Well, thank you very much for being here. It's an honor to be with Elon, who's my friend and he's done a fantastic job. He didn't need this. He didn't need it, and we find out government is a little nasty on occasion. Hello, Peter?
Yeah, at times.
Hello, President Trump.
Government's a little bit nasty, Peter. You haven't noticed that. You've had a charmed life, right?
You tell me.
Very charmed. I think you've had a charmed life. I think what I'll do, if you don't mind, numbers have just come out, which are rather extraordinary. And I thought I'd play a tape of one of the people who I've respected over the years from, you know, Joe Kernen and Rick Santelli. This just came out and we'll just play that for a second.
[Begin video clip]
[Video clip] Personal income is up 8/10 -- up 8/10 of a percent. That is almost triple the expectations --
[Crosstalk]
[Video clip] The income, the income numbers really for the first four months of the year, they're stellar. They're really stellar. I mean, I could go back and look at the first four months of many different years, really very strong numbers.
[Video clip] And you're right, this administration is criticized for just about everything under the sun. I've never ever in my lifetime had glimpses into the politics of an administration in the form of transparency like this one. Why don't we give credit where credit is due, income really shooting up.
[Video clip] Rick, I also thought everybody was going to get one last order of imports that were going to be tariffed and they were loading up on things. How the hell did they -- how did they hell they already fixed the trade -- or not fix it, but to cut it in half, that's crazy. So, there wasn't a lot of front loading of things that they needed before the tariffs hit?
[Video clip] Yeah, I'll tell you what, it really does call into question some of the conventional wisdom. And you know, it's going to be interesting to see what happens next month when we get this number or we see some of the other numbers like current accounts, see how they fared, because, I don't know, I've been watching these numbers a long time, I don't think I've ever seen the trade deficit cut in half in one month.
[End video clip]
Not bad, not bad.
Come on guys.
Thank you. I see Howard and Scott are here, so it's great. You guys want to stand over here? You might as well, you're the ones that helped reduce those numbers. And it'll only get better. The tariffs are so important and that's why we were so happy with the decision yesterday where the tariffs continue.
Because without the tariffs our nation would be imperiled. We would really be imperiled, I think I can say that with great surety, Scott and Howard. And so, we were very happy to get that decision, that big decision yesterday. And today, it's about a man named Elon, and he's one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced.
He stepped forward to put his very great talents into the service of our nation, and we appreciate it. And I just want to say that Elon has worked tirelessly, helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations. And you know the kinds of things that he's found and his people have found.
He's brought a group of very smart people in, and they found things that are pretty unbelievable.
I have to say that the numbers that we're talking about are substantial, but they're going to be very much more substantial with time because many of the things that we're working on right now, we're going to have to remember, Elon, as we find them, but the numbers could double and triple because many, many things we don't want to go out with them until we're sure.
But we've found things that are unbelievably stupid and unbelievably bad with the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon's delivered a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington. DOGE has installed geniuses with an engineering mindset and unbelievably talented people and computers.
I actually asked Elon one time, what's their primary thing, and they have a lot of primary things, all having to do with being smart. But he said the thing that they're really the best at is working with computers so that they can't be outsmarted by somebody that's not so honest that happens to also be good with computers, but not as good as these people.
But the mindset of the senior ranks of every federal department, it's really changed. And with Elon's guidance, they're helping to detect fraud slash waste and modernize broken and outdated systems. So as you know, we're talking about various systems and changing systems. And sadly, it takes a long time to do that.
You'll change, let's say, a system at IRS and computerize it properly where the job could be done in one tenth the time, but it takes sometimes years to rebuild those systems. But we've started -- in many cases, we've started. I will say that, this has less to do with Elon, but the air traffic control systems, we're bidding out to the best companies in the world.
Those systems right now, they were -- the previous administration was horrible, what they did. They spent billions and billions of dollars and in the end, it didn't even come close to working. They tried to hook up wire to copper and it can't be done and they just spent billions of dollars and just wasted money, actually made the system much worse.
So we're going to get a brand-new modern system. Congress is working with us on that, and we're going to get it done as quickly as we can, but it's in the works. And once it's done, it'll be good for 30 years. But we have a system that's 48 years old and would have a modern computer hooked into a very outdated computer and they don't hook up. I mean, they didn't hook up. So after spending billions of dollars, they turned on the system and never any cases from local to countrywide, they never worked.
More than 75,000 bureaucrats have voluntarily left their taxpayer funded jobs to come out and really do the do the job. Countless wasteful and unnecessary contracts have been terminated and you know that we have terminated many, many contracts and many contracts, Elon, are right now being looked at and it may be six months, it may be almost a year in some cases.
We're going through procedures. We're going through courts and we'll remember you as we announce billions of dollars of extra waste, fraud and abuse. Just as an example, DOGE canceled $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education, $101 million, and that was just a small section of the Department of Education. $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City.
