Remarks: Donald Trump Signs an Executive Order in the Oval Office - November 5, 2026

Well, thank you very much. We have something that is of great interest to me, but it's of great interest to a lot of people, and it concerns the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room. They're very important spaces, and I'm going to be signing a document which will make them into a landmark for the ages. They won't be able to be taken down, destroyed, touched or anything else.

It'll be a -- it's called, actually, a national monument. It's a federal landmark. And when completed and when we get the documentation fully done and legally binding, it'll make it impossible for anybody ever to destroy this incredible space. We won World War II, we won World War I. We won a lot of things.

We've built a country largely or modern -- the country as we know it, the modern country. And we certainly had some good years during my so far six years. And I just thought it was very important that nobody be allowed to come in and take it down and try and do something with it. Because every once in a while they'll look and they'll say, oh, maybe what we'll do is we'll put some glass up that's a little bit better or something.

And I say, no, you're not going to do anything. We're going to leave this as it is. It's a -- it's a great landmark. And that goes for the Cabinet Room, too. And if you want, we can show you the Cabinet Room. It's been very upgraded and made really beautiful. I'm going to let you go into that in two seconds after we're finished with this.

So, with that being said, I think what we'll do is we'll sign the document.

Yes, sir. This is a historic proclamation. It preserves this historic space for future generations. As you said, it's a symbol of the American presidency and American government. It's where American history is made. And today, it'll be preserved for -- for the future.

A very, very important place, very amazing. The biggest people come through that door or that door or that door, a lot of doors, and they're in this room and they can't believe it. We had the president of China recently and then a couple of weeks before that we had King Charles, and they both said, wow, this is the Oval Office.

So, it's very important, very important. The biggest people, every time they walk through those doors, they want to -- they want to just examine it and look at it. You can never do that. You couldn't do that. You couldn't build a space that would have that kind of importance, the history of it. So, we're going to be declaring it a national monument, and we're going to send it over to Congress to have it ratified.

And the Oval Office was built in 1909 by President William Howard Taft. It's a long time ago. And the current Oval Office is that it's -- it's really known today as -- it was slightly modified in 1934 for FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, modified to make it a little bit easier for him. You understand that, what I mean by that, including a ramping system outside that's amazing and actually beautiful.

So, we've had a lot of victories in this office, almost -- I mean, there's been some mistakes too, but the -- we've had tremendous victory in this office. So, we're making it a national monument, and it will not be allowed to be touched by anybody, destroyed, ripped down by stupid people in order to build something in a slightly different shape.

We like the Oval Office, and it's a symbol like the White House itself. It's a symbol of our country and the greatness of our country. So, I'll sign that, and I think in theory that should end that problem. And if anyone ever decides to come and start knocking down walls, you'll call me, wherever I may be, and I will come back here and I will make sure it never happens, OK? Thank you very much.

OK, that's a good one. You know, that's good. It's important to have a good one for this here, very artistic. OK, is that a nice signature? That's very nice. Let me read that one. It should be a ten because this space is a ten. And we're going to open up -- if you will, we're going to open up -- this is the great Laura Ingraham.

Hello, Laura. Why aren't you in here? She started out over here, and now look at her. She's made so much money. She's a great person. We're going to let you see the Cabinet Room, too. It was very substantially upgraded. That also is becoming a federal monument, a national landmark. And that will make it, in theory, impossible to knock down, change in any meaningful way.

The walls will remain the same as they have been. The interior will be pretty much the same as it's been. We have put up brand new chandeliers. They very bad lighting and very bad, actually, lanterns. They had lanterns inside. But the new chandeliers are beautiful, and the whole space is beautiful. It's been very substantially upgraded.

So, we're making them both, and they're -- and, as a unit, a national landmark, monument, you can call what you want. Steve?

Can any modifications be made? I mean, occasionally there's a need some work on --

No major modification without the approval -- approval of Congress. So, if they want to say let's not have oval anymore, let's make it square, what happens is they have to go back to Congress. And hopefully, the Congress -- the people in Congress will be smart enough not to let that happen. And that includes also the Cabinet Room.

