You'll be thrilled. Are you all set? We'll maybe start where we left off yesterday. And we showed you this picture, and now it's opened. So this is now open. And you see the size of that compared to some of the biggest buildings in the country, actually the biggest. Hey, Peter.
Hey, President Trump.
And we have it finished. The water is pouring in as we speak. And maybe we'll show that, what it looks like, because I'm sure the fake news will be thrilled. Take a look. This is from just a little while ago. Nice, clean water. So we're here to talk about clean, beautiful coal. That's clean, beautiful water.
That's the longest pool anywhere in the world. And here, you can tell they're not progressive because -- this is not a progressive, because progressives never wear or show an American flag. These are proud people from Oklahoma. They came from Oklahoma, a company from Oklahoma to do it. But you notice the American flag.
He's proudly showing off his work. You know he's not a liberal and/or a progressive. Used to be a liberal, but they changed their name somewhere along the way because liberal wasn't working, but progressive doesn't work too. Well, this is a beautiful term. They are not progressive; they're digressive. You got that?
What do you think?
Looks good.
Daniel's great. He's a great -- he's a great reporter. And again, we have a picture of a gentleman in a cart proudly. This is the head of construction for the job, so you can see it's just finished. This is just minutes before. And there's a gentleman named Secretary Burgum from Interior, Doug, who's been doing an incredible job.
So Doug, we had -- we have 22 waterfalls. Most of them haven't worked for over 50 years. As of this morning, they all work beautifully and they're clean. The graffiti is gone. The broken marble is fixed. There's a way of fixing it. You use a thing called silicone and you fix them and they look beautiful.
All of the hate and everything is removed from them. Some of them are done through stupidity, actually, but hate. But here's another picture. Now you can tell this is a proud American, because he's got a flag. Protesters never have -- the bad protesters never have flags up. They somehow don't like the flag too much, but we do. So that's great.
We put in today, as you know, about SAVE America, the SAVE America Act. I don't know, some -- some day, the Senate and the House will get it done. Although, I must tell you, the House has approved it about three times already. SAVE America Act right here. We have -- everybody can see that. And then we'll talk about clean, beautiful coal.
You're not allowed to say coal within the Trump administration unless it's preceded by the words clean, beautiful. Complicates our life but it's good. Right, Chris, wherever you may be?
Got your back, Mr. President.
It is clean and beautiful. I'll tell you, it's effective. So SAVE America act is all voters must show Photo ID. So you go to vote and you show photo ID, not complicated, right? You know, who could -- who could oppose it? They say it's an 80/20. It's not. It's about 99/1, and we'll never find the one person.
Andy. Congratulations, Andy, on a big victory.
Thank you for your help, sir.
That's great. I think -- I appreciate it, but you're -- you're very good at what you do, and I -- I've been -- I've been backing you right from the beginning for a long time, right?
Backing you too, sir.
For years. That's right; you have. Thank you. Congratulations. He won a big election. So you have all voters must show photo ID, identification. All voters must show a little thing called proof of citizenship. Would you say that's 99/1, Mr. Pennsylvania?
I would say that's maybe 100 to 0, sir.
I would think so. They say --
At least, it should be.
No, but they say it's 80/20. It's not 80/20. It's 99, and we've never found the one person. There's another one. Then you have no mail-in ballots, but we want to be liberal, as they say, or we'll say, we want to be progressive. So it's no mail-in ballots. You see that's -- what's happening in California.
They're rigging the election. Now, maybe we caught them and maybe they won't be able to get away with it. Uh, they tried with me. They did it successfully the second time. The third time, we made it too big to rig. Too many votes, they couldn't do it. They can only go -- they sort of gave up at about 9:07 when they got slaughtered with the votes that came in, but no mail-in ballots, except for illness, disability, military or travel.
So we're being very progressive. And we just don't want cheating in our elections. And you see it happening in California. Those numbers are coming down rapidly. They found a lot of mail-in ballots last night, shockingly. So we don't want that. Then we added best-of. This is best-of Trump. No men in women's sports.
No trans gender mutilization surgery for our children. I would say that's pretty close to 99 to 1 also. No men in women's sports, I would say that's pretty good. We had the quarterback -- Jaxson was the quarterback -- is the quarterback for the Giants. He's a big, strong guy and I said, how do you think you do in women's sports?
Jaxson? He said, pretty good, sir. He didn't know I was joking. He was not worried, let me put it that way. He would have been the greatest athlete in the history of women's sports. You got to see the size of this guy, like a male model, and he's going to be a great quarterback. So, uh, we talk about that and so we just would like the Senate Democrats, Republicans to pass it. Uh, interestingly, Democratic people, Democrat people, not crooked politicians, because most of them are crooked or they're sick or they're Trump-deranged.
There is Trump Derangement syndrome. But the people, its 86, 87 percent Democrats. I mean, Democrats are fine. I have a lot of Democrat friends, but they -- I don't know, for some reason when they go into politics, they get radical left crazy, and they're trying to destroy our country, but we're not going to let that happen.
So today, we're taking historic action to bring down the price of energy and the cost of living for all Americans with the power of clean, beautiful coal. If you look at China, if you look at so many of the successful countries, they're using coal. If you look at some of the real great failures, countries they're using, wind, just keeps blowing, blowing, blowing, and puts you right out of business.
Very expensive, most expensive energy there is. So wind is not working very well, but they keep it going. And because people get subsidies by countries that are stupid. Doug, I would say we haven't been long on wind. Do you agree with that? He understands numbers very well. You know, Doug was very, very successful.
Believe it or not, I used to think it was in energy, but he was successful in technology and he sold his company to, I think, Microsoft, right? And for a lot of money and he ran for politics. He ran for office, went to North Dakota, won immediately, won governor. He was very successful for eight years. And I watched him during one of the performances of some very talented people.
And I said, we're going to get him to work for us. And then I said I was going to put him in charge of energy and he said, sir, there's a better man than me for that one. Not in all ways you feel that, but in one way. In energy, you do. And that was Chris, right? Where is Chris?
Right here.
Right behind you.
He's a hard one to find. And Chris has done a fantastic job, and he's one of the reasons we're here today. We have had -- uh, we're right now double Saudi Arabia and Russia. If you double them up, that's what we produce, more than anybody else times two. So think of that. Uh, as a result of the $700 million investment that I'm announcing today, we will protect 14 coal plants and 42 coal mines.
It's a tremendous number. And build two new coal plants and one massive new export terminal, because we're exporting coal. Coal is a great business, really a big business and it's real power. It's -- in terms of power, there's really nothing like it. Uh, you have so many different alternatives. They talk about some, but there's no real alternative.
Uh, China, by the way, last year, built 52 coal plants. They built about two -- two windmills. You know, the only time they build a windmill is when they're trying to sell them to stupid people from the United States, the suckers. And by the way, and all over Europe. They sell the windmills, but they don't use them.
I wonder why. They use coal plants and other things. These actions will support over 14,000 jobs and save the American people $50 billion in electricity costs. We're pleased to be joined by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, and he has been great. I don't want to give him a big, swollen ego, because then, all of a sudden, he'll leave me and I'll be -- and I'll be stuck with it. I don't want to be stuck, but he's really done a great job.
Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, who's fantastic. And maybe our MVP. What do you think, Doug? It's close.
