Remarks: Donald Trump Speaks to Technology Leaders at the White House - August 19, 2026

OK. It's a serious group of people here, if you're into the world of finance like I am. I love finance. It's a who's who with us today. It's amazing that you don't know some of these people, but anybody in finance knows every one of them, and I want to thank them for being here today. We're delighted to welcome some of our nation's brightest minds in finance, crypto and technology ahead of the first ever meeting of the CFTC's Innovation Advisory Committee in Washington, DC. This is a group of very smart people that are on a committee to recommend what we do, right, Paul?

They're going to be telling us a little bit, but I think Paul knows maybe more than anybody. He's doing a great job. We're all happy with Paul, I think, right? He's been absolutely fantastic. The crypto markets and the prediction markets and conventional finance to decentralized finance, the people in this room are ensuring that the future of commercial markets is pioneered and perfected right here in the USA.

We're fighting a lot of other countries to control these markets and to have these markets and to profit and all the jobs and everything else created. And we're doing well. We're leading in every aspect, including AI, and we're leading by a lot, and we want to keep it that way. I want to thank the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Mike Selig, for his tremendous leadership.

And come here. Thank you, Mike. I didn't recognize you from so close. And thanks as well to a very special man, a man that everybody respected for a long time. He's a man I wanted to do this job, head of the SEC, Chairman Paul Atkins, who's also doing an outstanding job and everything else he touches. He's doing a lot of things for the for the country so I want to thank you very much.

Great job. Thank you. Thank you very much, Paul. We're also pleased to be joined by executive director of the President's Council of Advisors with the digital asset. Uh, all of the digital assets are all put into one Patrick Witt and many other top industry leaders, including Coinbase -- uh, where's Brian?

Brian Armstrong, CEO. He's one of the greats. Where is he? Where are you? Oh, you look well. You look much younger. You look good. CEO of International and Intercontinental Exchange, Jeff Sprecher. One of the things, a little thing called the New York Stock Exchange. He owns a thing called the New York Stock Exchange, a quite -- quite a nice asset, right?

Yes, it is.

CEO of Nasdaq, Adena Friedman. Thank you very much, Adena, great job you're doing. CEO of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev. Thank you. Vlad, nice to see you. And CEO of Kraken Arjun Sethi. And thank you very much, wherever you are. Thank you very much. Great group of people. We also have some others here that, uh -- where we wanted them.

Where's Mike? Co-founder of CEO, CTO, and President of BitGo, which is a big deal in the world of that thing, that little thing that's happening out there. And Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple. Brad. Thank you very much, Brad. Uh, Sergey Nazarov, co-founder, Chainlink Labs. Thank you very much. Good, Sergey.

Arjun, you're here. Arjun.

I'm still here.

You're here. You haven't left. Uh, Peter Smith is here, and Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have -- tremendous people, tremendous investors, brilliant people. Chris Dixon is here, and I think I've sort of got -- anybody I didn't mention, by the way? Pretty much got the whole group. Good. They gave me four sets of lists and that's always a little complex.

You never want to say one more than three times. Under the crooked Joe Biden administration, the spirit of innovation that built America was under serious attack like never before, and nowhere was that more true than crypto and other new financial technologies where we were going to be taken to the cleaners by China and other countries.

The radical left tried to crush these developments with crippling regulations, brutal restrictions, weaponization. They use weaponization, political weaponization, and constant targeting that drove innovation overseas and they wanted to drive it out. And at the end of the -- toward the end of the campaign, if you remember, they decided they liked it very much because there were over 100 million people that were liking Trump a lot more because I was in favor of it. They were against it. And they became very much in favor of it, but by that time it was too late.

And besides, those days are all over. That was a terrible period of time for a lot of very good, very honorable financial people. On day one, we fired Joe Biden's rogue SEC chair, Gary Gensler. I think we like Paul better. Do we agree; we like Paul better? Number one, he's smarter. Right? He's also smarter, by the way.

But we fired him. We got him the hell out of here. We terminated the so-called Operation Choke Point 2.0, which is what the name of their operation was, weaponization. And we ended the war on crypto once and for all and it's been booming. It's been doing big, and nobody's been able to break in. China would like to break in. They're still trying, but they haven't been able to. I signed a historic executive order banning any attempt to create a central bank digital currency.