You know, just -- we've had great victories in these rooms, and -- and they're so important. I mean, I have people coming, the biggest business people. You know, they have beautiful offices. They walk in here and they say this is incredible. Not the beauty, it's the whole -- it's the whole aura of the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room.

And you'll see the Cabinet Room in a second if they open it up. Yeah.

Mr. President, thank you. So, speaking of what you've done in this room, you've signed about 300 executive orders in the past two years.

Yes.

How do you plan to use --

It's a record. We signed a record number of executive orders, right.

How do you plan to use executive orders in the next two years? And in addition to the Cabinet Room and the Oval Office, how else do you plan to preserve your legacy in the next two years and onward?

So, we're going to do a lot of things. You'll be seeing a lot of things over the next week, two weeks. We have a lot of things cooking. We're doing very well. We have thousands of plants and factories being built in the United States. And somebody said, oh, about tariffs, let me tell you, if I took tariffs off right now, every one of those plants would immediately stop construction because they're only building them maybe for two reasons, or three reasons.

But the 99 percent is, if they don't build them in order to sell their product into the United States, they'd have to pay a 50, 100, 150, 250, even 300 percent tariff. And once they start building and once they open up, they pay no tariffs. So, it's, you know, amazing. So, all of that money, $22.2 trillion, is coming in because these great companies from all over the world -- they'd rather not build them.

By the way, if you took the tariffs off, they would be so happy. They would stop construction immediately. You know who knows that better than anybody? Laura back there. Laura, if we took the tariffs off, you know every -- right? We're building over 3,000 factories right now. Every factory would come to an immediate halt.

They would say, thank you, sir, very much. We're going back. We'll send you the product from Japan. And if you didn't have tariffs, if we didn't put tariffs on -- we've been ripped off for years by other countries having tariffs and we didn't have. And that woman understands it, I think, maybe better than almost anybody.

She's covered it very fairly, yeah. In other words, if we took tariffs off right now, let's -- you know, I watch these stupid people. We have $22.2 trillion, the highest number ever for any country at any time by maybe five times. If we took that off, everybody would stop building. You would have partially built factories all over the country, and they would just send in their product from China, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, everything.

No, but when they build, they open and they don't have to pay any tariffs. So, that's why. And by the way, prices will come way down. Yes, please.

Mr. President, next week when House Republicans vote for their next leader in the new Congress, if they deadlock between Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, would you intervene? Would you endorse one of those gentlemen?

Well, I might. I mean, I don't think I'll have to. They'll end up picking somebody. But those are two tremendous people, great people. Yeah.

Mr. President, there's a tanker on its way across the Atlantic filled with Russian diesel fuel. There's a law that was passed in 19 -- in 2022.

And where is it going?

It's coming to the United States supposedly. There's a law that says that that fuel cannot be unloaded in the United States. It makes it illegal.

Is that under the Jones Act?

No, it was passed by Congress, signed by President Biden in 2022.

How are you --

That probably makes it a pretty bad law. I'll take a look at it, sure.

There's reporting that Iran is reviewing a set of proposals presented by mediators that could shape the future of its nuclear program. Is the US involved in that?

They're not doing anything without our approval. Remember what I said to you? Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. They're not doing anything without our approval.

[Crosstalk]

Proposed? You've seen this proposal that Iran is looking at?

It doesn't make any difference what they're looking at, they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. They know that, so do I. Go ahead.

What do you think about El-Sayed not backing Chuck Schumer? Do you think that it signals a larger divide within the Democratic Party?

They'll work out their own situation. He made a statement that he wouldn't early on, and so he's just living by that statement. I think Schumer probably gets it because he's been around a long time. He's actually not a bad guy; I know him, I know him very well. I know him better than most. Yeah.

And on the elections this week, Democratic socialist win today, for example, the mayoral race in LA and also in Washington, DC now, together with New York, three major cities are going to be led by Democratic socialists. What's your message to these mayors who will be leading these cities? And also, what's your message to the residents in these cities who might not have voted for them and are worried about where their cities are going?