Yes, yes, right here.
What do you think, MVP, Lee Zeldin. And the job he's done is great. We had the auto industry in yesterday. They don't want people to fix their car. I said, that's strange, I've never heard of that. They have a thing to -- nobody's allowed to fix their car. They gave a man seven years in jail, actually, because he fixed his own car.
So I thought we'd do something about that. But we'll get -- we'll get it all straightened away. Can you believe it? They want a bill that prohibits people from fixing. So if you're mechanically inclined -- you know, I grew up. I went to school with some guys; they were, in some cases, horrible students, but they could fix an engine blindfolded.
They could take a car apart blindfolded, but they weren't too good at arithmetic and other things. But they were great. And so there's a move on to stop people from fixing their car. I didn't understand it, but we had a great meeting yesterday with the head of General Motors and Roger Penske, head of Ford.
We had a great meeting, I think. Thanks as well to a friend of mine, also for a long time, West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey. I won by 45 points, Patrick.
It's not enough.
I love those people. And Wyoming I think maybe even slightly more than West Virginia.
Just a little more.
We did pretty -- I like this group of people. But Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, respected guy, great governor -- both of them really amazing. And Representatives Dan Meuser, Riley Moore, Derrick Van Orden, Juan Ciscomani and Andy Barr. So, you have a lot of Representatives here that are fantastic. Today, we're officially invoking the Defense Production Act to save 13 coal plants in West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota and Wisconsin.
These were incredible plants, so productive, really producing a lot of the electricity, right? The electricity and it's really the best at that. You know, when they find something better, Chris, I think we'll be all set for it, right? But there are long ways from finding something better.
Coal is critical.
And so, when you look at that, those states, West Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee, Arizona, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Wisconsin, what do they all have in common? Trump won them. I won every one of them by a lot, right? I'm not even mentioning Pennsylvania, which we won also, right?
But we won them all. We won -- probably we won all 50. We had an honest count if you want to know the truth. Our action will allow these facilities to invest in upgrades. It will extend their operational lives for decades into the future, reinforce the reliability of our electric grid, which is really the biggest beneficiary.
And most importantly, keep electricity prices very low for the American people. This brings the total number of coal plants that we've saved during my administration, just like when we said we saved 25 water fountains -- think of this, these are fountains, beautiful fountains that were so horrible to look at with the graffiti.
Over 40 years, many of them closed over 40 to 50 years. The big one, the reflective lake, reflective -- some people call it a pond, some people -- it's like a lake. But the reflective lake was built in 1922. It never really worked from the beginning, from 1922. That's a long ways. So, it's over 100 years old and it never really worked because they had the wrong base.
It was always leaking, they didn't have what we have today. So, it's pretty amazing what's happened. And I hate to say it won't leak, but it won't leak because we used a material that doesn't allow leaks. It's like a swimming pool doesn't leak, you use the right -- this is called swimming pool on steroids.
So, it's great stuff. And today's actions, we're also supporting coal mines and coal miners in Wyoming and Pennsylvania, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, North Dakota and New Mexico. And they're going to -- they're all going back to work. You know, it's interesting with the mines, that famous scene of Hillary when we went to West Virginia.
And she had just left another state, and she was trying to convince everybody that they should go into technology, no longer be miners. And these guys in West Virginia, they didn't want to hear about it. They want it to be -- remember that scene around the table? They talked to this beautiful, big, strong miner and they wanted him to make computer chips.
She said, we'll teach him how to make computer chips. His hands were so large he couldn't hold a computer chip. He's looking at it -- he had fingers that were like three inches around them, they're talking about making a computer chip. And he didn't like it and he ended up being one of our best ads ever.
She wasn't -- and she did rather poorly. She lost -- I think she lost by 77 points or something like that. Pretty tough to go knock -- you knock, call, and then you go two weeks later to West Virginia to try and win the state. It didn't work out well for her, but the miners love us. What do you think we got with the coal miners?
Would you say we got 90 percent, 100 percent? Where do you think we were on this?
Pretty high. Probably higher than any group in the country.
Pretty high. Yeah, it can't be bad. Well, we did well with all the groups. I'll tell you, the group that now likes us are the auto workers, because we're building more auto plants now than at any time in the history of our country. So, it's great to watch and see what's going on with the US. We're the most respected country anywhere in the world, and we were a dead country a year and a half -- we were a dead country.
We were laughed at; we were a mocked, laughed at country. Starting this summer the West Gateway project will break ground and by summer 2028, over 12 million tons of clean, beautiful coal per year will be shipped to countries all around the world. And this project has been delayed over 10 years and Biden ended it and then Barack Hussein Obama.
Have you heard of him? Barack Hussein Obama, another one. He's another beauty but that delay is now over, and it's going to be very productive. It's going to fuel our electric plants in particular. It's going to be amazing. Finally, we're taking nearly $200 million in that to set aside for the green new scam.
And it was set aside for the green new scam, but the green new scam is history. And repurposing that money so that we restart a coal plant in Maryland and help build two brand new coal plants in Alaska and West Virginia. And these were all built with new technology, it's very clean. It's amazing how that's come along, it's all very clean.
And the first new coal plants to open in our country since 2013. You couldn't open, you couldn't even think, they were only closing them. They were closing them and you had brownouts all over the place. But you don't have that anymore, do you notice? Under four years of Sleepy Joe Biden and the radical left Democrats in Congress, not a single permit was approved for a new coal mining project.
But in over one year of our administration, we've already approved 76 permits for clean, beautiful coal. Last year, we prevented 17 gigawatts of coal powered electricity from going offline, and that's enough power to -- for about 13 million homes. Think of that, 13 million homes at a very low price. It's the lowest price.
So, now I'd like to ask Secretary Burgum to say a few words, followed by Secretary Write, Administrator Lee Zeldin and then Governor Mark Gordon and whoever else wants to say a few words, including my new friend, my new governor friend. So, Doug, go ahead.
Well, thank you, President Trump. With these announcements today and everything that your administration has accomplished so far since you've taken office, this administration has done more to save, protect and expand coal in our country than any administration perhaps ever.
Clean, beautiful coal.
Clean, beautiful coal, absolutely.
I'm only kidding. [Laughter]
That's OK. When you took office, the first thing you did was declare an energy emergency. Some people questioned that, but the prior administration under Biden had gone so far down the path of pursuing the highly subsidized, intermittent weather dependent sources of electricity that our grid was at risk.
You understood that, and you understood how key coal is. It's the backbone of having affordable, reliable and secure American energy to power our country, power our electric grid, power our competitiveness in AI, and power all the manufacturing that's coming back. As you mentioned, with those record coal leases, this is where we take federal public land, lease it to the private sector.
They write a check, that comes into the treasury. They create jobs, help support local communities. So, there are zero coal leases held in four years under the Biden administration, and you heard the president talk about 76 here. We've slashed red tape. Those took years to get. Some of these projects for coal mining we've approved in less than one month under the emergency procedures.
And we also have opened up for leasing another 13.1 million acres that people can bid on in our country on public land, and this is land that was set aside. This is not national parks, it's not wilderness area, it's not our wildlife refuges. This is public land that was set aside for the benefit and use of the American people, including energy development, making sure that we've got affordable, reliable energy.
