[No video] Hello everybody. So we have a --
[Video begins] --very special group of wounded veterans who are amazing, I've actually visited many of them in the hospital and they came out better than me. They came out looking good. If I had that look, I would have been president 20 years ago. I wouldn't have had to wait so long. You look great, fellas.
But many of them, I didn't even realize it at the time, but I visited many of you in the hospital. They did an incredible job. The doctors are absolutely unbelievable, the job they do. So, we were having a little meeting and at the same time we're signing some very important legislation -- what will become legislation.
And right now, it's an executive order and having to do mostly with education. And we have our Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who's been so incredible over the last few weeks. I've been watching her on television. I'd like to tell her she could do better, but she can't do any better [Laughter]. So, I want to thank you, Linda.
Fantastic. And we also have commerce, and we have labor with us today. And you have been -- thank you, Lori, very much and, Howard, thank you very much. And we'll take some questions after we're finished. Maybe I'll ask Will to step forward and you can go through some of these. Also, Lindsay, you work with Will, two very talented lawyers, as you all know by now.
Thank you, Mr. President.
And we'll go through them. And Linda, why don't you come over here? In fact, why don't the three of you come over here?
We also have a special guest with us today, sir.
Oh, That's right. Annette Albright, where is Annette? Annette Albright, Charlotte Mecklenburg school teacher, very special one. Thank you very much. It's a great honor to have you. You've got all sorts of awards for talent. That's good. Thank you very much for being with us. Appreciate it. Thank you. Ok, please.
Sir, the first executive order we have prepared for your attention, there are currently laws on the books requiring certain disclosures of universities when they accept large foreign gifts. We believe that certain universities, including for example, Harvard, have routinely violated this law and this law has not been effectively enforced.
So, this executive order charges your departments and agencies with enforcing the laws on the books with respect to foreign gifts to American universities.
Ok, thank you. Thank you very much. We'll put it right here.
Next for you, sir, university accreditation is currently a process controlled by a number of third-party organizations, that's by statute, by law. Many of those third-party accreditors have relied on sort of woke ideology to accredit universities instead of accrediting based on merit and performance.
This executive order affects a number of changes to the university accreditation process, also applies to law schools and other sort of graduate programs, but the basic idea is to force accreditation to be focused on the merit and the actual results that these universities are providing, as opposed to how well these universities have gotten.
So we're setting up new accreditation pathways. We're charging the Department of Education to really look holistically at this accreditation mess and hopefully make it much better.
Will we look into the past people that they've taken? For instance, I hear all about certain great schools and then we read where they're going to teach people basic math, math that we could all do very easily, but they can't do. They're going to the top school and they come out with a program of teaching basic math to somebody that got into a Harvard or a Princeton or a Yale.
Is that part of this?
When universities are not performing appropriately, whether that's in admissions or whether that's in their actual instructional activities, that's certainly something that accreditors should be considering, that right now, we believe they're not doing a good enough job of and I think Secretary McMahon could probably speak to that better than I could, sir.
What about that, they're allowing people into school, they can't do math and yet kids who've worked really hard and number one in their class at a high school someplace in new Jersey or in Mississippi, they can't get into the best schools. What is that all about?
Yeah, I think that gets to your policy, sir, of meritocracy, that we should be looking at those who have real merit to get in and we have to look harder at those universities that aren't enforcing that.
OK. Thank you. And this pretty much does it, right?
Yes, sir.
Thank you. OK. Thank you.
Sir, during your first administration, you made promoting historically Black colleges and universities, HBCUs, a major priority. This executive order takes existing law on HBCUs and brings it into effect. We're going to be setting up a White House initiative on HBCUs. The basic idea here is making sure that every aspect of your administration is working to ensure that HBCUs are able to do their job as effectively and as efficiently as possible.
OK. OK. All right.
This next executive order relates to artificial intelligence education, sir. You've obviously done a lot in the artificial intelligence space already. The basic idea of this executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that school children, young Americans, are adequately trained in AI tools so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future, as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal.
That's a big deal.
Huge.
Because AI is -- where it seems to be at, we have literally trillions of dollars being invested in AI and somebody today, a very smart person said that AI is the way to the future. I don't know if that's right or not, but certainly, very smart people are investing in it heavily. OK. OK.