Well, they're going to have to see what happens I mean, there'll be a point at which, if people are unhappy, there will be change. But unfortunately, usually that happens so late that you'll never be able to bring back a city or a country or a state, you know, when it goes too far. I watched the election in Los Angeles, and it was a very disgraceful event because I thought Spencer Pratt would be in the final and so did everyone else.

So did the one who's leading or winning. She broke down and cried and she said, oh, I lost, I lost. But then they found the votes necessary to bring her in. Our elections are so crooked you have no idea. But look, if you go by history, it's going to be a disaster -- it's going to be a disaster. I deal with a very nice gentleman, I get along with him great, from New York.

We'll see how that all works out. I'd like to make sure that New York does well, and hopefully it will, but it's tough. Those policies are very tough; they're very tough on a city, a state or a country. That's been proven over a thousand years with different names. Steve?

We see some chatter about Pete Hegseth. Are you expecting any staffing changes between now and --

Pete Hegseth has done a fantastic job. Now he's got some interesting things -- you know, we had more generals than we did in World War II. We had so many generals, everybody was a four-star general, I never saw anything like it. And many of those people were woke. I don't like a woke general, and so he probably has opposition.

I think he's doing a fantastic job. So, we had a war with Venezuela, it was over in 48 minutes, we had total success, no deaths. We have -- we have -- I guess you have -- I don't know if it's a war because there hasn't been anybody killed in many months. But we have a war with a place called the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Lovely place and we control the straits. We're doing more oil right now, going through the straits than we did before the war started. And nobody's been killed in about seven months, six months. And, you know, if you look at Russia, Ukraine, see, that's a war -- that's a war, 25,000 people being killed a month.

We're going to get that settled pretty soon, by the way. But 25,000 people a month being killed, they fight day and night, day and night, all day. And you have World War I, World War II, those are wars. Somebody said a war with Iran; no. We have succeeded with the blockade tremendously and we have destroyed -- somebody, a man told me today that's from the area, a neighboring country, that it will take them 25 to 30 years right now to rebuild their country and, you know -- so, we'll see how that all works out.

I think it's working out very well. Somebody else called, you know, they say it's an occupation, remember, because it is virtually an occupation. And we're not looking to be wise guys, but it is an occupation. And remember this, so we've lost 18 lives and 18 is far too many. But in Vietnam, we lost thousands and thousands of lives over a 21-year period.

In Afghanistan, we lost tremendous numbers of lives. 18 is too many, one is too many, but we lost 18 lives and we've been there for seven months. And we have full control of that place. They shoot a rocket, every once in a while, we get hit by a drone and it bounces off a metal object, you know, or we shoot it down.

Most of the time we shoot it down. But there's nobody been killed in a long time. I don't want to jinx myself by saying that because we'll walk out the door, say, guess what just happened? But it's 18 souls and that's too many. But in Vietnam, if you look, it's thousands and thousands of Americans. And you can also look at it a different way -- over the years, the USS Cole and [Inaudible] Iran has caused a lot of bloodshed for America.

They started the war. They started it in 19 -- think of it, they really started it in probably 1979, right? That's when it started, and during that period of time, they've killed thousands of Americans and many other people. And if you go back just over the last seven months, they've killed 75,000 at least -- that's as of two months ago, they've killed 75,000 protesters, hanging many from cranes.

So, we've done a good job.

So, you're not looking to make any staffing changes here between now and --

No, I think I was just going to say -- so Pete's in charge of war, right? Department of War, we made that change. Venezuela has been unbelievable, considering one of the greatest attacks anybody's ever seen, he was in charge of that along with me and others. But Venezuela, we've taken out billions and billions of dollars' worth of oil.

I saw this lightweight Congressman the other day criticizing me on Iran for spending $25 million. I said, well, we've taken much more money out of Venezuela than that, you know, if you add them up because it's basically two wars. So, in Venezuela, we lost nobody. It lasted 48 minutes, I call it one day, but it lasted 48 minutes and it was over, it was a violent attack.

And in Iran, we are there for seven months and we control everything that we've wanted to control. And now we'll make a decision do we want to go further and just certify it -- by certifying it, meaning we're it'll never happen again. I think it will take them 25 years to rebuild the country. I would rather not destroy the rest of the country, if possible, but maybe I'll have to. You'll know soon enough.

