You ready?
Yes, sir.
Let's do it.
Yes, sir.
Well, thank you very much, everybody. We have Paula White who's, uh, been very inspirational in, uh, during the campaign and our friend. And Alina has requested a prayer. And Paula, if you would do the honors, please? Thank you.
It's an honor, sir. Thank you. Um, Father, we come to you in the name of Jesus. And on this very divine appointment of Alina Habba, we thank you that you have chosen her before the foundations of the Earth. I ask that you would give your wisdom according to James 1:5. And as she moves into this new season in this divine appointment, that she will protect the innocent, that she will always rule righteously, that she will stand in your peace and reign in truth and justice.
I secure her family, her life, her calling, and her purpose. We thank you for President Trump. We thank you for this opportunity for -- for all -- to cure this in the name that is above all names, the name of Jesus. Amen.
Amen.
Thank you very much, Paula.
Thank you, sir.
Before we begin, we have a little announcement. It's just gonna be put out over the wires that, uh, Skadden, Arps, uh, the highly respected firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, announced the following agreement regarding a series of actions that were taken by Skadden. And it reads, number one, Skadden provide a total of at least $100 million in pro bono legal services during the Trump administration and beyond to cause that, uh, the President, uh, and Skadden both support.
This is something we both support in relation to the following areas, assisting veterans and other public servants, including members of the military, law enforcement, and on and on. Uh, number two, Skadden will commit to the mission of providing pro bono legal services to a wide variety, deserving organizations and individuals.
Skadden committed to funding, no fewer than five Skadden fellows. Uh, that's a scholarship fund that they've set up. And number three, and, again, we're gonna put this out in much greater detail, that Skadden affirms and, uh, commits it's, uh, to merit-based hiring, promotion, and retention. Again, that will go on for a little while and you'll read that.
And Skadden will not deny any representation to clients such as its members or members of politically disenfranchised groups who have not historically received legal representation from major national law firms, et cetera. So this is going out now and, uh, I'm instructing my people to, uh, release it. And this just, uh, was announced so you can, uh, you'll get it in, uh, this was e- -- essentially a settlement.
And, uh, you'll be able to read that in great detail. We appreciate Skadden's, uh, coming to the table. As you know, other law firms have like -- have likewise settled the case. And, uh, it's a shame what's, you know, what's gone on is a shame, but we very much appreciate their coming to the table. But we're here for right now a different, uh, reason.
It's a very important one 'cause today we're thrilled to swear in our interim U.S attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba. Congratulations, Alina. And I wanna just, uh, congratulate along with your husband, Greg, and your children. You're wonderful parents who I've gotten to know over the years.
Uh, great parents and a great family, so congratulations. And to Luke, Chloe and Parker. That's great. You're proud, right? Of your father and your mother, right? Both. Not just your mom, right? Your father, too. He's done pretty well. He's a good guy and very successful man. I also want to thank Attorney General, Pam Bondi.
She's been incredible, by the way. She's, uh -- I don't wanna brag, but I've been watching her for the last couple of weeks and she's been incredible. Thank you very much. And a couple of others who have been really outstanding, Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick. Thank you, Howard. Thank you very much.
And I think I see Scott there. He has been -- This is somebody -- the Treasury. Nobody's gonna out-fox Scott, right? Nobody. And he's waiting for Liberation Day, right? Which is, uh, April 2nd. We wanted to do it April 1st, but that has some negative connotation. And I see Sebastian Gorka there. Thank you, Sebastian, very much.
That's very much -- Kevin, thank you very much. We have great people. Susie Wiles, the most powerful woman in the world. Who's at this rate the most powerful woman in the world. If you think about it, I guess it's true [Laughs] when you think about. Anyway, thank you, Susie. And Director Kash Patel. Where's Kash?
Kash is fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you, Kash. So Alina is, uh, a proud New Jersey native. She was born and raised in Summit and now lives in Bernardsville with her family. Beautiful area of our country. After a career leading a successful law practice in the state, very successful, Alina joined my legal team several years ago and helped spearhead the effort to defeat the corrupt and grotesque weaponry justice system.
She was very effective at doing it. Uh, and I want to thank you for doing it. You took a lot of abuse and, uh, now they're all sort of apologizing. So anyway, but we appreciate it. Great job you did. Thank you for allowing her to do it 'cause your life wasn't made any easier. Was it? Huh? They even came after him and they didn't come after the kids.