Next, sir, we have an executive order on workforce development. This executive order is going to charge numerous departments and agencies within the government to reshape the way that we do workforce development. One example from the executive order, for instance, we're looking to get the total number of apprenticeships, new apprenticeships up to a million in the country to ensure that in critical jobs areas, in areas where we currently don't have enough trained workers, that we're recreating that pipeline to ensure that particularly as we onshore industrial jobs and new industries, that those industries have the workforce they need to be competitive globally.
Right, very important.
And this is the EO that we're all here working together.
And in a way, this is like a training center, right, for what we're trying to do, which is jobs and great salaries. These are great salaries too.
Right, its exactly. So all those factories that you're bringing in because of your trade policy, we're going to train people in trade craft, bring back trade craft to America so that people can work in these factories with great paying jobs. And we're going to train them and we're going to remake the American dream for all these people.
We're working together, right, Lori?
That's right. Absolutely. This plays right into America at Work Tour, which I have kicked off. We will work with our state partners and work with our businesses to see exactly who they need in that workforce. And we will skill and upskill these apprentices so they can get right to work and get in the field and build back this economy for exactly living the American dream.
Here, Lori.
Yeah, thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. President.
Next, sir, we have an executive order on school discipline policies. Under, I believe it was the Biden administration, first Obama and then Biden, the Department of Justice issued guidance that made it almost impossible for schools to enforce adequate disciplinary policies. This created issues in the classroom for teachers and students alike.
Basically, they focused on CRT and sort of diversity ideology instead of actually just enforcing the rules in classrooms to ensure a safe learning environment. This executive order revokes that prior guidance and puts us back in a place where hopefully the Department of Education can focus on education and teachers can focus on teaching in a safe environment.
And this was important for you, Linda, as I understand it, huh?
Yeah, absolutely, because it gives teachers the authority now to have discipline in their classroom and discipline the person who is being disruptive.
Great. We took that away. OK. Thanks.
You're welcome.
Here, Linda. You should hold that.
Lastly, sir, we have an executive order on disparate impact theory. This is a theory that underlies a lot of the modern DEI and CRT-driven diversity culture. The basic idea here is instructing your departments and agencies to no longer rely on disparate impact theory as their regulating, as they're issuing guidance, as they're making rules.
We want to focus on results. We want to focus on actual fairness. We want to focus on merit, not things like disparate impact theory and the whole sort of diversity, equity and inclusion cult.
It's getting out of that, huh?
Yes, sir.
After being in that jungle for a long time. OK. Thank you. Very good job.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
Very much. Would you like to introduce again, Annette, and perhaps Annette wanted to say something having to do with that? Annette is right here.
Yes, Annette. Yes, please, come over. Would you like to have some comments to make under your former Charlotte-Mecklenburg school teacher? I'm a North Carolina girl, so it's nice to see you.
Yes, from New Bern.
Yes, from New Bern.
Yes. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. I am so honored to be here. This has been an eight-year journey for me to raise awareness to the violence that's in public schools and the critical need to address violence in public schools. Again, been doing it eight years, because most administrations like to keep the violence hidden.
We have three students that should be here with us today. We have Austin Metcalf, I'm sorry if I say his name wrong, Serenity Baker and Nahzir Taylor from Charlotte, North Carolina who was shot in the back as he was getting off of a school bus because they thought he was a part of a big brawl that happened inside a public high school.
So this is very important and critical legislation, that we have to keep our educators safe, we have to keep our students safe and public schools have to be safe environments. So like I said, I've done this journey alone. I've been on it, but I have a whole team behind me now. I spoke at the RNC and I told millions that Donald Trump and his administration was going to make schools great again, and I feel that we're on the right path and I'm just honored to be here.
Thank you, Annette. And we're giving this to the -- our great vets that are with us. And is it Ok if I give her one? What do you think? Should I?
Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. What an honor.
Great job. Could I ask Sarah to speak, Verardo?
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Thank you.
Tell us a little bit about these great gentlemen.
These heroes, Mr. President, are extraordinary. This is my husband, Michael. And so many of our dear, dear friends who are here today, many of them have met you, sir, in your first administration in the hospital, many times at Walter Reed.
Right.
And they've had long recoveries. Tomorrow, for my husband, marks 15 years since he was wounded in Afghanistan.
Wow.
And on that day, about six years ago, he had his 120th surgery post-Afghanistan.
Oh, wow.
And you came to see him at Walter Reed and so many others. And we saw great reform in the VA -- access, same day access to prosthetics, mental healthcare. And we know that that is back. We're going to -- these gentlemen were saying, Alex here earlier was saying in the last few years when he's gone to get a wheelchair, the VA has asked him, this gentleman, they've asked him to prove that he still has his injuries as though maybe his limbs would grow back.
