TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Speaks to Reporters on Board Air Force One, 11.14.25
[Video]
President Trump: How are you? How are you? Can you turn that down, please? Too much. Too much. Okay.
Question: Mr. President, what did Jeffrey Epstein mean in his emails when he said you knew about the girls?
Trump: I know nothing about that. They would've announced that a long time ago. It's really what did he mean when he spent all the time with Bill Clinton, with the president of Harvard, who, you know who that is. Summers, uh, Larry Summers, whatever his name is. And all of the other people that he spent time with.
Uh, Jeffrey Epstein and I had a very bad relationship for many years. Uh, but he also saw strength because I was president. So he dictated a couple of memos to himself. Give me a break. Uh, you're gonna find out what did he know with respect to Bill Clinton, with respect to the head of Harvard, with respect to all of those people that he knew, including JP Morgan Chase.
Yeah, Johnny -- go ahead.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Question: On Venezuela, sir --
Trump: Quiet. Quiet, piggy.
Question: On Venezuela, sir, you've had a lot of meetings on Venezuela. I know you can't tell us what your next steps will be, but could you say, have you made up your mind on what you'd like to do for as far as action for Venezuela?
Trump: I haven't made up my mind yet. I mean, I can't tell you what it would be, but I, I said, man.
Question: What do you say to your, some of your supporters might not be excited about another foreign campaign. What would you --
Trump: What happens? I mean, uh, I can't tell you what it is, but we've made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in. But we have a Mexico problem. We have a Colombia problem, meaning Colombia, the country, uh, we, uh, we're doing very well. Drugs coming into our country are greatly slowed as you can imagine.
Question: On the tariff rollback, sir, does this signal only change on their message as affordability for [Inaudible]
Trump: Oh, I just wanna bring down some of the foods. Look for the most part, the foods, when we cut back a little bit on those tariffs, uh, we'll get the price down, but they're not competitive in this country, like tomatoes and bananas and things. We don't make them in this country. So there's no protection of our industries or our food products.
So what we're going to do is we cut back, you'll see prices come down even lower. You have to understand, we've all suffered from the Biden prices, which were much higher than they are right now. But I'll be able to get them down even lower, at least a little bit lower, possibly in some cases, a lot lower.
Question: More rollbacks in the future, in your tariff policies.
Trump: What do you mean?
Question: Will there be more rollbacks in the future? Could you change anything else with tariffs?
Trump: I don't think it'll be necessary. We just had a little bit of a rollback on some foods, like coffee as an example, where the prices of coffee are a little bit high now. They'll be on the low side in a very short period of time. I'm very good at this. The problem is we inherited the country when we took over January 20th, where the prices were through the roof.
So they were up 30, 40, 50%. If we got 'em down 30%, that means they're still higher than where they were. We had a great, uh, we had a great four years, and I think this is gonna be even much better. And in terms of affordability, it's not a good word for the Democrats. It's a good word for us 'cause our prices are much lower. It will soon be much, much lower than they were under the Democrats.
Question: Mr. President, Mr. President, um, my, my newspaper, the Telegraph has led the way in exposing --
Trump: You're with Telegraph?
Question: [Inaudible], sir, yes.
Trump: What a job you did.
Question: Thank you.
Trump: What a job you did.
Question: Uh, we let the --
Trump: Are you proud of yourselves?
Question: We've had a good couple of weeks.
Trump: Do you ask BBC like that?
Question: Well, we have good sources. Uh, we found out --
Trump: Honestly, congratulations. You did a great service to a lot of countries, a lot of great human beings, if you wanna know the truth, that exposing what fake news is all about. What BBC did, nobody would even think a thing like that was done. They actually changed the words coming out of my mouth.
Question: Sir, the BBC has apologized and retracted the report, but they say they won't pay any compensation. Is that enough?
Trump: We'll sue them for anywhere between a billion and $5 billion probably sometime next week.
Question: So you're ready to take legal?
Trump: Well, I think I have to do it. I mean, it's, they've even admitted that they cheated.
