TRANSCRIPT: Remarks: Donald Trump Inspects the Flagpole Installation at the White House - June 18, 2025
[Video]
President Donald Trump: So the White House opened about 1800, a little before that, just a tad. And I've always said, why doesn't it have a flagpole from the grass? They got a flagpole from the grass. They have a little one on top, very little one. This is about the largest you'll ever see and it's tapered. It's at a quality that you guys rarely get to even put up. They do that for a living. They're incredible people. I don't know them, but I love them and I would bet that they all voted for Trump. I mean, I don't know for a fact, but I think so. But we're about to lift it and we also have one going on what's called the front, or the North. We have one going there, identical. So we'll have one on this side of the building and we'll have one on that side of the building, properly placed. In this case, we had a lot of choices, putting it on that hill, putting it in different places. It's such a beautiful pole. We thought we'd put it near -- I mean, it always looks best when it's near a Doral. I put it right near -- I have a similar pole and these are the best poles anywhere in the country, or in the world actually. They're tapered. They have the nice top. I don't know if you people are esthetic. They're the fake news, so I don't know if I'm -- I don't know if they are, but it's a very exciting project to me. And then at 11:00, we're lifting the flag, but we're going to lift the pole now and then they're going to the other side, get that and then we're going to do, I think, two flag lifting. We'll be putting it up at 11:00 here and a couple of minutes later, on the other side. We'll start here at 11. So that'll be very nice and very patriotic. We're doing well as a country, if the fed would ever lower rates, would buy debt for a lot less. It's a shame, this guy -- I have a guy -- do you ever have a guy that's not a smart person and you're dealing with him and he's not a smart guy. He's worried about inflation. I said, that's right, if there's inflation in six months or nine months, you lower the rates or you raise the rates, you can do whatever you want, Brian, right?
Unidentified: Right.
Trump: So let's say there's rampant inflation, which there's none. You know what, there is success. I got a call from Congress last night, sir, there's a problem. I said, what is it? Money is pouring in. We don't know how to account for it. I said, check the tariffs, $88 billion came in from tariffs, no inflation. And it's going to get even more. So I know what I'm doing. So we have a stupid person, frankly, at the fed. He probably won't cut today. Europe had 10 cuts and we had none. And I guess he's a political guy. I don't know. He's a political guy who's not a smart person, but he's costing the country a fortune. So what I'm going to do is -- he gets out in about nine months, he gets fortunately terminated. I would have never reappointed him. Biden reappointed him. I don't know why that is, but I guess maybe he was a Democrat. He got great advice from Mnuchin on this one, great advice. But he's done a poor job. So we have no inflation. We have only success and I'd like to see interest rates get down. Now, Biden did a lot of very short-term debt. So we have short-term debt coming due and because of this guy's rates, if he'd lower it a point, I'd pay about a point less. Then if he'd lowered two points, I'd pay about two points less. And that's for 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, five years, it's hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars that we're going to lose because of this too late -- I call him too late Powell because he's always too late. I mean, if you look at him, every time I did this, I was right 100 percent. He was wrong. Maybe I should go to the fed. Am I allowed to appoint myself, Doug? I don't know. Am I allowed to appoint myself as the fed? I'd do a much better job than these people. So anyway, we should be two points lower, be nice to be two and a half points lower. We'd be saving $800 billion, $700 billion. That's a lot of money, right? Thank you. For nothing, for absolutely nothing. We'd save $600 billion, $700 billion, $800 billion. I think we're 38th now in interest and we should be number one. We should be the lowest. And by the way, if he's worried about inflation, that's OK. I understand that. I don't think there's going to be any, so far there hasn't. We have almost no inflation. We've done a great job. When I came in, we had a lot of inflation. We went through four years of the highest inflation in the history of our country with Sleepy Joe Biden, Sleepy Joe. And he didn't know what the hell he was doing. And so we had the highest inflation we've ever had in the history of our country. And then it came down because when I got elected, it started dropping because people understood that I knew what I was doing, but now we have a man that just refuses to lower the fed rate, just refuses to do. And he's not a smart person. I don't even think he's that political. I think he hates me, but that's OK. He should. He should. I call him every name in the book trying to get him to do something. I've been nice to him. I do it always. I know how to sell. I've been so nice to him, fellas, you wouldn't -- let's have dinner. Too late. I talked too late.Come on, too late, let's have dinner. I do it every way in the book. I'm nasty, I'm nice, nothing works. He's like just a stupid person, but I don't expect anything. Maybe he does a little bit, but we should be two and a half points. Remember, Europe had 10 cuts. We had none. We're paying more rate, more interest than a lot of European nations that can't carry our suitcase. I'm going to be nice. There's another expression. You know what the other expression, can't carry your, you know what it is, but I shouldn't use it in front of the fake news. So it's very sad to see it. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go very short-term, like six months, seven months, eight months. Wait until this guy gets out, get the rates way down and then go a long-term because we have a tremendous appetite for our debt because our country is doing well. But think of it, I got a call from Congress three nights ago, sir, we can't account for the money coming in. I said, that's a good problem. The bad problem is we don't have any money. They can't account -- there's so much more money than we thought is coming into the Treasury, we don't know where it's coming from, sir. I said, check out the tariffs. He calls back about a day later, wow, I think you were right. Yeah, I was right. That's nothing. You haven't seen anything yet, more importantly than the money coming in, we have factories being built, AI, auto factories. Two of them stopped yesterday in Mexico, you read and they're coming here because they don't want to pay the tariffs, can't pay the tariffs doesn't work. So I just want to uh wish you a lot of luck with the new flagpole. We have two of them and we're going to do this one now, then we're going to do the other one 11:00 or so. We're going to have a flag raising which will be great. And I got to get these guys back to work. They're making a fortune, standing around making a fortune. But remember this, somewhere in this group, there's somebody that is going to captivate some movie producer, not Harvey Weinstein, but Ð Harvey's seen a better day. So it won't be Harvey, but it'll be somebody. And they'll say that guy is perfect for a movie and you're going to become a star and your friends are going to call you and you won't even return their phone call anymore. [Inaudible] what do you do for a living? I put up flagpoles. I'm not even going to talk to you. I'm a big movie star. So somewhere here, you have that. Anyway, let's have a good -- they call it a lifting. They also use another word, but I'm not going to use that word. You know what that is, the word? It starts with an E. You know what the word is? If I ever used it, I'd be run out of town by you people. All right. So enjoy it. Doug, you're going to get some good -- he's going to win another Nobel Prize, I think, for this picture. So maybe the flag will be even more exciting, but this is pretty exciting. That's some equipment, I'll tell you what. Look at that [Inaudible] -- that's some beautiful equipment. There's nothing like America. Have a good time everybody.
Question: Mr. President, have you given to answer questions about whether you are moving closer, or you believe the US is moving closer to striking Iranian nuclear facilities? Where is your mindset on that?
Trump: Well, obviously I can't say that, right? You don't seriously think I'm going to answer that question. Will you strike the Iranian nuclear component? And what time exactly, sir? Sir, would you strike it? Will you please inform us so we can be there and watch?
Question: But would you say you're closer to wanting to get involved?
Trump: You don't know that they even do it. You don't know. I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I'm going to do. I can tell you this, that Iran's got a lot of trouble and they want to negotiate. And I said, why didn't you negotiate with me before all this death and destruction? Why didn't you -- I said to people, why didn't you negotiate with me two weeks ago? You could have done fine. You would have had a country. It's very sad to watch this. I mean, I've never seen anything like it. You never thought it was going to be the reverse. I didn't think so. And I was telling him, you got to do something. You got to negotiate. And at the last minute, they said no, we're not going to do that and they got hit. Remember 60 days and then came the -- 61 is going to become a very famous number. That was one hell of a hit, that first hit. That was one hell of a hit, not sustainable, to be honest. That's where -- it ended on the first night.
Question: Mr. President, [Inaudible]
Trump: Yes.
Question: Is it too late though? Do you think it's too late to now make a deal –
Trump: Not really. The only thing too late is Powell. Powell is too late. Too late Powell.
Question: Have the Iranians reached out to you Mr. President?
Trump: What?
Question: Have the Iranians reached out to you?
Trump: Yes.
Question: And what did they say?
Trump: I said, it's very late. I said, it's very late to be talking. I don't know, there's a big difference between now and a week ago, right?