We launched Project Crypto to modernize rules so that our financial markets can move into blockchain technology. I established a United States Strategic Bitcoin Reserve making Bitcoin a permanent asset of the United States Treasury, which has turned out incredibly well. I also created the United States Digital Asset Stockpile to hold custody of all other digital assets.

And that's exactly what it's done. It's been amazing. One year ago this summer, I signed landmark legislation known as the GENIUS Act. I named it after myself. I didn't want anyone to -- I didn't want to use my name so I just call it the GENIUS Act, paving the way for widespread adoption of dollar-backed stablecoins.

And that's worked out very well. Every single American benefits enormously from our country's status as the financial center of the world, and we want to keep it that way. We're leading by leaps and bounds. We've gained so much in the last 16 months, like nobody can believe, actually. Not only that, but we have more money being invested in the United States than any country at any time in history.

Money's coming in by the trillions. Our nation's economic dominance drives trillions of dollars of investments, creates millions of jobs, and expands access, credit, and capital so that every citizen has a chance to achieve what we now hear a lot about the American Dream. Young people are looking for the American dream.

They weren't thinking about that two years ago. New financial technologies are extending this American dominance into the 21st century and that's why we're focused on creating a clear regulatory framework for pioneers and builders, like the people that are with me here, so that they can do business with confidence on American soil.

They don't have to go to other countries to do their business. We're ensuring that America remains the undisputed leader, not only in Bitcoin and crypto, but also technologies like prediction markets, artificial intelligence, and much more. And we're leading in every single one and I will tell you, the AI, the artificial intelligence, we're way ahead of number two.

Number two is China, and I never want to underestimate China, but right now we're way ahead. President Xi's coming on September 24th. We look forward to it. We'll probably be talking about AI and a lot of other things, but we're doing tremendously well, largely because of people and some other friends of ours that are on the board, and they'll be here in two weeks, I understand.

In May, Chairman Selig authorized the first ever true Bitcoin perpetual futures contract on a CFTC-registered exchange, first time. I understand that Mike is also working to bring hyper liquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion. He's working very hard on that. We would really like to see interest rates come down.

You know, in the old days with interest rates, many of you are too young to know this but when we announced good numbers, interest rates would go down. And the theory was because the asset value became so good, it became so prime.

But now, when we announce good numbers, which we're doing all the time, they keep driving the interest rates up because they're so afraid of inflation. And they shouldn't be; they should allow interest rates to go down. When you announce good numbers, you shouldn't drive them up. They keep thinking that we'll drive them up to stop inflation, because success in growth does not cause inflation, other things cause inflation.

We inherited the number one inflation ever in the history of our country from Biden, and it lifted prices and everything else, and we're getting them all down. But interest rates should be allowed to fall with the success of our country, not rise because of the success. But we're also on the very beginning of a revolution in fictional and financial.

You take a look at some of the things that are being done on a financial basis and the financial technology that's the potential to create more jobs, opportunity and wealth for all Americans. And that's what it's doing; it's creating jobs and great wealth. And I think that can't be better seen by the stock market.

So, we've had 80 -- in a short period of time, a year and a half, we've had 80 days where the stock market hit all-time highs. I haven't looked today; I don't know, maybe I shouldn't look, I don't want to look. But I think it's -- I hear it's good. But we've had 80 days, Jeff, where the stock market has hit an all-time high and nobody's ever seen anything like that.

And I think bringing it down to another level and maybe a higher level from the standpoint of importance, 401(k)s have hit record highs on almost 40 percent of the time that I've been president of the United States, and that affects tens of millions of people. The 401(k)s are at record numbers. So, two years ago, our country was dead and now our country is the hottest country anywhere in the world, there's nobody close.

No other country is close, and every country will admit it. So, now we need Congress to take the next step by passing the CLARITY Act -- a fair version of the CLARITY Act, and this landmark structure legislation. It's a very, very powerful, structured legislation which will keep us ahead of China, keep us ahead of everyone else.

We'll open the door to the next wave of innovations and innovators. So, I'd like to ask Chairman Selig to say a few words and a little bit of the details about what we're doing. And then we'll follow it up with Chairman Atkins and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeff Sprecher, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, and Kraken CEO Arjun.

