What a nice guy he is. I wanted to race him but I decided not to do it.
What is your message to Vladimir Putin after your meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy? And how did that meeting go?
I think the meeting went well. We'll see what happens over the next few days. We'll probably learn a lot. Uh, I was very disappointed that missiles were flying, by Russia. But that missiles were flying, very disappointing. We'll see how it goes. Uh, on the, uh, Iran situation, I think we're doing very well.
I think a deal's gonna be made there. That's gonna, that's gonna happen. Pretty sure it's gonna happen. We'll have, uh, we'll have something without having to start dropping bombs all over the place.
Do you trust President Putin?
Say it again?
Do you trust President Putin?
We'll let you know in about two weeks.
[Inaudible]
You did very nice at the dinner the other night. I was very proud of you. They had your picture up, everything. Very proud of you.
What is, uh --
I said, "I know him."
What do, uh -- What did Zelenskyy tell you that made you reassured?
Well, it wasn't that. It was just -- Look, they have a tough road ahead. Okay? And, uh, we had a good meeting. It was a nice meeting. It was a beautiful meeting [Laughs]. I tell ya, it's the nicest, the nicest office I've ever seen. Uh, it was a beautiful, beautiful scene, but he was very, uh -- You know, look, he, he wants to do something good for his country.
Thinks he's doing a good job and he's working hard. We'll see what happens. It's a very complicated deal.
What did he tell you, Mr. President?
He told me that he needs more weapons. But he's been saying that for three years, you know? He needs more weapons and we're gonna see what happens. I wanna see what happens with respect to Russia --
What --
-- Because Russia has been surprised and disappointed, very disappointed that they did the bombing of the places, uh, after discussions.
Did President --
Are you gonna talk with Putin again?
Yeah, I will. I will.
[Crosstalk]
Did President Zelenskyy talk to you about Crimea?
Well, he did, uh, very briefly, but Crimea was given away by Barack Hussein Obama and by Biden. That's 11 or 12 years ago. That's a long time ago. I don't know how you can bring up Crimea because, uh, that's been a long time. Nobody brought it up for 12 years and now they bring it up now. But I told him, I told him, you can maybe, uh, go back to Obama, ask them why they gave it up. They gave it up without a shot being fired, by the way.
What do, what do you want, uh, Vladimir Putin to do?
Well, I want him to stop shooting, sit down, and sign a deal. And we have the confines of a deal, I believe. And I want him to sign it and be done with it, and, and just go back to life.
What punitive action are you considering taking against Russia, I know --
Well, I have a lot of things I can do --
Yeah.
-- I'm not looking to do it. But I have a lot of, uh, strength. You know, we've built the United States up. I think we're more respected now as a country, maybe, than ever before. There's no more games. You have somebody that knows what he's doing, not like the previous person who didn't have a clue. So, uh, you know, I just, uh, I wanna end that.
I wanna end the Iran situation if we can. And we have other things too. You know, we got plenty of problems in the world. You know, when I left, four and a half years ago, I left and I'll tell you what, uh, we didn't have any of these problems. The good news is costs are way down. Groceries are down, eggs are down.
Gasoline is way down. It's all coming down, it's all looking good. It's, the tariffs are strong. It's, uh -- We're taking in a lot of money from tariffs. We were losing a lot before I got here. We were losing billions of dollars a day and now we're doing great and we haven't even kicked in yet. And eventually, we'll be reducing taxes very substantially for the people of our country because the money is so great, coming in from tariffs, that I'll be able to reduce taxes to, to a very large extent and maybe almost completely.
Mr. President-.
-- You keep saying two weeks about President Putin. What is two weeks? Give a -- What is the actual date? What is --
Well, two weeks --
-- The timeline?
-- Two weeks or less, and if it's a little more, at the time, I said, but, you know, they're losing a lot of people. We have three, 4,000 people dying every single week. That's a lot of people to lose. You can imagine parents waving from Ukraine and from Russia, waving to their son as he leaves and, you know, a week later he's dead on a battlefield, all carved up and chopped up. I've seen it. I see, uh, I see the satellite pictures.