Question: How's that --
Trump: I mean, not that they couldn't have not done that. They cheated, they changed the words coming out of my mouth. That's worse than what CBS did with Kamala. They changed your answer, but at least they didn't show it you know, coming out of her mouth.
Question: Do you think it's appropriate the British TV viewers have to pay more than $200 just for the right to watch television? Do license fee should be scrapped?
Trump: Are they doing it, uh, in a place that I like a lot? The general UK, right. But, uh, the people of the UK are very angry about what happened as you can imagine, because it shows the BBC is fake news, which you and I knew that for a long time, but we didn't know it was this fake.
Question: Have you raised the issue with Sir Keir Starmer?
Trump: I have not, but I'll call him. I'm gonna call him over the weekend. He actually put a call in to me. He's very embarra- -- you know, that's -- I don't know what percentage is owed by the country, but regardless if it's small or large or nothing, uh, I can say this. The UK is very, very embarrassed by BBC, what they meant.
Question: Uh, Mr. President, you've said that tariffs do not increase prices for consumers, but now you're lowering tariffs.
Trump: I say they may in some cases, but to a large extent, they've been warned by the country as an example. We have virtually no inflation and yet, we've taken in hundreds of millions of dollars. So we've taken in hundreds of billions of dollars. We've used tariffs to stop wars. You look at India and Pakistan. Look at so many wars I stopped just by saying, "I'm gonna oppose tariffs on your country if you're gonna have a war."
Question: Sir --
Trump: In that case --
Question: France.
Trump: Yeah, in that case, it was [Inaudible] a war, and I stopped it by using tariffs. But oftentimes, and to a large extent, the countries themselves pick up the damp, the, the companies, the damp. And I find that based on inflation, we have virtually no inflation. When I inherited the country from sleepy Joe Biden, the inflation, it was the highest inflation in the history of our country.
Trump: Or at least 48 years. They used 48. I, I say it was the history. We don't have, we have now a low inflation. Going to be very soon even lower. But we'll get some of the prices down a little bit, which will bring them down to a new low.
Question: How much of the tariffs being picked up by Americans?
Trump: Uh, I think very little. I mean, I really think very little. If you look at it and when you add the trillions of dollars that the coun- -- our country is making, when you add the fact that I'll be giving back $2,000 or so to middle-income people, low-income people, everybody but the rich, we'll be giving $2,000 back, and you add that in. When you add the fact that our country is extremely rich and we have no wars and we're respected again.
When you add the fact that when China was threatening to us in terms of rare earths, I was able to solve it just by putting tariffs on China, and we made a deal a week later. When you add all of the benefits, the single greatest thing we have right now is the use of tariffs, and I used them properly. Uh, for years they've been used against us. And I think, uh, you know, whether you call 'em tariffs or anything else, if you didn't use them, you really would've an unguarded disaster on your hands.
Question: Those $2,000 payments, will that be inflationary? Because previously Republicans have said that sending money you, like under Biden, could slight --
Trump: [Inaudible] this is money earned as opposed to money that was made up. You know, that money was made up. Biden gave, like, the Inflation Reduction Act, which did not reduce inflation, and it wasn't meant to. And they admitted it was a phony name. But they spent hundreds of billions of dollars on a fake deal called the Inflation Reduction Act.
That was made up money. When I spent, when I pay people $2,000 each for, uh, low and moderate income and middle income people, everybody but the rich will get this. That, that's not made up. That's real money that comes from other countries. Yeah.
Question: Speaking of China, since you've made the deal, since you struck the deal with them, has the Chinese agreed to actually purchase any soybeans? Have they locked in any soybean purchases?
Trump: They're in the process of doing it. We spoke to 'em today. They're in the process of doing not only a little bit, but they'll be doing a lot of soybean purchase.
Question: Do you know when? In the spring or --
Trump: It started, uh, before that, I think before. It started --
Question: Can you say --
Trump: They'll be buying a lot of soybeans. But really, Jennifer, a lot of everything else.