So, using those public lands is what we're doing. And then the last thing within Interior, I would say we did strategically designate through the US Geological Survey, which is part of Interior, designate metallurgical coal as a critical mineral. So, it's on the list and that opens up a number of opportunities.
But without metallurgical coal, we don't have coke, we don't have a steel industry. The Biden administration was indiscriminate, trying to shut down our metallurgical coal as well as our thermal coal. And then the last thing you mentioned, the coal export facility again, working through all the permitting to drive towards that so that we can be selling clean, reliable energy to our allies in the Pacific who want to do more trade with us. And lastly, again, thank you for creating the National Energy Dominance Council.
Our executive director, Jarrod Agen, is here today, but Chris, Lee and I all have details on that team and that operates right out of the White House. And that's why President Trump is able to get so much done so quickly is -- this is the first time ever we've had a president with a White House council specifically we focused on energy and what an impact it's having.
Well, thank you to -- perhaps slightly less importantly, but I think very important, the National Garden of American Heroes is going to be unbelievable. And I'd like to know how you're doing on that and how are you doing on the great triumphal arc? So every city, just about every major city, has a triumphal arc.
This is an arc that's a real bow -- a beautiful bow to your military and military victories. Nobody's had more military victories, including recently, than we have. And they never got the arc built. It's been -- the Civil War stopped it. That circle has been sitting there for a long time, for many, many years.
And I guess he could go back to in 1902, they tried it. And -- but in 1860 and 1880, they just never got it done. The Civil War stopped it the first time. That was a good reason. I think that's probably not a bad 0-- that was a good excuse but after that, it just never happened and we're going to get it done.
And so we're doing it with the Department of Interior and we're also doing the National Garden of American Heroes, which is phenomenal. And we're doing something that just came up. We'll have a little breaking news here because nobody's heard of it. But at the Lincoln Memorial, the front was supposed to be the back, the back was supposed to be the front.
It never got built because they built two roadways behind it after it was built, and it shut off the gateway to the water, that was really going to be the main entry. And we're going to be doing that. We're going -- it's called the promenade, be the promenade. They want to call it the promenade, but I don't know if I want to do that, but it's going to be beautiful.
It's a beautiful project and it's going to take the Lincoln Memorial right down to the Potomac, which it was always scheduled to do, but when they built the roads, that was the end of that. But we have a way of beautifully going over those two roads, highways, very, very strong, very important roads, actually, as you know, from the bridge.
But it's going to be great. And so can I ask, Doug, just for -- just a couple of seconds to talk about those three great projects that we're just starting?
Well, I'd say that the -- it's important for everyone to know that as you describe, these are plans and ideas that have existed almost since the end of the Civil War, but the McMillan plan, which is the one that designed the National Mall as we see it today, uh, that was in the early part of the 1900s, envisioned this connection that you would have a -- the memorial bridge between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Cemetery.
At the halfway point, there's a very large circle. It was designed to hold a monument. Uh, the arc that would go there, uh, is a fantastic compliment and completion of this plan that's over 120 years ago, President Trump's vision of how to build that. Uh, and of course, President Trump has talked to President Macron from France.
More people visit the arc de Triomphe than even visit the Eiffel Tower. I mean, this would be a highlight for Americans to come. The views back at the city from the top of the arch would be amazing. The views from this side, from West Potomac, where the National Guard of Heroes was, looking across at the arch would be amazing.
And of course, the promenade on the backside of the Lincoln is, as President Trump described. Right now, there's no pedestrian access. You're on the mall. People come from around the world. They don't know that a hundred yards away is the beautiful Potomac River, which was part of the original plan. And now they'd be able to walk around the Lincoln Memorial, walk on a pedestrian bridge over the first highway, walk over the next one, and right down to the water.
It would complete the vision. These projects would complete the original vision of the McMillan plan. And how fortunate are we to have the builder in chief, someone who both has the vision and the understanding of how to get projects done that would, again, make our city safe and beautiful, just like the executive order President Trump put out last year has accomplished.
And wow, we are ready for the celebration of our 250th anniversary the city has never been safer it's never been more beautiful but President Trump's not stopping there. Uh, vision that he has for these projects, uh, would extend for generations forward. So thank you, President Trump.
Thank you, Doug. Great job. And Secretary Chris Wright, please.
Yeah. Look, no coal, no modern world. Stated another way, without clean, beautiful coal and modern world is impossible. And we saw 17 years ago, President Obama's election, an all-out attack on the American coal industry, the industry that built our nation. We wouldn't have the buildings, the factories, the industry, the electricity grid we have today without the critical contribution of coal.
It's been the largest source of global electricity for 125 years in a row, and will be for decades to come. In the United States, it remains a critical source of our electricity, also critical source for our industry. Can't produce steel and cement and other materials without coal. And beyond the impacts of coal in our electricity sector, just think of the direct impact on human lives.
If President Trump had not been elected and inaugurated in January of 2025, and through his authority at the DOE, we were able to force keeping open six coal plants. As of today, there'll be a seventh one, and more than twice as many that voluntarily said, hey, if we're not going to have to close, we need to stay open.
17 coal plants were not closed in 2025 because of President Trump sitting at this desk and in this position right here. That saved -- that saved 17 gigawatts of electric generating capacity, and the winter storm fern that hit our country in the last week of January this year, hundreds -- conservatively, hundreds of Americans would have lost their lives if those 17 coal plants had closed.
We pushed the East Coast electricity grid in the United States absolutely to the limit. A storm, Uri, hit five years ago in Texas, smaller in geographic extent, not the same magnitude. Over 300 people died. But because we had those coal plants operating and running, and not only did they run, wind power disappeared when the storm hit.
Solar is irrelevant in the winter, so things we talk about didn't even matter to our electricity grid except for cost burdens. Coal stepped up and produced 25 percent more electricity during this storm than its normal, reliable chugging out of electricity. Without those plants, without that increase in electricity production, we lost a lot of Americans, untold economic damage.
President Trump is the President with the courage and the boldness to defend an industry that has been maligned for far too long and to recognize its importance. Americans are upset about high electricity prices, blame closing existing, reliable, secure plants and replacing them with subsidized, unreliable plants, a guaranteed way to drive electricity prices up. But this administration is committed to reversing all of that.
That money we've talked about from the Defense Production Act, thankfully, because of the One Big, Beautiful Bill and these fantastic Congressmen sitting around me, and governors, without that legislation, we wouldn't have the money and the -- and the Defense Production Act authority to keep open so many plants.
It is hard to overstate the magnitude of this. If you look at our efforts across the whole of government so far, 45 coal plants are open today that would not be open. Where would we be to Reindustrialize America? Where would electricity prices be if we had let all of those plants close, but we're not doing it. All of those plants, that's $700 million of government funding, but it's matched with $1.7 billion of private investment from the owners and operators of those plants.
All the people in those states that say, phew, we don't have to kick our industry out and raise electricity prices again. Common sense is returning to Washington, DC. Um, and for that, I'm incredibly thankful to be here in the United States government, to work for President Trump, who will stand up for what's right, bring common sense back, and reinvigorate an industry without which we would not have the America we have today.
And we're going to reindustrialize America when in the next generation of technologies and we're going to do it in critical part because of a growing and thriving coal industry. Thank you, President Trump. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chris. Good job.