They're horrible. They're horrible. I would say it can't get any worse. Body parts laying all over. I don't even like looking at 'em. Body parts laying all over the field. What are they doing? It would've never started if I were president.
Is your relationship with President Zelenskyy better now --
I think so, but --
-- Than things were in the Oval Office?
-- Look, it was never bad. We had a little dispute 'cause I disagreed with something he said and the cameras were rolling and that was okay with me. But we had a dispute, but I, uh -- Look, he's in, uh, he's in a tough situation, a very tough situation.
[Inaudible]
-- He's been inviting a much bigger force. Much bigger. And that force has not been very distinguished, you know. It's been a lot tougher than they thought, but, it helped them when we gave them 350 billion dollars worth of weapons [Inaudible]
Is Zelenskyy ready to give up Crimea, do you think, Mr. President?
Oh, I think so, yeah. Look, Crimea was 12 years ago. That was President Obama, they gave it up without a shot being fired. So, don't talk to me about Crimea. Talk to Obama and Biden about Crimea.
I was just wondering what Zelenskyy thought about it.
And remember, this is Biden's war. This isn't Trump's war. I came into try and solve a problem. And the problem is so many people are being killed. By the way, Saquon, what a great guy.
Sir, can I ask --
You see the conditioning? The conditioning's very good. Better than you, better than me.
Sir, can I ask you, do you have a reaction to Virginia Giuffre's suicide? Do you have a reaction to Virginia Giuffre's suicide, in Australia?
Well, it's a very sad situation. The whole thing. That whole situation is very sad. Her, and others. And so certainly, that's a, uh, horrible thing. Horrible.
Mr. President, one more on, one more on Zelenskyy. You know, the last meeting you had was pretty rough. What, did you sense a different attitude now? And if so, why?
I do, I do see a, uh, I see him as calmer. I think he understands the picture. And I think he wants to make a deal. I don't know if he wanted to make a deal.
[Inaudible]
I think he wants to make a deal.
Thank you, sir. Thank you.
Good job.
Mr. President, did you talk to, did you talk to anyone about tariffs yesterday, did any foreign leaders approach you and ask for a --
I did, and you probably saw, I think every foreign leader approached me and said hello and, a lot of good relationships. And, we're gonna be taking in a tremendous amount of money. We're gonna be taking in a lot of jobs, a lot of plants and factories. They're already coming. I mean, you see it. And we're gonna make a lot of money, and we're gonna cut taxes for the people of this country.
It'll take a little while be -- before we do that. But we're gonna be cutting taxes. And it's possible we'll do a complete tax cut. Because I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax. Now, we have a lot of debt that's been left to us, you know, unfortunately over many years, so we'll take care of that.
But the tariffs, uh, when, if people only understood the tariffs. We're gonna be giving people a tremen -- of this country, a tremendous tax cut. And we're gonna start with people making less than $200,000 a year.
Is there any movement on China, Mr. President? China said you have a --
A little bit. Look, a little bit. They wanna make a deal, obviously. Right now, they're not doing business with us. You know, people talk about going cold turkey with China, meaning just forget about it. We were losing hundred of billions of dollars a year with China. And now, they're not doing any business with us, you know?
Because, not because of them, because of me. Because at 145%, you can't do business. But, uh, something's gonna happen. It's gonna be possible.
Did you and the First Lady have a nice birthday dinner on the --
We had a great dinner. She's a great First Lady. [Laughs] People loved her. And the funeral was beautiful. It was a beautiful funeral. As funerals go, it was a beautiful funeral.
[Crosstalk]
Mr. President, the Wisconsin judge is being prosecuted by the FBI for um, sheltering someone that ICE was trying to detain. Do you have any thoughts about that Wisconsin judge?
Well, I think it's horrible. Uh, I think the whole thing is horrible with judges with what's going on, and they shouldn't be doing that. That's very dangerous territory. And we have to be able to do what I ran on. I ran on a campaign of taking criminals out of our country, murderers, drug dealers, people that are insane, people that are insane moved -- moved out of insane asylums and mental institutions.
These are insane people. And, I won on the fact that we're gonna be doing this. We have to be allowed to do it. Otherwise, we're not gonna have a country any longer. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. President.