TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Speaks to Reporters on Board Air Force One, 10.13.25
[Video]
President Donald Trump: Thank you very much. So this was really a historic day, to put it mildly. Wasn't it amazing? Even that last meeting, when you see the heads of those countries, those, those are serious countries, right? Uh, but it was, I thought it was fantastic, I thought. And seeing the -- you -- Uh, I mean the so-called hostages, but those kids come back home, and the way their parents just went, just went crazy. Your father would not be that way with you. He'd be okay, but he wouldn't be like that.
Question: I, I would get a hug.
Trump: A hug.
Question: [Laughs]
Trump: Minor hug. Okay. Come on, Peter. Let's go. No, you would get -- I'm only kidding. So, uh, how are you doing? Everybody okay? Every good?
Question: How are you feeling? [Laughs]
Trump: I feel good. I mean, you know, it's, uh, it's a long day, right? It's a long day. And we did a coupla big ones. That first one was, it's getting, it's getting great reviews. I will tell you that there's a lot of meat in there. They're dissecting it and just playing it all night long. It's been, it's been very good. I think it, it's a very, it's a very important day, 'cause nobody thought this was possible. So it's very good. And the press has been very respectful for a change. Doesn't happen often. Go ahead, Peter. Let's, let's go.
Question: What does it tell you about the world, that it seems like you got a much better reception in Israel than you would get in like New York City right now?
Trump: I think I get a great reception in New York City. [Inaudible]
Question: I'm not saying that you don't, but it was like s --
Trump: -- I like --
Question: It was on another level today.
Trump: Well, yeah, you're right. It was incredible. But, but I went to, uh, the Bronx and we had 30, 31,000 people in a park in the Bronx, in New York City during the campaign, 31,000. You remember that? And it was the friendliest crow you've ever seen, and very diverse, but it was friendly. So I mean, New York is good. It's good.
Question: But New York City, bad example. But it was, uh, I don't know if you could see through them.
Trump: Are you admitting you made a mistake?
Question: [Laughs]
Trump: I don't believe it.
Question: I don't --
Trump: Oh, this is breaking news. No, I'm kidding.
Question: First rule of politics --
Trump: Let's go. All right.
Question: -- never admit a mistake. Uh --
Trump: Never admit. [Laughs]
Question: But it was, uh, in the motorcade, I don't know if you can see, there were people hanging out of every --
Trump: There were. They were fantastic.
Question: -- apartment balconies, uh, inside the Knesset. Uh --
Trump: It's okay. So I've heard, like they said, "If you did Russia or if you did, you know, lots of different combinations, they say the Middle East blows it away." And I said, "Well, I probably -- experts." It's just thousands of years, nothing's been done. It's a whole thing with the Arabs, Jewish people, this, that, everybody, it's just, it's just never been done before. And there's a certain mystery to the Middle East. I mean, look, uh, it's only because the ratings, you know, you're only as good as the ratings. Right? If they weren't getting ratings, your people at Fox would -- And by the way, Trey is excellent.
Question: He, he does a really good job.
Trump: He was really good.
Question: He was hoping --
Trump: We did, we did a very quick interview. I was running to the second one where we were pretty late.
Question: Uh, something that we heard from some Israelis on the ground, they wanna know how the peace holds when you are not the president, so three years from now.
Trump: I can't answer it. I can't answer it. I know this. And you are all witness. We go, and I get 25,000, 35,000 for -- If you look at a normal president, we'll get 300 people. And that's not bad. You know? They'll go to a ballroom, they get 300 people, we get 35, we had 117,000 people in New Jersey. And so I can't tell you what's gonna happen, but I'll be out there fighting for whoever it may be.
Question: Did, uh, So, yeah. Did you tell Bibi beforehand that you were gonna go off script and --
Trump: No. I actually --
Question: -- try to get him a pardon?
Trump: -- told him I didn't wanna bring up the pardon.
Question: Yeah?
Trump: But it was just a perfect spot. It was good timing, wouldn't you say? Because he was getting a very good hand, and when they stopped, they said, "Why didn't he give this guy a pardon?" If he didn't get a good hand, I would've done that. But the timing was -- What do you think, Katie? Good timing for that, wasn't it?
Question: I, I think people thought it was pretty funny. Yes.
Question: [Inaudible]
Question: Yes.
Trump: See, I'm always -- It worked out well. It's a little risque, [Laughs] and I'm bringing up a, a pretty sore subject in Israel. But the people were fantastic. We were really -- [Inaudible]
Question: Mr. President, you spoke to --
Trump: Uh-oh, here we go.
Question: -- Egypt.
Trump: She can ask more questions, this one, huh?
Question: [Laughs]
Trump: Go ahead.
Question: I have some good questions. I promise.
Trump: You do. You did. You were very nice today. Go ahead.
