TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Speaks to Reporters on Board Air Force One, 11.2.25
[Video]
Trump: Hello, everybody. How are you? Hope you had a nice weekend.
Question: We did.
Trump: Everyone good?
Question: How are you doing?
Trump: I'm good. I guess we're doing 60 Minutes tonight, but I'm not sure we're gonna be in the plane. We may be midstream. We'll see. But, uh, I think they did a good job. Well, we'll let you know. We'll see how they cut it. So, uh, do you have any questions?
Question: As on Nigeria, just wanted to ask you, did you envisage the Muslims on the ground?
Trump: Could, could be. I mean, a lot of things, I envisage a lot of things. They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria and they have other countries very bad also. You know that, that part of the world, very bad. They're killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. Not gonna allow that to happen.
Question: Mr. President, what's going on with Russian assets, would you say? Are you gonna use those as a negotiating tool? What's Europe saying?
Trump: Russian assets what?
Question: On the frozen Russian assets. So what did you, are you planning to --
Trump: This is a totally different question than Nigeria, I assume, right?
Question: It's different.
Trump: That was quite a, quite a turn.
Question: It's fine.
Trump: I'm not doing that. What happens is, I guess Europe and Russia are having discussions, I'm not involved in this. [Inaudible]
Question: [Inaudible] administration provide you three long-range Tomahawk missiles.
Trump: No.
Question: Is that something that --
Trump: No.
Question: You're not considering that?
Trump: No, not really.
Question: Mr. President on Friday [Inaudible]
Trump: If it happened, I could change, but at this moment I'm not.
Question: What would be the final straw for you? The media is really [Inaudible]
Trump: The what?
Question: What would be the final straw for you that Putin is really not ready to [Inaudible]
Trump: Uh, there's no final straw. Sometimes you have to let them fight it out. They're fighting, they're fighting it out. And it's been a tough war for Putin. He's lost a lot of soldiers, maybe a million. That's a lot of soldiers. And it's been tough for Ukraine. It's been tough with both. Sometimes you have to let it, you know, just get fought out.
You know, we have, uh, we've settled eight wars. I thought that that one would be easier than some of the ones we settled. And by the way, we got three, uh, hostages back. You know, the hostages were, uh, so sad. We're talking about dead bodies, uh, which people call hostages. But, uh, I don't know what you'd call 'em. I spoke to the parents.
Uh, I got Neutra, you know, from New York and, uh, from the United States. And I spoke to his parents and, and they're thrilled in one sense, but in another sense, obviously it's not too great, but we're very happy to have done it. We have three, we got three bodies back today that they found and we're looking for the remainder of the bodies.
Question: [Inaudible] on Wednesday?
Trump: What?
Question: Are you going to the Supreme Court for the tariffs? The arguments?
Trump: I, I, I think it's most important decision, one of the most important decisions in the history of our country. Because without tariffs, without our being able to use tariffs freely, openly, and, and in every way, uh, we are, really would suffer tremendously from a national security standpoint. The national security of our country's at stake.
It's the biggest, I think it's one of the biggest decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. Uh, other countries use tariffs against us if we weren't able to openly and freely use tariffs against them. I'll give you an example. China, uh, that was going to be a disaster for the world. And I was able to settle it very quickly, very easily, because I was able to use tariffs.
It's total national security. And economic health is also part of national security, by the way. But without tariffs, uh, we, our country would be in great jeopardy.
Question: But will you attend the oral arguments at the Supreme Court?
Trump: No, I don't think so, because I don't wanna call a lot of attention to me. It's not about me, it's about our country. I'll be going to Miami. I'm gonna make a speech in front of a large group of people in Miami. I said I wanted to go so badly. I just don't want to do anything to deflect the importance of that decision.
Trump: If we don't have tariffs, we don't have national security. And the rest of the world would laugh at us because they've used tariffs against us for years and took advantage of us. And you see what's happened, we've become wealthy. Our stock market hit a record high on Friday, a record high. It's been 48 record highs during my term.
Trump: And a large part of that's because of tariffs and our good trade deals. Without that, you couldn't make a good trade deal. And you know, we were subject to being abused by a lot of other countries, including China for years. Not anymore. Tariffs have, uh, brought us tremendous national security.