And the landlord never made the kind of money that he made in the last short period of time, $59 million to a hotel in New York City. $45 million for diversity equity and Inclusion scholarships in Burma, in Burma. Does anyone know about Burma? $42 million for social and behavioral change in Uganda. $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants.
I can say, it's $2 billion to Stacey Abrams and her environmental movement. There was $100 in the account and all of a sudden, they found $2 billion in the account. And I assume that's being looked at. I don't know. I'm not sure, but I assume that's being looked at. Think of that, $2 billion. And then, Lee will tell you there's another one over there for $20 billion being spent on another environmental -- $20 billion, not $20 million, a lot, not $200,000, which is a lot.
So think of it, in her case, you have $100 and now all of a sudden, she gets hit with an infusion of $2 billion just before I take office. $20 million for Arab Sesame Street in the Middle East. Nobody knows what that's all about. Nobody's been able to find it. $8 million for making mice transgender. So they spend $8 million on making mice transgender.
And those are better than many of the others. I could sit here all day and read things just like that, but we have other things to do. So it's much, much more than just that. We're totally committed to making the DOGE cuts permanent and stopping much more of the waste in the months to come. We want to get our great big, beautiful bill finished and done.
After that, we're going to be -- we put some of this into the bill, but most of it's going to come later. We're going to have it cauterized by Congress, affirmed by Congress. In some cases, we'll make cuts. In some cases, we'll just use it in a different layer to save the money. But it's hundreds of millions of dollars.
DOGE has also fully modernized the federal retirement process and continues to work very hard on the IRS modernization. But we're taking that over with DOGE. Many of the DOGE people, Elon, are staying behind too, so they're not leaving. And Elon is really not leaving. He's going to be back and forth, I think, I have a feeling.
It's his baby and I think he's going to be doing a lot of things. But Elon's service to America has been without comparison in modern history. He's already running one of the most innovative car companies in the world. You look at his factories and compare them with some of the old factories we have, and it's a big difference.
And the most successful space company in, I guess in history, you would have to say, the largest free speech platform on the internet, etc. Yet, Elon willingly, with all of the success, he willingly accepted the outrageous abuse and slander and lies and attacks because he does love our country. I know that very much.
He loves our country. He comes from another country, a country that's going through trials and tribulations, I would say, but he's all about the USA and Americans owe him a great debt of gratitude. So I just want to thank Elon for his time as special government employee. Can you imagine, call him an employee, but it's a special government employee, and for coming and helping us. And he really has changed the mindset of a lot of people.
A lot of people thought, maybe we'll cut one percent or two percent or three percent. Then they said, wow, we can cut a lot more than that and we're going to do it very surgically. We're going to continue on the march. We're making America great again. When I was in Saudi Arabia and we were in, as you know, three really great countries, predominantly the three -- Qatar was great.
UAE was great. Saudi Arabia incredible. It's such an incredible experience to be in those three countries. But the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and I must tell you the leaders, the great leaders of the other two that we just mentioned, they all said the same thing, that the United States is the hottest country right now, anywhere in the world.
And six months ago, we thought it was dead. It was like a dead country and it would have been a dead country if we didn't have the right result on November 5th. It would have been a horrible, horrible situation was going on, with the borders, with transgender for everyone, men playing in women's sports and so much more.
But they were saying, the hottest country anywhere in the world and then I play that little clip because that was one person who's respected. But there were two people because Joe was in that one too. Joe's a good man, but that was one group of people saying something about the success of what we've done over the last four months.
They cannot believe it. In the one case, they said they've never seen anything like it as long as they've been doing what they've been doing. They've been doing it for a long time. So I want to thank Elon for helping. And again, the United States right now is the hottest country anywhere in the world. There's no country as hot and we're doing really well.
When I left, we had no wars. We had no problems. We defeated ISIS. We rebuilt our military and we had no inflation. And when I came back, we had a lot of inflation. We had wars all over the place. We had the embarrassment in Afghanistan, where we gave up billions and billions of dollars of military equipment, the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, I believe.
I believe that strongly. We have Russia with Ukraine. We had the attack on Israel in October, the horrible attack, October 7th, horrible, horrible attack. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And now we have something where we're really healing a lot of that. We stopped India and Pakistan from fighting. I believe that could have turned out into a nuclear disaster and I want to thank the leaders of India and the leaders of Pakistan and I want to thank my people also.
We talked trade and we said we can't trade with people that are shooting at each other and potentially using nuclear weapons. And they're great leaders in those countries and they understood, and they agreed and that all stopped. And we're stopping others from fighting also, because ultimately, we can fight better than anybody.
We have the greatest military in the world. We have the greatest leaders in the world. We put one of them in charge of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as you know, General Razin Caine. And we wiped out ISIS, completely wiped-out ISIS in three weeks. They said it would take five years, and we did it in three weeks.