They would've waited about a year or two. You're very lucky. You're very lucky. But through her work, Alina became a nationally recognized warrior for the fair, equal, and impartial rule of law. She also serves as a key member of my successful 2024 campaign for president. You saw her, uh, doing a lot of, uh, explaining and doing it very well.
And upon my inauguration, she joined the White Houf -- House as senior staff. She was, uh, a senior staff member as the counselor to the president, and she counseled me very well. Alina has been named to the Super Lawyers' Rising Stars list every year since 2014 and also earned a spot on the top 100 lawyers, uh, in America numerous times.
As a young person, it's very unusual to have achieved that. As US attorney for New Jersey, Alina will work tirelessly to weed out crime and corruption and restore law in order to the garden state, as we call it. It's the garden state. It's a great place. Uh, I think it's highly underrated. It's a great place to be and to live and we all love it. Under the last administration, violent crime in New Jersey, however, rose more than 60%. And under the last administration, violent crime throughout the country rose at levels that are higher than that and unacceptable.
And we're bringing it down and we're getting rid of a lot of bad people being -- they're being taken out. And we hope this court system that's become so active all of a sudden in trying to protect some very, very bad people of crime. They have to stop. They have to let us do the job. We were elected to do the job.
They shouldn't be interfering in that. It's a very sad thing that's going -- nobody can even believe it. They'd rather have them stay in our country. These are murderers in many cases and people about as bad as we've ever seen. And they have to let us do the job. They have to let Kash and Pam and everybody else do their job.
Alina will take on the violence and the law breaking in Newark, however, in Camden and all parts of New Jersey and she'll be as good as it gets because there's a lot of bad things happening there too. She'll stop the graft and corruption in Trenton, and she'll prosecute human traffickers, gang members, illegal aliens and criminal cartels to the fullest extent of the law.
And between Pam and Alina, you don't want them after you, I can tell you. I watched Pam two days ago talking about what was so unfair to a patriot what was happening. And she said we're watching you; we're looking for you and you're not going to get away with it. Now --
[Technical issues with audio and video]
-- you did very well. I think a lot of that stuff has stopped.
They watched it and they said who needs this, right, Pam? So, thank you very much, really amazing job that you're doing. So, Alina, I want to congratulate you now. I will ask Pam, our attorney general, to come up and do the honors of swearing in and this is a great day for law enforcement in our country.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, yeah, right hand. Place your left hand on the Bible and raise your right hand. I do solemnly swear.
I, Alina Habba, do solemnly swear.
That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
That I take this obligation freely.
That I take this obligation freely.
Without any --
[Technical issues with audio and video]
-- Thank you so much, President Trump. Thank you, Pam Bondi. Thank you, more importantly, to every person in this room. There are so many people that I won't even try to start naming them. I would not be standing here today if it was not for the man to my right. As a person who's a first generation American, with parents that came in legally, I would like to say that I do not ever, ever take for granted that every dream that I ever could have imagined I have surpassed because of this administration, because of President Trump.
Four years ago, he entrusted faith in me as his personal attorney and I have been on the journey of a lifetime every single day for that. But I have also been with him through some very dark days when I lost faith in our justice system when I saw things that I never ever thought I would ever see. And from being outside the courtroom steps, defending him and defending our great nation, I saw the most resilience I've ever seen in my life.
This man kept fighting for America and I'm just so honored that now I get to fight for the state of New Jersey. I will do a good job, sir. I will clean it up and we're going to make New Jersey great again. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Do you have any questions, please?
Mr. President, Canada's prime minister says that they will be implementing retaliatory tariffs. You said if that were to happen that you would be responding with large-scale tariffs. Will you be following through with that promise?
Well, absolutely. But we had a very good conversation. Mark called me today at 10:00. We put out a statement, we had a very, very good talk. He's going through an election now and we'll see what happens. But we have Liberation Day, as you know, on April 2nd because -- and I'm not referring to Canada, but many countries have taken advantage of us, the likes of which nobody even thought was possible for many, many decades -- for decades.
And you know, that has to stop. We're going to end up with a very good relationship with Canada and a lot of the other countries. Some we probably won't, it won't be so pleasant. But with -- I think most countries are agreeing with me. They actually -- many of them have actually apologized, they said, look, we have taken advantage.