Question: Mr. President, you said we make -- you just about said we may meet. Is this about Vance and Witkoff possibly going to talk with them?
Trump: It's about anybody. They may even have suggested they come to the White House. It's a big difference, but they've suggested that they come to the White House. That's courageous. But it's like not easy for them to do, but they suggest because I can't go now because of what's going on. I had to come back early from the G-7, which was terrific, by the way, in Canada, really terrific, good people.
Question: Is there a possibility of next week or sooner that these officials –
Trump: Well, I don't know how much longer it's going to go on. They're totally defenseless. They have no air defense whatsoever, totally captured. We totally captured the air. Brian?
Question: Mr. President, you've been fairly compassionate towards the Iranian people –
Trump: I have been. It's human -- they're human beings. I know a lot of people from Iran, from New York, from Washington, mostly from New York. They're incredible people. They're smart. They're energetic. They can be difficult, but so can you. No, they're great people, smart people and those people are getting the hell beat out of them now. And it's really a shame. It's so stupid. It's so stupid. It's another one. Russia, Ukraine is so stupid, would have never happened if I was president. You guys agree with that, right, would have never happened if I was president. Putin would have never done it and I spoke to him yesterday and I said -- he actually offered to help mediate. I said, do me a favor, mediate your own. Let's mediate Russia first, OK? I said, Vladimir, let's mediate Russia first. You can worry about this later. But I think that's going to work out too, but it's so many people have been killed. The big thing with that one is far more people are dead than have been reported in the Ukraine, Russia, many, many more people. A building falls down, they say nobody was hurt.
Question: What does unconditional surrender mean?
Trump: Well, you know what it means, unconditional –
Question: Can you explain –
Trump: Two very simple words, very simple, unconditional surrender, that means I've had it. OK, I've had it, I give up, no more. Then we go blow up all the nuclear stuff that's all over the place there. They had bad intentions. For 40 years, they've been saying death to America, death to Israel, death to anybody else that they didn't like. They were bullies. They were schoolyard bullies and now they're not bullies anymore, but we'll see what happens. Look, nothing's finished until it's finished. War is very complex, a lot of bad things can happen, a lot of turns are made. So I don't know. I wouldn't say that we won anything yet. I would say that we sure as hell made a lot of progress and we'll see. The next week is going to be very big, maybe less than a week, maybe less. But is there anybody here that said it would be OK to have to have a hostile -- zealous, really, but to have a hostile country, have a nuclear weapon that could destroy 25 miles, but much more than that, could destroy other nations just by the breeze blowing the dust. You know, that dust blows to other nations and they get decimated. This is just not a threat you can have. And we've been threatened by Iran for many years. And if you go back and look at my history, if you go back 15 years, I was saying, we cannot let Iran get a nuclear weapon. I've been saying it for a long time. I mean it more now than I ever meant. Yeah?
Question: A question on deportations, Mr. President. You said last week that changes would be coming for farmers who've seen a lot of the workers they rely on taken away. But then DHS said this week that worksite enforcement would remain in place [Inaudible]
Trump: Well, everybody's right. Look, we got to get the bad people out of here first and we're doing that. We're taking them out by the thousands, murderous, drug dealers, people that are mentally insane, from insane asylums. What they gave to us, fellas. They gave, oh -- do we have anybody in here that's a member [Inaudible] you've known all these people for a long time, any illegal immigrants [Inaudible] If they were, they'll find out.
Unidentified: Right.
Trump: They'll be checking you. You won't believe. Your whole life will be destroyed because of this press conference, watch. They'll destroy these people. I didn't want to tell them that before they start, but they'll end up being, oh, he's a so-and-so. This one is from, you know where, no, I think you're going to be OK and I'll be right behind you.
Unidentified: Thank you.
Trump: Far behind. I'll be right behind you. No, look, we have to take care of our farmers. We have to take care of people that run leisure hotels. I mean, we have to take care of them. But most importantly, we have to get the criminals out of our country. And Biden let in thousands -- 11,888 murderers, many of them murdered more than one person. Can you believe it? Almost 50 percent of them murdered more than one person. He let them into our country. They emptied out the jails of countries from all over the world, from the Congo, from Venezuela, from all over the place they emptied out. There's just many of them. I would. If I were running one of the countries, I would have emptied out my prison population into the US and many countries did. And we're getting them out, OK? We're getting them out. Thank you very much. Let's just watch this. Brian, go ahead. Are you OK?
