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Zach and Alex, my friends also by the way, Aach, Alex, thank you, fellas. His girlfriend Lauren, who's a great golfer, I have to tell you, top of the line, and her daughter. Hi Finley, how are you? Finley, her daughter and his brother Robert. Robert, you're much better looking than Steve, and his sisters, Amy and Suzy.
Thank you. Thank you both. His daughter-in-law Sophie. Hi, Sophie. His brother-in-law, Gary. Oh, there he is. Oh, hello, Gary, thank you. And his sister-in-law Elaine. There are also many others. Thank you all very much. I also want to thank our great Vice President JD Vance, Secretary Marco Rubio. And Marco, we're having a big day, I think, Marco, we'll find out.
We're having a big period of time -- I think that this is a potentially a great time for our country in solving a lot of problems that we inherited that we should have never had frankly. Attorney General Pam Bondi who is incredible and Senator Lindsey Graham -- Senator Graham, where are you? Where is Senator Graham?
Hello Lindsey. Steve is a graduate of some great schools including Hofstra University where he studied political science and law. After graduating, he entered the real estate business, co-founding the Stellar Management Company in 1985 and launching a legendary career. He started off in a law office. In fact, he was one of my young lawyers and I said that guy is smart, but he just started.
It was a very smart firm, Dreyer & Traub, killers. They were total killers. They said he's worse than all of them. But people don't know that; they think he's a nice guy, Pam. He's not that nice actually, but he is something. Steve quickly established himself as one of the toughest, smartest and best negotiators in the business.
In 1997, he founded the Witkoff Group, which now owns dozens of the most beautiful and iconic properties in the entire world, he owns some incredible properties. As a businessman, he's admired and respected by all. And now Steve is putting his talents to work for America as special envoy to the United States and making a lot of progress.
Our country is blessed to have a negotiator of such skill and experience who really selflessly steps up to the plate, puts himself forward all the time. Over the past few months, Steve has already helped negotiate the return of dozens of hostages from Gaza. And they come in and see me, many of them, and they are so thankful to Steve.
And also, hostages from other parts of the globe. He's met with President Putin, Prime Minister, Netanyahu, representatives of Iran and many other places. He is meeting with people that he never really thought he'd ever meet just a few months ago. And he's figuring it out. It takes him about an hour to figure it out.
After that, he's brutal. He does a great job. He's working tirelessly to end the bloody and destructive conflicts and one in particular with Russia and Ukraine and -- where you're losing 5,000 young people a week on average. Ukrainian soldiers, Russian soldiers and people in towns and villages that are being killed.
We want to bring it to an end and we're working -- Steve is in the Middle East where I think we're having some very good success and you'll be hearing about it as we go. We had tremendous success over the last month, and we're taking the word of the Houthis, but they didn't want any more and I understand that.
And they have decided that they don't want to do this anymore. So, I'm proud to have him as a friend. Steve's a very fantastic guy. I picked him out of a lot of people; I had a lot of choices. But I said we need somebody with two things, a great personality and somebody that could negotiate and he's got both of them in spades.
He's also really smart. So, I want to thank everybody for being here. And I want to -- very, very importantly, I want to say to Marco Rubio, that you're swearing in a very important person. And Steve reports to Marco. I said Steve, you better do a good job, or Marco will fire -- he will fire you so violently, you have no idea [Laughter]. But Marco, if you could administer the oath.
Thank you very much, Marco. Thank you, Steve.
Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you.
Stand in front here. Raise your right hand. I, state your name.
I, Steve Witkoff,
Do solemnly swear.
Do solemnly swear.
That I will support and defend.
That I will support and defend.
The Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution of the United States.
Against all enemies.
Against all enemies,
Foreign and domestic.
Foreign and domestic.
That I will bear true faith and allegiance.
That I will bear true faith and allegiance.
To the same.
To the same.
That I take this obligation freely.
That I take this obligation freely.
Without any mental reservations.
Without any mental reservations.
Or purpose of evasion.
Or purpose of evasion.
And that I will well.
And that I will well.
And faithfully.
And faithfully.
Discharge the duties of the office.
Discharge the duties of the office.
On which I'm about to enter.
On which I am about to enter.
So help me God.
So help me God.