So, we have that all set and let's get going. And you know what? If you want to speak for a very short period of time, that's OK too. [Laughter]

Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to be here with you and this exceptional group of business leaders. Thanks to your leadership, the era of political lawfare, debanking and regulation by enforcement is over. Innovators like the people in this room are welcome to the White House, not railroaded to the big house.

And the new frontier of finance is being built right here in the United States of America. From day one, this president has been clear -- America will not fall behind and allow other countries to take its place as the greatest country on earth to build a new technology, operate a business, and invest for the future.

The world will run on the backbone of American technology. Under President Trump's leadership, we've codified the Genius Act, established a strategic Bitcoin reserve, drawn a clear line in the sand between crypto securities and commodities, launched the first US crypto perpetual and protected the rights of software developers.

We've exiled Gary Gensler, defeated the anti-crypto army and made the United States the crypto capital of the world. I'm proud to be working with Secretary Lutnick and the Department of Commerce as well, to make America the compute capital of the world. This may be the most important commodity of our day.

Some call it digital oil, and America needs to dominate these markets to win the AI race. We've also protected federally regulated prediction markets from rogue state attorney generals like Letitia James, who seek to nullify federal law and drive these markets offshore to unregulated and foreign venues. American dominance in the technologies that will define the future remains unmatched.

We are truly in a golden age of American innovation. Now the United States has a choice -- we can either write the rules that define the next generation of financial markets, or we can let other countries write them for us. With Congress advancing the CLARITY Act towards the finish line, we stand ready to implement the bill once the president signs it. But we'll use every tool available to move the president's pro-innovation agenda forward in the meantime.

Tomorrow at the inaugural meeting of the CFTC's Innovation Advisory Committee, I look forward to sharing more details on our regulatory path forward, a path forward that provides greater certainty for innovators while reinforcing confidence in our markets for decades to come. This president has assembled an extraordinary team of entrepreneurs, builders, investors and business leaders advising in government like David Sacks, of course, and Patrick Witt.

This real-world experience has already brought valuable perspectives into policy making, and it will continue to pay dividends for the American people. Innovation depends on regulatory clarity. Clear rules create confidence; confidence attracts investment; and investment creates jobs, strengthens our markets and keeps the world's best talent building here in America.

Mr. President, thank you again for your leadership and for making American innovation great again. The work we're doing now to shape the future of our great nation will do measures for decades to come. Now, I'm honored to introduce the most pro-innovation, pro-free market SEC chairman in America's history.

And it's not Gary Gensler, of course, it's Paul Atkins. So, Mr. Chairman, please.

Well, thank you, Mike, and thank you, Mr. President, for having us here today. From day one, you've made our nation's financial dominance and innovation job one. We at the SEC are delivering on your agenda. We're making IPOs great again, to continue on your theme, by cutting red tape that discourages companies from going public.

Under your leadership, Mr. President, the IPO market is booming. Since Inauguration Day, 583 companies have gone public, and that's up 75 percent compared to the final year and a half of the Biden administration. And those companies have raised an impressive $208 billion, and that's nearly four times the amount raised during the final year and a half of the previous administration.

So, that's just not incremental progress, that is a turnaround. You've committed to making the United States the crypto capital of the world and yesterday the SEC, I'm proud to say, took another significant step to deliver on that. Our proposal, the Crypto Assets Rule, would provide crypto entrepreneurs, like those here in this room, and job creators the certainty to raise capital in the United States using digital assets.

This action is consonant with our belief that the most important priority is for Congress to send the CLARITY Act to your desk for your signature, and the SEC is doing everything we can to support that work. So, thank you again, Mr. President, for leading this nation to ensure that we continue to have the strongest markets in the world, to reshore innovation and to welcome, yes, a whole new generation of investors through the Trump accounts.

So, under your leadership, we will make sure that the greatest advances of the technological frontier are right here in America. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Well, this morning I was thinking back to the 2024 campaign where the president, I think very astutely, recognized there was millions of voters in the United States who felt disenfranchised by the prior administration. And he made a commitment at that time to make America the crypto capital of the world and within weeks of taking office, delivered on that promise.

And it started first with this executive order, which came out ordering the agencies in his administration to take steps in this direction. He shortly thereafter appointed two of the most competent and pro-innovation regulators anywhere in the world, Chair Selig and Chair Atkins, and, of course, fired Gary Gensler.