Question: I was going to follow up on the immigration real quick.
Trump: Yeah.
Question: Can you comment on the impact of a Trump card, how much revenue [Inaudible]
Trump: Yeah, we have a thing called the Trump card. This has not been done before or thought of and for $5 million, this is usually people that would either be working for companies like Apple, I think is going to buy a lot of them, because they can't get people into the country. If you come in through the southern border, you have no problem. You can be a criminal, you can be a drug dealer and you have no problem. But if you go and graduate number one in your class from a great school, you can't get a job because there's no access to getting here. You can't get a green card. So we're going to sell that to people, in some cases wealthy, in some cases not wealthy. They'll be paid for by universities. Look at Harvard, they got $53 billion. That whole thing is coming to an end. It's amazing what we found out. What a disgrace. They have $53 billion. We gave them $5 billion, $6 billion, and some people say it's as much as $9 billion over a short period of time. So that's very much coming to -- they want to make a deal more than -- I would say, Harvard wants to make a deal more than Iran wants to make a deal, and Iran wants to make a deal. I mean, look, a lot of things are happening on a lot of fronts, Brian. A lot of good things are happening. And frankly, it's a little bit of a, as we used to say liberal, now they say progressive. I use the word liberal. Progressives too nice a word because they're destroying the country. They're really destroying. The liberal politicians are destroying our country. Look what they've done during Biden's four years. I mean, we're working on -- so much of our effort goes to getting people out of the country that should have never been here in the first place. What he's done to this country -- it's not him. He had no idea what was going on. Everybody knows that. It's other people. It's Lisa and this one and that -- all these people, all the scum that was around the Oval Office or around the beautiful Resolute Desk telling this guy, here, do this, do that and not even telling. They just go over to the autopen and sign whatever the hell they wanted to sign. To say what you want about Biden, he wasn't for open borders. He wasn't for transgender for everybody. He wasn't for men playing in women's sports, but he has no idea what the hell -- he has no idea and they were very upset. They wanted Bernie Sanders. And after about a week of this guy, they said wait a minute, we just hit gold. This guy has no clue. He'll do anything we tell him. And then they realize they don't even have to get permission. They just go up to the autopen. That's a subversion. That's a takeover of our government and you people ought to start looking at it. That's a takeover. Not only did they cheat. I guess you saw yesterday came out with China and the license plates, tens of thousands of cards. They used those cards to vote on the second election, my second, the one 2020. Because as everybody here knows, I won that election by a lot, but the only good thing I can say is this is a much more historic term than I think I could have had as a second term. This is a much more historic election and now we're going to put up a beautiful flagpole and we're going to put up a flag and I hope you enjoy it and let's see how real people work. These are real people. You're not real people. Your job is so easy. OK? Thank you very.
Question: Mr. President, how tall is the flagpole?
Trump: Close to 100 feet.
Question: [Inaudible] Pakistan, sir, do you have meetings today with the Pakistani army chief of staff?
Trump: Yeah.
Question: What are you looking forward to achieving diplomatically?
Trump: Well, I stopped the war between Pakistan -- I love Pakistan. I think Modi is a fantastic man. I spoke to him last night. We're going to make a trade deal with Modi of India. But I stopped the war between Pakistan and India. This man was extremely influential in stopping it from the Pakistan side, Modi from the India side and others. And they were going at it and they're both nuclear countries. I got it stopped. I don't think I had one -- did I have one story written about -- I stopped a war between two major nations, major nuclear nations. I don't think I had a story written about it, but that's OK. Did anybody write that story about the war? Did anybody? Did you write it?
Question: We wrote one.
Trump: Oh, did you write it?
Question: Of course. Just one more on the flag pole, sir.
Trump: You wrote it.
Question: Any adjustments that need to be made for Marine One departures and arrival?
Trump: No, no, we put it so that Marine One is very far away. We did it in conjunction with the Air Force, with everybody and everybody signed off on it. No, we have to have it far away. It's very far from -- Marine One's out there. It's out on the field, so you have to have a certain distance. We're about three times that distance.
