Are you -- Hi, Jeff. Ready? Well, thank you very much. As you know, we passed the continuing resolution in the Republican House today. It was an amazing vote actually. It showed we want to keep things going and going properly. It was good for a lot of reasons. The Republicans want to keep government open, but in the Senate, we have 53 Republicans total, and we need 60 votes.
That means we need Democrat votes. I want to thank Senator John Fetterman, he wants to keep the country open. We're doing so well as a country. We're doing probably better than ever before. If you look at the stock market and other indicators, we have tremendous investment coming in, record investment coming.
Everything is going well, but the Democrats are unhappy about that because they don't want it to go well. I think they actually dislike our country greatly, uh, so they want to shut down the country. They want to, uh, have open borders. They want to stop the fighting of crime where we've been very successful.
The DC, as you know, uh, Washington, DC is, uh, it's a hot place right now. Everyone's having dinners. They're going out all over. There's very little crime. It's, uh, they haven't seen numbers like this in many, many years. And other places, as you know, we're going into Memphis. We'll soon be going into Chicago.
We've already had people out there and -- and in there and FBIs been there and we've brought the numbers down, but we're going to be bringing them down a whole lot. But, uh, I guess they want crime and we fight crime and it's a pretty big difference. They want to, uh, have men play in women's sports. They want transgender for everybody.
And if they don't get everything that they want, all these things that they want that are proven so badly, they want to close the government down. Uh, we're not going to let bad things happen to our country. We're not going to approve things that we shouldn't be approving. Just today the House Democrats voted against condemning the political assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Uh, who could vote against that? Condemning all they're saying, please condemn the assassination of a human being and they said, no, we're not going to do that. Remember this, we had an election very a very short time ago. Republicans won presidential. We won the popular vote by a lot. We won all seven swing states.
We won the Electoral College by a lot. We won most US counties in a total landslide. So we won most. It's a very big statistic. We won the counties in a number that I don't believe has been hit before, 2,600 counties versus 525 counties for the Democrats. So the Democrats really should start respecting what takes place at the voter booth.
In many cases, it's not a voter booth because they have mail in voting, which is a very corrupt situation. But despite that, we won in a landslide and we have to remember, you win the election, elections have consequences. So, uh, we'll continue to talk to the Democrats. But I think you could very well end up with a closed -- closed country for a period of time.
And we'll take care of the military. We'll take care of Social Security. We'll take care of the things that we have to take care of. A lot of the things that Democrats fight for, which in many cases aren't very good, things will not be able to be paid. So we'll watch and see how they do with that. They'll have to handle their constituents pretty -- pretty carefully.
Uh, so we're proud to announce that we won the house. We did fine in the Senate, but we need 60 of us. So we have 53 senators and we need 60 votes. That means the Democrats have to vote in the Senate. And I don't think they will be voting. Now, what we are doing, we're really here today to talk about something else, which is the gold card, which is going to bring a lot of money into our country, which is going to reduce taxes and lots of other good things.
But we'll save that for a little bit later. Why don't we do this first and then we'll talk about the gold card. OK? Any questions?
Yes, sir. President, can you tell us about your call this morning with President Xi?
It was great. I had a great call with President Xi. And as you know, he approved the TikTok deal and we're in the process. We have some great investors, big -- some of the biggest, uh, in the world, American investors, great people. And we look forward to getting that deal closed.
Is it fully approved? The Chinese statement is that hasn't been necessarily fully approved.
Well, I think so. I -- I mean when you say fully approved, I don't know what that means. We have to get -- we have to get it signed. I guess there could be a formality, I found his word to be very good. President Xi and I had a long talk, we talked for almost two hours and it started at 8:00 in the morning and I think it was a very good talk.
We talked about trade, we talked about war. We talked about a lot of things. We talked about Russia, Ukraine, obviously, and Gaza talked about a lot of subjects. It was a long call, it was a good call. We have a very good relationship, but the TikTok deal is well on its way, as you know, and the investors are getting ready and I think China wanted to see it stay open too.
They wanted to see it and I can tell you the young people in our country wanted to see it stay open very badly because and if you take a look at my numbers, no Republican has ever done anything like we had. We got massive numbers of youth vote and by the way helped very much by Charlie Kirk. So Charlie was very much in favor of TikTok.
He liked TikTok and he said, you know, you should use it and other people said that too and I used it and I don't know if I have the all -- I think I set records, I looked at numbers that are phenomenal. We'll pass them out to you and it had a, you know, probably a pretty big effect on the election because we won the election by a lot.
So we are in a situation where in a little while, meaning a number of days will probably, I don't know if you can make a deal with these people. I think these people are crazy. You know, again, anybody wants open borders and don't want to fight, they don't want to fight crime. They hate to fight crime. And in Chicago last weekend you had 11 people killed, murdered and you had 28 shot.