And they unfortunately did not, yes. And we've seen that many times. And so, we're excited for you bringing back the VA Accountability, MISSION Act, Community Care that were the hallmarks of your first term. And we're so excited, sir, to be here. We're honored to be here. And thank you for all you do for our nation's heroes.
Thank you. Who's that picture on there?
That is Joe Biden, and it says, Let's go Brandon [Laughter].
I'm saying what was that picture.
I told him he wasn't allowed to ask you to sign it [Laughter].
That's very good. Well, thank you all very much. Would you like to say anything, fellas? Here's a big chance. You have a lot of good people watching that believe in you. They happen to be the media, but they believe very much in you like I do. Anybody?
Mr. President, we're very happy with the energy that this administration is bringing and it's an administration that says -- does what it promises. And so, we're behind you, we believe in you and I think we all love you. I think I speak for everybody.
Thank you very much. And I'm going to get you a better hat, we have better hats. That's a good one. That was the original.
It was.
That means he was there.
I've been wearing it before it was cool.
That's right, that was an early one. We'll save that one though, right?
Yes, Mr. President.
Thank you. Anybody, please.
I'd like to say -- oh, go ahead. I was just going to say thank you for loving America, sir.
Thank you very much. That's very nice. Thank you very much, truly. Thank you.
[Inaudible] saved Michael Bardo's life. And of course he goes immediately to say thank you, as he was the one that saved Michael Bardo from the helicopter and got him off the combat zone. So, the selflessness of these men is unspeakable.
That's great to you --
He's alive because of that man right here.
These are amazing people, great heroes. So, that's really great. Anybody else?
I'd like to say it was an honor to serve, you were worth it, this country is worth it, it's because of what Christ paid for it.
Thank you. And we have a spirit that people haven't seen in many years, at least five. They haven't seen -- I think even then, because we've been through so much for the last four years together. It was so bad. It was so bad what they've done to the borders, what they've done all over the place. And it's really an honor to be with you, all of you.
Incredible. And I'm going to give you these coins and I think you're going to really like them. I think they're the best. These are the best coins. You have your choice. This is gunmetal. I don't know, soldiers like the black, but I think you'll like this one. It's OK. A lot of soldiers like the black. Here we go, what do you like?
I'll go with black.
See, I told you [Laughter]. These are choices.
I'll take a black one, sir.
OK, look at this, that rarely happens. You're different, huh?
I'll take a white one, sir. There you go.
That's great.
[Inaudible] the military.
No, but I always say the soldiers, they do like -- it's gunmetal. What do you like here?
That's what I heard that it was gunmetal. Gold is what --
I'm giving you -- I'm giving him two [Laughter].
We have three girls. They're going to fight.
One for this one right here, we'll get another one here. OK, this is actually fun.
I'll take the gold, Mr. President.
OK, I thought you were going to take that gold, OK.
Gold one, sir.
OK, I got it.
I had an opportunity to sail across the Gulf of America, two days after you named it, right?
Oh, wow. It's been an honor and now people say it routinely, they don't even think about the other. They say it routinely. That's been a great honor for me. OK?
I'll take a gold one, sir.
OK, so it's almost even -- I think gold has an edge.
I would love a gold one, sir. Thank you, sir.
Take the gold, it picked up at the end, right [Laughter]? Well, OK, that's good. So, I want to thank you very much and especially, that's a great story. So, what do you think of a guy like that? Pretty good?
Actually, we all served together.
Wow!
And Jared, over there.
And Jared. So, you guys got hit pretty good, you got hit.
Pretty good.
Amazing, amazing.
We're in a pretty tough area in Kandahar -- in the Arghandab River Valley, right in Kandahar.
Their unit had a more than 50 percent Purple Heart rate, sir, in 2010.
Wow, you deserve it, you deserve that and more. We appreciate it so much. Brave -- really brave, brilliant people. Thank you very much. Do you have any questions of the guys here?
I want to say thank you to the veterans who are here. Thank you so much for defending us. And then I wanted to ask you, Mr. President, because you said you want to bring the tariffs on China down soon. How soon do you want to bring the tariffs on Chinese goods down?
Well, that depends on them. We have a situation where we have a very, very great place, it's called the United States of America, and it's been ripped off for years and years. These people know it. We talked about it before you came in. We've been ripped off by every country in the world practically, friend and foe.