There was that big applause line at the Bitcoin conference, which was powerful. And, of course, the Genius Act was another milestone just in the past year, along with the strategic Bitcoin Reserve, etc. And just this week -- I have to commend Chair Atkins for publishing this new rule that allows crypto projects to raise capital in the US for the first time, there's clarity on that.

And Chair Selig, we're excited to attend the advisory committee meeting tomorrow to make progress there. So, an incredible amount of progress has been made, and I think what's most important next, of course, is this September 15th vote that we have with the CLARITY Act. This would make all of the progress that this administration has made durable into the future, so it could survive for decades and decades to come.

And make no mistake, there are folks out there who would -- they want to see this legislation not happen, right? Maybe some of the big banks don't want the competition from crypto companies, other banks are leaning in and have endorsed it, which I think is really powerful. And so, if we all come together, I think we can get this bill over the finish line and hopefully get more than 60 votes come September 15th. Thank you.

And it's very bipartisan I would say. So, you understand that, very much.

That is true.

A lot of Democrat support.

There's hundreds of pages of changes that have come in from the Democrat side as well. It's a true bipartisan compromise and, yeah, it's a great piece of -- it's a great work product. So, up next, I think, is Jeff Sprecher.

That's right.

Thank you. Mr. President I just wanted to tell you that, um, that your trade policies of fair trade to bring back jobs and businesses from overseas, your energy dominance policies to fuel the next generation of technology in the United States, um, your big, beautiful bill that created incentives for investments has, um, led to the records that you're hearing about in our stock markets.

Uh, the record number of IPOs. And as you know, from, from working with my wife who works on private businesses, there's a record number of business formations in this country right now so we're here to talk about how to evolve regulation so that we don't impede that progress um, but one of the things I can tell you about the New York Stock Exchange is that it was formed at the time of our country.

And so, um, it for 250 years has been subject to every single financial services regulation that has ever passed in the United States, bar none and so one of the things that I'm so thankful that you've done is put two really strong chairs in these seats and ask them to go through passed legislation, regulation and figure out what we can get rid of that no longer serves the interests of this country.

And for that, I really appreciate that on behalf of the New York Stock Exchange.

Thank you very much thank you, Mr. President thank you.

Mr. President thank you for bringing us together and for your work to ensure the next generation of Americans has a stake in the country's economic success through the Trump accounts and many other things thank you also to Chair Seelig, Chair Atkins, your administration, for the work underway to strengthen American capital markets and expand opportunity for all Americans.

If I had to sum up Robin Hood in one word, it would be ownership broad ownership is essential to a free, stable and prosperous society that belief has shaped pretty much every product we've built, from commission free investing to 24 hour trading, and now outside the United States, to tokenization, which we're using to expand ownership of American assets to people in more than 120 countries.

Yet this innovation is reaching investors abroad before investors here, back home and the opportunity goes far beyond public markets tokenization will open up markets that have long been out of reach, including private companies today, too much economic value is being created before ordinary investors get a chance to participate.

Expanding ownership also requires protecting investors, innovation and investor protection aren't opposing goals America became the world's capital markets capital by doing both and the chairs here understand that American companies are building this technology American markets are powering it American assets are also at the center of it American investors should not be the last to benefit.

We look forward to continue to work together to expand ownership, build the next generation of capital markets, and ensure America leads the way. Thank you.

Great job, Arjun. Thank you.

Thank you hello, everyone um, I was thinking about what I was going to say today most of the time I don't speak too much, but the first time I met the President, he said, what does your company do? Um, and I said, we we're a startup we move at warp speed and the first thing he said is why not at trump speed.

So we started acting in that way um, look, our our mission at Kraken isn't about Kraken Brian created -- Brian created Coinbase; Vlad here, we have ICE, Nasdaq. They created the world markets and all we're trying to do is make sure that everyone in America has the ability to be able to succeed in the same way that we did.

And that's essentially how we think about it so our motto at Kraken has been fixed money, we fix the world. Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you very much and if you have any questions or if anybody else of this very distinguished, would somebody like to say something? My male models who happen to be genius, they're brilliant and they look good, right? But anybody would you like to say something? Go ahead please.

I just want to thank you, Mr. President, for all of your leadership America should lead in crypto and win in markets like prediction markets and with your leadership and your administration, you're helping America lead here and become the crypto capital of the world so thank you very much.