And I don't blame them as much as I blame the people that stood, in this case I can say the men, because so far they've been all men, haven't they? But the men that sat right there and behind the Resolute desk, mostly the Resolute desk, you know. I don't know if you know, you have a choice of seven desks.
The Resolute is the one I like, but some chose other ones. But they sat right behind a desk right in this location and they let our country be hurt very badly, but I didn't do that. So -- but we had a very good talk, the prime minister, myself, and I think things are going to work out very well between Canada and the United States.
Yeah, please go ahead.
Mr. President, how are the talks with India or tariff going on? And what is the expectations from India? How much do you want them --
[Crosstalk]
Well, you know, Prime Minister Modi was here just recently, and we've always been very good friends. India is one of the highest tariffing nations in the world, you know that. I know, I know, thank you for shaking your head, but it's brutal, it's brutal. They're very smart and he's a very smart man and a great friend of mine actually.
And we had very good talks. I think it's going to work out very well between India and our country -- very, very well. And I want to say you have a great prime minister.
Mr. President, there's been a very serious earthquake in Burma or Myanmar today with some -- up to several hundred killed. The military regime there has asked for help from anybody.
Yeah, we're going to be helping. We've already alerted the people, yeah, it's terrible what's happened. It's --
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-- helping. We've already spoken with the country, OK. Please.
Mr. President, yesterday, you asked Representative Stefanik to stay in her seat. Can you explain your reason for that? And did it have anything to do with the tight polling in the Florida district that former Representative Waltz held? Is that --
[Crosstalk]
Well, I think we're doing -- yeah, I think we have -- as you know, we have a few elections going on and she is phenomenal, number one. She is a friend of mine and she was going to go to the United Nations. And I said, look, there's a lot of room for doing that or something else, but she's very popular in her district and I didn't want to take a chance.
I don't even know who else is running. I assume somebody else would have been running, but if she runs, she can't be -- you never want to say can't be beaten, but I think can't be beaten. She's very, very well liked and very smart. And I said, Elise, would you do me a favor? We can -- we cannot take a chance.
We have a slim margin. We don't want to take any chances. We don't want to experiment, and she polls like I do. I won her district, as you know, by a lot of points and she also does very well there. When it comes to Florida, you have two races, and they seem to be good. It's a Trump plus 32 area. The one thing is they're spending like $12 million on our candidate doesn't have that kind of money, spending much less than that, like maybe 1/12, about $1 million, a little bit more than $1 million.
So, the airwaves are blanketed, and you never know what happens in a case like that. I won it by 32 points and it's very, very strong. It used to be democrat. But when I came along, they liked me. For whatever reason, you'll have to explain that. But they liked me and we're way up, but you don't know what happened --
[Technical issues with audio and video]
Second district, who seems to be in pretty good shape, but likewise he's being outspent about 5 to 1. So, we don't want to take any chances.
So, I went to Elise, and I said, Elise, do you mind -- very highly rated person, you know, she was a real leader, and she will be again. I spoke with Mike Johnson; they're going to put her in a high leadership position. But will you mind staying in congress because we don't want to take any chances. And it's as simple as that.
It's basic politics, it's politics 101. She's very popular, she's going to win. And somebody else will probably win too because we did very well there. I did very well there, but the word probably is no good. So, I really appreciate her doing it. She's doing me a big favor when she does it because she was all set to go to the United Nations and she would have dealt with Putin and Zelenskyy and everybody else and she would have been very effective.
But we really want to -- don't -- we don't want to take any chances because it is tight. Go ahead.
Thank you, sir. You and your team apprehended a top three leader in the violent gang, MS-13 yesterday, just 30 minutes outside of Washington DC. What has made you and your team so effective in finding, locating, apprehending and deporting these violent illegal migrants?
I love this guy [Laughter], I wish more people would ask questions like that. Thank you. That's very nice. And they happen. All you're doing is being fair with you -- when you ask a question in that way. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel and all of the rest of law enforcement, I think we have to include ICE and Border Patrol.
You know, Paul of Border Patrol, the whole group from Border Patrol, they're so incredible. And -- and it's, you know, dangerous stuff.
Hard stuff. And it's -- it's really an unforced error because these people were allowed into this country. And they shouldn't have been in this country. They would have never been in this country. We're getting rid of some of the worst criminals in the world. They came out of jails and mental institutions from all over the world.