Question: You, you talked to, uh, President El-Sisi.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: And, and you, you spoke about in that room how Egypt has so little crime. And you said, "It's all about leadership." You talked about s --
Trump: 'Cause they're very strong on crime.
Question: You talked about some of the governors.
Trump: Like, you wouldn't believe how strong, but they are very strong. But they don't have the kind of crime. They don't have the violent c- -- They may have other kinds of crime, but their violent crime. You can actually walk down a park and not get mugged or hit over the head with a baseball bat.
Question: Do you wanna see some US governors be more like Egypt?
Trump: No, I want 'em to be stronger and tougher, and not allow us to have record-breaking crime in Chicago and different places. Uh, I want them to admit they have crime. So, uh, there were 4,000 shootings in Chicago, murders, over a fairly short period of time, meaning like a year and a half, I think. They had 4,000 murders. Um, many, many thousands of you're hit by a bullet, but don't die. I want him to say, "We have a problem." Could Trump bring in the troops and solve the problem, like I did in D.C., like I'm doing in Memphis? Have you seen that crime's way down in Memphis? So we've only been there seven days. Way down.
Question: The courts have been standing in your away here. It's, it's held up --
Trump: It has been. No, the lower courts have.
Question: [Inaudible] the Insurrection Act [Inaudible]
Trump: The lower, well, I could use it. If I wanted to, I could use it. Look, that's a very simple answer. I -- I'm allowed to use the Insurrection Act. In fact, that was on, uh, Stephanopoulos today, his Slopidopoulos show. They asked, uh, sloppy Chris Christie about the Insurrection Act. He said, "Well, if you're talking about the Insurrection Act, he's got the absolute right to use that." And he said a couple of things that were good. He said 50% of the presidents that served in office have used the Insurrection Act and the Insurrection Act, according to all of them, said it can't even be challenged. I'm not, I don't have to go there yet because I'm winning on appeal. You know, you're right. We're losing with radical left judges, generally, radical left judges. And, uh, we're winning on appeal. So we'll see what happens.
Question: I'll be speaking to Governor JB Pritzker tomorrow. Do you have any messages or questions for him?
Trump: Well, I think he should beg for help because he's running a bad operation. I mean, he's letting people be killed in his city because he doesn't want -- in Chicago. And I love Chicago. Chicago can be a great city again. And very quickly I would have Chicago cleaned out, the criminals removed. We would remove them. You know, in D.C., we took out 1,700 career criminals, hard line criminals. That's why it's so good right now. D.C's setting records the other way. It's never been so safe. And the restaurants have never done better business. They're opening up new res- -- they were closing restaurants. Now they're opening new restaurants. I can do the same thing in a larger scale in Chicago, and Pritzker should ask me to do it. But when you mention insurrection, I mean, you were the one that mentioned, one of you mentioned, Insurrection Act, yeah, I mean, I could do that. And, uh, many presidents have.
Question: Do you have an update on --
Trump: 50%, Katie, 50% of the presidents have used the Insurrection because they don't want to go through this stuff where somebody said there's no crime and 4,000 people got shot. You know. Right?
Question: Maybe you'll have to use it.
Trump: You don't have to convince, because she's, tends to be on the conservative side.
Question: Uh, do you have an update on the Schumer shutdown and Democrats still continuing to refuse to vote for the --
Trump: Schumer shutdown. I mean, it's, uh, look, they wanna have, uh, healthcare for illegals that have come in. Many of these people are criminals and they want to have healthcare. And what it also does is it, you know, we have nobody coming in now. We have it really locked down. If they start winning cases like this, we're gonna have a rush on our border because they're gonna come up for healthcare and the other things that they give away. Look at Newsom, education, healthcare. He gives everything away. People come up for that. People come from other countries for that. So we can't have it. We can't have that. We have people coming into our country, but they're coming in legally.
Question: Do you have any more meetings with leadership?
Trump: We have the strongest border we've ever had, but they are coming in, Katie. They're coming in legally through a process.
Question: Do you have any, any planned meetings with, uh, House and Senate leadership on the Republican side to figure out [Inaudible] this week?
Trump: I'll meet with them. I talk to them all the time. John Thune's been great and Mike has been great. Speaker, he's been great. Those two guys have done a great job. But we're dealing with a bunch of radical left lunatics that have lost an election in a landslide. They don't even admit that. I mean, think of it, they lost the election 2,700 in terms of counties to 525. Two thou- -- That's where the map is internally, right? They lost all seven swing states. They lost the popular vote, and then they say, "Oh, the election was close." She says the election, the election was a landslide, but they lie. You know, they'll, they, they can take any subject like Newsome does. He says, "Oh no, Los Angeles is doing great." If we didn't go into Los Angeles, you would've had to, they would've had to cancel the Olympics.