Question: Can you say who you spoke with or who the, your team spoke with?
Trump: Top of the line, top of the --
Question: [Inaudible] check, sir. How soon could Americans see those checks? Will that be in time for Christmas? How many shop week --
Trump: No, no, not for this year. It'll be next year sometime.
Question: Do you have a timeframe?
Trump: No. Sometime during the year next -- It's a lot of money, but we've taken in a lot of money from tariffs. The tariffs allow us to give a dividend if we wanna do that. Now, we're gonna do, do a dividend, and we're also reducing debt. We have, because of Biden and others, uh, we have a 37 trillion in debt.
So we're gonna be doing a dividend, which people will enjoy and spend and do what they want, but we're also going to be reducing debt very substan --
Question: What if the Supreme Board rules against you, sir? Is there a guarantee --
Trump: Well, then I, uh, I'll have to do something else. We'll have to figure something else. That would be a very sad day for our country. We use -- Just today, I stopped a war. I won't go into which one, but you'll be able to figure it out.
Question: Cambodia and Thailand.
Trump: But I s- -- that was quick. Very smart. Good, thank you. But just today, I stopped a war by the use of tariffs. Oftentimes, I'm able to do that. And if you think of the cost of war, just forget about death, which is number one, but the death within those countries, but that all comes to [Inaudible], in one form or another, it all comes right back to us. Uh, I stopped the war just today through the use of tariffs, the threat of tariffs. If we didn't have that, other countries would use tariffs on us, and we would have no fair means of fighting back.
Question: Is that a [Inaudible] if Cambodia and Thailand just stopped?
Trump: Uh, they're doing great.
Question: Mr. President.
Trump: They were not doing great. And then, then, you know, they had a conflict as you know.
Question: Sure.
Trump: And I spoke to the prime ministers of both countries, and they're doing great. I think they're gonna be fine.
Question: Mr. President, what are you doing on healthcare subsidies? We see people's ACA premiums going up soon.
Trump: Yeah. Healthcare subsidies is a good Question:. So Obamacare, which is the Unaffordable Care Act, it's, it is totally unaffordable. We want -- You see the kind of money the insurance companies are making, hundreds of billions of dollars. Their stock is up over a 1,000% over a period -- a relatively short period of time.
What we're going to be doing, what I'm going to be recommending, not this. Obamacare is a disaster, far too expensive and lousy health care. We're gonna give the money to the people to buy their own healthcare. And the kind of money that we give to the insurance companies is more than going to take care of it.
Question: [Inaudible]
Trump: People are gonna be able to buy their own health insurance, and it's gonna be great healthcare, and they're gonna get paid by the government. The government will be do -- it'll be one of the greatest deals this country's ever made. So we're -- Instead of giving it to insurance companies, big, fat, bloated insurance companies, we're giving the money directly to the people to buy their own healthcare.
Question: Won't Americans buy it from insurance companies?
Trump: Uh, some may. I mean, they'll be negotiating prices, truly free enterprise. They'll be a -- You know, you can do it through an insurance company. You can also buy it direct. You know, they have savings accounts. They have a lot of different ways of buying healthcare.
Question: I got a Question:, uh, you asked for an investigation today, the people with [Inaudible]
Trump: Yeah.
Question: [Inaudible] a major democratic donor, what impact do you hope that that an active investigation could have on next [Inaudible]?
Trump: Can I heard they are appointing the U.S. attorney, and I hear a really good one to look into. I hear Southern District is gonna be looking at Jay Clayton, that, uh, he's a great man, a great attorney, and he's a highly respected -- One of the most respected people in the country in terms of law and law enforcement.
As you know, he headed up the SEC, he was the head of Sullivan and Cromwell for years. He's one of the most respected people in the country. He's, uh, been confirmed for the Southern District. And I heard Jay is gonna be looking into it. Jay Clayton is a real -- You know, he's a real legal talent and a very, very legitimate person.
Question: Do you believe that a president should be able to order investigations?
