TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Speaks to Reporters Before Air Force One Departure, 11.16.25
[Video]
President Donald Trump: Hey everybody. We had a, a great weekend. From an economic standpoint, our prices are coming down very substantially on groceries and things. They're already at a much lower level than they were with the last administration, and we worked on it this weekend. And you're gonna see some of the items that were a little bit higher. They were lower than the last administration, but a little bit higher. We we're gonna have some little price reductions, and in some cases some pretty good one. Uh, they use the affordability word. The affordability is much, much better with this. And again, I go to Walmart and other companies, and in every case it's about 25% that, uh, a meal, a Thanksgiving meal, and surroundings are 25% lower than it was under the Biden administration. That's a big fact. And that comes from Walmart and others that do that. Okay? Any questions?
Question: Any update on Venezuela, Mr. President? On Venezuela, update?
Trump: No, no, no update on Venezuela.
Question: With, with the designation of that cartel associated with Maduro, does that mean that the US government can target Maduro's assets for infrastructure inside Venezuela?
Trump: It, it allows us to do that, but we haven't said we're going to do that. And, uh, we may be discussing, we may be having some discussions with Maduro and we'll see how that turns out. But they would like, they would like to talk.
Question: Mr. President, Representative Massie says he's concerned that the Epstein probe you are calling for could be a smoke screen to lock the release of more files. Is that the case?
Trump: Well, I don't wanna talk about it because, uh, fake news like you, you're a terrible reporter, and fake news like you, they just keep bringing that up to deflect from the tremendous success of the Trump administration. So, a guy like Massey, his poll numbers are showing he is at 6% approval rating right now.
Trump: And, uh, we call him Rand Paul Jr. because he never r- -- he never votes for the Republican Party. So they're using, uh, Jeffrey Epstein as a deflection from the tremendous success that we're having as a party.
Question: Mr. President --
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: You said they wanna talk.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: -- you said Venezuela wants to talk. What does that mean?
Trump: Venezuela would like to talk. Why does it mean? You tell me, I don't know.
Question: Don't you want to talk to them?
Trump: I talk to anybody, I talk to you, right? I talk to anybody. We'll see what happens.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Greene said her life would be a danger because of the rhetoric?
Trump: Her, her life is in danger? Who's that?
Question: Marjorie Taylor Greene. She says --
Trump: Marjorie Traitor Greene. Uh, I don't think her life is in danger. I don't think, frankly, I don't think anybody cares about her. Okay? What about you?
Question: [Inaudible] healthcare? Are you negotiating, are you negotiating with lawmakers on healthcare ahead of a vote next month?
Trump: I am. We're negotiating with lawmakers, and I've had personal talks with some Democrats. I can't tell you who they are. I just don't want to do that. It's not fair to them about, uh, paying large, uh, amounts of dollars back to the people. You know, this was my idea. It came up during that, you know, oftentimes in, uh, time, under times of stress, like the shutdown, you come up with good, great ideas that you wouldn't have thought of before. The insurance companies are making a fortune. Their stock is up over a thousand percent, over a short period of time. They are taking in hundreds of billions of dollars and they're not really putting it back. Certainly not like they should. So when I see this, and when I've seen this over the last pretty short period of time, I said, why do we, why do we just pay this money directly to the people of our country and let them buy their own health insurance?
And, you know, I made that statement and I made it a little bit cavalierly, but it sounded good. And everybody is picked up, including Democrats. And we, I am talking to some Democrats right now about doing that. People love it. We're gonna take the money, well, if it gets approved, we're gonna take the money. We're gonna pay it back to the people of our country to go out and buy health insurance so they can put it in a health account and we can do it a lot of different ways, but they'd buy their own health insurance. They can negotiate price and it's, it's gonna be locked. So they can't go out and buy a, a Cadillac. They can go out and buy health insurance.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: -- time to move legislation that puts pressure on Russia, it puts pressure on Putin --
Trump: Well, I hear they're doing that, and that's okay with me. Uh, they're passing legislation or putting, the Republicans are putting in legislation that, uh, very tough, it's sanctioning, et cetera, et cetera on any country doing business with Russia, they may add, uh, Iran to that, as you know. I suggested it. So any, uh, country that does business with Russia will be very severely sanctioned. Uh, we may add Iran to the formula. Yeah.