I just want to thank you, Mr. President, as well as Chairman Atkins and Chairman Selig for the great work that they're doing.

Thanks. Thank you.

Yeah I just want to say that what Chairman Selig and Chairman Atkins are doing, and the President has enabled what his leadership is actually working so if you look at stablecoin usage and adoption, it's increasing the usage and distribution of the US dollar at higher and higher levels than our industry has ever seen.

Specifically because of the Genius Act and the movement of more and more treasuries into stablecoins, and therefore into more and more hands across the world and now the tokenization of equities thanks to Chairman Selig's and Chairman Atkins, great work and collaboration and actual work together, rather than working against each other as before, is going to distribute US equities globally and increase the distribution of those.

So, you know, we power a lot of these, um, applications and companies so we know what the numbers actually are and they're massively increasing because we have regulators and leadership that enables the success and distribution of these US based assets so there's actually a very real and tangible outcome that's really now benefiting the US and adoption of US issued assets and the US dollar.

So I just want to mention that it really is working and hitting all time highs. So, thank you very much. Thank you.

So if you have any questions we have a meeting next week with the AI people the top people are coming in so we can talk about that but we're leading by a lot with AI. We want to keep it that way we want to regulate, but we want to have it regulation where they can continue to lead, not regulation that's going to stifle a very important industry, I think maybe bigger than the internet, bigger than anything anyone's seen.

And we're helping in that regard, especially with regard to allowing them to produce their own electricity, which everyone thought was crazy, that it would never be approved we're getting them fast two and three week approvals they're building some of the greatest electric plants anywhere in the world because our our grid is old and tired and weak, and they're actually giving the excess electricity into the grid.

But they're building power plants that nobody's ever seen anything like it we're not using the the power from the grid we're using brand new power so it's a great thing because that misconception has been out there that we're taking electricity, we're actually creating electricity and that's something I was proud of because that was my idea.

Nobody believed it actually, it it went along for 2 or 3 weeks I said, how come these guys aren't submitting? Well, they thought they were that you were just kidding because that's the way it's been in this country nobody would ever say a thing like that but now they're building power plants, the likes of which all different fuels all different ways, but the likes of which we've never seen.

Uh, the people that are in the power business and we're seeing things that we've never seen before because a very high level of intelligence is doing it so it's been great. OK, any questions? Yeah please

Mr. President, does the administration have any plans to accumulate sizable amounts of Bitcoin or other crypto?

Well, it's been talked about I think I'd probably rely on Paul and the whole group for that he'll make a decision you guys will make a decision and you'll let me know but certainly it's been talked about it's, uh, it's taken a lot of pressure off the dollar it's been very, very good for the dollar. And I think if you came in with recommendations, two of you, if you came in with some recommendations, I would certainly listen it seems to be a pretty big subject yes, please.

President Trump, I have two quick questions.

Go ahead.

Don't get around here much; so my first question is we're talking about AI and crypto a lot and you won overwhelmingly with working class Americans in 2020 for tens of millions of working Americans many of them they say we love President Trump, but we're still cautious about AI. What do you say to those who are still reticent to embrace this?

So I think it's going to it's a great question, and I think it's going to create a lot of jobs, it's going to create success it's going to create tremendous innovation medically I mean, they're coming up with already amazingly, they came out with something today that I looked at and having to do I won't go into the details, but having to do it with a pretty unstoppable disease and all of a sudden they're coming up with answers that they never thought were possible and things that they never even would have thought about.

So I think it's really creating jobs and I can tell you one thing, if you look at our construction jobs right now, because we're building more plants, factories, things that really have something to do with the AI, but also car factories, car plants, they're moving into our country. Honda just announced, Toyota just announced they're moving their operations from Mexico, from Canada, from other places.

By the way, probably have a deal with Canada, you probably saw that we -- very major tariffs were going on to Canada today we delayed it for three days because I think we have a deal with the Prime Minister and a good deal for everybody, so that's good.

But the construction jobs are enormous. We're building the biggest plants anywhere in the world. And I can say, if I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid are just enormous.

And if you don't take it, you're going to be left behind because there are plenty of places that want it. So, I would say that maybe you can use a little public relations help. But if I were a governor or mayor, I would want that plant in my community and many of them are designed in a very beautiful way.