Thank you, Secretary Burgum. Thank you, Lee Zeldin.
Good. And Lee Zeldin, how about saying a few words?
For so many Americans, clean, beautiful coal is their source of heat, of energy, of warmth, of a job, an economy, a community, a family. And for too long, you saw Democrats who were telling these coal miners that they should just learn to code. And what we saw during the Biden administration at the EPA, for example, was regulation after regulation, after regulation, trying to strangulate out of existence, coal, to destroy it. Enter President Trump, declares a national energy emergency, creates a National Energy Dominance Council.
And he told us at the EPA, at Trump speed, to be getting rid of these regulations as quickly as possible on behalf of those Americans who want to just stay warm, who want to live the American dream, who want to have affordable access to energy. The Democrats were running for power to sit at this desk and to leverage that power to destroy these communities.
Under President Trump, he has saved clean, beautiful coal, and it's been an honor to be part of it.
Thank you. Great job, too. Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon, thank you.
Mr. President, it's an honor to be here. Thank you to the secretaries who have breathed life into an economy in Wyoming that has been there for a long time. Wyoming produces the cleanest, most beautiful coal, low sulfur coal.
You don't mind if I push them, right?
And it's fun because we have a chance to educate our kids. Let me just talk a little bit about the other side of this. When a kid grows up in Wyoming, their education is paid for in large part by the coal severance taxes, by the royalties that come from mining that coal that was shut down by the Democrats.
When they have a chance to get a job, they can go look to the coal mine. And it's not just digging coal the way we used to; it's high-tech jobs. You know, at this point, we don't mine coal the way we used to at all. It is very, very technologically proficient and, what's more important, it's environmentally sound.
I would invite you to come and look at the reclamation that's happened in the Powder River Basin, and we can demonstrate that it's environmentally sound, that actually wildlife populations thrive and do better. Today, Mr. President, I really want to talk to you a little bit about our recent trip to Japan and to Taiwan, both countries that were going to forswear coal.
And now they realize that they need that reliable, dispatchable, secure source of energy, but they can't get it as clean as they can from the Powder River Basin. So, to be able to open that Oakland port is absolutely essential for the lifeblood of our state and for our coal mines. It is something that we tried to do in your first administration, and we almost got there.
We actually were prepared to go through that, I guess, belt that we have on the West Coast with California, Oregon and Washington and finally enforce the Commerce Clause to allow states like New Mexico, Wyoming, Utah to have access to that Asian market. And let me just tell you one last thing about that.
It's not just about clean, beautiful coal. We have companies like Peabody that are now saying, we believe we can get rare earth minerals and critical minerals from what we're doing. So, we are advancing technology, advancing the opportunities and the security of the state all because of your vision, sir.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Mark, very much. Would you like to say something on behalf of West Virginia?
I would. I would like to say --
I love that place.
Mr. President, all West Virginians are so deeply grateful to you for your focus on protecting their energy jobs. The coal miners know the incredible importance of why we're here today and to talk about the potential for new coal fired power plants, that excites them. And I think West Virginians are really inspired because we're America's energy state.
When you think about what's happening on the global scene where that fight, that international fight with China for information technology supremacy, we believe that your policies are going to allow America to compete and win and West Virginia is going to supply the coal, the gas, the nuclear, to help make that happen.
So, I'm very excited by everything you're doing, even some of the relatively small things, when you come in and you sign agreements with your administration, putting hundreds of people back to work. It's all making a big difference for West Virginia. So, thank you, Mr. President.
Like as an example, the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America. It bothered me for many years. We have 92 percent of the frontage, and we made that little change. And Mexico was thrilled. They were thrilled about it, but that was a good one, right? You were telling me before that was a good one. It's about the United States now for a little while, if it's OK. Would you have any questions, please?
Yes, President Trump, this was just crossing as we were heading in here. President Zelenskyy wrote a letter to President Putin. He wants the two of them to meet, to hash out the end of the war in Ukraine, because he thinks you are too busy with the war in Iran. Is he right?
Well, I don't know. I'm glad that they're maybe talking about meeting. I think we had a lot to do with it. I know exactly what you're doing. But I think it would be great if they met, they should get it done.
And there's been a lot of talk lately about the Treasury putting your face on a $250 bill. Have you seen a mock-up of the Trump $250 bill? And if that winds up being currency, would you ever be able to tip anyone anything but that?
Well, I think I'd probably leave it. [Laughter] I have actually seen something just about two days ago. I know it's been pushed by a lot of our supporters, and I'm honored that they're doing it. But we'll see how that all works out. But I have heard about it, and there is a group of people, they really like the job we're doing, so that's a great honor.
Yeah, please.
You announced just a few days ago that you're naming Bill Pulte as the acting director of National Intelligence. There's been a little bit of a pushback from some Senate Republicans. Why do you think, Mr. President, he's the best person for the job?
Well, he's very smart. He's a person who's got high integrity. He's done a phenomenal job at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac. You probably have $1 trillion in value there; when he took over it was much less. And I guess I'm responsible for that, too, because everybody wanted me to sell it in my first term for 10 percent of what it's worth right now.
If I would have sold it, we would have lost $900 billion. We would have lost -- I mean, think of it, it's probably worth $1 trillion. And I was offered -- I mean people want me to sell it at $100 billion, a very small percentage of what it's worth now. And he built it up a lot, did a great job. And it's an acting position, it's not permanent, he's not going to be permanent because I don't think he'd want to be permanent.
But he's a very smart guy and he may find out some things about the rigged elections, etc., etc. I think he'd like to do it. I'd like to -- I think he wants to do it very much, got a lot of energy. But he'll be very good. Again, it's not a permanent position. We're looking at -- we're interviewing people right now, but it's somebody just to take it over for a little while.
Does he have the necessary -- in your view, Mr. President, the necessary national security experience to take on that position?
Well, I do, and I think he does, actually, because he's smart, because a lot of national security -- look, I wasn't greatly experienced in national security and I think I've done a really great job with it, a lot of people would say that. I've ended eight wars and soon to be a ninth. I hope that works out, too, frankly, it's. But probably.
And there's another one also that could be 10. No president -- I don't think a president's ended one war having to do with outside of this country. So, we've done a good job. I would say that Bill is a guy that will be able to figure it out very quickly. Again, it's short term, but he may be very effective for a short period of time.
Mr. President, so what -- will there be a proportional share increase of electricity production as a percentage of our nation's electricity output? And my follow-up is I took that historic trip with Secretary Wright of the small modular nuclear reactor on the West Coast early this year. Are we making more progress?
Because I know how critical gas and coal is for the secure grid?
Well, the answer is we are but, Chris, do you want to answer that?
Yes. I mean, our electricity grid essentially runs on gas, coal and nuclear, those are the three key sources, they're the backbone of the American electricity grid. We're in favor of seeing all three of them grow. You will see all three of them grow during this administration. And in fact, later today, before the sun goes down, you'll see a big announcement in the nuclear space related to the trip you came on.
Thank you. Mr. President, President Putin said today that he was willing to make compromises that you requested to end the war with Ukraine if Ukraine was willing to make similar compromises. What were the compromises that you asked for?