Congratulations.
Do you have any -- good job. Thank you, Marco. Any questions for Steve?
Do you have any reaction to the attacks between India and Pakistan?
No, it's a shame. We just heard about it just as we were walking in the doors of the Oval, just heard about it. I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. They've been fighting for a long time. You know, they've been fighting for many, many decades -- and centuries actually, if you really think about it. No, I just hope it ends very quickly.
Mr. President, are you considering adding a stop in Israel during next week's trip to the Middle East? And also, what's your reaction to Israel's plan to reoccupy Gaza if there is no ceasefire?
Well, the plan we haven't talked about, but we're not planning on stopping in Israel, but we will be doing it at some point, but not for this trip.
Mr. President, there's a report that the UK is offering various trade concessions. What's your response to that?
Who? What?
The United Kingdom. And can you also say if you were discussing tariffs with Mr. Arnault?
And what about the United Kingdom?
They're offering various trade concessions, apparently cars, steel, digital services.
They're offering us concessions? I hope so. They do want to make a deal very badly.
Did you say your guests here -- are you discussing tariffs or business?
No, I think that the United Kingdom\, like every other country, they want to go shopping in the United States of America. China wants to -- very much wants to make a deal, they all do. But yeah, I would say that every country wants to make a deal, and not the ones they had in the past where we were like -- look, we were being ripped off by every country, practically without exception, in the entire world.
And those days are over; those days are over. And you know, I said before in our meeting with the new and very talented Prime Minister of Canada that we have some very big announcement to make. It's not about trade, it's about something else, but it's going to be a truly earth-shattering and positive development for this country and for the people of this country.
And that will take place sometime within the next few days.
Mr. President are there any plans for Mr. Witkoff to travel once again to Russia. And as you mentioned in your remarks, he's traveled to Russia on a number of occasions. He's met with President Putin. What type of progress is being made as it relates to all of those visits that he's made to Russia?
I think a lot because I think Russia wanted to take all of Ukraine and they've stopped. That's a lot of progress. You know, it's small, it's a portion of Ukraine. But no, I think a lot. I think if we weren't here, they would be right now fighting to take the whole country and they're not doing that. So, I think that's a lot of progress.
Please.
Mr. President, does it frustrate you that Russia continues to attack civilian areas inside Ukraine without any reservation? It leads to scores of casualties almost on a daily basis.
I don't like anything about that war. It's a war. I don't like anything about it and I'm not happy with that. No, not at all. Not even a little bit. Yeah.
Mr. President, you've said the Houthis are backing down. We're seeing conflicting reports that they plan on continuing to attack Israel in support of Gaza. Does that change the equation?
No, I don't know about that frankly, but I know one thing, they want nothing to do with us and they've let that be known through all of their surrogates, and very strongly.
You said that all hell would break loose if the rest of the hostages weren't released. Is there a hostage deal that's imminent? And are you talking to Netanyahu right now about their plan to level the rest of Gaza?
We're talking to him about a lot of things right now. This is really crunch time. I would tell you for Iran and for their country, this is a very important time for Iran. This is the most important time in the history of Iran for Iran. And I hope they do what's right. I'd love to see a peace deal, a strong peace deal.
They cannot have a nuclear weapon. But I would say that this is the single most important period in the history of Iran, which is a long history. And we want it to be a great country, let it be a tremendously successful, rich country. They have everything you need. The people are incredible. They have vast amounts of oil and assets.
We want it to be a successful country. We don't want to do anything that's going to get in the way of that, but they can't have a nuclear weapon. And if they choose to go a different route, it's going to be a very sad thing. And it's something we don't want to have to do, but we have no choice. They're not going to have a nuclear weapon.
They're not going to have a nuclear weapon. Do you understand that? OK.
[Inaudible] Mr. President, but with regards to the Houthis, have you ever -- have you told the military to stop attacks against -- as of now?
We just -- yeah, we just informed them a little while ago and all action is stopping. Some people probably haven't heard yet. You know, there are various people in various rather strategic locations. But by this moment they should just about all know, Marco, I think that the attacks are going to stop both ways.
And that's pretty much it. But we've just informed everybody just a little while ago.
