Press Gaggle: Donald Trump Speaks to Reporters After Air Force One Arrival - May 20, 2026

I was just watching. We have big news on Cuba. As you know, with the indictment of Castro. That's all it is. A lot of people have suffered very big, very, very at levels that few people would understand. I think the Cuban population of Miami and certainly beyond Miami, people that came there that were decimated as families were ruined.

Appreciate what the attorney general just did today and what he's just doing now. He's just watching it. So we have Cuba on our mind, very important. A lot of problem for a lot of years and I think it was a very big moment for people that, not only Cuban-Americans, but people that came from Cuba that want to go back to Cuba, people that want to see their family in Cuba.

I think it's a very big day, very important day. They supported me to the Nth degree. They supported me at levels that nobody's ever seen before. So I think it's a very important moment.

One more moment, Mr. President.

Okay.

What's coming next for Cuba?

Well, we're going to see. It's a failing nation. You see that. It's falling apart. They have no oil, they have no, it's a failing nation, so I just can't tell you that. But we're there to help. We're there to help the families, the people. And again, a lot of those people are related to me in the sense that I have had such a great relationship with Cuban-Americans.

They supported me at a 94% level. That's a pretty good level. And uh, their relatives are there. So we, we got to, on a humanitarian basis, we're there to help.

You were just there last week.

Yup.

Can you talk about that at all?

Well, we have a lot of people there. We had the CIA there. We have, Marco is there. Marco's parents, as you know, are from Cuba. So we have a lot of expertise in Cuba and it's not going to be, like, the biggest thing we've ever done. But I will tell you, to a lot of people, it's going to be one of the most important, they've been looking for this moment for 65 years.

So we'll see what happens, but uh, in the meantime, we're going to have to help them out. They have no, no way of living. They have no food. They have no electricity. They have no energy at all. But they do have great people. There are a lot of great people. I, I have so many Cuban friends in, mostly in Miami in Florida, and they're unbelievable people.

They're unbelievable entrepreneurs and they'd like to go back. I think they, hopefully, they're going to want to live here, but they want to go back. Maybe they'll invest. We'll see what happens. But we're freeing up Cuba.

How much longer do you anticipate the embargo having to be in place on Cuba?

We'll see. We'll be announcing it pretty soon.

Mr. President, should we expect any escalation here or should they expect anything?

With Cuba?

Yes.

No. There won't be escalation. I don't think there needs to be. Look, the place is falling apart. It's a mess and, uh, they sort of lost control. They've really lost control of Cuba.

What's your reaction like you did with --

I don't want to say that.

Mr. President, Gavin Newson is on Capitol Hill today. He says that he doesn't think JD Vance has what it takes to come after you. What's your response to that?

Who said that?

Gavin Newsom.

He said doesn't have what?

From the era of Trump and with you and that JD Vance doesn't have what it takes to come after you.

Well, look. We've done a lot and JD's very talented. He's a smart guy. He's, you'll do very well if it's JD. We have a lot of very talented people. So I think, hopefully, we're going to leave something that's going to be real easy to run. We're doing a lot. We're doing a lot and JD's a very talented guy.

You have to respond after you said yesterday, you were about an hour away from making a decision. Where did that stand today? Have you heard anything from them?

Very, right on the border line, believe me. If we don't get the right answers, it goes very quickly. We're all ready to go. We have to get the right answers. It would have to be a complete 100% good answers. And if we do, we save a lot of time, energy, and lives, most importantly.

How long will you wait?

Could go very quickly or a few days. It could be a few days, but it should go very quickly. Iran is a defeated nation. We're dealing with some people, and we're dealing, actually, I must tell you, we're dealing with some very good people. We're dealing with people that are, I think, far more reasonable than the people that are really no longer with us. We're dealing with some people with talent, with good brain power, and we're pretty impressed by it. So, hopefully, those people will make a deal that's gonna be great for everybody.