I'd rather not say because Peter asked me -- I think it was meant as a little wise guy question, but I'm not sure. But I'm very responsible when that happens. It's going to happen. They're going to both make compromises, I suggested those compromises. And we've had a lot to do with it. We'd love to see -- they're two very good people, they're two very -- I mean, incredible countries, beautiful countries.
They've got to stop. Last month they had 25, 000 people killed, soldiers, mostly soldiers, some people, but mostly soldiers. And it's been averaging probably almost 25, 000 people every month of soldiers killed. And I've been very strong on the fact that they've got to get that over with. So -- but they do, I want them each to make certain compromises.
I think they're going to do that. Yeah, Daniel.
Mr. President, thank you. You, through your actions, have saved and supported more than 100 coal plants in your second term. When you hear something like that, when you try to create an environment where they're not just surviving, they're thriving, what does that do to the reliability of our energy grid, but to the economies as well, the states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wyoming -- how does it bolster those economies?
Well, we were destroying our grid because we were relying on wind and other things that don't have the power, they don't have the strength, they're very expensive. Wind is the most expensive form of energy. It sounds good, wind, beautiful wind, but it's very -- but those windmills cost a fortune. They break, they kill the birds they're bad for the environment, nobody wants to be near them.
The houses -- I don't know how they got popular. They got -- they're not popular with the people. They're popular with investors because they get subsidy. But we pretty much cut that subsidy out, I think, Doug, right?
Absolutely, in the Working Families tax cut bill. It all expires and since the -- since the subsidies have gone away, there's virtually no one -- particularly offshore, no one is trying to build one of those projects in America. Turns out they weren't trying to generate electricity, they were just trying to generate tax credits.
You're supposed to be making money with, you know, with that, with energy and here, wind, it needs subsidy. Energy shouldn't need subsidy. We have so much -- so many different forms of energy. But, you know, I've talked about it for years. Wind is the most expensive; it's the worst. It causes tremendous problems.
And it does, it kills millions and millions of birds a year. Nobody mentions that. You'd think if that were anything else, it would be -- everybody would be sued. You know, if you kill a bald eagle, they'll put you in jail for like four years or something and yet windmills knock them out of the air all the time, nothing happens.
It's disgraceful. So, uh, we're into energy that really works and works powerfully. Yes, go ahead.
And we're waiting outside to come into the Oval Office, everyone's looking at the UFC construction, the claw. Are you happy with how that's coming along? And what --
It's incredible. We put it up in five days. It's incredible. And I -- I told yesterday the story of the Eiffel Tower. And it was 1889, it was put up. It was going to be brought down right after the World's Fair ended. It was up for a short while. And, uh, they said, well, let's leave it a little bit longer.
Then they said, let's leave it a little longer. It never came down. It was 18 -- I think, 1889, the World's Fair in Paris. So I jokingly said, you know, let me tell you a story about the Eiffel tower. No, no, it'll come down after the fact. There were actually some people said, he wants to leave it up. Yes, please.
Mr. President, about the Columbus statue, Columbus fountain at Union Station, it looks amazing.
Thank you.
And what does that mean for the relations between Italy and the United States?
Well, it means Italian people love Trump, because, you know, that was controversial. People wanted to rip it down. You see how beautiful it is and we don't -- didn't only not rip it down, but Doug and his group and all of us together, we -- we beautified it. It's, uh, I didn't know the marble was going to be so beautiful when we -- once we cleaned it up. You wouldn't believe it. When you saw that -- that thing was loaded for 50 years with filth and graffiti and everything else.
It's amazing. It's amazing how good. They did a really great job.
On the Strait of Hormuz, Mr. President, do you still want European allies help? We're discussing energy today. And what kind of help do you --
We don't need their help.
What kind of help would you want? [Inaudible]
We're the most powerful military in the world. We gave them a chance to help, but they chose not to, NATO. We went to the NATO countries. We went to others, too in all fairness to NATO. And I wouldn't say I gave them a hard sell, but said, hey, if you'd like to help, it would be wonderful, and they all turned us down.
And, you know, it's going to be an expensive proposition for them because they shouldn't have done that. They should have helped. You know, we don't need it. We have our own -- we have much more than we need in terms of oil and energy generally, but -- but European countries and other countries, they need it tremendous.
Some of the European countries need it really big and they should have said, we'd love to help, but they didn't.
If you could choose -- Mr. President, if you could choose, what would you ask them to do, sir, if you want --
Well, I would have asked them -- there's not much -- look, we won -- they had -- there's no navy, there's no air force, we've wiped them out, we've wiped out their leadership and almost all of it. We've wiped out all their military leaders. They're down on the third. Now maybe they're very good. I don't know.
I can't tell you that, but certainly the first ones didn't do very good because they weren't -- they were literally after three days, almost the entire military was wiped out. They had to get new generals. And then after that, they had to get more new generals. And we knocked out their anti-aircraft, their air force, just about everything you can knock out.
So, uh, and then you read in the fake news that they're doing really well in the war. I mean, it's unbelievable. We knocked out everything there is to knock out and you'd pick up the fake news and they say how well they've done. They're doing brilliantly. They have no Air Force. You know, they have exactly -- we knew that, 159 ships.
And out of 159 ships, uh, all 159 lie beautifully at the bottom of the ocean. We actually took pictures of them down there. And then you read the fake news. They say, well, their navy is really great. You know what they have now, little runabouts with a machine gun on the front. The ships don't even really deal with them.
They're like a gnat, you know, like, get off. That's all they have. It's -- it's crazy. You know, this country needs a fair press. And one thing I think that's done is expose how corrupt our media is. Uh, and I really do, while we're here, I hope the media looks at this election that's taking place in California, where they think it will take seven or eight days to count the votes.
Can you believe this? I mean, they spend all that money on the -- on the machines, the big voting machines. Uh, they think it's going to be seven or eight days before we know who won the election. But the numbers are looking strange because without any vote counting, the numbers dropped very precipitously for two Republicans that are doing well, that had been doing well.
And, uh, I hope you're all watching it, because I'm watching it very closely.
Mr. President, are you worried that China is funding an anti-data center movement here in the US?
No, I'm not worried about it. We had a great meeting with China. And you know, they do things to us and we do things to them. I say it all the time. They say, oh, are you worried about China tapping your phones? I said, well, you know, they're worried about the same thing. No, we're very highly sophisticated -- we become very highly sophisticated.
We had for years. I rebuilt the military. We had a military that was not good and we rebuilt it. And I didn't know I'd use it quite as much, but we used it. Ukraine has been given a tremendous amount of our military. Without our military and our equipment, Ukraine wouldn't, uh, be alive to fight today. You know, I mean, just in terms of the question.
Uh, we gave them hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of equipment and the best equipment -- we make the best equipment anywhere in the world but they wouldn't have -- they wouldn't have lasted one or two days. They wouldn't have been able to do it. Remember the, um, the anti-tank missiles. Remember that, right, when the tanks got stuck in the mud and then they went around and boom, boom, boom, boom and those were, uh, given by yours truly.
They said Obama gave sheets and Trump gave, uh, the anti -- one of the most devastating weapons. But, uh, you check that out. But we have -- we have the greatest military -- we have the greatest military equipment anybody's ever seen before. Look at Venezuela. We went in there, it was over after about 48 minutes.