It's really very positive. OK? Thank you.

This is a little off topic. So, you mentioned Joe Biden and some of the past leadership, and it's been about 69 days since we've seen Mitch McConnell. Sometimes when you look at Congress, it looks like they passed --

[Crosstalk]

But I read a Cindy Adams column in the New York Post recently, and she talked about how we need term limits and someone needs to hold Congress accountable. Maybe you should be the person to do it. Would you support term limits for Congress or some type of cognitive testing? Because maybe if we had that in the last four years, we wouldn't have ended up in some of these messes.

So, term limits are very popular with the public. I've seen it both ways: I've seen where people go in and they get termed out, and they're very talented and they're at the height of their career, you know, politicians. And you end up with total rookies in there, nothing gets done. And I've seen it the other way where people are there too long.

We see that all the time. I see both. I always like to say that a term limit is an election. You know, the public's pretty smart, you see that last night. We had some great success last night; the Republican Party had tremendous success last night. But I like to say that term limits should be elections, but I'm OK with term limits.

Remember, the people that have to pass term limits are the people that are going to be voting on them to get out of office. So, it's a little bit tough. That's not the easiest vote to get, is it, huh? But I'm OK with it one way or the other. I do think elections really turn people out.

Mr. President, I want to ask you about Canada. But first, the Treasury Secretary says that we could see the most impactful sanctions on Iran this week. When will they come and what else could be sanctioned on Iran?

Well, we have things that we could sanction. We have very Draconian sanctions and we'll see what happens. Right now, the Strait is open; we've got a lot of boats coming through, people aren't reporting that. And that may slow down a little bit at some point, but right now a lot of boats are coming through.

The naval blockade has been extremely effective. Zero, I mean, literally while it's up and it's been for quite a while, you know, except for a couple of little pauses where we opened it purposely at -- with a deal. But the deal didn't terminate -- you know, the deal didn't turn out to be what they said, you know, when they tell us one thing and they do another.

But the blockade has been 100 percent successful. No boats have gotten into Iran, but they are getting in for other places. But we'll see, we're going to see what happens. It'll either be extremely good and oil prices are going to drop like a rock, or we'll continue to do exactly what we're doing. You know, they were talking about $350 a barrel, and it's today $84 or $85. And we are getting a lot of oil out.

But the other thing that's happened is people have found other alternatives, which they never thought about, Texas, Alaska, Louisiana and other places. In addition, a lot of pipelines -- record numbers of pipelines -- are being built. So, I think the Hormuz Strait is not going to be quite as important as it was in the past.

Yeah, on Canada, if I can ask you, you said that there's a deal, an agreement in place. Are you willing to lower tariffs on steel and aluminum?

Well, we're looking at that --

[Crosstalk]

Yeah, well, we're getting zero for our farmers. You know, farmers have been hurt very badly by Canada, and they won't be paying any tariffs anymore. And we may bring some of the tariffs down to a level where other countries are because Canada was paying a higher tariff -- Canada was paying us a higher tariff.

So, we are -- look, we have a very nice relationship with leadership right now and we'll see. But we did a three-day pause; it was supposed to be a 50 percent straight across the board tariff that was going into effect at 7:00 this morning, and I delayed it at the request of Canada for three days so we can iron out the details.

But it's going to be a wonderful deal, hopefully a wonderful deal for everybody. Yeah.

Mr. President, earlier today you said North Korea has something like 57 nuclear weapons. They've been expanding their nuclear program. Is your goal in trying to reengage with Chairman Kim still denuclearization? And what makes you think you could be successful now when you weren't?

Well, I don't want to talk about that, but I do have a good relationship with Kim Jong-un, as you know, you've seen. He didn't like Biden, he didn't like Obama, he didn't like anybody, but he likes me and I like -- you know, I just got along with him very good. We had great meetings, we speak. And I think our nation and I think other nations, frankly, whether it's Japan or South Korea, they're a lot safer if I'm president than if somebody else is president.

Now, I didn't like the fact that we're doing these massive military exercises really against North Korea. It was, you know, an exercise against North Korea. When I'm friendly with him, when we have -- I don't see anything happening for certainly two and a half years, it's not going to happen with me, but I don't see anything happening.