Question: OK.
Trump: Thank you very much, everybody.
Question: [Inaudible] Prime Minister Netanyahu about getting involved? Mr. President, what do you say to the supreme leader of Iran who says that they will not -- Say good luck –
Trump: Say it.
Question: When does [Inaudible] run out?
Trump: It's already run out. That's why we're doing what we're doing. They had [Inaudible] days -- 60 days, plenty of time and they made a mistake. Honestly, they made a mistake. Their country is in ruins. So many people are dead that shouldn't be dead. It's very [Inaudible] Come on over here. You don't have to ruin your shoes. That's why we're changing the grass. People were ruining [Inaudible] the wires go inside. [Inaudible] nice, right? When they're outside, they're very noisy. They snap in the wind.
Question: Mr. President?
Trump: Yeah.
Question: I hear that this is a personal project for you, sir.
Trump: It is. Yeah. Well, I'm paying for it.
Question: You spend your own money on it?
Trump: Yeah.
Question: Wow! How much did this cost?
Trump: I'd say each pearl is like $50,000.
Question: Is there any update on the ballroom?
Trump: Yeah, we start pretty soon. We're going to have a beautiful ballroom. Good question. Right here. See your east wing? It goes from here, all the way, see the big piece of land over here, goes all the way over to there. We've done it really very good. We're using one of the top architects.
Question: How large will the flags be?
Trump: They're big. They're beautiful. They're big.
Question: Mr. President, do you still intend to go to NATO?
Trump: Yeah, I'll be going. [Inaudible] amazing equipment. What do you think, huh? What they've done, what they do, their minds, what they can develop? No, look, they don't know what we're doing. They don't know. It's tough. It's easy. They just want to put up flags and go to work. These are great workers.
Question: Who gave you the idea to do this?
Trump: I've had it for a long time.
Question: Yeah.
Trump: And the first time I had it, but you guys were after me, I said I said, I had to focus. I was the hunted and now I'm the hunter. It's a big difference, big difference. But he was the same no matter what.
Question: Yeah, it is surprising that out of all the presidents we've had, that this has never taken place. It's crazy.
Trump: I mean, look, there's a little flagpole that's like 15 feet high, little, tiny flag up top. This was the real deal. This was the best you can get. There's nothing like this. Most of them are 20 feet, 25 feet. This is close to 100 feet. And I think it's a great location too. You put it out there, people don't appreciate it and then we're going to do a flower bed around it, beautiful flower bed, bigger than that. So you have the pole and then you have the flower bed.
Question: When are you going to come out here to hit some golf balls? When you find time in your schedule.
Trump: 35 club championships. You all know that.
Question: I know that.
Trump: 35 club championships. I haven't hit a ball in three weeks, four. I don't know.
Question: It's time to get out there.
Trump: It's time. Been a little busy. Would you rather have me be doing what I'm doing? In the end. See the way they have that hoisted is great because if you lift it up from -- you have to lift it from the bottom, then you have to get it there. But if you lifted it without that, the whole thing would split. Because it's in big sections. And they connect so incredibly. Well, the phone call that he said I didn't make, that I documented. Did you see that? I haven't spoken to him -- Yeah, screenshots. That was the last time. No, I won the case yesterday. I didn't read that I won it because I don't think anybody wrote it. They only write if I lose it. Did you notice I won the case? You know, what's interesting here is that when it goes in, they then put sand inside and if they use dirt or anything else other than sand, it rots out, they fall over a period of years, but sand, for some reason, chemically just works. It gives you flexibility and it doesn't do anything to the cast. It's amazing. So watch when -- so that's nine feet deep. And then [Inaudible] It goes nine feet down and then there's nothing in there right now, just the tube, goes nine feet down. And when they fill it, they fill it with sand, pure sand, absolutely pure sand. If they didn't, the chemicals do - -- they work on the bottom part. Is that interesting to anybody? Oh, much better. First of all, it looks better. I mean, I've never seen it. This is the newest and the greatest. I've never seen it. At Mar a Lago, I have a similar pole, not quite as tall, but the ropes on the outside, and you hear that rope banging. Hmm? The ball? Oh, I see. That's how they can hook up the ropes. They put the rope in later. I like this better. This is a little more flashy. I'm a big eagle person as you probably -- but this looks better. I just said, keep going [Inaudible] I speak to him every. He's a good man doing a lot, been very unfairly treated by his country, I think, very unfair with him. No, no, I haven't. So far, he's doing a good job. He has been treated very unfairly by his [Inaudible] he's a wartime president and he's going through this nonsense. It's ridiculous. With who? Very good meeting. No, little things, big things. But it was good meeting. It's working well. See how straight that is. They put that dead straight and then they pour in the sand. It's amazing, right? Who would think you have to have sand? And it's got to be a very pure sand. I love construction. I love -- Well, I love it. I know it better than anybody. When I see a train, a railroad going from San Francisco to LA, I think it's 100 times over [Inaudible] One of the most incompetent things. That's Newsom. I think we're not going to -- in fact, a little bit of a story, we're not going to fund [Inaudible] it's out of control. First of all, it doesn't go where it's supposed to. It's supposed to go from LA to San Francisco. Now, because they don't have any money, they've spent, what is it, 30, 40 times more than [Inaudible] and they made it much shorter because it no longer goes into the cities.