And those numbers have been pretty consistent all throughout that period of time, whether it was four people, five people, six people, 11 people, 12 people killed, murdered. And they don't want to spend money to fight crime and it's not even much money relatively speaking, it's very little. But we're going there anyway.
It doesn't make any difference. We're going to Chicago, we're going to Memphis next and we're going to clean up the crime in the cities because we have to do that, OK?
With this deal today, are you confident that the CCP won't be exerting control?
Yeah, we're going to -- we're going to have a very, very tight control and, uh, look, it's -- it's an amazing thing that's been created. There's tremendous value with TikTok and I'm a little prejudiced because I frankly did so well on it. You know, it got me numbers that nobody has ever even heard of before.
So, uh, a lot of people want it. The young people of this country want it badly. The parents of those young people want it badly and so we were able to work out a deal with China and it's a very good deal for us. It's a very -- I hope it's a good deal for them.
Mr. President, would you accept a deal where China controls the algorithm for TikTok?
Well, it's all being worked out. We're going to have a very good control. We have American -- these are American investors, all of them and they all love our country. They're all very well known, people, very famous people actually financially and they'll have -- they'll have control of it.
Mr. President --
And I just -- I want to say, I want to thank President Xi because he was a gentleman and we've just had a good relationship. And we wanted people, a lot of people in this country want it to be open. And again, if it weren't open.
Mr. President--
if it weren't open, maybe I don't know. I think we won by so much, it wouldn't have mattered, but we got a lot of votes. We got a lot of Republican votes from very young people. You go ahead, Jeff?
Russian jets entered Estonia's airspace today for 12 minutes. Do you see that as a threat to NATO?
Well, I'm going to have to look at it. They're going to be briefing me in a short while. So, I'll let you know about it tonight or tomorrow.
What's your take in general?
Well, I don't love it. I don't love it. I don't love it when that happens. It could be big trouble, but I'll let you know later. They're going to brief me in about an hour.
And a follow up on Charlie Kirk. There's been a lot of talk about free speech this week. Do you see a difference between cancel culture and consequence culture?
Well, I mean your question is a little trick question.
It's not.
I'm a very strong person for free speech. At the same time, when you have networks that -- where I won an election, like in counties, I guess it's 2,600 to 525, that's called landslide -- a landslide times two. When you have that kind of that level of popularity or voter support, as I did in the last election and yet 97 and 94 percent, different numbers.
You see different numbers with different stats. But 97, 94, 95, 96 percent of the people are against me, in the sense of the newscasts are against me. The stories are 90 -- they said 97 percent bad. So they gave me 97 -- they'll take a great story and they'll make it bad. See, I think that's really illegal, personally.
You can't take -- you can't have a free airwaves -- if you're getting free airwaves from the United States government then you can't have that and say -- and somebody that just won an election. And I had to go through this during the election. I think it's a miracle that I can win. When 97 percent of the stories on the networks are bad, or whatever it may be, whether it's 89, doesn't matter.
It's a tremendous number. You know it, you report it all the time, and it changes. But when you have that kind of a negative reporting, fake, negative reporting, when they take a great story and they make it into a bad story constantly, that's what they do. Look, 60 minutes took Kamala's answer and they threw it out and they gave her a different answer so that she sounded competent.
When things like that happen, George Papadopoulos from your network, right, George Papadopoulos had to pay $ 16 million to me because of what he said. And that's ABC. You had to pay more than that. Your network had to pay more than that. So, I think it's very sad, but I think that reporting has to be at least accurate, at least accurate to an extent.
Again, when somebody is given 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, that's no longer free speech. That's no longer anything. That's just cheating and they cheat. And they become really members of the Democrat National Committee. That's what they are, the networks, in my opinion. They're just offshoots of the Democrat National Committee.
Mr. President? Mr. President?
Go ahead.
Mr. President, [Inaudible] people are still anticipating who your pick for National Security Advisor will be. They're worried Marco Rubio is a little overworked and one of the reported frontrunners is Michael Anton from the State Department.
He's good.
He's just authored the national security strategy. Also in the mix is Mike Flynn and Steve Witkoff.
Good.
Can you give us an indication --
Well, they're all good. No, we'll make a decision soon, but we're doing very well. You know, I settled seven wars, more than that I think. But actually, we settled seven wars. I have -- working on Gaza. It's a tough one, but we'll get it done somehow. And we're also working with Russia and Ukraine. They hate each other so much.
You wouldn't believe it. President Putin and President Zelenskyy, they hate each other to a level that you wouldn't believe. So having a little bit of a problem with that.
And are you considering Stephen Moran for Fed Chair?