And, you know, they have a strong military, different kind of a military, but a lot of soldiers. And, uh, you look at Iran, where we essentially wiped -- wiped out their military. Now, there's some missiles left, but very few compared to what they had.
And speaking of our military in Iran, I wanted to ask you about this report that you would only restart the conflict with Iran if they killed US troops. Is that your red line for ending the cease fire?
If they killed?
US troops.
What does that mean?
That you would restart the war with Iran if they killed US troops --
Well, it would be a good reason. I'd be honest with you. If they kill US troops, I think I would do that very quickly. Yeah, that's a very interesting question.
On Iran, you responded to the vote in the House yesterday on the War Powers Resolution. Also, we've seen Hezbollah reject the US brokered peace in Lebanon. You said that negotiations are final stages, but Iran is saying they're stalled.
Yeah, what does reject me? They didn't reject. Look, they're looking. I think Hezbollah -- I will tell you, they called us and they said, how about stopping? And I think you're going to see things happen over there. That's been, like, um, a little bit of a different world, but it's interconnected with Iran.
And it would be really nice if Lebanon could have some peace. Lebanon's been under attack for so many years and always like an underdog. And it would be really nice if it could end. And I spoke to Bibi Netanyahu about that, and I speak to them about it. And I actually spoke to Hezbollah about it. And I think progress has made.
That's been going on for a long time. You know, when you look at that, for years and years, 48 years. I say, well, let's get this settled. How long has it been going on? 48 years. I said, that's a long time. Not that easy, but go ahead.
As we get closer to the midterms, are you starting to factor in domestic reaction to this in your handling of this, or --
I just do what's right.
Indefinitely --
No, I mean, look, it was like Venezuela was very unpopular, then we won and my numbers went through the roof. I have very high poll numbers. They went through the roof. It was very unpopular when I went to Venezuela. They said, oh, we don't want -- well, first of all, that was relatively close. It's sort of a semi neighbor, right?
And the relationship with Venezuela is incredible. We've taken out millions and millions of barrels of oil out of Venezuela. It's very oil-prone. I guess, Chris, one of the most, right?
Yes.
And we've taken out -- you're sort of leading it, but do you want to just tell them real fast about the relationship we have with Venezuela, Chris?
Yeah, things with Venezuela have gone very well. Venezuelan oil exports today are three times higher than they were right before we went in. So, it has been a meaningful, incremental supply of oil to the world. And one of the reasons we're solving a 47-year-old problem of Iran's race for a nuclear weapons and oil prices in the US. We wish they were lower, but gasoline prices in the US are a little over $4. They're $10 in Europe, they're higher in Asia, they're very high in California.
The bigger threat to energy prices in the United States is Democratic green energy policies. They have driven up energy prices far more than a conflict in Iran. And the conflict in Iran will come to an end. We hope that crazy green energy -- drive up energy prices policy the Democrats at federal and state levels, we hope that comes to an end too.
And remember this -- with, if you want to call it a war or if you want to call it a military operation, you cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And everybody agrees to that, no matter -- almost everybody. But wait a minute -- our gasoline prices are lower than they were with Biden without that. And he would have let them have -- in fact, he inspired them to have, frankly, a nuclear weapon, him and Obama.
Obama picked the wrong country, you know that. And the Obama deal, I terminated that or they would have had a nuclear -- that was a road to a nuclear weapon. Our deal, if we make that deal -- and it's going well, but who knows -- if we make that deal, it's the exact opposite. They will not have -- they will never have a nuclear weapon.
It sounds like you're in it for as long as it takes.
I'm not going to let them have a nuclear weapon, no. With Obama, it was a road -- you know that, it was a road to a nuclear weapon. That was a short-term agreement and at the end of which they would have a nuclear weapon. So, they would have had it four years ago. Then we attacked with this beautiful plane right here, The B-2 bomber, we attacked 10 months ago, we attacked their nuclear sites and they were obliterated.
It turned out that CNN was wrong. They said, well, maybe they weren't hit that hard. They were hit so hard nobody knows if you can even get it out. But the only ones that have the capability of getting it out is us and China, we're the only ones with that kind of equipment that's powerful enough to go down that deep into a mountain.
But that mountain crushed it. That mountain literally collapsed on top of it. Those pilots did one hell of a job, and now the atomic energy, as you know, has backed us up on that. They think it's a very, very hard thing to get it, but we'll get it anyway. But we're the only one -- and China, I believe China too, but we're the only two that have the capability.
[Crosstalk]
Mr. President, Joe Biden is out promoting a new book this week. When you met with Joe Biden, President Joe Biden, right here in the Oval Office on November the 13th of 2024, could you detect any cognitive decline in President Biden at that time?
No, not really, he was the same guy I've been watching for a long time. I mean, you could go back 40 years, I watched him 40 years ago, 30 years ago, he was never the sharpest guy, you do know that, right? It wasn't like he was sharp as a tack, but no, it was the same guy. He actually invited me here before the election, which was strange.
You know, we went here before, but then I met also, as you know, we did the ritual and I mean, he was fine as far as I was concerned. I don't know, something happened to him during the debate, it could have been me. And I thought I had a very good debate. Nobody ever says that, they say that Biden did badly.
What about me? Did I do well? You know, there's a reason he did badly. So, the question is, did he do badly because he choked or because he didn't have it? But he didn't have a good -- I would say this, he did not have a good night.
But during that time period, you met with him for about two hours, you didn't feel he was slowing down?
He spoke softly, very softly, and as we started to speak, he -- you know, I mentioned this to people, he spoke very, very softly, very low. And as we talked, we got along really well, and I thought he was fine. I thought he was fine. When I say fine, I mean, was he like talking to Doug Burgum? Was he like talking to Chris?
Was he like talking to any of these monsters up here, all these tremendous politicians and environmental geniuses? Was he, like, talking to Andy Barr? No, he was fine.
I have a question about Hunter Biden. He's on social media now, and he has suggested -- maybe joking, I don't know -- that he could run for president in 2028. How would he do, Hunter Biden, in a 2028 Democratic primary?
Well, you would think that past has something to do with winning an election and I would say his past is not the greatest. Where's Hunter, right? Remember my Where's Hunter, it became the number one shirt anywhere in the world for about three weeks. I'm not going to say bad. I'm sure -- you know, hey, if the guy from Maine can do well, I guess Hunter could do well, too, because the guy from Maine is a basket case.
And I would say worse than him is the one from Texas that looks like Alfred E. Newman. I would say that if he can do well, maybe Hunter can do well. I'm not sure, it would be pretty close as far as I'm concerned.
And I've got a question about the nuclear dust. So, the bombers go in, they entomb a lot of this enriched uranium. At this point, do you need a deal with Iran to go get it, or have you thought about just a covert, daring send in the Seals, send in the Rangers?
Yeah, but I didn't want to be Jimmy Carter, you know, I didn't feel like being Jimmy Carter. We did -- well, we thought about it right at the very beginning before you saw -- before we did what we did, before we destroyed their entire military. We thought about it, and I didn't want to be in a position where you had to be, you know, to get there.
It's not like Venezuela, like you go in, you're there for a matter of minutes and you're out and everybody's waving goodbye as you take off and you brought the cargo back. This is different; you'd have to be there for two weeks. You'd need massive equipment. You'd have to airlift the equipment in. You know, you're in a war zone.