But Pam and the whole group and Kash, who's here, and it's so good to have him. He's -- I see him all over. He's working 24 hours a day. But the job they've done is incredible. And they caught one of the worst criminals in -- in the world, I guess, in terms of evilness. You don't get any worse than the MS-13 guys and the Tren de Aragua guys.
It's -- you could flip a coin. It's a rough group. And you know, the big thing is they have to be able to do their job. We -- I know I saw -- I was watching it on television, like you, and I saw the -- the home that he lived in, in a good area. But boy, they had a lot of weaponry in there, right? Highly sophisticated, really brutal stuff, so. Uh, I appreciate the question.
And I just want to thank Kash and Pam and the whole group for doing a fantastic job. And the local law enforcement who's been so terrific and even first responders. So I want to thank everybody. And thank you very much.
Mr. President? Mr. President, how do you -- I want to say first of all, happy Women's Month.
Thank you.
Um, you do so much for women by --
Thank you.
First of all, keeping men out of women's sports. And you platform so many --
That was an easy one. [Laughter] That was crazy. [Laughter]
You platformed so many great women like your chiefs of -- chief of staff, Siouxsie Wiles.
That's right.
You also have Karoline Leavitt doing a great job as press secretary. Now Elena will be joining as well. Since Democrats seem to struggle answering this question, I wanted to ask you. What is a woman? And why is it important that we understand the difference between men and women? [Laughter]
Well, it's sort of easy to answer for me because a woman is somebody that can have a baby under certain circumstances. She can -- [Laughter] She has a quality. A woman is a person who's much smarter than a man, I've always found. [Laughter] Men -- a woman is a person that doesn't give a man even a chance of success.
And a woman is a person that, in many cases, has been treated very badly. Because I think that what happens with this crazy, this crazy issue of men being able to play in women's sports is just ridiculous. And very unfair to women. And very demeaning to women. And that's got to be about a 94 percent -- I read today it was a 94 percent issue.
And I watched -- the other day, I watched congressman -- a Democrat congressman fighting for the fact that men should be allowed to compete essentially in women's sports. And I say, I hope they keep that going. Because they'll never win another election. That's a big deal. But women are basically incredible people, do so much for our country.
And we love -- we love our women. And we're going to take care of our women. Yeah?
Mr. President? Mr. President? Mr. President? What the reason -- what was your reason for pardoning Trevor Milton?
Highly recommended by many people that was taken advantage of. He did a business deal, like in Utah as I have it, and I think he was exonerated. And then they brought him into New York where he had a rough, rough road and a road -- I mean he -- he was exonerated. It was a big celebration. Again, I don't know him, but I was -- they say it was very unfair.
And they say the -- the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president. He supported Trump. He liked Trump. I didn't know him, but he liked him. It was in Utah. And they went after him. They went after his family. They went after his businesses.
And he was, I believe, exonerated. And then they went after him again. And they brought him, this time into Manhattan, and he had nothing to do with Manhattan. And they got him. And I said that's unfair. There are many people like that. They support Trump and they went after them. You don't realize. This is a vicious group of people that were in this office before us. This was a vicious group.
They're violent. What they were -- what they were doing to people. And you could go story after -- hundreds and even thousands of stories. And they went after this man. And when I heard about it, I said, nope, not going to happen. They persecuted -- they destroyed five years of his life. He went fourth for five years of his life, and he did nothing wrong.
And he's a good person. And basically, I had these fantastic recommendations about him from people that you know very well, all top of the line people. They thought it was a horrible thing. There were -- there are many such cases, by the way, many such cases.
Mr. President? Mr. President, do Americans buy cars now if they want to avoid hiked prices? Rockets from Iran?
Please go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. President. Have you spoken with Vladimir Putin about buying weapons from Iran and from North Korea?
Not about specifically that. No, I haven't.
That seems to be an issue that you want to make important. Is --
Well, I'm making all issues important. You have got a lot of important issues. You also have the children issue that's important. You know, a lot of children are living in Russia right now. That's a horrible situation that would have never taken place if I -- and the country is being decimated. But you know, they're losing 2500, on average, young men, mostly men, almost in all cases men actually, but young men every single week, 2500. And they're not from our country.
They're from Ukraine. And they're from Russia. But it's human lives. And if we can get it stopped, and I think we're making progress. But there's a lot of ill will between the parties.