Question: Venezuela. Venezuela, is there a deadline for Venezuelans to act against these drug gangs [Inaudible]
Trump: I don't ever set deadlines. I do what I do, but I don't set, whether it's Venezuela or anything else, I don't set deadlines.
Question: You said that, you said that it's not true that you've made a decision on Striking in Venezuela, but are there actual plans for those strikes in the near future?
Trump: Well, how can I answer a question like that? Are there plans for a strike on Venezuela? Who would say that? Suppose there were, would I say that to you honestly? Yes we have plans. We have, we have very secret plans. Who would say that? You know, what kind of a question is that? Look, uh, we'll see what happens with Venezuela.
Venezuela sent us thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of people from prisons, from mental institutions, drug addicts, and so did other countries. That's the bad. I mean, other countries did it too, because we were run by very stupid people. Very, very stupid people. Biden was the worst president in the history of our country by far.
We had open borders and many countries, the Congo, many countries, they sent their prisoners. They sent prisoners, they sent drug dealers, they sent drug addicts. They sent anybody, anybody that they didn't want. They sent them through our country and, uh, Venezuela was one of the worst abusers. So.
Question: [Inaudible] Democrats say that the way that this shutdown ends is if you directly engaged and negotiate a deal on extending these ACA subsidies, is that --
Trump: Well, all they have to do is open up the country. You know, we voted 14 times to open the country. We have voted 14 times to open the country and they vote to keep it closed. All they have to do is vote to open the country. And we only need five Democrats. They have a lot of Democrats. We only need five. But the Republicans have voted 14 times to open the country.
Question: You directed your lawyers on snap, you directed your lawyers on snap, uh, on snap benefits. You put out truth social post on Friday, directing to your lawyers to look into whether or not you can move around funds. What did, did they get back to you? Did you find out if you can --
Trump: Well, It's a much easier situation than that. Uh, if they vote to open the country and to open up immediately, we don't even have to think about that.
Question: Mr. President I wanted to ask about, um, [Inaudible], um, Prince Andrew in the UK has had his royal title stripped away because of the Epstein scandal. I know you're close to the royal family there. Do you have any thoughts on --
Trump: I feel very badly. I mean, it's a terrible thing that's happened to the family. That's been a tragic situation and uh, it's too bad. I mean, I feel badly for the family.
Question: Mr. President, are you still planning to meet with Jensen Huang? Have you spoken with him after your talk? Jensen Huang of NVIDIA. The, the CEO of NVIDIA.
Trump: Yeah, I've spoken to him. What about it?
Question: So are you planning to meet with him? You said when you were --
Trump: I meet with, uh, look, he's one of the great geniuses of our time. His chips are 10 year -- years ahead of anybody else's. And you know, I meet with him all the time. He's a great, it's a great American company. It's now the biggest company in the world. Uh, so what would you like to know? I mean, NVIDIA is a, is really a, just a brilliant company.
The chips are 10 years, the new Blackwell that just came out. It's 10 years ahead of every other chip, but there's nothing to meet with other than say congratulations. But no, we don't give that chip to other people,
Question: Are you meeting with the Syrian President?
Trump: We don't give that chip to other people.
Question: Are you meeting with the Syrian president at the White House or did you invite him?
Trump: Who?
Question: The Syrian president. The Syrian president.
Trump: Uh, he may be coming. I don't know. I mean, He's working very hard. We took sanctions off of Syria to give them a chance of survival. And I hear he is doing a very good job. Thank you very much, everybody. Uh, I'm gonna try in watch 60 minutes, but I may be delayed. Let's see if they treat me better than they, uh, treat other people. Although I do say this, they treated Kamala very well.
Question: Are you going to watch it --
Trump: In fact, they changed your answers.
Question: Are you going to watch it here?
Trump: I will try. But we may land just as it starts, right? It's very split-second. But thank goodness for TiVo for something thereof. Right. TiVo.
Question: We'll be back. Right.
Trump: We love TiVo. We love TiVo. One of my favorite, one of the greatest inventions in history. Have a good time. Thank you.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President.