And there was a time at the very beginning when we thought about doing that, because they would have not been watching, but they would have found out. I mean, during a period of a week to two weeks, that's -- you have you would have had a major construction operation because that plane and, more importantly, those people that operate those planes, including the mechanics, they flew for 37 hours round trip.
Think of that, and the tankers that refilled them four times, what an operation it was, amazing. And -- but we would have been -- Peter, we would have been there for a period of from a week to two weeks. We would have gotten it but I said, I don't like the idea of that. All of a sudden, they pinpoint. They still had missiles left.
That means they would pinpoint you and just keep lobbing them in until one gets through and people would have gotten killed. So, I didn't like it. We could get it right now; I don't think they could stop us if we wanted, but there's no reason to. It's entombed -- you used a good word -- it's entombed. We also have cameras on it through Space Force.
We have very powerful cameras. Every door, there's a door. You know where the doors go? They go to bad places. But every single place on that, on those mountains is three, basically three, because we also hit it with tomahawks after. After that we hit it with Tomahawks. Every inch of that land has cameras on it, we have about nine of them, and they're on and we cover it. So, if anybody even got near it, we would know what we had to do.
And we've heard you want to meet with the new Ayatollah, the new supreme leader.
I don't want to meet, but if I did meet, I'd be honored to meet him. I'd like to see if we make a deal. But if we make a deal, it's possible that I would meet him. I'd be OK with that.
Would that happen here in the US White House?
Oh, I don't know. I haven't really heard too much about it. I didn't suggest it, but some people have suggested it. If it happened, it would happen I'd be respectful.
Do you think because Epic Fury killed his dad and his wife and his kid, that he's got hard feelings and wouldn't want to meet? Have you --
Well, I would say I'm not his favorite person. But with that being said, he's probably a -- I don't know, he's probably a professional. In some circles he has a very good reputation, actually. You know, sometimes some people say bad, but a lot of people say bad about me. It's totally false of course.
[Crosstalk]
On jobs, tomorrow, the jobs report will be released. While the unemployment rate has been steady at 4.3 percent, the black unemployment rate has been 7.3 percent. When you ran for president, you courted black voters and talked about what you described as black jobs. How do you describe why this disparity is happening?
What will you do to close that?
Well, we're doing very well with the black jobs, African American jobs. We're doing -- I saw some numbers that we're doing really well. But what we're really going to do well is when all these plants are open. You know, we're building many car plants. We're bringing cars back from Germany, we're bringing -- you know, we lost the car industry years ago.
54 percent of the industry went to Germany, Japan, Canada, Mexico. It's all coming back. It's amazing. And where your black worker is really going to do well is when those factories open. So, I think they're going to be great. We've been doing very well; it's been a big focus for me. Yeah, please.
Thank you, Mr. President. On today's announcement, how do you ensure that the estimated cost savings are passed on to the consumers and not held by the company. And then on Iran, what specific progress has been made today in talks with them, and where are the sticking points still?
So we're, uh, really lowering costs. You know, when I came into this job, we had the highest inflation in the history of our country, 48 years, they say, but I think the history of our country, whether it's 48 years or more, but we had tremendous inflation with Biden, during the Biden -- they had the highest.
They had one of the highest ever. And, uh, I inherited that. The costs were very, very high. And at my first news conference, Peter and others were screaming at me about eggs. Remember, Peter? Eggs? What about eggs?
[Inaudible] about the eggs.
I know, but I wanted to inject Peter into it, but he was screaming to me eggs. And I said, what? Tell me about eggs. This is two days in. They said eggs had quadrupled. I said, well, they didn't quadruple under me. And they didn't want me to order eggs for the Easter egg hunt that was going to take place in a few months, right?
And I said, nope, we're not going to -- they wanted me to order plastic eggs and I said, nope. And we got eggs down to lower than what it was long prior to when I took over. And eggs today are about 15 percent lower. Uh, what we had is a bunch of con artists, the Democrats -- the Dumocrats. And what they did is they said -- they left.
They gave the highest prices that we've ever had for all products, groceries, everything and they started saying, affordability. They'd say, this is about affordability. It's a con job. I inherited their high prices. We brought those prices way down. And when the -- and if you go back three months ago, if you go back before the war started, think of it, three months so, uh, with Vietnam, we were there for 19 years.
With Iraq, it was about nine years. With another one, it was about 12 years. And with another one -- we had all these wars that lasted for 9, 10, 12, 19 years for Vietnam. Think of it. And they said, you're in there for three months. This is a terrible thing. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been killed in these other wars.
We lost not one soldier in that Israel. We didn't lose one soldier. And we lost a total of 13, which is 13 too many. But when you look at hundreds of thousands of soldiers were killed in these various wars, they lasted many, many years. We're in there for a few months, and what we've done is amazing. They won't have a nuclear weapon.
And we did -- It was tough because we just got -- Doug and everybody came in to see me. We just got the best numbers -- well, today again, the New York Stock Exchange and every other exchange just hit a new all-time high. That's 73 days out of my short term, we've hit brand new highs. Every 401-K is setting records.
A 401-K, a lot of people -- you probably all have 401-Ks. Every -- Look at your 401-K. You're happy about your 401-K? You know, the nice reporters are smiling at me and the stupid reporters are like that but their 401-Ks are setting records. They should be happy. they shouldn't be angry, they should be very happy.
But 401-Ks are setting records. They've never had anything like it. So, you know, we've done a good job as far as Iran is concerned. You're going to find out what the deal is but the main parts of the deal is they can't have a nuclear weapon. The strait will open immediately. You know, it's going to open immediately.
And we've largely swept for mines. We have the most sophisticated mines -- they're underwater minesweepers. I actually said to somebody, one of the generals, why underwater? He said, because usually, it's hostile. You know, when you're looking for mines, typically it's not in a good neighborhood, right? So underwater made a lot of sense when -- didn't take long to figure that one out.
So, uh, I think we're doing very well, but we're going to see. We're going to win one way or the other. We're going to win on paper or we're going to win military. One way or the other, it's going to be militarily or on paper.
Thank you, Mr. President. How critical is energy dominance, whether it be coal, or whether it be LNG, whether it be oil to national security?
Without it, you can't win. As an example, AI is a big deal. Whether we like it, not like it. It's going to be amazing in many ways. It's going to be, I think, for medical it'll be amazing. But without massive amounts of energy, you can't even play the game. And we're leading China by a lot in AI. I was talking to President Xi about it, but if we didn't do -- Lee Zeldin's done so great because number one, fast approvals from professionals.
You know, they'd have the best firms in the world submitting papers to him, and we didn't keep them waiting for 10 years and then vote against them after 10 years. That would -- guys would file with the environmental for a plant of some kind. After 15 years, they would be rejected. It was terrible. Now, we have great professionals there and we accept.
We only accept plans from great professionals, but we give them fast turnaround. And it's -- it's been really amazing. I think the biggest thing we've done, Lee, is we let these geniuses with all this money, build their own electric plant. We don't take it from our grid, we let them build their own plant they become a utility.
So they're building a plant and at the same time they're building electricity. Because if we didn't do that, you couldn't have anything. You couldn't have -- and we're letting that happen to with car plants and other plants, if they want to build their own electric. But with the AI, you know, you hear so much about it, but one of the biggest things, they build their own.