And we will -- we're not doing that anymore. So, what's happened is we've -- Howard, how many countries have we spoken to already?
90
90, and they all want to make deals and we're going to make deals, but they're going to be fair deals; they're not going to be rip off deals. And we were losing almost $5 billion a year. No country can do that. And now we have it down almost to even, maybe even better than even, because of the tariffs on cars and aluminum and steel.
We have tariffs, 25 percent on cars, aluminum and steel. There's a rush to build new steel plants, a rush to build new aluminum plants. And the biggest rush I've ever seen, that we've ever seen, to build car plants. We have like 11 of them or something, big ones, where you guys maybe work. Maybe you won't want to work, you'll do something else instead of that.
But if you like cars, you'd like to work at one of these plants. The biggest plants in the world, three of them have left Mexico before construction started, one of them during construction and they're coming to this country. They're coming back, don't forget. And we get along great with Mexico, but Mexico took 32 percent of our car building business.
So, it's amazing what's happened. Remember this number, anywhere from $3 billion to $5 billion a day. That's not million dollars, that's billion dollars a day. Nobody can even imagine it. And that's what we were losing. And hence we have $36 trillion in debt and everything else. And in the end, I think what's going to happen is we're going to have great deals.
And by the way, if we don't have a deal with a company or a country, we're going to set the tariff, we just set the tariff. It's something that we think -- that will happen I'd say over the next couple of weeks, wouldn't you say? I think so, over the next two or three weeks, we'll be setting the number.
For China.
We're going to pick -- could be for China too, could be for China. Well, we're dealing with almost all of them -- too many to fully deal with, but we're going to be fair to them. But we're dealing with a lot of countries right now and could be with China, but maybe we'll make a special -- a deal and we'll see what it will be. Right now, it's 145 percent.
That's very high. It got there because of the fentanyl. They're sending massive amounts of fentanyl into our country and killing a lot of people, probably 200,000-plus a year, wiping them out. You probably all have friends that were killed. Somebody was killed in your family or your friends with fentanyl and somehow, it's made almost exclusively in China.
And as you know, we essentially taxed them 10 percent and then another 10 percent. We also taxed Mexico 25 percent, and we taxed Canada 25 percent. And that's the kind of money -- that's what's pouring into our country right now. And it's gotten us down from losing $3 billion to $5 billion a day to actually making money, but breaking even, let's say.
But we're going to make a lot of money, and that money is going to be used to reduce taxes. We're going to get big, big tax breaks. We're going to -- there was a time, I said it this morning, I think some of you were there. There was a time from 1870 to 1913, it was a long time ago, we were an all-tariff nation.
Foreign nations paid taxes, they paid money to us in the form of tariffs and that was when we were the wealthiest. We were the wealthiest proportionately that we ever were. And they formed committees in 1887 in particular, but they formed committees to determine what we should do with all the money. We had so much money, you guys would have loved it. We had so much money they didn't know what to do with it. We gave it away to different causes.
And you haven't seen that too much anymore, although we give plenty away, but now we shouldn't be giving it away. We have to take care of ourselves first, right? But we were very wealthy and proportionately the wealthiest we ever were. We built the Panama Canal; Jimmy Carter gave that away for $1, by the way.
One of the most profitable things ever built, the Panama. And now we gave it away for $1 to Panama. Why? I don't know. Nobody knows, but that's what we had. We had people like that sitting behind this desk and that shouldn't have happened. Panama Canal, it was the most expensive thing ever built by our country in history.
I'm talking relative dollars. We've never built anything so expensive. I think it was the equivalent of $1.7 billion, and we've never built anything like that. We built a lot of things but never so expensive. Then we started building other things. We had a lot of money to do it, all based on foreign countries coming in and paying us tariffs and we're doing that again.
And I think we're going to make so much that we're going to be able to reduce taxes in this country by a lot. And we're also going to treat those countries very fairly. But if we don't make a deal, which is possible, we're going to just set the price. Because you remember, they have to come in, they want to come in here and they want to do business with the United States.
So we want to set a fair price and we'll do that. We're going to be very fair, but we'll set a fair price and then they can make a determination as to whether or not they want to do business with the United States. And I think most of them will, and I think we're going to treat them very fairly.
Were you worried about what the 145 percent tariffs were doing to small businesses here in the US? Is that why you're bringing it down?
No, no. No, I haven't brought it down. I haven't brought -- it's still 145. I haven't brought it down.
