TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Speaks to Reporters Before Air Force One Departure, 8.03.25

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President Trump: OK. Thank you very much. We had a very good weekend in many respects. We're seeing phenomenal numbers in terms of the business we do with other countries and the business we do within our own country. I mean, really phenomenal numbers. We'll be announcing a new statistician sometime over the next three or four days. We had no confidence. I mean, the numbers were ridiculous, which he announced, but that was just one negative number. All the numbers seem to be great and so we'll see how that comes out. And if you remember just before the election, this woman came out with these phenomenal numbers on Biden's economy, phenomenal numbers. And then right after the election, they announced that those numbers were wrong, and that's what they did the other day. So it's a scam, in my opinion. My opinion is just -- it's just additional scam.

Question: On Russia, Mr. President, can you say, have those nuclear submarines been deployed yet to face Russia?

Trump: I've already put out a statement and the answer is they are in the region, yeah, where they have to be.

Question: [Inaudible] Steve Witkoff's message will be to the Russians? Is there anything they can do to avoid sanctions at this point?

Trump: Yeah, get a deal where people stop getting killed. They had a number that just came out that a tremendous number of Russian soldiers are being killed and likewise, Ukraine. A lower number, but still thousands and thousands of people. And now we're adding towns where they are being hit by missiles. So it's a lot of people being killed in that ridiculous war. And you know, we stopped -- we stopped a lot of countries from war, India and Pakistan. We stopped a lot of countries and we're going to get that one stopped too. Somehow, we're going to get that one stopped. That's a really horrible -- well, you heard about Cambodia and Thailand. We got that one done. We got the Congo, which was going on for 31 years. Rwanda, that one's done. We stopped a lot of wars. This is the one we seem to be -- this should be the easiest to stop and it's not -- I mean, Rwanda and Congo were going on 31 years and I got it stopped. Eight million people dead, at least. That's what they have, but I think the number is much higher. And the leaders of each country, Rwanda and the Congo, they were great, they were great and they wanted it stopped. 31 years it went on. We stopped a lot of wars. Serbia Kosovo was going to be happening and I don't believe it will now, so we stopped that one too. Yes.

Question: You said you had more of an update to give us on Gaza, on the Gaza strip. Can you give us anything now?

Trump: Only, we want the people fed and we're the only country that's really doing that. We're putting up money to get the people fed. And Steve Witkoff is doing a great job and we want Israel to get him fed. We're giving some pretty big contributions, basically, to purchase food so the people can be fed. We don't want people going hungry and we don't want people to starve and there's some bad things happening.

Question: Do they see evidence of a genocide in Gaza?

Trump: I don't think -- it's sad. Look, they're in a war. They're some horrible things happened on October 7th, as you know. It was a horrible, horrible thing, one of the worst I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of bad things in some president in terms of wars and potential wars. I mean, if you look at the one that we just stopped, they had thousands of people being dead already at the border between Thailand and Cambodia, thousands of people. And I mean, I've seen some bad things, but that October 7th with Hamas was really, really bad.

Question: Mr. President, can you give us an update on Steve Witkoff and Russia and what happens on Friday if the deadline comes and Russia has not agreed to a ceasefire?

Trump: We'll there'll be sanctions, but they seem to be pretty good at avoiding sanctions. You know, they're wily characters and they're pretty good at avoiding sanctions. So we'll see what happens, but Steve is focused right now on the border in terms of -- we're talking about with Gaza, getting people fed. And he may be going, I think next week, Wednesday or Thursday, maybe going to Russia. They would like to see him. They've asked that he meet, so we'll see what happens.

Question: Mr. President, what advice do you have for Republicans on Capitol Hill heading into midterms, what do they need to do -- what can they do to, you know, hold chambers?