Question: Of course. So interesting. Mr. President, while we're watching, could I ask, when was the last time you spoke with Governor Newsom? You showed me -- That was the last time? Any changes to the troops being deployed there? Ninth circuit. Oh, so it's going nine feet -- [Inaudible] well, you're a builder. Swaying all the time. What's that little thing sticking up at the top, sir? You see the little thing sticking out? Yeah, the bar? What is that? Like, the little fin? Sometimes you see an eagle on top of the flagpoles. Mr. President, can you share some of what you've told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? OK. Have you given him any -- Have you given him any indication that you may seek to aid them more than you have already? Sounds like you had a good meeting yesterday. Your National Security Council? Anything that came up in particular that -- Seems like you -- I know you enjoy being president, but do you ever miss building things? It's in your heart, isn't it? Incredible. And why do they keep funding that?
Trump: I think we're not going to -- in fact, a little bit of a story, we're not going to fund [Inaudible] it's out of control. First of all, it doesn't go where it's supposed to. It's supposed to go from LA to San Francisco. Now, because they don't have any money, they've spent, what is it, 30, 40 times more than [Inaudible] and they made it much shorter because it no longer goes into the cities. It stops miles outside of the city.
Question: So if you were a builder and you went 34 times over the budget, you would be fired, right.
Trump: If you went one time, if you went a half a time over.
Question: There you go.
Trump: So see what they're doing, they're unwrapping the sand. It's all pure sand. And if it weren't pure sand, it would eat away at the metal.
Question: Mr. President, with the rail funding in California, will your recent dust ups with Governor Newsom impact additional wildfire relief out there? They've requested $40 billion.
Trump: Maybe. Sure, maybe. The man's incompetent. He shouldn't have fires like that. You clean the floor of your forest and you won't have any forest fires. See, Austria has very, very flammable trees. They don't have forests fires because they clean the floors. They maintain their fire. It's good in fact. Hatred is never a good thing in politics. When you don't like somebody, don't respect somebody, it's harder for that person to get money if you're on top, but he's done a bad job.
Question: How will you ensure that –
Trump: I'll tell you one thing, if I didn't bring in the military to Los Angeles, you wouldn't even have a -- you probably wouldn't be here, you'd be covering the riots in Los Angeles. And we got a great ruling as you know yesterday from the judge [Inaudible] absolutely [Inaudible] if we didn't bring in the military in Los Angeles, you would have maybe no city. You'd have just what you have with the housing, burned to the ground.
Question: How will you ensure that change is –
Trump: See, what they're doing is they take this out.
Question: With the ruling yesterday, does that mean -- Mr. President, seems like you agree with Israeli prime minister –
Trump: Go ahead, you were going to ask more –
Question: Yeah. Well, with the ruling yesterday, does that mean you're more empowered to send National Guard to other cities as well, maybe New York?