Question: Mr. President --
Question: Mr. President, why --
Question: -- Tucker Carlson recently had a friendly interview with anti-semitic, Nick Fuentes. What --
Trump: Who did?
Question: It was Tucker Carlson. What role do you think Tucker Carlson should play in the Republican Party, the conservative movement?
Trump: Well, I found him to be good. I mean, he said good things about me over the years. He's, I think he's good. We've had some good interviews. I did an interview with him, we were at 300 million hits. You know that. Uh --
Question: But should he be platforming Nick Fuentes?
Trump: -- look, I can't tell him --
Question: Should he be --
Trump: Will you let me finish my say. You are the worst. You're with Bloomberg, right? You are the worst. I don't know wh- -- why they even have you. Uh, we've had some great interviews with Tucker Carlson, but you can't tell him who to interview. I mean, if he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don't know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word out. Let him -- You know, people have to decide. Ultimately, people have to decide. Uh, the mayor of New York, I will say, would like to meet with us and we'll work something out. But he, he would like to come to Washington and meet. And we'll work something out. We want to see everything work out well for New York.
Question: A few years ago, you had dinner with Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago a few years ago. What role should he play in the conservative movement?
Trump: Well, I didn't know he was coming and he was with, as you know, somebody, Kanye. And Kanye asked if he could have dinner, and he brought Nick. I didn't know Nick at the time. And, uh, he did. He came and along with a few other people. He brought a few people with him. Uh, meeting people, talking to people, like for somebody like Tucker, that's what they do. You know, people are controversial. Some are, some aren't. I'm not controversial, so I like it that way. Okay.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: Are you discussing options with Congress? Are you going to Congress to discuss potential options here?
Trump: We like to keep congre- -- Congress involved. I mean, we're stopping drug dealers and drugs to come, from coming into our country. And I actually told Marco and some of the people, our Secretary of State. He's doing a great job, by the way. I said, "Go to Congress and let 'em know we're not letting drugs come through Mexico. We're not letting them come through Venezuela. And let Congress know about it." We don't have to get their approval. But I think letting them know is good. The only thing I don't want them to do is leak information that's very important and confidential and may put our, our military at risk or whoever is doing, you know, CIA, military, etc. But I did say, I said, "Go and see Congress, see the representatives that we're supposed to be seeing, and be open about it." If they say, "We don't want you to stop drugs from coming into the country," I don't think that would be good. Yes.
Question: Are any other countries committed to helping the U.S. with Venezue- -- Venezuela or have all our actions filled?
Trump: Yeah, we have great support because it's all about drugs. Well, in Venezuela's case, it's about drugs and it's also about thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that they've released into our country. And some are gang members from Tren de Aragua. Some are, uh, drug, many are drug dealers. Some are murderers. So in the case of Venezuela, it's about, it's the prison population. Their almost entire prison population was released into the United States. You know what that mean? Their prison population was released into the United States. And we're getting it out. We're doing an amazing job. We have a strong border now.
We have everything. Our country's doing so well. But what the Biden administration did to our country should never be forgotten. And the single worst thing they did is allow 20 or 25 million do- -- people to pour into our country. People from prisons, drug dealers, mental institutions, bad people, gang members. To allow that to happen to the United States totally unchecked and unvetted should never be forgotten. What they've done to our country is a very bad thing. But we are correcting it. We have strong borders now. We have a great economy. The, uh, prices are coming down. The Democrats like to use the word affordability, but their affordability was terrible.
The problem with the Democrats, they lie. They do it so well. They talk about affordability, but I'm the one that's getting the prices down. As an example, they had the highest inflation in the history of our country. I have it down now to a normal level, and it's going down further. Thank you very much, everybody.
Note: [Crosstalk]