And that's the way it is. But we don't want to have to use our military. We want to be peace through strength when we can, and that's the way we're going to have it. So, I just want to thank Elon and all of his people. Most of those people are staying. Almost all of them are staying and they're going to be with us, and you're going to see the results coming long into the future.
Even a year and two years later, you're going to see a lot of the results and those hundreds of billions of dollars are going to be adding up and they're going to continue to add. It'll be interesting, really interesting to see what the final number is going to be. But again, Elon gave an incredible service, nobody like him.
And he had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame because he's an incredible patriot. The good news is that 90 percent of the country knows that and they appreciate it and they really appreciate what he did. And I gave him a little special something we have here.
Thank you.
A very special -- that I give to very special people. I have given it to some, but it goes to very special people and I thought I'd give it to Elon as a presentation from our country.
Thank you.
Thank you, Elon. Take care of yourself .
Thank you. You can see the lock. The lock on this is amazing.
A large lock.
Well, let me say perhaps a few words, that this is not the end of DOGE, but really the beginning. My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end. It was a limited time thing. It's 134 days, I believe, which ends in a few days. So, you know, it comes with a time limit. But the DOGE team will only grow stronger over time.
The DOGE influence will only grow stronger. I liken it to a sort of Buddhism. It's like a way of life. So, it is permeating throughout the government and I'm confident that, over time, we'll see $1 trillion of savings and a reduction in -- $1 trillion of waste and fraud reduction. The calculations of the DOGE team thus far, in terms of an FY25 to FY26 delta, are over $160 billion and that's climbing.
We expect that number will probably go over $200 billion soon. So, I think the DOGE team is doing an incredible job. They're going to continue doing an incredible job and I'll continue to be visiting here and be a friend and advisor to the president. And I look forward to, you know, times being back in this amazing room.
By the way, isn't this incredible? This incredible -- I mean, it's stunning I think, the way that the Oval Office -- the president has just completely redone the Oval Office. It's beautiful. I love the gold on the ceiling.
Thank you. It's pretty nice. That's been there a long time. That was plaster. Nobody ever really saw it, they didn't know the eagle was up there and we highlighted it -- essentially, it's a landmark, a great landmark. And that's 24-carat gold and everybody loved it. And now they all see it when they come in. So, it's been good.
The Oval Office finally has the majesty that it deserves thanks to the president. So, I look forward to continuing to be a friend and advisor to the president, continuing to support the DOGE team. And we are relentlessly pursuing $1 trillion in -- in waste and fraud reductions, which will benefit the American taxpayer.
So, that's it really. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, Elon. Great job. Thank you. Thank you
[Inaudible] President Trump. The president mentioned that you had to deal with all the slings and arrows during your time at DOGE. There's this --
Some of the people -- you know, some of the media organizations in this room were the slingers [Laughter]
Well, so -- there is a New York Times report today that accuses you of blurring the line between --
Oh, wait wait. wait. The New York Times, is that the same publication that got a Pulitzer Prize for false reporting on Russiagate? Is it the same organization? I think it is.
I've got to check my Pulitzer counter.
I think it is.
It is.
So, I think the judge just ruled against New York Times for their lies about the Russiagate hoax, and that they might have to give back that Pulitzer Prize. That New York Times? Let's move on.
OK.
Next question.
I've got one for you. I've got one for President Trump. President Trump, Biden aides who used to work here are in talks with Republicans in Congress to go and testify about what they did or didn't do to possibly conceal President Biden's decline. Do you think that Dr. Jill Biden should also have to come in and testify about what she did or didn't do?
Well, I hate the concept of it. It's the wife of a man who was going through a lot of problems and everybody that dealt with him understood that. And I guess it came out during the debate, loud and clear. That was a big -- that was the biggest signal of all. They have to do what's right. The country was -- there was a lot of dishonesty in the election, as you know, of 2020 that's been now caught.
People understand it was a rigged election. And when you go further out, when you see the autopen, I mean, I think the autopen is going to become one of the great scandals of all time. Because you have somebody operating it or a number of people operating it. Because I knew Joe Biden, Joe Biden wasn't in favor of opening up borders, letting 21 million people into this from prisons and mental institutions and gang members.
He wasn't into that at all. And you know, who signed these orders, proclamations and all of the different things that he signed that set our country so far back. That was so bad for our country.
With the autopen, how would it work? Like we're in the Oval Office right now; if there was a group of rogue staffers that worked for you who wanted to advance a bill or an executive order without your knowledge, how could they do it? How do they --
[Crosstalk]
It's very hard because I'd read your newspapers or your media the next day and I'd say, well, I didn't approve that and I would find it. I mean, they wouldn't get away with it for long because I'd say I never signed that, who the hell signed that. Autopens to me are used to sign letters to people because we get I think they said 20,000 letters a week.
And you like to be able -- when somebody takes the time to write a letter it's nice to sort of write back and autopens are meant for that. Autopens are not meant to sign major proclamations or tax cuts or borders -- anything having to do with the border, which is so important. And if it happened on my watch, I would be able to see it because the next day or sooner, I'd be reading about something that I knew nothing about and who the hell signed this.