Trump: [Inaudible] the chief law enforcement officer of the country. Uh, not that I want to use that, but I am considered the chief law enforcement agent in the country. And I'm a, I'm allowed to do it. I don't wanna do it. I'm not doing it. I had nothing to do with that choice. As an example that came from Pam Bondi, from the DOJ. Uh, but it -- You can't pick a better person than Jay Clayton. He's truly one of the most respected people in that world.
Question: Have you [Inaudible] tracking the Georgia RICO case at all, did you see the news on that today?
Trump: Which one?
Question: The Georgia case, the RICO case. Apparently they're continuing with the investigation into you and your allies, related to the 2020 election. Not tracking that?
Trump: You mean the Fannie Willis case?
Question: I think so.
Trump: I can't imagine. And I thought that case was over. I was told that case was totally over.
Question: Mr. President, have you [Inaudible] a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell?
Trump: I haven't even thought about it. I mean, I haven't thought about it for months. Maybe I haven't thought about it at all. You're just asking me a Question:. And I don't talk about that. I don't rule it in or out. I don't, I don't even think about it.
Question: On Epstein [Inaudible] the congresswoman was on CBS News. She was talking about how the files should be released. We anticipate that a vote will happen in the house. I know that you had the, the, [Inaudible] about the investigation today.
Trump: I don't care about it, released or not. What I think you should do, if you're going to do it --
Question: House, I know who you had talked about the investigation to --
I don't care about it released or not. What I think you should do, if you're going to do it, then you have to go to Epstein's friends. Uh, there's Reid Hoffman, spent a lot of time with the island. I, I was never on his island. Uh, Bill Clinton went there supposedly 28 times. Uh, you're gonna have to look into his friends because, you know, if they're gonna do that, and I think the perfect guy to do it would be Southern District, somebody like Jay Clayton, I understand that's who's been assigned [Inaudible]
Question: You're willing to release of more files, is there a timeline on this?
Trump: [Inaudible] have a point?
Question: Does she have a point?
Trump: I know nothing about her. Uh --
Question: Or release the files, all the files.
Trump: Well, she can have, they can have whatever they want. They already do. I think they have 50,000 pages already. Look, this is a Democrat hoax, this is a hoax put out by the Democrat, and a couple of few Republicans have gone along with it because they're weak and ineffective. But this is a Democrat hoax to get away from the fact that they just lost the shutdown and they've lost the elections, they've lost the big election to me in a record number.
They lost the popular vote. They lost the swing states. They lost everything. I think it was 312 to 220-something. So, uh, this is a way of not talking about that, it's a hoax. This is no different than Russia, Russia, Russia, and it's headed up by Democrats and some very weak Republicans.
Question: I was just wondering if you have a timeline for when --
Trump: Okay.
Question: Timeline for when you might release more of those files. Can I --
Trump: Which one? Which --
Question: Democrats to Epstein.
Trump: Well, I dunno. [Inaudible] about those files, I know nothing about it, but I understand they released like 40,000 or 50,000 pages already.
Question: Okay.
Trump: And, uh, nobody -- I will say this, if they had anything, they would've used it before the election, okay? We can't tell you what they put in since the election, but if they had anything, you don't think they would've used it before the election? They would've gladly used it before the election.
Question: So speaking of these --
Trump: Jennifer.
Question: Why were you, who, why was your team encouraging Congresswoman Boebert,
Congresswoman Mace to not pursue this?
Trump: 'Cause we think it's bad to talk about it because it gets away from the subject of how well the Republicans are doing. We have the greatest economy, we have the largest investment ever made in our country's history, we have all of these great things happen, we have very little inflation, whereas he had record setting, the biggest inflation in history.
All of these things are good, and when you talk about the Epstein hoax, what happens is you're not talking about how well we've done --
Question: Mr. President, and on that subject --
Trump: The whole purpose behind them. They wanna waste people's time and some of the dumber Republicans like them.
Question: Mr. President, on that subject, are we gonna see --
Trump: It's mostly Democrats but --
Question: Are we gonna see more domestic travel from you as you try to sell that message, are we gonna see some rallies?