Are you tired of the back and forth of --

But, I don't know. I don't know. I don't, do I get what? I never --

Are you tired of the back and forth?

I never get tired. But, what I like to do, if I, if I can save war by waiting a couple of days, or I can save people being killed by waiting a couple of days, I think it's a great thing to do.

Stephen Colbert's last show tomorrow night, what's your message to him? The late night host, Stephen Colbert. It's his last show after him being such a staunch critic of yours. What's your message?

Uh, I'll have a message at a later date. Okay.

Sir, on Iran, did the US offer Iran, uh, oil sanctions relief during the peace talks, as Iranian State Media had reported?

No, I heard, I haven't heard that, no. I'm not doing any relief until they sign an agreement. When they sign an agreement, uh, we can get that place built up again and have something that's really a good country for the people, but, no, we haven't offered anything.

Mr. President, what's your message to American families who are scared by the, the rise of AI? They're worried that their kids are not gonna be able to have jobs someday because AI will take over.

Yeah, I'll tell you, AI has been amazing because right now we have more jobs, more people working right now in the United States, by far, than we ever had before. And, outside of the war, and I assume the economy was gonna go down, the stock market would go down 20, 25%. It's actually up. The stock market is higher now than it was before I started the Iran situation.

And on the Iran, I had no choice because they were gonna have a nuclear weapon. We're not gonna give them a nuclear weapon. But, that's gonna end soon, one way or the other. Uh, oil is gonna come tumbling down. There's so much, uh, we have 1,600 ships in the Strait, that are loaded up with oil, that are gonna be coming out very soon.

So, uh, we'll have to see, but the military has been unbelievable. The blockade has been infallible. Not one ship has gotten through the blockade. 37 have tried. Uh, they all wish they didn't.

Can you tell us about your call with Erdoğan?

Yeah, I had a very good call with President Erdoğan and, uh, pretty standard. We have a very good relationship. Isn't it nice that I have relationships with some very tough people? He's a tough guy and, uh, but I have a relationship with him that nobody else does. He's, he's actually done a good job. He's been, you know, I think, very much of an ally.

Some people would doubt that, but I think he's been a great ally and his people respect him. His people respect him a lot.

Mr. President --

Do you have a response for people that are, uh, critical of your, your, um, settlement over your IRS case about the tax, now that you can't be prosecuted by the tax company?

Yeah. Well, what happened is, uh, I was suing IRS for a lot of different reasons. One of the reasons is they released my tax returns, which they're not allowed to do. Now, they showed I pay a lot of tax. I may even release my current returns because they show I pay a lot of money, but they're not supposed to do that.

They were in lockboxes, as President. They were, and they released them, and a certain firm released them, which was, I guess, a private firm, but it released them to a lot of the fake news, and the fake news went, and you're just not allowed to do that. And many other things happened. So, I released them from the lawsuit and I guess they made a, uh, settlement of some kind.

I wasn't involved in the settlement. Uh, I could have been involved, but I didn't choose to be. Uh, so they made a settlement. Also, the anti-weaponization, uh, of people, I mean, people were destroyed. They went to jail. The, their families were ruined. They committed suicide. You know, all the Biden administration and the Obama administration, both of them.

I mean, the Obama administration started it. The Biden administration was, uh, horrible, in terms of what they've done to people is incredible. And we're getting, we're reimbursing those pe- -- people for their legal fees, and for their costs, and for anybody involved, but they destroyed people. People committing su- -- I read the other day a person committed suicide over it. They went, you know, it was the most violent thing I've ever seen in politics, what they did.

And yet, if I say, "Oh, let's look at this one or that one," They say, "Weaponization, weaponization." What they did, in terms of weaponization, will never be allowed to happen in this country again. So, we think that those people, we think that anybody involved in that process should par- -- partake, and you're talking about peanuts compared to the value, it destroyed the lives of many, many people.

Thank you very much, everybody.