Trump: I don't think more empowered. I always thought I was empowered. It would be shocking, really. Only a guy like Newscum would even ask for it. You know, he should be thanking me instead of fighting. Newsom, he wouldn't have a city. Right now, it would be burning to the ground. We'd have people running all over throwing rocks. Did you see them breaking up the concrete? Because we caught the bricks, they were bringing bricks, heavy bricks, red bricks by the bag. Five or six big bags, the strong guys that could hardly even carry them, they're going to hand them out to people to throw at the police. And by the way, the chief of police in Los Angeles said that we needed the help, that we didn't have the help, we would have been in trouble. Now, he changed his mind four days later because -- a little bit. And he actually needed it more then. So we did a great job. We quelled that thing. And the fact that we are even there, thinking about going in, they won't bother with it anymore. They're like, well, they'll go someplace else, but we'll be there too. We'll be wherever they go, we're going to be.
Question: Did you see the main numbers for immigration?
Trump: We had great numbers.
Question: Zero.
Trump: Yeah. We had zero. Did you see that, everybody? Zero.
Question: I did. I was going to ask that.
Trump: She's on our side now, because most people don't want to ask me that.
Question: Well, she told me earlier, she said, Brian, did you see the main numbers?
Trump: Zero.
Question: Yeah. How is that even –
Trump: Because we really have a tight border. Now, we have let a lot of people in, but they came in illegally. They actually have to take a little test. And they have to say, I love America, you know, minor things like that.
Question: Mr. President, can we talk about extending TikTok again?
Trump: Yeah, we'll be extending it. We're going to extend it. We're going to probably make a deal. I think we'll need China's blessing on it and I think they'll bless it.
Question: How was Prime Minister Carney toward you?
Trump: Very good. It couldn't have been nicer. We enjoyed the Canada stay a lot and I had to come back obviously for what's happening in the Middle East, but I got everything done. He's a good man. I think Carney's a good man, very well -- a good representative of Canada.
Question: Do you think he's liked by the people?
Trump: I think so, yeah.
Question: Mr. President, have you given the Iranians an ultimatum?
Trump: You could say so, yeah. They know what's happening. Maybe you could call it the ultimate ultimatum, right?
Question: What essentially was that, though.
Trump: Oh, I don't want to say. Look, I mean, just give me a break.
Question: What about the Paramount deal.
Trump: I would say [Inaudible] she's doing great. She's doing great. She's really enjoying it. All my kids are enjoying it, actually. It's pretty hot out here, isn't it?
Question: What's Muggier, D.C. or West Palm Beach in the summer?
Trump: I think this is muggier. This is a muggy—
Question: Mr. President, could I ask you about the Paramount deal and the merger with Skydance and the other things? What's holding that up? And do you see that being resolved anytime soon?
Trump: I hope so, to get—Ellison's great. He'll do a great job with it, but so what they did is they interviewed 60 Minutes, they interviewed Kamala. Her answer was horrendous. I would say election-threatening. This is the day before the election. Her answer was election-threatening. It was so incompetent. So they took the entire answer out and they took another answer to another question and put it in. And they did that, I understand, a number of times, but you don't have to do it a number of times. The main question they asked and we caught them and they're very embarrassed by it and they're working on a settlement. But think of it, did you ever hear of that one before? They took the entire, every word, threw it out, put another answer in. You think they do that for me.
Question: I think it happened daily.
Trump: Well, I've never seen it. I thought I've saying everything. That I've never seen. And it's very embarrassing. The head of 60 Minutes got fired. The head of CBS got fired. They're all getting fired now.
Question: But do you think the deal—what are they doing right now?
Trump: Only if you're in construction, this is exciting. See, they have to get it perfectly straight. And once it's perfect, then they pour in the sand and it's there for 100 years.
Question: Mr. President, the Senate works on the big beautiful bill, it seems like SALT is going to be a really big issue between Senate Republicans and House Republicans. What are you telling Senators, because the New York Republicans on the House side are making clear that that's a red line for them?
Trump: Well, if it were a red line, then uh get ready for a 68 percent tax increase and 1929, because we're taking care of that issue too. You know what that is, that's debt ceiling. We have to move the debt. If we don't move the debt, you violate governance. It's a terrible thing. Actually, Pocahontas even agreed with me on that. She's been wanting to get rid of the debt ceiling because she said it's too violent. It is, it's violent. So I mean, anybody that votes against it, they voted to give a 5,968 per tax increase and many other bad ideas. There would be no money for the border. We have billions of dollars allocated to immigration. The border keeping criminals out, getting criminals out too. If that doesn't pass, you'll get a 68 percent tax increase.