And the head of law enforcement said, and he said it very strongly, "We could not have handled this if Trump didn't bring those people in." Two weeks later, he said, "Oh, we could have," because he was told to say that. But, uh, we did a great job in Los Angeles. You wouldn't have -- First of all, you lost half of it with the fires. And this would've been, I think this would've been maybe even worse. They have, they had no control. When we went in, they had, the police had totally lost control. And he admitted it, the head, whoever he is, whatever his name is, uh, he admitted it very strongly.
Question: Reaction to president Bill Clinton giving you credit for ending the war in Gaza and are there --
Trump: I've always liked Bill Clinton. I've always gotten along with him. He used to be a friend of mine. He came to my wedding, you know. So did she. People don't know that. But, uh, now he's, uh -- I've always liked him. I thought it was very nice, actually.
Question: Mr. President --
Trump: And, and what is he doing? He's telling the truth, because nobody else has been able to do, talking about the Middle East. Yes.
Question: Mr. President, um, I, I wanted to ask you about your conversations with world leaders today. You said that everybody's unified over your plan, but we heard from President Sisi, uh, calling for a two-state solution, an independent Palestinian state.
Trump: We're talking about a different plan. I'm talking about, uh, something very much different. We're talking about rebuilding Gaza. I'm not talking about single-state or double-state or two-state. Uh, we're talking about, uh, the rebuilding of Gaza.
Question: What's the road ahead for governing Gaza? Just --
Trump: Well, we're gonna have to see. I mean, a lot of people like the one-state solution. Some people like the two-state solutions. We'll have to see. I haven't, I haven't commented on that.
Question: How do you see bridging that gap though? Because you have the Arab countries, they're gonna declare that --
Trump: At some point, I'll decide what I think is right, but I'd be in coordination with other states and other, other countries.
Question: And are you satisfied? I mean, some people might say if it was premature declaring peace for the whole Middle East, you know, 3,000 years at least, so --
Trump: Premature, wait. So why? Like, you want more people to be killed? What do you want, another three, 400,000 people to be killed? Is that what you're looking for?
Question: But in terms of the risks in Gaza, you know, we're already seeing the --
Trump: The risks? The risk -- So you're being let 'em fight on for another couple of years and let some more buildings fall down on top of people and keep it going? No, no, we did it the right way. We did it. I think our timing was perfect, actually.
Question: I mean, in terms of that --
Trump: You don't really mean that, you mean you want 'em to fight on, right?
Question: I'm just asking about the phase two of the negotiations and how confident you are that those can get underway into --
Trump: Well, for -- Yeah, yeah. You know, we have a lot of power. That, that was a power room. Those people, those are the richest countries. I think with, now with tariffs, I think we're the richest country in the world, actually, the United States. We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars. But, uh, those are, you know, really seriously rich countries and, uh, they can handle it.
Question: Some of those players and particularly Erdogan, could they also help in the war between Russia and Ukraine?
Trump: Yeah, Erdogan can. He is respected by Russia. Uh, Ukraine, I can't tell you about, but he is respected by Putin, and he's a friend of mine. You know, you can see. Why? I get along with the tough ones. I don't get along with the weak ones. I get along with the tough ones. I don't know what that is, but Erdogan has been great with me. You know, when NATO has a problem with Erdogan, which they often do, they call me to talk to him, and I've never failed in working it out like immediately. Is that right? How's Karoline doing? Is she doing good?
Question: How are you doing? [Inaudible]
Question: Doing great.
Trump: Would Karoline be replaced? Huh?
Question: That's up to you, sir.
Trump: It'll never happen.
Question: Nobody wants to [Inaudible]
Trump: It'll never happen. Look --
Question: Thank you. Thank you.
Question: Mr. President, elaborate [Inaudible]
Trump: -- that face and those, Katie, and those lips, they move like a machine gun. Right?
Question: Do you wanna elaborate on the, the, the countries --
Question: [Inaudible]
Question: -- you consider weak?
Trump: Uh, they really are. Okay. What?
Question: Do you wanna comment on the leaders you consider weak who are in that room?
Trump: No, I won't comment on that, but you know probably who they are, but I didn't --
Question: Before we --
Trump: I don't know, uh, really. Yeah, there were a couple in the room, but, but, uh, overall, I, overall, I thought -- And that was an amazing group of people. I don't think they've ever seen an assemblage like that between power, money, you know, et cetera, et cetera. There's never been anything like that.
Question: Mr. President.
Question: On the weekend, you said you would give Tomahawk --
Trump: So, we're up. But you know what, I have to because --
Question: Yes, sir --
Trump: -- the plane is going to take off, but we'll come back later.
Question: Are you hosting Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday?
Trump: I think so, yeah.
Question: Yes.
Trump: Bye, everybody.
Question: Thanks President Trump.
Question: Thank you.
Trump: Have a good time. Thank you everybody.