And I was not happy when South Korea said, no, they're not interested in helping us with the Hormuz Strait, and yet they get 60 percent of their oil from the Hormuz Strait. I said would you like to help us He said, no, thank you. I said that's nice, please, thank you. He made us a lot of money; I didn't like that.

So, I felt that to do a massive -- we were doing a massive war exercise. I thought that was very insulting to somebody that frankly has been, during my term at least, very well-behaved yeah.

[Crosstalk]

On the bond market, has the administration done enough to stabilize the bond market after --

[Crosstalk]

Well, I think it is, but I mean, it's very sad. Every time we do great, we announce great numbers, the interest rates go up. And they go up because they want to stop inflation. They should go down because the country is strong. You know, I see countries like Switzerland where they're the number one lowest interest rates, a half a percent, and we pay 3.5 percent.

And yet, if we stop doing business -- for instance, I have the absolute right to cut off all business with a country like Switzerland, like anything. So, why are they prime if I can cut off the business and they are no longer functional, and yet they're considered to be like an elite country? And I don't want to single them out because there's 60 countries like that; they live off the United States.

So, why are we paying higher interest rates than them? You know, in the old days, we used to pay the lowest interest rate, no matter how we were doing, because we sort of generate for the whole world. And I want to see it where interest rates -- and I have to tell you, we have a wonderful chairman, I think he's doing a great job.

The problem is he has a board and it's a political board, people put in by Obama, Biden and me. And there are quite a few members still left, as you understand. And so, they vote to raise interest rates. I don't know if they're doing it because they think they're doing a good thing or because they like the politics of it. But my point is, years ago, 25 years ago, when the country announced good numbers, interest rates went down because we had a stronger country.

Now, when we announce good numbers, the better they are, the worse it is for interest rates. So, we could be -- we could have a GDP of 10 times. You know, they say, oh, it's going to be 3 times or 4.1. We could have a GDP of 10, 12, 15 times if they'd just leave us alone, let us -- let the rates go down.

We should pay the lowest interest rates. You know, every point of interest is $600 billion. Think of that -- every point of interest is $600 billion. 2 points means we make a fortune, but we keep driving it up. It's a very unfair system and I've said it now for a long time -- when our country does well, interest rates should go down.

I mean, every time I hear a country is doing well, I say, oh, it's too bad because they lift up interest rates. They should drop interest rates because it means we have a strong country and it's all based on credit, meaning good credit, and we have the best credit. And we'd pay off the debt very easily, very quickly.

But if somebody is paying a half a point, we should be paying a half a point, not somebody else. Right now, I think it's Switzerland has the lowest. Again, and I don't want to single them out. But if you take our business away from Switzerland, they have problems. So, why are they paying a half a point and we're paying much more than that?

Does that make sense to anybody? I mean, it seems pretty simple to me, but it's a killer. You know, I almost like to hear bad numbers; I'm saying I hope we have bad numbers today, interest rates will go down. It doesn't make sense. When our business is good, we should lower interest rates. And then you want to build America; you're going to see a building like you've never seen.

We're doing great, even despite the fact of what's happening with interest rates.

Should Americans be concerned about this volatility in the bond market?

No, I don't think so because, like I said, our country is doing so well despite interest rates. We have interest rates that are artificially -- they're actually artificially high. They raise them for no reason. And you can't go out to the market when you have a fed that's raising interest; you can't say, oh, I want to pay 3 points less than what the fed says you're supposed to be paying.

So no, I don't think so at all. I think we have a very powerful country and we're powering through these ridiculous interest rates. They're ridiculous. Look, when our country is strong, interest rates should go down. When our country is weak, frankly, they should go up. But this country is strong. They've never had -- there's never been in history the kind of money coming into a country as we have right now.

Trillions and trillions of dollars are being invested in plants, factories, everything -- everything you can think of. We're the hottest country in the world; we are by far. And I You know, I said it 100 times. The King of Saudi Arabia, many, many people, they said, two years ago, three years ago, your country was dead; now you have the hottest country in the world.

That's what we have, we have the hottest country in the world, and these people are helping us a lot. Thank you very much, everybody. Come on to the Oval Office. We're going to take them into the Oval Office -- we're going to show them a real office, OK? Their offices are nice, but this is nice.

Did you watch Darline Graham's [Inaudible]

Thank you, press.