I hadn't thought of it too much. He's doing a great job, just got approved. His vote was a very good one. The fed should have done more. You know, too late Powell is terrible. He's a terrible chair. I think he's just terrible. But despite that, we're powering through it. And we have another record stock market today.
We're at very, very high levels and we're at the highest levels. So we're setting records. Many, many days during my administration we set records and we'll see what happens with 50,000. 50,000 is a pretty big number, never come close. We're not so far away from it. So that's because they see what's happening.
Not so much what's happening exactly right now, but they see all the plants that are being built. They see the kind of investment that's going to be made. When you take $17 trillion -- so Biden had $250 billion, OK? We're putting a simpler way, they had much less than a trillion, but they had less than a trillion for four years.
I have $17 trillion for eight months. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And I think they're looking at that and they're saying, when those plants open -- right now, they're being built, a lot of them and some are starting over the next year. It takes a while, but we're getting fast permits and when those plants get built, I don't think there'll be anything like what we're going to experience.
Yeah?
Mr. President, if I can on the top subject of free speech, Ted Cruz compared Brendan Carr to a mob boss, the way he's threatening television stations and saying it's absolutely dangerous for the government to determine which speech is OK and which is not. What's your reaction to Ted Cruz?
I think Brendan Carr is an incredible American patriot with courage. You know, it used to be -- I remember in the old days, that networks would have to get licensed, relicensed and it was always a big deal. You know, they had to show honesty and integrity. When you have a network -- again, I'll use the same numbers, whether it's 90 or 94 or 97, all different numbers, but when you have networks that give somebody 97 percent bad publicity or 94 percent bad publicity, I think that's dishonesty.
And you know, they're getting free airwaves, right? You know that, right? You get them for nothing. These airwaves, they make millions and millions of dollars. The news makes millions of dollars. ABC, your network, I mean, your network wrote very badly about me and they had to pay me $16 million. I wasn't looking for that.
So do you think Brendan Carr has a right to --
No. I think Brendan Carr is a patriot. I think Brendan Carr is a courageous person. I think Brendan Carr doesn't like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly and purposely horribly. Doesn't like to see a person that won the election in a landslide get 97 percent bad publicity before the election.
I mean, it's amazing that I won the election with that, but here's what happened. The people have given you networks no credibility. They don't give them any credibility, John. If they did, they wouldn't vote for me. They wouldn't have voted for me. When you look at -- I mean, you could also say the liberal media, the liberal left, when you look at these stories and papers.
But we're not talking about that. We're talking about -- I assume you're talking mostly about the networks. But they have a licensing procedure and you can read it as well. They have to show honesty and integrity. And when they take a -- when they take a good -- well, I think the people decide. That's why I'm president.
When they take a -- when they take a great success, like you often do, and you make it into like it's a loser or you put a negative spin on it, I don't think that's right. So I think Brendan Carr is a great American patriot. So I disagree with Ted Cruz on that.
[Inaudible] UN next week? You're going to the UN?
I'll be at the UN. I'll be making a speech, yes.
And are you meeting any other world leaders --
Many of them.
Thank you. Who are you meeting, Mr. President?
Well, I'm just -- I'm meeting many of them. They're being set up.
What is your goal from attending that meeting? What do you hope to get out of it?
World peace. Nobody's done a better job than I've done on world peace. Nobody's settled so many wars, as I have. You know, I've been here probably a little bit more than eight months and I've settled seven. And that doesn't include the destruction of a vast potential nuclear disaster in Iran, which we wiped out, totally, as I say, obliterated.
We obliterated it. It's been turned -- right with this beautiful plane right here. We just ordered some more of them, by the way. The B-2 bomber, just ordered some more, the more updated version. Not that we needed that. We just need the plane because it was so flawless. These pilots flew 37 hours flawlessly.
Not an engine problem, not a screw, not a bolt came loose. It was an amazing -- compare that to many years ago, Jimmy Carter, same country, with the helicopters and the problems and the prisoners and the hostages and what a mess. No, these planes flew 37 hours without a stop. They fueled up. We had 52 tankers fueling the planes along the way.
It was an incredible -- and every single bomb hit its mark. And then we fired 30 of them from submarines, from a submarine. What a job that was. And I don't even include that, but that stopped a war. That stopped maybe a catastrophic war. So you know -- so I think that nobody has ever done anywhere near that.
Now on top of that, we're working very hard to get Russia, Ukraine settled. We'll see what's going to happen there. I hope we're going to get it done. President Xi and I spoke about it, and I believe that he really would like to see it done also. And I think he's going to work with us to help.
What was your message to President Xi on the war in Ukraine? What are you asking him --
Well, it's the same as his message to me. He would like to see it done. He would like to see it -- I believe he would like to see it ended, yes, I do believe.