So, I almost never use the autopen. In fact, yesterday I was signing about 81 -- I think it was 81 proclamations and statements to people that I think should be signed by us. I think when you write letters to foreign dignitaries or presidents or prime ministers, you should be signing those letters, not done with Autopens.
I understand he signed almost everything with an autopen. It's a very dangerous thing. It really means you're not president. Whoever operated the autopen, and we think we know who that is, and it was actually more than one person. But that's not what the presidency is all about. I hardly used it.
Mr. President, on China -- are you going to reinstate the tariffs on China? You said that they violated the agreement with the US.
Well, they did. They were -- they violated a big part of the agreement we made. You know, if you read that whole statement, I was very nice to them. I helped them because they were in trouble with the stoppage of a massive amount of business. But I'm sure that I'll speak to President Xi and hopefully we'll work that out.
But yeah, there's a violation of the agreement. Yeah, please.
Mr. President, can you give us an update to the latest ceasefire agreement that Israel has agreed to, but Hamas is still considering?
Well, they're very close to an agreement on Gaza and we'll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow. We have a chance of that. I think we have a chance of making a deal with Iran also. They don't want to be blown up, they would rather make a deal. And I think that could happen in the not-too-distant future.
That would be a great thing if we could have a deal without bombs being dropped all over the Middle East. That would be a very good thing. They can't have a nuclear weapon --
[Crosstalk]
We want them to be safe. We want them to have a very, very successful nation, let it be a great nation. But we can't have that -- they cannot have a nuclear weapon, it's very simple. And I think we're fairly close to a deal with Iran.
[Crosstalk]
Yeah, please.
You said just now that you look forward to being a friend and advisor to the president.
Oh, I am.
So, do you expect to continue advising the president and DOGE informally or are you going to sort of shift your focus entirely to your companies?
Well, I expect to continue to provide advice whenever the president would like advice.
I hope so.
I mean, I'm -- yeah, it's -- I expect to remain a friend and an advisor and certainly if there's anything the president wants me to do, I'm at the president's service.
Mr. Musk, on DOGE, you said that there was $1 trillion promise for cuts from DOGE.
Yes. I think, we do expect over time to achieve the trillion dollars.
But what have you found in your time here was the biggest roadblock to getting those cuts? Was it the cabinet or was it Congress or something else? What was the biggest roadblock from your work?
It's mostly just a lot of hard work. It's really not any one person or Congress. It's going through, really, millions of line items and seeing just each one of them makes sense or does it not make sense. Obviously, at times when you cut expenses, those who were receiving the money, whether they're receiving that money legitimately or not, they do complain.
And you're not going to hear someone confessing that they received money inappropriately, never. They're going to always say that they received money appropriately for an important cause. Naturally, that's what you'd expect. So we just have to -- it's just a lot of work going through the vast expanses of the federal government and just really asking questions, what's this money for, are you sure it's actually being used well?
Many times, we can't even find anyone who defends it. So for a lot of the expenses, there is actually no defender at all. And then we have to just work through the process of stopping the spending where there's often literally no defender. Nobody even knows why the money is being spent. It's truly absurd.
I mean, we find situations where there are millions of software licenses with zero people using them, zero. Exactly. This is the quizzical expression. You're like, surely, if there's millions of software licenses, someone should be using them. No. And then we just -- we've got to go through the process of saying, OK, look, if no one's using the software, we can terminate this software license agreement.
That's everywhere in the government, by the way.
Mr. Musk, what do you think would be easier, colonizing Mars or making the government efficient?
It's a tough call, but I think colonizing Mars and making life multi-planetary is harder. And as I said, we do expect to achieve over time the trillion dollars of savings. We can't do it in a few months. But if you say by the -- I think the official end of DOGE, which the president may choose to extend, is the middle of next year.
Say, by the middle of next year, with the support of the president and Congress, could we achieve $1 trillion of savings, I think so. We're on track to do so.
Do you think that Congress is going --
Go ahead. You, please.
Thank you, Mr. President. You had mentioned earlier in the week that DOGE had become a whipping boy. And as the president mentioned, you went through a lot to go through this process.
Yes.
Was it worth it for you and what would you change?
Yeah. So what we found was happening was that if there were any cuts anywhere, then people would assume that was done by DOGE. And so we became, essentially, the DOGE boogeyman, where any cut anywhere would be ascribed to DOGE. A friend of mine's daughter, who's at law school at Georgetown, thought that DOGE had cut the Senate internships for -- the legal internships for the Senate and we had nothing to do with that.
So if they have been cut, it was not to do with us, just as an example. So it just became a bit ridiculous where anything, any cut anywhere was somehow DOGE. And including things that made no sense and we would agree, made no sense. So there are many things that occur in the government because it's the banal evil of bureaucracy.