Trump: Well, of the things they're going to be talking about pretty soon are the tremendous drop in drug prices. You know, we've cut drug prices by 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 hundred, 1,500 percent. I don't mean 50 percent, I mean, 1,500 percent because we're going favored nations. We want the same price as Europe gets. We want the same price as other country gets. And over the years, 25, 30 years ago, it started where they were charging us much more, and I put an end to it, you know, with a letter that you saw last week. So I think that's going to be a point. I don't know how anybody could win an election if they're on the other side of that issue. So we'll be dropping drug prices. It will start over the next two to three months, by 1,200, 1,300 and even 1,400 percent and 500 percent, but not just 50 percent or 25 percent, which normally would be a lot. Because the rest of the world pays much less for the identical drug and we're going to be paying the same thing. We're going to have a favored nations. We will pay as low as the lowest nation in the world.

Question: And then Mr. President, I think it just came out, $29 billion in July taken in, in tariff revenue. Could we see a potential rebate here and what would that look like and who would qualify?

Trump: Well, we're going to pay down debt. We have a lot of money coming in, much more money than the country has ever seen, by hundreds of billions of dollars. And there could be a distribution or a dividend to the people of our country. I would say for people that would be middle income people and lower income people, we could do a dividend. But one of the things we're going to be doing is reducing debt. But we have hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into our country now. We should have done this many years ago and I did it in my first term with China. We didn't get to the rest because COVID hit and you couldn't really go to France and Spain and Italy and say let's start talking about some tariffs. But China was paying us hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs and we did it then. And then Biden screwed it all up. He screwed -- everything he touched, he screwed up. Thank you.

Question: Mr. President, will you endorse Winsome Earle-Sears in the Virginia governor's race?

Trump: Yeah, I would. I mean, I would. I think probably she's got a tough race. She should -- she shouldn't have. But -- because the candidates she's running against is not very good. But I think she's got a tough race, but I would. Yeah.

Question: When will you swear in Jeanine Pirro to be the US attorney for D.C.?

Trump: I will happily swear in Jeanine Pirro, who's going to be fantastic at what she does in D.C., over the next very short period of time. I think she's going to be fantastic. Don't forget, Jeanine Pirro was a great judge and a great prosecutor. And because she was so good, I was there, she was an amazing prosecutor and judge and because she was so good, they drafted her into show business and she did fantastic -- you know The Five was the number one show, etc., etc. Jeanine Pirro was also really good at that, but her real love is exactly what she's doing and that's what made her such a success in show business. So Jeanine Pirro is going to be amazing and I'll swear her in as soon as we can swear her in. We need her. She's going to be amazing.

Question: Mr. President, are you happy with how the Rose Garden turned out and will you have some kind of event? The Rose Garden, are you happy with how it turned out?

Trump: Great reviews on the Rose Garden and we had to do it. As an example, when we had a press conference, you'd sink into the mud. And it was grass and it was very wet, always wet, damp, but wet. And if it rained, it would take three, four, five days for it to dry out and we couldn't use it for really the intended purpose. So whether they had events or they had news conferences, we couldn't use it and it's a beautiful white stone and it's a stone that's the same color as the White House itself. And because it's very white, it's going to reflect the heat. It's not going to be very hot, like if you had a dark stone. So yeah, we've gotten great reviews on the Rose Garden.

Question: Any update on the search for the Federal Reserve Board? Have you been interviewing candidates?

Trump: No, I have a couple of people in mind. I'll be announcing somebody for the filling of the person that left. A woman left, as you know, who is a, I guess, a Biden appointment. Either Biden or Obama, but I think a Biden appointment. And she left early and I think she left because she agreed with me on interest rates and yet they were on the other side of the ballpark, right? So I'll be announcing that probably over the next couple of days.

Question: OK. Mr. President, one more on tariffs here as you continue to, you know, pile up these trade deals, are you kind of gaining more leverage over countries that haven't come out and made a deal with you?

Trump: I'm not looking for leverage. I'm looking for fairness. We want reciprocal as much as possible. Sometimes reciprocal would be too much for them to handle because it would be a much bigger number, but we want to see some --

Transcript courtesy of CQ Factbase.