These two wars, when you were talking about Gaza and Ukraine, are escalating at the same time. You want to take the stage at the UN back at this stage after these years. Do you plan to study any kind of red lines for these two countries? And you said before --
Well, we're going to see
-- you are frustrated with Putin [Inaudible]
We have a long time to go before I get up and speak at the UN because every day is a long time when it comes to Gaza and it comes to Israel and the Middle East. So we have a long time to go. But you know a lot of my opinions and remember this, you can't forget October 7th, either. People are forgetting October 7th. They forget it too quickly.
That was one of the worst days in world history. It was the most evil attack that I think you could really say. Babies were involved. Little babies were involved, and having their heads chopped off and all of the things that took place. You can't forget that. I don't forget that. A lot of people do, but I don't. Yeah, please.
Go ahead, please.
What goes into retaking the Bagram? Does that require boots on the ground?
We'll see what happens with Bagram. We're talking to Afghanistan. It should have never been given up. It was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country. There was no reason to give it up. I was leaving Afghanistan. I was leaving. I was the one that got it down to 5,000 soldiers, but we were going to keep Bagram, the air base.
I said it yesterday, and we had an incredible trip, as you know, to UK. And I said it during the press conference, it's one of the most powerful runways ever built in terms of weight, length and load, what it can take. And we just gave it up for nothing. We gave it up for nothing. There was no reason to give it up. We weren't going to leave Bagram.
Joe Biden didn't know what he was doing. We had a man that didn't know what he was doing. We had a man, by the way, that didn't approve -- if you take a look at what's happening in Congress, we had a man that signed everything with -- almost everything with an autopen and he didn't tell the people from the autopen, whoever was using it. The one man that used it predominantly said that Biden only spoke to him twice and it was only about the weather.
OK. It was about nothing. So those pardons that he gave are illegal. He gave illegal pardons and that includes the Congressman that destroyed and deleted all the information from J6th. They deleted everything because it turned out that they were wrong. It turned out that I offered 10,000 National Guard or soldiers, whatever they wanted, and you wouldn't have had a problem.
And they turned it down. Nancy Pelosi turned it down and the mayor of Washington, DC turned it down. They deleted everything and they destroyed it, illegally destroyed it. And Biden gave them a pardon. And Biden gave a lot of other people pardons that frankly, would be in jail if it wasn't for those pardons.
But those pardons now are illegal according to just about everyone.
On Letitia James, are you disappointed that the US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia has not prosecuted Letitia James? Do you intend to fire him?
Well, we're going to see what happens. I am not following it very closely. It looks to me like she's very guilty of something. But I really don't know. I know that the US attorney from the Eastern District or from that district in Virginia, that he was approved by two Democrat Senators, who in my opinion, are among the worst.
And when I learned that two Senators, Democrats -- because as you know, it's very hard with the blue slip, it's very hard for a Republican to get somebody approved if you have one Senator that's a Democrat because of an old custom. It's not a law, it's a custom. It's a ridiculous custom. But if you have a Democrat Senator, you have to get that Senate approved.
Well, in this case we had two. When I saw that he got two Senators, two gentlemen that are bad news as far as I'm concerned, when I saw that he got approved by those two men, I said, pull it because he can't be any good.
So you want him fired? You want him out?
Yeah, I want him out. Yeah, when I learned that he was blue-slipped through by two Democrat Senators in Virginia, people that would never vote for -- people that haven't voted for us for probably years, OK, probably years, in my opinion, two bad guys. You know who they are, Warner and Kaine, two bad guys, bad Senators too.
They do a terrible job for the people of Virginia. But when I saw that he got approved by these two terrible people that haven't voted. They just don't vote no matter what it is. We could give them the greatest deal ever and they still wouldn't vote and they voted for this guy. And I have other people, judges and I have US attorneys from other states where I have the same situation and they can't get approved.
So, when I learned that they voted for him, I said, I don't really want him. OK.
Do you want to --
No, no, behind you, please.
Have you seen the polling, the Gallup poll out of Ukraine that shows 23 percent, less than a quarter of Ukrainians actually support continuing the war against Putin? We saw the European leaders come here and try to say the world is united for the war effort, but Ukrainians have war fatigue themselves.
Well, I don't blame them.
[Inaudible] your thoughts on it.
I don't blame them. It's a war that never should have started. It's a war that never would have happened. If I were president that war never would have happened ever. It's a disgrace that that war happened and they're losing anywhere from 5,000 to 8,000 people a week on that war, which is the worst since the Second World War.
That's a war that should have never happened.
And would you consider --
Would have never happened, and it didn't happen for four years. When I was here, it didn't happen. Go ahead.
Have you considered cutting funding, even promises made by the Biden administration?