Unidentified: And I would say this, any Senator that votes against it and that includes Democrats, I think they'll be finished in politics.
Question: On SALT specifically, do you think Senate Republicans or House Republicans will have to spend more in order to get the bill at large?
Trump: I don't know, we're going to see how it works out. It's a very difficult issue, to be honest with you. It's very difficult and I understand both sides, but we just have to see. Hopefully a compromise or something is going to be made. But it's a very difficult issue, but remember that—people say what do you think, 68 percent—all those numbers I told you how well the economy is doing, it all gets wiped out. You'd have the largest tax increase in history by far, by three times if they don't get the big, beautiful deal. I always say the great, big, beautiful deal. I put the word great in there. They took that out.
Question: It's going to be great, great, big, beautiful.
Trump: If we get that passed, it'll be the best—one of the greatest pieces. And that's just the beginning of a lot of things that are going to happen because we're going to get numbers down, we're going to get them way down. But that's the beginning. That's our big first step, but that's a big—that's the most important piece of legislation. In terms of dollar value and everything else, there's nothing as big as that. They thought that might be seven or eight bills. It's all in one.
Question: Speaking of taxes, starting in July 1st, California's upping their tax on gasoline again per gallon per gallon. I mean, that's—
Trump: Well, I beat the California mandate. Congress just passed a bill ending it. That was terrible. So what they were saying, everybody by 2030 has to have an electric car. People don't want it, I'm all for electric cars, but you have to want one. And right now it's about seven percent, but they were forcing everybody to have it. I ended that. And now they're coming out with more. No, in California, we've got some gas stations where just two weeks ago it was $1.98, a $1.99. We've got the gas down low, then we have this little situation which will drive it up a little bit, a very little, and it's going to come down again, going to give people a lot of extra money. Groceries are down, eggs are down, you know the eggs, they hit me the first week about eggs. But uh, no, I think that—well, look, you know what I do whenever I talk about Gavin Newscum, I say look at the railroad, look at the railroad. It's not even possible. Do you think he comes out and sees the construction workers? I don't think so.
Question: I don't think he'd put an American flag in front of the Capitol there in Sacramento either. Mr. President, some of his supporters are split on the U.S. response to—
Trump: Who are you?
Question: CNN.
Trump: Fake news. Fortunately, nobody watches.
Question: But my question is—
Trump: Is anybody watching CNN nowadays? I haven't seen it in a long time.
Question: But some of your supporters are wary of the U.S. getting involved in another—
Trump: Oh, I haven't seen that, no, no. Do you ever ask a positive question at CNN? My supporters are more in love with me today and I'm in love with them more than they were even at election time where we had a total landslide. We won all seven swing states? Did CNN report that? We won all seven out of seven, which everyone said would be almost impossible. And we won by millions of votes. We won 2,750 districts versus 505 districts. Think of that, 2,750 versus 505, and CNN—
Question: I think what she might be alluding to is the base is going to stay with you regardless. And you've gone through different—
Trump: I think they all are.
Question: Regardless. But some of the people in the base don't want a long-term war. They're afraid that we're going to get into a long-term war.
Trump: We're looking for long-term. I only want one thing. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, that's it. I'm not looking long-term, short-term and I've been saying that for 20 years. I've been saying it as a civilian who got a lot of publicity. People would cover it very simply: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That's it. It's not a question of anything else. And if you did, you wouldn't have much of a country because they would use it on us and they'd use it on other people and they'd be a terror all over the world. So I may have some people that are a little bit unhappy now, but I have some people that are very happy and I have people outside of the base that can't believe that this is happening. They're so happy. And there was a poll that just came out today and my approval rating is the highest it's ever been. All I'm doing is saying you can't have a nuclear weapon and I tried to do it nicely. And then on day 61, I said let's go because we can't let that happen and I've been saying it for 20 years. OK. I'm going to leave. Thank you very much.
Question: Thank you, Mr. President. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you, sir.