It's sort of the, frankly, largely uncaring nature of bureaucracy. AS the great Milton Friedman said, money is spent most poorly When it is someone else's money being spent on people you don't know. And that's how federal spending is. And then you can't really even blame the individuals because the way the government works is complaint minimization.
So when someone within the government tries to stop money being spent, there's usually someone that complaints and then their manager will say, it's not worth the trouble, just pay it anyway. That happens over and over again.
So was it worth --
Peter. Yeah.
I think it was an important thing. I think it was a necessary thing and I think it will have a good effect in the future.
Thank you, President Trump.
Peter.
This week, there was a video on board a plane that showed the first lady of France slapping her husband, Emmanuel Macron. Do you have any world leader to world leader marital advice for Macron?
Make sure the door remains closed. That was not good. That was not good. No, I spoke to him and he's fine. They're fine. They're two really good people. I know them very well and I don't know what that was all about, but I know him very well and they're fine.
I got a little excited here.
What do you think about the Democratic party plan to avoid being swept in every battleground state again, by spending $20 million to study how to speak to American men?
Well, they spent $2.8 billion. We spent $1.5 billion. We spent much less. We spent about half of what they spent. And at the end, they were $28 million short. They spent $2.8 billion. It's a lot, but they couldn't get $28 million at the end and now they want to spend -- I read that they want to spend money to learn how to talk.
That's fake. You don't want to be fake. You shouldn't have to hire consultants to say what America needs because then they should be -- the consultants should be running the deal, not them. But I read that, they want to spend a lot of money in each state. So we won all seven swing states, seven out of seven.
We won a lot more than that. We won the popular vote. We won everything and they want to spend money to find out what they did wrong. And I mean, I could tell you what they did wrong. I could tell you every one of their programs, when they say men playing in women's sports, I would say that's not a winner.
When they say transgender for everybody, I think that's not a winner. When they say open borders so the entire world population of criminals can pour into our country, I don't think that's a winner. I mean, I just gave them that for free, but I don't know if they'll change their ways. I see them all the time.
I see people that I know in Congress, Democrats, they're trying to justify some of the things I just said. You can't justify them. I always hear they're 80/20 issues. I say they're not 80/20, they're 97/3. They might be 99 to 1. They're not 80/20. They wish they were 80/20. And they're wasting a lot of money if they're going to continue with that nonsense.
And this one's a little bit more of a page six question, but back when you hosted The Apprentice, you mentioned once in 2012 that Diddy was a good friend of yours back then. He has since found himself in some very serious legal trouble.
Yeah, that's true.
Would you ever consider pardoning him?
Well, nobody's asked -- you had to be the one to ask, Peter, but nobody's asked. But I know people are thinking about it. I know they're thinking about it. I think people have been very close to asking. First of all, I'd look at what's happening and I haven't been watching it too closely, although it's certainly getting a lot of coverage.
I haven't seen him -- I haven't spoken to him in years. He used to really like me a lot, but I think when I ran for politics, he -- sort of that relationship busted up, from what I read. I don't know. He didn't tell me that, but I'd read some little bit nasty statements in the paper, all of a sudden. It's different.
You become a much different person when you run for politics and you do what's right. I could do other things and I'm sure he'd like me and I'm sure other people would like me, but it wouldn't be as good for our country. As we said, our country is doing really well because of what we're doing. So I can't -- it's not a popularity contest, so I don't know.
I would certainly look at the facts. If I think somebody was mistreated, whether they like me or don't like me, it wouldn't have any impact on me.
Mr. President, on the big, beautiful bill, on the big, beautiful bill, would you like to see the Senate build in some support for your tariffs on the big, beautiful bill or should that be a standalone bill?
I have great support on the tariffs. I mean, I was so honored that we got that ridiculous stay lifted because that would have taken away presidential power. It would have taken away everything that was granted by the founders. It would have been a terrible thing and it would have most importantly would have left us vulnerable.
We have a lot of countries that use tariffs on us and use them viciously, actually, viciously. And if we didn't have the power to use tariffs on them and instantly not when you go back to Congress and try and get hundreds of people to agree on something that would take months to get just one simple proclamation.
If we didn't have the power to counteract their powers, you wouldn't have a country left. We have to act fast. We have to be fast and nimble, as they say. And that was a really great moment, I think yesterday when that stay was lifted and hopefully now we'll go to court and just win that battle. Because if we don't have the power to do what they're doing to us, we are going to be a great nation no longer.
Elon Musk was once idolized by folks on the left in this country before joining your administration.
That's true.
Now he's considered a hero by conservatives. Why do you think this man and what he's done in American life has been so politicized? Does it all have to do with you?
His life has been amazing. I mean, I look at so many different things. I look at that rocket being guided back into position. I've never seen that before. I thought it was a space where we have -- thought it was a movie. You look at what he's done in terms of communication, it's been unbelievable. So many different -- even tunnels going underground, not having to go through all the process of going -- you know, he's got a company that does that.