Mr. President? Mr. President? Mr. President, should -- should Americans buy cars now if they want to avoid higher prices? And then just a follow on --
No, I don't think so. I think you're going to have a country that's going to boom. I just spoke to Tim Cook of Apple. He's investing $500 billion in the United States, which he would have never. He told me. I would never have done it if you lost the election. And I would have never done it if there wasn't a tariff system that is an incentive for people to come.
And remember, there are no tariffs. All you have to do is do your work right here. If you have your company here, if you build your product, make your product, make your car or whatever it is, you're making, no tariffs. And we're going to have, I think, Scott, I would say we're close to $4 trillion, even going close to $5 trillion.
Now we haven't had that for years. If you add up years, they haven't invested like that. And here we are in two months, we think we're up to close to $5 trillion of investment. They're going to build car plants. They're already building some, many of them have already started.
[Inaudible]
And if you build a car in the United States -- and one thing that we just -- I just spoke with John Thune about, I just spoke to Mike Johnson about, speaker, we're going to do something that has never been done in this country before. I'm very proud to say it was my idea. And so sometimes the simple idea they say how did you think of that one?
It's so simple. It was never done. If you buy a car in the United States that's made in the United States, if it's manufactured here, when you borrow money, if you borrow money, you have interest payments, we're going to let you deduct the interest payments for income tax reasons. And I think that's going to more than pay for itself.
I think people are going to be -- they've never had a deduction. You know, deductions are supposed to be for like rich people. And it's unfair to have that. But rich people are -- I think I know more about deductions than any human being on earth. [Laughter] But you know, the truth is that people that are middle income people that buy a car and actually have to borrow money, they're going to now get an interest deduction on their car if it's made in the United States.
If it's made someplace else that won't take place. But car companies, as you know, are already expanding and building new plants. They've already started. And I think you're going to see numbers. Howard, you're seeing it. And Scott, you're seeing it. You're going to see numbers the likes of which you've never seen before.
Yeah, please go ahead.
Mr. President, the vice president is in Greenland right now. Do you have plans to expand US military presence in Greenland? Is that --
We get along very well with Greenland. We get along very well with Denmark. We've always had a good -- Denmark does a lot of business in the United States. We don't do so much there, but they do a lot of business in the United States. And I think they want to see -- I think everybody wants to see that work out.
We need Greenland, very importantly, for international security. We have to have Greenland. It's not a question of, do you think we can do without it? We can't. If you look at Greenland right now, if you look at the waterways, you have Chinese and Russian ships all over the place. And we're not going to be able to do that.
We're not relying on Denmark or anybody else to take care of that situation. And we're not talking about peace for the United States. We're talking about world peace. We're talking about international security. And right now, you look at it, you have warships all over the place going through right along Greenland.
We're not going to let that happen. We cannot let that happen. Or if it's going to happen, we have to be protective of our country.
[Inaudible]
And more importantly, really protection not only of our country of the world. So Greenland is very important. And modern day weaponry makes Greenland. 100 years ago, less so but also --
Will you -- Would you like to visit Greenland?
If you noticed -- if you notice also some of those, you could call them roadways, OK? They're water roadways, but some of those areas are opening up. And they're opening up icebreakers out there, they're opening them. And by just nature, they're opening up and they're headed right into China, right into Russia, and we have no choice.
The answer is he's there with his wonderful wife, Usha, they're there right now. They landed a couple of hours ago and they will represent us well.
But Greenland is very important for the peace of the world, not us, the peace of the entire world. And I think Denmark understands it. I think the European Union understands it. And if they don't, we're going to have to explain it to them.
Would you like to visit Greenland, Mr. President?
[Crosstalk]
Say it.
[Crosstalk]
-- Iranian drones are attacking and killing Ukrainians every day. Why aren't you doing something about that?
Well, you're going to see what happens with that. I'm getting reports on that and we're looking at a report. You're right, they make a lot of drones. Iran makes a lot of drones. They make very effective drones too. They do very effectively at some things. But Iran is very high on my list of things to watch.
And as you probably know, I sent them a letter just recently and I said you're going to have to make a decision one way or the other. And we're going to either have to talk and talk it out or very bad things are going to happen to Iran. And I don't want that to happen --
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-- preference. And I don't say this through strength or weakness, my big preference is we work it out with Iran.
But if we don't work it out, bad, bad things are going to happen to Iran. OK, thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.