have one good trait. They stick together. They stick together. They stick together through the worst policies that anybody's ever seen. It's unbelievable how they stick together. And I -- I respect them for sticking together. But it's a dead party because their policies are no good. OK?

Question: Mr. President? Mr. President?

Trump: Brian?

Question: Speaking, --

Trump: We'll do a few more and we'll go home.

Question: Wonderful. Speaking of --

Trump: Everybody's going to go home. I'm going back to the Oval Office, however. [Laughter]

Question: Uh, and speaking of Democrats, uh, there's a report that there's a grand jury on Adam Schiff for apparent mortgage fraud. If he is indicted --

Trump: Wow!

Question: Should he step down as a US Senator?

Trump: Well, you know, I'm not going to comment on that. I will just say, Adam Schiff is one of the lowest forms of scum I've ever dealt with in politics. He's a horrible human being. A very dishonest person. I have no idea what's going on. You tell me that he's going to be indicted. I don't know. You could ask Pam. I don't know if she's -- she could say it. Probably, you are allowed to say it. But I wouldn't know about that.

Trump: I can only tell you he's a very -- he's a -- is a very bad -- I think he's actually a sick person.

Question: [Inaudible] but if he's indicted, should he step down?

Trump: Do you want to talk about that?

Question: We're not going to comment on any grand jury that's open. We can't legally. I understand.

Trump: I don't know.

Question: Mr. President? Mr. President?

Trump: By the way. I hope it's true, but I don't know anything about it. [Laughter]

Question: If it --

Trump: Yeah, please.

Question: Are you planning to donate to the ballroom?

Trump: Oh, millions of dollars. Yeah.

Question: Can you give --

Trump: Well, I also give -- you know, I give a lot of money to the White House. The White House is -- uh, as you know, I give my salary. And I usually like to steer it to the White House because this house was a little bit abandoned. First of all, for four years you had a guy walking around that didn't know where the hell he was. [Laughter] And this -- this house was not taken care of the way it was supposed to be. I take very good care of property.

I was very good at that. And you'll notice the floors downstairs. I paid for them. Marble, the most beautiful marble you've ever seen. The white floors down in the Palm Room, which were -- they looked like they came out of -- I don't want to lose because they're big supporters of mine Home Depot. So I'm not going to say bad, but they did come out of a box from Home Depot about 30 years ago.

And they were all broken, but now they have the most beautiful floors, the most beautiful lights and chandeliers. I think most of you, Brian, you've seen that, right?

Question: Yes, sir.

Trump: How beautiful is that? And I take care of it. So uh, I spend millions of dollars on this building, taking care of it. It was not properly maintained. And now it's starting to gleam like it should. It should really gleam. And you should go down and visit the Presidential Walk of Fame. Have you seen it? It's quite, quite good.

Trump: I'm sure that it'll have a lot of people coming to the White House. It's hot, it's very hot. But it's really a tribute to the presidents, past presidents of our country. Yeah, please.

Question: Mr. President?

Trump: Yeah, behind you, please. Yeah, go ahead.

Question: Me? Thank you.

Trump: Yeah, go ahead.

Question: Um, so on Monday, uh, a question for you as well as Secretary Noem. On Monday, Mayor Karen Bass of LA and Representative Robert Garcia, they held a press conference and they called for an investigation into DHS, accusing them of unlawfully arresting US citizens and racially profiling and only arresting people because in Robert Garcia's words, they look like me. He's a Hispanic individual. Do you -- do you have a response to that?

Trump: Are you asking me that Question:? [Laughter]

Question: You -- you as well as Secretary Noem.

Trump: They are arresting -- they are arresting bad criminals. And they're really good at it too. I look at the numbers. You know, they always like to say that, oh, you're arresting this or that. Then when you check it, you find out, geesh, almost every single time. And you know, obviously, every once in a while they may get one wrong, but they always correct it. They're able to correct it. But they are arresting really bad people.

They're arresting people that kill people that would cut your throat and not even care about it. These are brave people. And it's very dangerous. And if they go even a little bit too far, they get into trouble, you know, which is a shame. I protect them, but they get into trouble. But they're arresting very serious criminals and they're getting them out of here.

Question: Mr. President?

Trump: OK, one or two more.

Question: On the filibuster? On the filibuster? Mr. President?

Trump: Doug? Doug, do you have a question? I'd love to have Doug have a question, our great photographer. [Laughter]

Question: Mr. President --

Trump: Because he's such a great guy. And he might be the most talented person over there. I don't know. Huh?

Note: [Crosstalk]

Trump: Go ahead. Let's hear your question. This is -- this guy's a real beauty.

Question: Mr. President, on the cartel strategy, hearing you talk about it as a war, hearing Secretary Hegseth talk about defeating and destroying and the comparisons to ISIS and al-Qaida.

Trump: Right.

Question: Those efforts took American troops being engaged in foreign countries. Do you think that's ultimately where this is headed with the court -- the cartels having American troops in countries like Venezuela?

Trump: No, the cartels are very bad. They had a lot of bad people coming in. They were interviewed, uh, recently and they were asking people what their problem was. And one guy said, yes, I was -- I'm up for murder, didn't know what he was saying, obviously. You know, I'm sure his lawyer was not thrilled with his statement.

But no. They are rough people coming into those cartels. Those cartels are rough. You look at what happens the trip up. The trip up is horrible, especially for women. They're being killed. They're being raped at levels that nobody thought even possible. In my opening speech, I mentioned that, but in a very light way.