He's got so many different companies. Starlink as an example, he saved a lot of lives, probably hundreds of lives in North Carolina. I don't even know if you remember, but I called you, they needed Starlink in North Carolina, and I didn't know what the hell Starlink was. I said what is it? Who owns it? He said, do you know Elon Musk?
I said, yeah, I happen to know the gentleman. This was before his government stay and they said we really need it because North Carolina was literally -- it became an island, it was -- people had no communication, they had no access to anything, and they were dying. And I called up Elon and you can't get it because it's so successful.
It's very hard to get. And he had so much of it brought over there and they told me it was unbelievable. He saved a lot of lives. So, you know, he's just done a lot of things. He -- I don't think -- frankly, I don't think he gets credit for what he's done, but he's -- and he's a very good person too. You know what -- if he wasn't a good person, but he did the same things, you know, I'd probably maybe speak differently.
He happens to be a really good person who loves the country.
Mr. President, on the One Big, Beautiful Bill, you had indicated this week that there were some things you didn't like about what had passed in the House. What changes do you want to see the Senate make? And you had also indicated there were things you didn't like about the bill? What would you be suggesting he push senators to change in their version?
Well, I'll tell you, I'll go first. It's an unbelievable bill. It cuts your deficits, it cuts -- you know, it's a huge cutting. But there are things I'd like to see maybe cut a little bit more. I'd like to see a bigger cut in taxes. It's going to be the largest tax decrease or cut in the history of our country.
I'd like to see it get down to an even lower number. I was shooting for a slightly lower number. I would have liked to have done that. But with all of that being said, when you look at the tax cut and the fact that the original tax cut -- which made us so successful. We had the most successful four years in the history of our country, the economy, and this is going to be even better.
And you see that by the reports that came out just yesterday or tonight, I guess they were released this morning at 8:00. You see the kind of numbers where somebody that's a pro is like, whoa, I haven't seen numbers like this since I've been doing this. You know, these are human emotions of professionals that have never seen numbers like -- and we've just -- we've just started.
The bill is a great bill. It's going to be jiggered around a little bit. It's going to be negotiated with the Senate, with the House. But the end result is it extends the Trump tax cuts. If it doesn't get approved, you'll have a 68 percent tax increase. You're going to go up 68 percent. That's a number that nobody's ever heard of before.
You'll have a massive tax increase. If it does get approved, you'll have a large tax cut, the largest we've ever had when you add the past tax cuts that we got you, the Trump tax, they call them the Trump tax cuts. It's an amazing bill. It does amazing things. With all of that, it's going to be adjusted a little bit over the next coming weeks, and I think it's going to be passed.
The Republicans want to pass it. With all of the great things it does, including an extension of debt, the extension -- we have to extend the debt. If we don't extend debt, we're in default. Now, the Democrats might like our country to be in default. But in 250 years, we've never been in default. That was handed to them by a very well-meaning man that gave it to them because he thought it was the right thing to do. It could have been their problem before the election, but this man thought it was the right thing to do, and he was well-meaning.
I don't hold anything against him for that. But that was put on our plate when it should have been on the Democrats. September 28th, a famous date, it should have been taken care of by the Democrats. But this person, a man of power, gave it to us so that in June that comes due. Well, we have to take care of that because, if we don't take care of it, we have a country in default.
And we don't ever want to have a country in default. You know, I'll tell you a certain senator, Elizabeth Warren, has said that she would never ever allow a default on our debt. She would never let it happen, and she would like to get rid of the debt ceiling, what's called the debt ceiling. I call it the debt extension because we really need an extension.
That she'd like to see that gotten rid of. And there are many people that agree. Many Democrats agree with that. But we gave that through -- and you know, I don't want to say that -- he did it well meaning, they gave that to us. It was a Democrat problem just before the election, would have had a huge impact on the election -- to our benefit, we won anyway, but to our benefit, but felt that really for the good of the country we should extend that.
But Elizabeth Warren and various other people would like to see that -- her whole career, she wanted to see it terminated, gotten rid of, not being voted on every five years or 10 years. And the reason was because it's so catastrophic for our country. And I always agreed with her, that was one thing I agreed with her on. Now I haven't spoken to her, but I would say that if you asked her that question now, she'd say no, no, it's their problem.
But it's a very unfortunate situation. It's a very unfair situation. And she happened to be right on that; it should be gotten rid of, or it should simply be extended. But that's one of the things that gets taken care of in this bill, that automatically gets extended for a four-year period, and it should be. But I agree with Elizabeth Warren on that.
I think you should get rid of it. It's too catastrophic. Yeah, go ahead.
Mr. President, what message do you like to send to international students? Are they still welcome to study in the United States? And one question for Mr. Musk.