Trump: Domestic travel?
Question: Yeah, to sell you a message.
Trump: But I'm here, I just got back from a big trip, a very successful trip with [Inaudible], and with, uh, you know, all the countries that I saw, many countries over there, but we stopped at Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, it was a phenomenal trip. We had a great meeting with President Xi, who's, you know, a great leader, great country actually, whether you like it or not.
Uh, China's, uh, great country, amazing, amazing place, and Japan, amazing place. We stopped at, uh, tremendous countries with tremendous leaders, and we did really well, we brought back trillions of dollars in trade and other things.
Question: But someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene would say you're spending too much time overseas, you're not spending enough time selling your domestic --
Trump: No I said that Marjorie Taylor Greene said, "Oh gee, I'm spending too much time overseas.' So let's say I don't meet with China. You know what's happening right now to Georgia, to every other state? They're not working because your magnets and your rare earths would've kicked in and there wouldn't be a factory in the world that was working.
If I didn't have a relationship overseas with China, with Japan, with South Korea, with all of them, Malaysia went to Malaysia, but visited many more countries than that, if we didn't do that, if we just stayed right here, you would right now have no factory anywhere in the world that would be working because of rare earth with China.
Not only that, we made a deal with China, we've taken billions and billions of dollars. We made a deal with Japan, we've taken billions of dollars. We made a deal with South Korea, we're taking in billions and billions of dollars. If I would stay home, none of that would be happening. And, and by the way, I stay home 95, 98% of the time.
The last thing I wanna do is travel 22 hours in an airplane, as nice as this plane is. So Marjorie Taylor Greene is not any way, I mean, she has a very different thinking than I have. Uh, something happened to her over the last period of a month or two where she changed I think politically. I, I think that her constituents aren't gonna be happy.
Already I have people calling me, they want to challenge her to race in her district in Georgia, and you know, that's too bad. She's lost a, a wonderful Conservative reputation, but when she says, "Don't go overseas." If I didn't go overseas, we might be in a war right now with China.
Question: [Inaudible] nuclear sites testing, Sir, on nuclear testing. Sir, are you receiving any meetings about [Inaudible].
Trump: We're gonna to nuclear test make clear tests because other people test. We have other countries that test. We have more nuclear weapons than any other country. I'm the one that renovated them and built some, and I hated to do it, but I had no choice because they have it. We have more, Russia second, then China is a distant third, but within four or five years, they're gonna be up with us. What I would like to do is I would like to go denuclearizattion.
In other words, where we have a meeting primarily of the top three to cut back on nuclear weapons. That would be a great thing.
Question: How soon could a test take place though?
Trump: Pretty soon. Let's say pretty soon.
Question: China's [Inaudible] US?
Trump: We're number one. Russia's number two. China's number three. They're catching up. They're quite a bit distant from us right now, but they, they'll catch us in four, five.
Question: Mr. President could you tell us --
Trump: And I think, I think the best thing would be if we denuclearize.
Question: Mr. President, could you tell us why you needed to get an MRI? I, I understand that the results were good, but what was it for?
Trump: Because it's part of my physical. Getting an MRI is very standard. Well, you think I shouldn't have it? Other people got it.
Question: [Inaudible] specific part of your body.
Trump: I had an MRI. Here's what you s- -- serious. I had an MRI. The doctor said it was the best result he has ever seen as a doctor. That's it. But I had an MRI as part of my standard yearly or every w- -- I think they do it every two years, but I have the physical every year. And the result was outstanding.
Question: Is it your brain or --
Trump: Uh, I have no idea what they analyzed, but whatever they analyzed, they analyzed it well. And they said that I had as good a result as they've ever seen. Now the other thing I took is I took as you know, a, uh, advanced, very advanced test on mental acuity. Because I think a president should have to do that.
And as you probably heard, I aced it. I got a perfect score. I got the highest one, I got a perfect score. And the only reason I tell you that is it's one subject, unlike Biden and others, that you can take off your plan.