I mentioned the word rape. Then I found out that you take a look at what happens in those cartels. It's horrible what's -- what's going on. And we're doing the world a big service by just telling them, you know, they're not -- you don't have too many cartels now because they know when they get up here, they're going to be stopped.

Under Biden, they were just flowing into the country. It didn't matter what you were -- where you came from, what you looked like, what your record? They didn't check records. Millions of people came into this country that should not be in our country right now. We've gotten a lot of them out. It's the single biggest problem that we were given.

Inflation, I've already taken care of. Economically, the country is the strongest it's ever been. Thank God for tariffs. If we didn't have tariffs, we'd be a third world nation. But thank God for tariffs. We're -- we're the richest nation in the world now because of tariffs. And we're able to economically protect ourselves.

And we're able to really protect ourselves from a national security, you know, situation. But uh, we have cartels that, you know, I -- somebody came up with the word cartel. I won't tell you who that person was, but you got a lot of bad people in the cartels. And you could look at a country like Mexico. And I really respect the president.

I really respect a lot of the people over there, but -- a lot of the leadership, but they are in fear in their own country because those cartels are running those countries, OK?

Question: [Inaudible]

Trump: And that includes Colombia. Colombia is a drug den. It's a drug den and it has been for a long time. You got a lousy leader over there right now, they bad guy, a thug. But they make cocaine at levels that we've never seen before. And they sell it back into this -- and they're not going to get away with it much longer.

We're not going to -- we're not going to put up with it much longer. Colombia is very bad. Mexico is run by the cartels. I have great respect for the president, a woman that I think is a tremendous woman. She's a very brave woman. But Mexico is run by the cartels. And we have to defend ourselves from that.

Question: Mr. President? Mr. President? Mr. President?

Trump: Go ahead. Let's -- let's go with you. Go ahead. Let's listen to this beauty.

Question: Do you expect a resolution on the government shutdown by the time you return from your trip to Asia?

Trump: Do I expect to have it resolved by the time I resume? I don't know. Uh, I said long ago, we shouldn't have been in this problem. Uh, this was September 28th. It came due in Biden's regime and before the election, September 28th, and they pushed it off into the future. And I was running when they did that.

And when you're running, you know, but I did say what the hell are they doing? That and debt ceiling. You know, they also pushed the debt ceiling past the election date. So that would mean the next president has it. But I did say that I think the Democrats have gone totally crazy. And you don't know what they're going to do because they don't care about the people.

They don't -- I really think they have no leadership. They have a lot of very low IQ people. Jasmine Crockett is a low IQ person. A lot of them are. I don't want to insult too many of them, but a lot of them are. They have no -- they have no rudder. I don't think they know what they're doing right now. You know, they've never done this before.

They always agreed to go and you know, called an extension. Let's do an extension and talk. Uh, even today, look at what happened today. They wouldn't even -- they don't want to pay the people that have worked. And you know, this was supposed to be sort of -- this was a test. And they wouldn't pay the people that have been working.

They said no, no, we don't want to pay them. This is all the Democrats. Now all we need is five Democrats, and I know a lot of Democrats that are saying they're more than five, probably not that many more than five, but there are more than five. And all we need is like five Democrat votes so we open our country again.

Sad though, we have the greatest economy in our history, we have the highest stock market, all these things are rocking. We have -- we will have by the end of my first year more than $20 trillion of investment. The all-time record is $3 trillion. I think it's China. We're going to have $20 trillion or $21 trillion.

Trump: We've never had anything like it coming in because of tariffs, the money pouring into our country, the plants that are opening. AI, automobiles, everything, and the Democrats want to close our country. They're really -- you know, they say deranged, they are -- they suffer, I guess it's Trump Derangement Syndrome, which I think is going down now as an official condition by the doctors.

I think they get paid extra money if they handle it because it's more difficult to handle than a normal mental disease. But you know what? They really should approve an extension, get the country back to work, get the people paid. And you know it's very simple, you can't -- you just don't know what's going on. There's something wrong with them.

You know, it's sad actually.

Question: Mr. President, I mean, have you raised the full $300 million needed to fund your -- have you raised the full $300 million needed to fund your ballroom? And how much specifically are you donating to this construction project?

Trump: Actually, we've raised I think $350 million, all donor money and money that we put up, we've raised. It's going to be -- it's going to cost right in the neighborhood of $300 million. It's been expanded and made absolutely -- it will be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world, I think.

Question: And how much specifically are you donating to it, first [Inaudible]

Trump: How much am I donating? I won't be able to tell you until I finish, but I'll donate whatever is needed, I'll tell you that.

Question: Do you have a name for the [Inaudible]

Trump: Do I have a name for the -- I won't get into that now. Yeah, go ahead, please.

Question: A follow-up on the shutdown. In the next couple of days, a lot of Americans are going to go without their first full paychecks, federal workers have already --

Trump: By the way, a man -- a friend of mine -- talking about donors, a friend of mine, a man that's great. I'm not going to use his name unless he lets me do it. Susie can tell you about this, but he was -- he called us the other day, and he said, I'd like to contribute any shortfall you have because of the Democrat shutdown.

I'd like to contribute -- personally contribute any shortfall you have with the military because I love the military, and I love the country. And any shortfall if there's a shortfall, I'll contribute it. And today, he sent us a check for $130 million.

Question: Can you share who that is?

Trump: I would love to tell you. He deserves -- he doesn't really want the recognition if you want to know the truth. But he gave us a check for $130 million, which was sort of a shortfall, yeah, and that's going to go to the military, yeah.

Question: And what's your message to --

Trump: Is that the correct number, $130 million? That's what I call a patriot, OK? Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

Transcript courtesy of CQ Factbase