The students? Well, we want to have great students here. We just don't want students that are causing trouble. We want to have students; I want to have foreign students. I think Harvard, you know, is close to 31 percent, that's a lot. Our country has given $5 billion plus to Harvard over a short period of time.
Nobody knew that. We found that out. I wouldn't say that was a DOGE thing, but we found that out over a period of time. That was sort of a Trump thing. We ended up in litigation for other reasons because they're very anti-Semitic. And in finding out and in going through the books, we found out that the country gave them $5 billion plus, much more than that actually.
And we're having it out with them. And let's see what happens. I think we have a very good -- well, it's a very sad case. It's a case we win; we can't lose that case because we have the right to make grants. We're not going to make any grants like that. But I don't think Harvard's been acting very nicely.
I think Columbia wants to get to the bottom of the problem. They've acted very well and there are other institutions too that are acting. But Harvard is trying to be a big shot. And all that happens is every three days we find another $100 million that was given. Last -- two days ago, we found $200 million more.
The money is given to them like gravy. I'd like to see the money go to trade schools where people learn how to fix motors and engines, where people learn how to build rocket ships. Because you know somebody has to build those rocket ships. And I'd like to see trade schools set up, because you could take $5 billion plus hundreds of billions more, which is what's spent, and you could have the greatest trade school system anywhere in the world.
And that's what we need to build his rockets and robots and things that he's doing and to build lots of other things. And you know, I went to school with people, in some cases they weren't good students, but they could fix the engine of a car better than anybody I've ever seen. They could take it apart blindfolded; they had an ability at that, and they did very well.
They made a lot of money, you know, it's a very skilled job, it's great. But I'd like to see a lot of money going into trade schools. I've always felt that. And we probably found our pot of gold and that's what's been wasted at places like Harvard and the money has been wasted. Yeah, please.
I wanted to ask quickly, Mr. Musk, what -- is your eye, OK? What happened to your eye? I noticed there's a bruise there.
Well, it wasn't -- I wasn't anywhere near France. So, but --
What does that mean?
I didn't notice his eye.
First lady of France.
She slapped him.
I didn't notice.
So, yeah, no, I was just walking around with little X and I said, go ahead, punch me in the face. And he did it turns out even a five-year-old punching you in the face actually --
That was an accident?
Yeah.
X could do it. If you knew X, he could do it.
He's with his mom right now, but I didn't really feel much at the time. And then I guess it bruises up, but I was just horsing around with the kids basically.
I didn't notice it actually.
I know that you try to stay pretty neutral because not your war, but as you --
By the way, not my war. I just want to solve the problem for people. This was not a war that was going to happen if I were president.
Right. And so, not your war, but as you try to fix it, and as you survey this hellscape of the Ukrainian front lines.
It's horrible.
And you guys -- you and your team deal with a very stubborn Vladimir Putin. Do you look --
And Zelenskyy.
Yeah. But do you look at this conflict --
Very stubborn Zelenskyy too.
Any differently now? Like do you look at this and see Putin as the good guy or the bad guy?
So, I've known him very well and I went through a lot of things with him because Russia was -- you know, the Russia, Russia, Russia, hoax turned out to be a total hoax. New York Times, they got a Pulitzer Prize. They have to give back the Pulitzer Prize. That's my lawsuit, and they're doing very poorly in that lawsuit.
But they wrote stories about how it was true and it was false and a lot of Washington Post also. I have gotten to see things that I was very surprised at, rockets being shot into cities like Kyiv during a negotiation that I felt was maybe very close to ending. We were going to solve a problem and then all of a sudden, rockets got shot into a couple of cities and people died.
I saw things that I was surprised at, and I don't like being surprised. So I'm very disappointed in that way. With that being said, I'd like to see it end. 5,000 people. I think the number is even more than that. But 5,000 people a week are being killed, mostly soldiers, but also people that live in little cities and towns throughout Ukraine.
And I'd like to see that stop.
And I asked Karoline this yesterday, but I want to ask you directly. So many of the things that you're trying to do are held up in court right now. If the courts are going to have so much influence over US policy, do you wish you would have just become a judge instead?
Yeah. Well, look, it wasn't meant to be that way. If you look at the founders, the president had certain powers and you have your three groups and they all had -- supposed to be equal, pretty equal powers. But you can't have a judge in Boston running foreign policy in places all over the country because he's got a liberal bent or he's a radical left person.
That's what the executive branch is for. And you have checks and balances. But we had millions of people pour into our country. Many, many criminals poured into our country, murderers, murderers, mental institutions from all over the world being emptied out into our country. And if we don't get them out and get them out quickly, we're going to -- you could lose your country very easily.
This is a bad -- that anybody would allow this to happen to our country. You know, with all of the things, we took over inflation, we took over some wars, we took over a lot of problems that didn't exist when I was president. None of it existed. We wiped out ISIS. Other than that, we had no wars. Putin was never going to hit Ukraine.