Question: [Inaudible] nuclear testing. Just to be very specific. Are you saying you want to explode a warhead?
Trump: I don't wanna tell you about that. But we will do nuclear testing like other countries do. We have more nuclear weapons than any other country, and we have to test.
Question: Republicans took a hit in the last election. Do you think you'll get on the road for the next election?
Trump: Oh yeah, I'll be helping people. Yeah.
Question: Okay.
Trump: I'll be on the road helping people.
Question: Would you be --
Trump: Sorry, but the midterms are very important. And again, I think we should terminate the filibuster. Republicans should terminate the filibuster. The Democrats would do it immediately. If they ever got power. And without Manchin and Sinema, they would've done it [Inaudible]
Question: [Inaudible] open to endorsing someone? Primary Marjorie Taylor Greene given her latest statements.
Trump: Well, it depends on who runs against her. I mean, I'm no longer much of a fan 'cause I disagree with her policy. When she said that, you know, going uh, to foreign countries, bringing back trillions of dollars is not important. Do you think I wanna go and be on an airplane for 20 hours? Some of you were with me, 22 hours to be exact travel and then get off and make a speech and get people to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in our country.
I'd rather do it without having to go. But if you didn't go, you wouldn't be able to have that kind of result. As an example, Malaysia, uh, if you look at Thailand, I stopped a war in Thailand and Cambodia. If I didn't go to that region, I probably wouldn't have been able to stop that war. That war would've been very costly in terms of lives, but even costly in terms of us.
Question: Are you meeting with Indiana lawmakers next week? Are you meeting with lawmakers from Indiana next week [Inaudible]
Trump: Not that I know. I might be. I don't know. They will, I guess they're making a decision as to whether or not they wanna gain, uh, for the Republican Party one or two more. Uh, by the way, I will say this. I heard one or two more seats. I heard that a big lawsuit will be taking place is, but will be taking place concerning the California hoax.
Where they're trying to get five more seats. And California is one of the most dishonest elections ever. They send out tens of billions of ballots to people all over the place. Many of those people get two and three ballots and they come back. California's a disgrace on voting and they're doing something that is very illegal. So we're, we have, we o- -- or we'll be suing California on the five seats. The d --
Question: The Department of Justice will be?
Trump: The Department of Justice. Yes. Being headed by the Department of [Inaudible]
Question: You're meeting the Saudi Crown Prince next week. Uh, tell us [Inaudible]
Trump: [Inaudible] meeting we're honoring, uh, Saudi Arabia, the Crown Prince, [Inaudible]
Question: What are your goals in the meeting? Uh, and have you [Inaudible] to the sell F-35 fighter jets to the Saudi Arabia. Why, why you'd do that?
Trump: Well, they wanted to buy a lot of jets. We make the best jets. We make the best missiles. You saw that when we took out the nuclear capability of Iran. No, you know, for 22 years they wanted to do that. No president had the guts to do it. We did it. And Iran is a different place. By the way, Iran wants to negotiate a deal too.
Everybody wants to negotiate with us now. If we didn't have military strength, if we didn't rebuild our military in my first term and now we continue to do it, Biden dissipated it by giving a chunk to, uh, the Taliban. Not, not a good idea. [Inaudible] But you know what the good news is? It was a lot, but relatively very little.
Question: So [Inaudible] you're not sure yet?
Trump: Uh, I'm looking at that. They've asked me to look at it. They wanna buy a lot of, 35. But they wanna buy actually more than that, fighter jets. Yeah.
Question: Will the Abraham Accords be a part of that conversation?
Trump: What?
Question: Perhaps getting -- The Abraham Accords, getting Saudi Arabia to [Inaudible]
Trump: The Abraham Accords will be a part. We're gonna be discussing -- I hope that Saudi Arabia will be going into the Abraham Accords fairly shortly. We've had tremendous interest in the Abraham Accords since we put Iran outta business. Okay. Thank you much. Thank you everybody.
Question: Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Question: Thanks Karoline.