Mr. President, on Republicans in Congress, what would you like them to focus on in the next two months when they still have the majorities?

So, we had a tremendous -- it's been a tremendous two years. I don't think there's ever been a president that's done more between the Great Big, Beautiful Bill with the tax cuts. We have the biggest tax cuts in history, biggest regulation cuts in history. What we've done is amazing though, even in the military between Iran and Venezuela and the border.

Take a look at the border. I mean, the border -- so we're now in the 18th month with not one person -- and I don't make out these statistics, they're made by people that lean left, as they say. Not one person has come into our border, our southern border, over the last 18 months. You know, it's pretty amazing.

So, we had a tremendous border. I probably got elected on the border. I can't even talk about it now because people say nobody's interested because you fixed it. My own people -- they say nobody is interested in the border, you fixed it. But we've had tremendous success. The stock market has hit 91 all-time highs. 401(k)s are at the highest they've ever been by far.

With Biden they were down 25 percent. With me, they're up 74 percent. It's in a short period of time. So, 401(k)s are the highest, stock market is the highest. I mean, we've had a tremendous period of time, it's been amazing. We've rebuilt our military. We're building more weapons right now in our military than we've ever built before.

And we're locked and loaded. If we have to do the rest of the Iran thing, we're very much locked.

[Crosstalk]

Sir, thank you. What prompted this decision, and what do you hope future generations will understand about this decision? And what do you say to those who criticize your updates? I mean, all this gold. Hillary Clinton even criticized your updates about the gold.

She did.

Yeah.

I don't like her house either. I know her house very well. Look, the Oval Office is a place of victory, it's a place of prestige, like the White House. If you would have looked -- see that beautiful white wall? There's no gold on that. But I fixed all of the monuments, I fixed all of the borders -- you have borders and you have broken windows.

We had broken windows or cracks in many windows. You'd look up, you'd see a crack in a window.

This is representative of our nation, I think, for me maybe more than it was between the Capitol, the White House, maybe a few others, Supreme Court Building. But to me, the White House is so important. If you looked at that wall -- if you looked at that wall one year ago, it was badly damaged from years of service.

It was badly damaged with cracks, broken stone all over the place. The -- the borders, they have borders up on top, the -- they were all broken. The -- they call them monuments, the figures on the sides. You'd have a window with one broken, one not broken. So, we made a mold of the one that was not broken and placed it very carefully.

And then it's been resurfaced so -- because the surface was falling off. It was falling off. The columns outside, you can take a look at them. They're all beautiful. They were all in horrible shape, you know, from being beaten up over hundreds of years, actually. They're -- they got beat up, and the building was beat up, and it was a shame.

And I fixed it. And I do it very easily. I didn't devote time to it, a lot of time. I just had -- I have very talented people that were able to do it. I paid for it. And we fixed up the exterior of the White House. There's no gold, but there's no cracks. There's no broken stone. They have beautiful ornamentation on it, original from 1792 when it was built, but much of it was broken.

It was either broken or gone. And in many cases, you'd have it on one side of a window, and on the other side there was nothing there because it had fallen. You'd see the holes. You'd see the metal that held it from -- from all these years. And it was many years, and I said we gotta fix it. So, because I did that, I get criticized.

Oh, isn't it terrible? I view the White House as a very important symbol of our country, and we can't have broken windows. We can't have broken stone. I mean, they'd have a big hole in the stone, a gaping hole this deep. And instead of fixing it beautifully that you can't even see it, they'd just paint it. People would look up and say this is the White House.

It's so inappropriate. So, I devoted very little time to it. The ballroom's going to be the most -- the best in the -- in the entire world. Even President Xi of China, he said, wow, that's going to be something. And he has the Great Hall of China, which is quite nice, I must tell you. But we didn't have a place.

So, 150 years -- and then we have a big military component, drones on top and five stories underneath of all military stuff. That was supposed to be top secret until I got sued by a group of people that are very bad for our country. We asked them not to sue because then people will see the under -- you know, when you sue, they see what you're building.