Israel would have never been attacked. That attack -- as you know, Iran had no money. They didn't have money for Hamas. They didn't have money for Hezbollah. They had no money whatsoever. That wasn't going to happen. All of these things that happened weren't going to happen. You wouldn't have had inflation.
So it's very sad when I came back. But the thing that is the hardest is that they allowed 21 million people into our country and many of those people are stone-cold criminals. They moved their criminal population into the United States. And of all the things that are bad, I solved inflation, I believe already.
I got the fuel prices down. the fuel prices came down. That's one of the reasons they screwed up the energy. They screwed up the cost of gasoline and oil and gas. And you had tremendous inflation, the greatest inflation probably in the history of our country under Biden. And when people said, oh, but the economy was good.
No, the economy was terrible for the people because they couldn't afford the energy and the energy brought everything else up. Energy is the big deal. But with all of that, we solved that already in four months, we solved it. $1.99, $1.98 gasoline first time people have seen that in a long time, since my term.
But the hardest thing to solve is millions of people pouring into our country, many of whom are criminals. Because remember, these countries are smart. Their leaders are very street smart. They're sending the people that they don't want. They don't want the people that are there that are law abiding, that are productive, that are working hard.
They want people that are in jails, we have them. They allow them to come in and I always look to the other side, like, why would somebody do something. You know, in business, I try and study why would they want to do this, why would they want to sell it, why would they want to buy it? One thing I can't figure out is what would an administration -- what were they thinking when they allowed millions of people from prisons all over the world, not just from South America, Venezuela, all over the world, from the Congo in Africa, hundreds of people, thousands of people from the Congo, rough, rough, prisoners, from Asia, from Europe, rough parts of Europe, why would they allow them to come into our country?
Why would they do that? It's the one thing I can't figure out and I don't believe it was Joe Biden. I really don't. I mean, look, he's been a sort of a moderate person over his lifetime. Not a smart person, but somewhat vicious person, I will say. If you feel sorry for him, don't feel so sorry, because he's vicious.
What he did with his political opponent and all of the people that he hurt, he hurt a lot of people, Biden. And so I really don't feel sorry for him, but he wasn't a person that would allow murderers to come into our country. He wasn't a person that was in favor of transgender for anybody that wanted it, to take kids out of families, etc., etc.
So I just don't understand why a thing like this, how a thing like this could have been allowed to happen, very sad. It's very sad, very sad for our country. Yeah. Go ahead, Elon.
I think the fundamental moral flaw of the left is empathy for the criminals and not empathy for the victims, empathy for the criminals, but empathy for the victims, and there's been way too much of that. That needs to stop. To the president's point, there's been immense judicial overreach that is unconstitutional.
That was never intended. And it's undermining the people's faith in the legal system. It needs to stop. It's gone too far.
And just today, we had, just a couple of hours ago, we had a great decision from the Supreme Court, thank goodness, that was very important. We had two important decisions yesterday on the tariffs, because again, we have to be able to fight fair fight with other countries. Howard, would you say, we have to be able to use tariffs to fight people that use tariffs on us? I mean, if we didn't have that power of tariffs, we would economically be destroyed as a country because they will destroy us. Other countries will destroy us with unchecked tariffs.
We can check them when we have the use. They tried to take that power away from us. And if you take that power away, we're not going to have a country. We won't have an economically viable country. But it's very important on immigration that we be able to get people out without having to go through a long court case.
I mean, it was up to some of these judges, every single one of these -- millions of people, millions of people, criminals, prisoners that were let go from jails because they save a fortune when they do, they brought them into the United States. You know what they're saving, the money they're saving, but some of them murderers.
It's very important that we're able to get those people out of here fast, bring them back to their country where they belong. And those countries take them because if they don't take them, they have to go through the wrath of the United States and they take them. But we have judges that don't want that to happen.
And it's a terrible thing. That's going through the court system right now, that whole situation. But when ICE and with Border Patrol, they've done an incredible job. When they do this incredible job and they capture 100 killers and drug dealers, we can't keep them for years here as we go through trials.
We have to get them out rapidly and we know who they are. We know who they are. And we're very careful about who they are, but we have to get them out rapidly, or again, we're not going to have a country. OK? Maybe one or two more. Go head, please.
Are you concerned that tariff may also affect companies like Tesla, which has parts manufactured abroad? And this is also to you, Mr. Musk.
Well, he's going to end up building his whole car here. I mean, I thought he built his whole car, pretty much he does. He's got incredible factories, and like I looked at one in Texas, it's unbelievable. I know all of the manufacturers will build their parts here too. I mean, it used to bother me, they make a part in Canada, a part in Mexico, a part in Europe and sent all over the place and nobody knew what the hell was happening.
I think it's -- you build a car, make it in America and I gave them a little leeway on that, gave them some leeway. But over the next year, they've got to have the whole thing built in America. That's what we want. We want America to buy American built cars. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
How was your meeting with Jerome Powell, sir?
Good meeting. It was a good meeting.