To follow up on the previous question, Houthis continue to attack Israel, which you said you didn't know about. But if they continue to attack Israel, just not attack --
Well, I'll discuss that if something happens, OK, if something happens with Israel and the Houthis, yeah.
Do you expect to have a trade deal you're able to announce later this week?
Well, I can announce all of them now, I can announce 50 to 100 deals right now because, you know, I'm the shopkeeper and I keep the store. And I know what countries are looking for and I know what we're looking for and I can just set those terms. And they can go shopping or they don't have to go shopping because everybody wants to shop here.
This is like a beautiful store. This is like one of Bernard Arnault, or maybe I should say Alex, even more importantly, young, the future. But Bernard, it's an honor to have you. We'll have a meeting after this. But he has the greatest stores in the world, and they want to shop. Our country is the greatest store in the world of that kind, and everybody wants a piece of it. And they took advantage of us for years because we allowed presidents -- our presidents allowed it to happen.
You know, I don't blame China, and I don't blame Vietnam, and I could name every single country all the way up and down the line, South Korea, every single country took advantage of us without exception, Japan. These are friends of mine, but they took advantage of this country. They ripped off our country, selling us millions and millions of cars a year and we sold them none.
We weren't allowed to sell them a car. They took advantage of us. I don't blame them. I blame the people that sat behind that desk that allowed it to happen. But I don't allow it to happen. I didn't in the first term, but this is a much stronger position because we did -- we had the greatest economy in history in our first term.
The stock market was up 88 percent, and we had numbers much better than that. But this is going to be, I think, a much better term. And I think the tariffs are coming in, starting to come in. We were losing $5 billion plus a day on trade. Now we're not losing that kind of money and we'll soon be making a lot of money a day and a year and a month.
President Trump, a question for you and perhaps the attorney general. The Justice Department recently received a criminal referral against New York Attorney General Tish James for fraud. We haven't heard much about it. Could you or the Attorney General give us an update as to what's going on with that investigation?
Well, I don't want to get involved in something that Pamela is involved with. If you'd like to say something, Pam, or --
[Inaudible]
I can say unrelated to that, she's a disaster for New York. She's a horrible, horrible human being, and I think she's a total crook. There's no question about it, but that's just my opinion. Pam is going to have to do what she wants. She's a very bad person. She's a very, very bad, a very bad person who campaigned solely on, I'm going to get Donald Trump, over and over again.
She's a sick person. But that's has nothing to do with what Pam does. Pam is going to do what's right. She always does. I've known her a long time. Yeah, go ahead behind you.
Thank you. On Gaza, you said there's been progress and progress in the Middle East, but at the moment, as a colleague said, Israel -- Netanyahu is saying he now wants to conquer Gaza. Is there any prospect of any movement on that? Are you happy with what [Inaudible]
Well, we've gone very slowly because we want to try and get as many hostages saved as possible and we've done a good job in that regard. Two weeks ago, I had 10 hostages come in and they thanked me profusely. And I said, you have nothing to thank me about. What they went through is incredible. They lived in a pipe.
You know, they keep hearing about caves. It was a pipe, 3.5 feet high, and they didn't know if they were going to breathe. They didn't know if they were going to live to the next day. They lived like hell. I couldn't believe the stories I was hearing. And they weren't grandstanding; these were people that were seriously mistreated.
One was in for 512 days, one was in for 361 I guess days, and one was in for a shorter period of time. The stories were unbelievable. I said how many people are left. How many are left? They said 59. I said, oh, wow, that's more than I thought. They said, well, only 24 are living, but now it's 21. That was a week ago.
Now it's 21 are living. And these are young people; these are -- young people don't die. Old people die; young people don't die under these conditions. So, of the 59 people, and they said 59 and I said really, but they said only 24 are living. And I now correct, I say 21 because as of today it's 21, three have died.
So, this is a terrible situation. We're trying to get the hostages out. We've gotten a lot of them out. As the expression goes, there's 21 plus a lot of dead bodies. You know, parents came up to me on numerous occasions, but a couple in particular. They came up to me two weeks ago and they said, please, sir, my son is dead.
Please get us back his body. They wanted his body. He's dead; they know he's dead. They wanted his body as much as you would want the boy if he was alive. It's a very sad thing. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.