We built five stories underneath that ballroom, and it's going to be great. But when you look at that White House -- you know, I hear Obama, but he doesn't -- Obama doesn't know about dirt and filth, and he doesn't know about cracked stone and he doesn't know about broken windows. He's probably fine with them, but I'm not.

I'm not fine with them. Yeah.

[Crosstalk]

At the White House -- today here at the White House, the First Lady brought together Russian --

Yeah.

As well as Ukrainian officials to celebrate the ceasefire in Oleshky. Do you see that as a stepping stone for a larger peace deal?

I do.

How close are we to that?

I do. I think it's great. I think she did a great job. And we're -- we're -- I think we're going to be very close to settling Russia-Ukraine.

Did you yourself meet with President Putin's envoy, who was here earlier meeting with the First Lady --

I did, yeah.

Dmitriev -- you said you met with him?

Yeah, I did, in here.

What did you -- what did you discuss?

I don't -- can't tell you what I discussed.

But you met with him today?

But -- but I'm just telling you there's going to be an agreement. It's going to be a big agreement, and it's going to involve more than Ukraine. It's going to be a very big --

And this was today that you --

It's going to involve more than Ukraine. And I could even say it might involve all of Europe. It's going to be a big beautiful agreement, and everyone's going to be thrilled. Yeah, Steve.

Did you meet with the Ukrainian delegation as well today?

No, just with the head person --

Just with the --

Of Russia.

OK. Are you -- are you ready to reinforce the Texas -- Vladimir Putin -- Vladimir Putin right now kills Ukrainian civilians in their apartments, in their buses, in their schools. He's targeting civilians all the time. Did you bring that up with him?

I always bring it up. And I also bring it up the other way, because the other way they kill too. You know, a lot of people are being killed. They have -- they're losing -- between the two of them, they're losing 25,000 people to death, 25,000 people a month. And I bring it up on both sides. You know, Russia is losing civilians also.

They -- they are -- it is a bloodbath, and it has to end. And I think we're going to get it ended pretty soon, very soon, maybe. Yeah.

Are you ready to reinforce the Texas southern border now that Democratic -- the new Democratic governor is removing state manpower from border defense?

I am sure that the new governor is going to want to have security of his Texas border. There were people on television two days ago saying how it's like living in heaven compared to living in hell when Biden was there. And I'm sure they'll continue my policy. And if they don't continue my policy, I will, OK?

And going off of that -- On Alaska, today you urged to transfer the votes of the two reportedly recruited candidates to senator -- the real Senator Dan Sullivan. How do you see that actually happening, and what other actions can the administration --

Well, no, you have -- you have a Dan Sullivan, the real Dan -- I call him the real Dan Sullivan. You have the fake Dan Sullivan. The fake Dan Sullivan got a lot of votes, meaning 2 percent or something, but a lot. And then they also have somebody else in there that they put. They put two people, not just Dan Sullivan.

They put the fake Dan Sullivan. They put another guy who never ran for office or anything. And they said certain things, and he got like 3, 4,000 votes. And when you add up those votes, Dan Sullivan, the real Dan Sullivan, wins in a land -- not a landslide, but wins by thousands of votes. And I say they -- because it was a fraud, it's voter fraud, because of it was a fraud and they took that -- and they took that fraud and they thought they'd confuse the voter.

And the people that like Dan Sullivan -- he's a very good senator. The people that like Dan Sullivan by mistake voted for the fake Dan Sullivan. Likewise, they have another Republican candidate in there. So, people said a Republican candidate, probably had some policy down there, and they voted for him. So, they cheated on thousands of votes.

It's -- everyone knows it's a cheat. And they should be mandated to take the fake Dan Sullivan's votes and the other person they put in there and give it to the real Dan -- Dan Sullivan. And when that happens, he wins by thousands of votes. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

[Crosstalk]

That includes the Cabinet Room?

It includes -- oh --

Thank you.

Hold it. Take them in to see the Cabinet Room, OK? Go ahead inside.

Yes, sir.

Yeah. Turn on the lights.

Thank you, guys. We're going --

You'll like it.

To the Cabinet Room now. You guys can follow me.

You'll like it. You'll like it. You will.

Does the next president gets to take down stuff?

He can do whatever he wants.