Well, we're not spending any money on the war. You know, we're being paid for everything we said, unlike Biden. He gave him $350 billion. And it's just -- it was shocking, we're not spending any money on the war. The war is being funded by NATO. NATO is buying our equipment. In fact, we're -- I don't want to make money on that war.
I don't want to -- but we are actually making money on that war because they're buying our equipment, as you know. But we -- NATO, as you know, and very important, is funding the entire thing. They're paying for the missiles, for the tanks. They're paying for any -- anything that's sent over there, goes to NATO.
And then NATO does what they want with it. In this case, I guess they give it to Ukraine. It's a very sad war. It's a war that never should have happened.
Mr. President? Mr. President?
Go ahead, please.
TikTok, could you tell me, is the US government going to take a board seat in the company? And will the US government --
A what?
A board seat within the company.
Well, we're going to announce that. Are you talking about TikTok?
Yes, TikTok.
Yeah, we're going to announce it, but it's a great deal for our country. It's a great deal for all of the young people in the country that wanted it and people generally. I was happy with it. Look, I wasn't a fan of TikTok, and then I got to use it and I became a fan and it helped me win the election in a landslide.
So, I think that it's a deal that's going to be great, and it's also controlled by very powerful and very substantial American people, all Americans -- by the way, all American people.
Mr. President?
Yeah, please, behind. Go ahead, please.
Mr. President, question from Newsmax. Last year, before you took office, there was an estimated 6.8 million men not actively seeking work of prime working age. So if you and Secretary Lutnick could talk about the efforts your administration is taking to help our American gentlemen get back to work.
Yeah, well, what we're doing is they're building plants all over the United States. And frankly, because of tariffs, we're taking in trillions of dollars, trillions of dollars. And countries that have ripped us off for years -- and everyone knows this, countries that have ripped us off for years like nobody's ever been ripped off before, they're now having to pay up. They're paying a lot of -- they're paying a lot of money to America, and we're reducing taxes with that money.
And we're doing things that we were never able to do before. So it's -- you're going to have a lot of jobs. The jobs are being created right now. And the tariffs -- the tariffs are protecting our country and we didn't use -- you know, tariffs were used against us, but we didn't use them against others. But we're really better at it than anybody else and we've taken in -- we will have taken in trillions of dollars.
Nobody has ever seen anything. Even people that were against the tariffs, now they see the way they're working. And by the way, with no inflation, with no problem, we're just building up cash and we're using that cash to reduce taxes, reduce debt, and other things. It's a great thing to watch. And your honest reporters are saying they've never seen anything like what's happening.
Our country's becoming very rich again, only because of tariffs. If we didn't have it -- if we didn't have, if I didn't get elected, this country would be -- it was a dead country. Look, we were a dead country a year ago, and now we're the most successful and most vibrant country anywhere in the world.
Mr. President?
Sean. Nice to see you. You look good on television.
Thank you, sir.
Good.
Tonight, in a few minutes, Steve Bannon will appear on my show.
Good.
He floats the idea that you should duel hat Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent, not only as the Treasury Secretary, but as interim fed chair. Would you be willing to entertain that?
In other words, he likes Scott?
I guess so, very much.
So do I, and I like Steve too.
Mr. President? Mr. President? What do you think about rail merger? Did you discuss it with the [Inaudible]
I did. I did discuss it and I don't know. I don't want to make a comment on it. But Union Pacific is a great railroad and they want to add a railroad that had a mistake at a place very close to my heart. You know, a lot of people say that that was the place where I got off to a very good start. It was a rough thing that happened.
Well, they're trying to buy that railroad that had the problem. And it sounds good to me, to be honest with you. It sounds good to me. I'm a very big fan of the head of the railroad, the head of the Union Pacific. He started very low on the totem pole, started his job very low and became the chairman of the company over a 45-year period.
But I asked him about different cities. He said, St. Louis is tough. You know, he sort of stops at many of them, New Orleans. We have to save New Orleans.
Mr. President? Mr. President, when are you going to get --
We're going to be going into New York too. Yeah.
Mr. President --
And we're going to be going in -- quiet. You're really obnoxious.
I'm not obnoxious, but I'm trying to ask you, what about your plans --
You are really obnoxious.
I'm not obnoxious, but I am asking, what are your plans for Memphis? Many people --
OK. OK. I'm not going to talk to you until I call on you.
What are your plans for Memphis, Mr. President?
So who else? Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah. I just want to settle this free speech question because you said that you were restored free speech in America.
Yeah.
Is that free speech including for people who are harshly critical of you, for your political opponents, for people who say things you don't like?
I become immune to it.
Who treat you unfairly.
I've been -- I've become immune to it. There's never been a person that's had more unfair publicity than me and that's why your network paid me $15 million or $16 million, I believe, to be exact, George Papadopoulos. And that's why CBS paid me a lot of money too. And that's why I sued the New York Times two days ago for a lot of money, because I -- well, I'm winning.