And then excess energy that they create will go back into the grid. Yeah, please.
Mr. President, on Cuba -- Mr. President?
Just let him have one.
Mr. President, Secretary Rubio was in Delhi last week. He delivered a letter from you to Prime Minister Modi. And sir, you also addressed people of India through your favorite ambassador, Sergio Gor.
That's right.
Yeah, both of them have said the trade deal is around the corner. Where do you stand on the trade deal?
Well, we have it. And, you know, look, India for years has -- and I don't blame them. I blame us because we had stupid people here. India, for years, really took advantage of the United States. You know that. Are you from India, by any chance? Huh? I thought you were from Germany.
I'm from India.
I'm only kidding. Uh, you're central casting, OK? And that's a very good thing. India, for years, took advantage of this country. They charged us tremendous tariffs, uh, and they paid nothing. They wouldn't let hardly -- as an example, in the past, they wouldn't let Harley Davidson sell its motor -- they would charge 200 percent tariff.
So Harley Davidson was precluded. They ended up going to India and building their own plants, which is unfortunate that that happened, but it happens. That was before me. But, uh, they charged tremendous amounts of tariffs to our -- and we didn't charge them anything. You know, they sell -- sold motorbikes here too.
You know what we charged them? Nothing. And now it's the exact reverse and we're making a lot of money with India. But we'll get to a deal because I like -- you know, I like your prime minister a lot. He's a good friend of mine, get along great and we're going to make a deal. We get we have a very good relationship.
Mr. President? Speaking of deals, Mr. President, on Cuba, are your sanctions on Cuba meant to accelerate its collapse?
No, it's just -- we just want them to be, uh, a nicely run country that can feed its people. Look, it's a failed nation. Without Venezuela, you know, Venezuela because it has such wealth in the ground, mostly in the ground, but Venezuela took care of them for years, and they took care of Venezuela. They were like the bodyguards.
When we went in and, uh, burst into their country, the Venezuelans were guarding Maduro and everybody else. It was mostly -- I mean, the soldiers were, in that case, a lot -- we had a lot of -- Cubans were guarding -- the Cubans were the guards and they're good soldiers. But the country is starving and it's got no energy, it's got no oil, it's got no money, it's got nothing.
It's got a beautiful piece of land. You can have beautiful resorts, doesn't have oil. But Venezuela was giving them the money to survive and now, you know, the money is, I guess you could say, it's coming to us and it's going to Venezuela. Venezuela has been an amazing thing because we've paid for the cost of the attack many, many times over.
And it's been a long time since you've heard of it.
Do you think Cuba is close to collapsing, though? Based on everything you just laid out, do you think that Cuba is close to collapsing?
It sort of collapsed, and we're going to handle that as soon as we finish -- I like to do one thing at a time, and we'll take care of, uh, the Islamic Republic of Iran. And as soon as that's done on our way back, we'll just make a little brief stop. OK? We'll take care of it. We want to help them out. Look, we have a lot of people that voted for Trump.
Whether they did or not, it didn't matter but I had 95 percent of the Cubans voted for me. They're unbelievable people. They're energetic, they're entrepreneurial. You know, some of the richest people in Miami are Cuban. They're unbelievable, and, uh, I'm going to take good care of them. I'm going to let them go back to their land.
They want to be back with family. You know, they have a lot of family over there. Uh, they've been treated very badly by Cuba, but we're going to treat Cuba well, and we're going to let our people go back and let them invest in Cuba if they'd like. So we have some -- we have some very good plans for Cuba.
I think, you know, we have to get rid of the -- the regime was very tough, very nasty. The difference is now they don't have money coming in. They had a lot of money coming in from Venezuela. They don't have any money coming -- they had oil coming in, they had money coming in. Uh, but we're going to take care of Cuba.
Mr. President, sir? Mr. President?
You know what, they want us to. The people want us there so badly.
Sir, last night, huge night for the city of New York. The Knicks won game one of the NBA finals. There's been a lot of speculation. Have you decided whether or not you want to attend a game at Madison Square?
Well, I've been a Knicks fan for a long time, and I'm also a Jim Dolan fan. He's a nice guy, OK, he's been a long time wanting to win. And he's a competitive guy and he's got a team that's amazing. I don't think they've lost a playoff game.
Four straight wins.
Can you imagine that? And it was not looking good. I saw the beginning of the game and it wasn't looking good. I missed the middle because I talk to generals all night long now. But I watched that end of the game and they were dominant, really amazing. And Wemby is a great player. He's going to be a great player and he is already a great player.
I say, how do you guard this guy, he's seven foot five, and he's got a great shot, right? But they find a way to do it. They're really great; they're a great team. And I'm happy for Jim because Jim has really been fighting hard to produce such a team. So, you never know. The answer is yes, he's invited me, I'm going.
Have you decided, sir?
Say it.
Game three, game four, are you excited?
It could be Monday, yeah.
Mr. President, Speaking of New York --
Maybe I'll do both.
You mentioned your meeting with the automakers yesterday. Can you tell us a little bit about that -- more about that? In particular, did you discuss trade, tariffs?
I did. We had a great meeting with the auto -- I mean most of them were here. They were really talking about the fix your own car kind of a thing, right? But they're doing very well since I'm in office because I got rid of a lot of environmental restrictions. And in fact, you might just tell them a little bit about that.
We made it so much easier for them to build a car. They can build a less expensive car that's much better. And they were so choked up with environmental nonsense that in order to save 4 ounces of gasoline, you had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars. Lee, do you want to go into that?
President Trump, we sent to Congress a Congressional -- three Biden EPA waivers to California that Congress passed, President Trump signed last year, getting rid of the electric vehicle mandate that a whole bunch of other states had signed on to. Just a couple months ago, President Trump announced here at the White House the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States, the repeal of the 2009 endangerment finding.
All the greenhouse gas emission standards in light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles were following the law. And what that means for cost of living, just on that act alone, $2,400 more affordable per vehicle for Americans. The victories come out every single day. President Trump gave us very clear guidance; he wanted us act at Trump speed to get this done as fast as possible.
And what you see now all across America is billions upon billions of investments all across this country, with new factories being built. They believe in America; they're investing in America with the American jobs to come up with it. And by the way, consumer choice -- we got rid of that climate participation trophy for that annoying start-stop feature in cars to make your car die at every stop sign and red light.
So, yeah, the gifts, the receipts, the wins, they keep coming and we're just getting started.
Do they ask you for any tariff changes on auto parts?
No, they didn't do that. They're making so much money now because -- you know, I did something else that -- I don't know, does it? Because we have no tax on tips and no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime, right? So, that's really been big. That's turned out to be much bigger than anyone knew. If you look at the people, they're saving from $5,000 to $7,000, $8,000 even on average because of that, so it's been good.
But I did something else that nobody talks about. If you buy a car and you borrow money, you're allowed to deduct the interest for income tax purposes -- never happened before. And deductions were always meant for rich people. They weren't meant for middle-class people or other people wanting to buy a car.
So, now you're allowed to get a deduction of your interest payment. That's a tremendous thing. I mean, it's a -- but what's the key? Only if the car is made in America. Thank you very much, everybody.