I mean, I'm winning the cases and the reason I'm winning is because you're guilty, John. You're guilty. ABC is a terrible network, a very unfair network. And you should be ashamed of yourself. NBC is equally bad. I don't know who's worse. I think they're equally bad. And you know, for you to stand there and act so innocent and ask me a question like that.
But look, you paid a big price because you were dishonest, John. The reason I won that lawsuit was because you were dishonest. You were proven to be dishonest. And so you can't sit back and just say, oh, well, what do you think? You know, like you're some wonderful person. You're not a wonderful person. Frankly, you're a terrible reporter.
You know it and so do I. OK.
Mr. President?
Here's what we're going to do. Here's what we're going to do, we're going to talk about something that's going to reduce our taxes greatly, that's going to hopefully bring some great people into our country. You know, as you know, right now nobody's coming in because we've succeeded in closing -- we've closed the border very successfully.
I think you will agree. We had nobody come in for the last few months. I mean, it was actually said zero. Even I can't believe zero, but the numbers are put out by very impartial people or people that have a tendency to be on the left. And they actually said for the last three months, nobody came in. We have a very strong border.
It's a closed border. People are coming into our country, but they're coming in legally. It's a beautiful thing to watch. But we are doing something where rather than coming into the border -- 25 million people came into our country during Biden, one of the saddest things. The worst thing -- look, he was horrible in inflation.
He was horrible in just about everything you could be. I don't think he was good on -- he wasn't even fair on anything. He was a -- it was a horrible administration. He was the worst president in the history of our country and we have to mop it up. The hardest thing that we have to do is to get rid of the criminals that he allowed into our country, from prisons, from mental institutions, gang members, drug dealers.
And we're getting them out and we're getting them out fast and we're making America safe again, great again, but we're making America safe again, and it's an honor to do it. But this is something -- this is an unforced era. What they've done is this is just an unforced era. So I'm going to ask Howard to speak.
Howard has done a fantastic job, as you know, Secretary of Commerce. And I'm going to ask Howard and Will -- Will, could you just give a quick description of what we're doing and what we're signing, etc.? And --
Yes, sir.
I will do that. Go ahead.
We have two items for your attention today, sir. A major focus of your administration has been shifting the conversation and shifting the policy dynamics around the issue of immigration, closing the border, preventing illegal immigration. But also as is the case with the executive order in front of you, opening new Pathways for truly extraordinary people to come contribute to America instead of taking away from it. So this executive order is entitled the Gold Card.
It will set up a new pathway, a new visa pathway for foreigners of extraordinary ability who are committed to supporting the United States for a payment of $1 million to the US Treasury or if a corporation is sponsoring them, $2 million by that corporation. And that will give them access to expedited visa treatment uh as part of this new Gold Card program.
And one of the biggest problems we have is that people, they go to the best schools and they do great and they get great marks and then they're thrown out of the country. You're not allowed to stay. This way, a corporation will be able -- sort of like a signing bonus in baseball or football, a corporation will be able to get them to stay in the country.
And I think it's going to be tremendously successful. Howard, would you say a few words about it, please?
Sure. So historically, the employment based green card program let in 281,000 people a year and those people on average earned $66,000 a year, on average, and they were five times more likely to go on assistance programs of the government. So we were taking in the bottom quartile, below the average American.
It was illogical. The only country in the world that was taking in the bottom quartile. So what we are doing now is we are going to stop doing that. We're going to only take extraordinary people at the very top. Instead of people trying to take the jobs from Americans, they're going to create businesses and create jobs for Americans.
And this program will raise more than $100 billion for the Treasury of the United States of America.
Which we'll use for cutting taxes and paying down debt. We think it's going to be very successful. Essentially, we're having people come in, people that in many cases, I guess, are very successful or whatever and they're coming in. They're going to spend a lot of money to come in. They're going to pay as opposed to walking over the borders.
And they may come from jails, prisons and everything else. These people don't. They're very productive people and they're going to pay $1 million. A corporation is going to pay $2 million and it's going to raise billions of dollars, billions and billions of dollars, which is going to go to reduce taxes, pay off debt and other good things.
So I think it's going to be very successful.
Are there Big Techs on [Inaudible] Mr. President --
What?
Big Techs. Are there Big Techs on board with this decision?
What's going to -- well, I wish you'd speak more clearly. I really do. Give it to me again.
Are there Big Techs, the CEOs, on board with this decision?
Being taxed?
Tech -- Tech companies. Big Tech companies.
Big Tech. Yeah, Big Tech. It's every company. It's Big Tech, it's Big Tech, it's big everything, OK? It's a company. I said, it's not a tech company, it's tech companies and everything else. It's companies having a hard time -- they're getting people to be able to stay in the country. It's very difficult.
Now if you want to walk through the border, you can have no problem. People say, well, the best way to come in is walk right through the border, but they can't do that anymore, because under our administration, the border is totally closed. You can only come in if you come in legally and that's the way it's been, and that's the way it should be. And we're taking a lot of people out of the country that are here from prisons, from jails, from mental institutions and even insane asylums, people that are crazy.
We're taking them out of the country. We're getting them out of the country because you can't have a country like that. And I tell you, Kristi and Tom Homan and all of the people that have worked so hard on this, they've done an unbelievable job. And I think we're getting great marks for it. People feel safe.
Washington, DC is just the beginning. Other -- you know, we brought the numbers down in Chicago a little bit by having the FBI in there for the last five months. We brought the numbers down in Memphis a little bit, but now we're going for the big one. Now we're going to go for the big one, but we set ourselves up very well in Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, a little bit, going in early just to see what was happening.
You know, we study it. We're studying the site. It's sort of like war. I mean, I hate to tell you, it's like war. Some of these people are really bad. They're really, really sick people, they're dangerous people. They're killers. They're murderers, drug dealers and can't have it. You can't have a country like that.
It's so beautiful to see in Washington, DC that people are walking down the middle of the street and they're going to restaurants and you are too, and half of you were mugged. I mean, I don't know if she's here now. I don't see her, but, you know, some people were badly mugged that were reporters.
Two of the people were standing in the back of the room were mugged and they're going to have that anymore. And if you look at the crime stats in Washington, DC. You have a safe place. Again, they were afraid to go to a restaurant because the restaurant would be held up while they're having dinner. And so they'd be mugged going there and assuming they escaped the mugging, they go to the restaurant and then they're held up. This is how bad it's been.
Now to follow up on the visa question. I think this may be the next thing that you're signing, but for the H-1B visa --
It's actually it's going to be next. We'll talk about that.
You're very close to the technology CEOs, are they concerned about that?
I think they're going to be very happy. Everyone's going to be happy, and we're going to be able to keep people in our country that are going to be very productive people. And in many cases, these companies are going to pay a lot of money for that. And they're very happy about it. Ok? We'll talk about that next.
All right. Ok. My friend, why don't you keep that? Ok, thank you such a good job. Ok, that's Phase 1. John, are you happy?
Sure. Thank you.
Ok, let's go.
Thank you, Mr. President. One of the most abused visa systems in our current immigration system has been the H-1B nonimmigrant visa program. This is supposed to allow highly skilled laborers who work in fields that Americans don't work in to come into the United States of America. What this proclamation will do is raise the fee that companies pay to sponsor H-1B applicants to $100,000. This will ensure that the people they're bringing in are actually very highly skilled and that they're not replaceable by American workers.
So it'll protect American workers, but ensure that companies have a pathway to hire truly extraordinary people and bring them to the United States.
We need workers -- we need workers, we need great workers and this pretty much ensures that that's what's going to happen. I think, Sean, do you agree with that?
Well, there are $100,000 per year, so the whole idea is no more will these Big Tech companies or other big companies train foreign workers. They have to pay the government $100,000, Then they have to pay the employee. So it's just not economic. If you're going to train somebody, you're going to train one of the recent graduates from one of the great universities across our land.
Train Americans, stop bringing in people to take our jobs. That's the policy here, $ 100,000 a year for H-1B visas and all of the big companies are on board. We've spoken to them about the Gold Card.
They love it -- they love it, they really love it. They need it. Go ahead, Sean.
Mr. President, it seems like there's two categories of visa programs H-1B that a lot of people believe take American jobs and then the Gold Card in programs like EB-5 that add value and jobs to America. Is that sort of how you look at the visa program?
Well, ideally, look, if somebody's got the people, they're not going to want to spend $100,000 as an example on your second category. So it's not taking jobs and we need certain jobs. We need certain skilled jobs that we don't have, but they won't be taking jobs because, you know, ideally the people aren't going to want to --
[Crosstalk]
America [Inaudible] -- that's what I'm asking.
-- They're not going to America. Right. That's right.
So that's why --
-- They're really investing --
It seems like you have two categories. One, the Secretary Lutnick makes the Gold Card in EB-5 that create jobs and investment and there's other ones that seem to take, you know, whether it's a J-1, an O or an H-1B that take US jobs.
Yeah, it's pretty correct. I would say that's a correct assessment. But the main thing is we're going to have great people coming in and they're going to be paying. I mean, it's -- it's -- it's wonderful to say, oh, gee, this is -- we took in 25 million people that -- look, many criminals, jails were opened from Venezuela from many other countries and they were let out of jail and poured into our country.
Our poor country -- how it suffered with this, with this stupid president that we had and the stupid people that surrounded him right around this desk, these liberal crazy people that have destroyed -- they could have destroyed -- if we didn't win this election, our country would have been dead, our country was dead.
Think of it. And I've said this. The king of Saudi Arabia said your country was dead one year -- they thought it was dead. This country couldn't have survived another year of those people running it and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. Think of that and this is going to help and we're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars.
This would be taken in the Gold Card will be taken in hundreds of billions of dollars and companies will be able to keep some people that they need. You know they need people of expertise, great expertise and it's -- I think it's going to be a fantastic thing. And we're going to take that money and we're going to reduce taxes.
We're going to reduce debt. We have a very, very strong country. We -- we assuming everything works out great with the lawsuit that we have. We have a lawsuit that's inspired by foreign countries that ripped us off for 25 years. But assuming we win that, we hopefully win it in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Uh, we have a country that no stopping us. There's no -- we're rich. We'll be rich, we can take care of poor people. We can take care of our military. We can take care of everything we can take care of beyond the country. We can help take care of the world. Uh, if we don't, it'll just be the same struggle that we've had for years where other countries charge us tariffs and they ripped us off.
Our country has been ripped off more than any country in the history of the world. And now we are -- we're doing what we have to do. We're taking in billions and billions of dollars at levels that nobody has ever seen, trillions of dollars and we're using it to reduce debt. We're using it to reduce his taxes.
The great big, beautiful bill is a big tax reduction. It's being paid for by the tariffs and people are paying a lot less money in taxes. They're being -- think of it, no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime. It's an unbelievable phenomenon. It really is -- it's a golden age. We're making it the golden age.
Without the tariffs, it would be impossible and China for years charge US tariffs and they continue to do it. And so do other countries, most countries they charge us. They were ripping. Look, the European Union, as you know, I get along very well with them, but they ripped us off so badly. There's never nobody's ever seen anything.
Now the European Union is paying us $950 billion and they're paying us 750 billion to buy our energy and -- and they're Ok with it. They signed the agreement, you know it's not like anybody forced them to do it. They're Ok with this tariffs are making our country very rich again and we'll be able to take care of our debt.
We'll be able to take care of our taxes, lower taxes, we'll be able to take care of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. We're going to be a rich country again without tariffs, we'd be in very big trouble.
H-1B visas are sometimes used by people -- excuse me, H-1B are sometimes used by people already in the country legally on other visas or student visas. Does this apply to them or to renewals or does it only apply to people applying for the first time from abroad?
Renewals, first times. The company needs to decide do they want -- is that person valuable enough to have $100,000 a year payment to the government or they should head home and they should go hire an American.
Is it annual?
The whole idea -- it's annual and it's for total. It can be a total of six years, so $100,000 a year. So either the person is very valuable to the company and America or they're going to depart and the company is going to hire an American and that's the point of immigration, hire Americans and make sure the people coming in are the top, top people.
Stop the nonsense of letting people just come into this country on these visas that were given away for free. President is crystal clear, valuable people only for America, stop the nonsense.
[Inaudible] it's just a fee, right?
And remember the -- the country -- yeah.
-- Fee to America.
The country would rather not have to pay $100,000, but, uh, and they'd rather -- how do you do that? You hire Americans. So there's an incentive to hire American, but there may be instances where it's better off doing it through expertise or whatever it may be. But they're both unbelievable, whether it's a Gold Card or -- or anything else that we talked about today.
And that includes talking about freedom of speech because our country has been decimated by bad people, very bad people, people that love crime, they love crime, explain it to me. They don't want to have our military go in and save lives. But when you go and ask the people, do you mind having the National Guard come in if it meant safety?
They look at the question like what's wrong? What kind of a stupid question is that? Of course they do. We want to have -- we're going to have a safe country. Again, we're not going to have people shot 11 people shot. Think of it in Chicago over a period of six or seven weeks, 55 people were murdered and then you have a governor saying how wonderful it is. It's not wonderful.
It's a very unsafe, there's not a place in the world you go outside, you go to Afghanistan, you go to different places all over the world that you hear about. It's 20 percent of what's happening in places like Chicago and you think of them as unsafe.
Mexico City -- Mexico City, it's a tough place, dangerous place. The crime rate is lower. Think of it, what's happening to our country. We're not going to let it happen. And I think I got elected largely for that reason. So, we're going to have a safe country again. We're going to have a great country again.
We're doing unbelievably. We have the highest stock market in history. We have the most investment we've ever had ever as a country coming in and we're very simple. You know, they said, how'd you get elected? I got elected because I'm going to make America great again. That's what we're doing. We're making America great again.
Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
Thank you, press. Thank you, press. Thanks, guys.
Thank you very much.