But you said in the next few weeks --
I said it's a high tariff. It is a high tariff, but I haven't brought it down. It basically means China's not doing any business with us, essentially, because it's a very high number. So when you add that to the price of a product, a lot of those products aren't going to sell, but China's not doing any business.
They were doing $1.1 trillion. Think of that, $1.1 trillion. You know what that is? And it was just very unfair to us and we were doing very little, relatively very little with them. It was one-sided, very one-sided. But we get along, I get along very well with President Xi, and I hope we can make a deal.
Otherwise, we'll set a price and hopefully they'll come here and they'll contribute. And if they don't, that's OK.
Sir, on your trip to Rome, there's a lot of leaders attending the Pope's funeral, who also said they'd like to meet with you while you're there. Do you have any meetings set up?
Yes, I do. I have a lot of meetings set up. I don't know if I can do it. Do you want to help me out, fellas? I got a lot of meetings. I got every leader in the world, which tells you that we have a good product, it's called the United States of America and it's great. And these people know about it better than anybody in this room, but we have a great place and it should be a lot greater and that's what we're going to do. We're going to make it greater than ever before.
It's very simple.
Who are you going to be meeting with, President Zelenskyy?
Well, I have a lot of meetings set up. Yeah, a lot.
And are you bringing anyone with you in the US delegation to the funeral, like Secretary Rubio or a former president?
We have a couple of people coming. We'll announce it probably this evening or tomorrow. The first lady is going and some people are coming with me from staff, but we'll have a number of people going. I'm sure it's going to be a beautiful ceremony.
I have one on Ukraine, but I wanted to ask you one about veterans, as they are here today, and thank you for your service and sacrifice. I wanted to ask you about the cuts that have been made, including with the VA. Can you assure that veterans like these men here, those that have been suffering from mental health issues or burn pits, for example, will be taken care of even with the cuts?
Yeah, very much so. In fact, they will tell you, it's been better with me than any president in history. We had a 92 percent approval rating, which is unheard of, up 50 points from the previous administration in my first four years. And we're doing better now, and in fact, now they have something to call in doctor stuff, where it's really become modernized and great, where you don't have to go and travel sometimes long distances to get to a clinic or get to the VA. And I just heard this morning, I was listening to Doug Collins, who's a secretary, who was being interviewed.
And the numbers are incredible. The approval ratings are the highest. I've never heard numbers like this. It's better than the first four years. So no, there's no group of people more important than the people in this room. And I am not talking about the media. I'm talking about these people right here. There's no group, and they're going to be taken really well care of. It's very important to me.
And on the war in Ukraine, are you going to be meeting with President Zelenskyy? He's asked to meet with you this weekend. Will you be meeting with him this weekend?
I don't know. I don't know that he's going to the funeral or not, but I just hope he gets this thing solved because we're losing about, think of this, 5,000, I was saying 2,500 and everyone was telling me that's low. 5,000 soldiers are being killed every week, approximately. Think of that, every week, 5,000 soldiers, but let's say from 3,000 to 5,000 are being killed.
They're Russian and Ukrainian. They're not Americans, but they're people and they're humans. They're human beings. They have families. They wave goodbye to their son and then they get a call that the son is no longer there. It's a vicious war. And if I can help solve it -- we're not losing our soldiers, but we're losing soldiers, a lot of people.
And if I can solve it because of a certain ability, that will be great. And if it doesn't happen, I will say that I think Russia is ready and a lot of people said Russia wanted to go for the whole thing. And I think we have a deal with Russia. We have to get a deal with Zelenskyy. And I hope that Zelenskyy, I thought it might be easier to deal with Zelenskyy.
So far, it's been harder, but that's OK. It's all right, but I think we have a deal with both. I hope they do it because I'm looking to save -- and we spent a lot of money, but this is about a lot of humanity. This is the worst -- I get the pictures, the satellite pictures. I've never seen anything like it, of the fields after some of these battles.
It's horrible, that it's going for nothing. We would have never had this problem. You would have never had that war if I were president, I guarantee you that. And for four years, you didn't have it. Yeah, please. Please.
Are you going to meet with Vladimir Putin?
I will be meeting with him.
In Saudi Arabia?
It's possible, but most likely not. I think we'll meet with him shortly thereafter, though.
What [Inaudible] going to present to the --
Please, go ahead. Please.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, during the Biden administration and the campaign, with inflation raging, he lowered interest rates two times. Now, with two consecutive months of inflation being down, all economic theory you learn in the eighth grade says it's time to cut rates when inflation is down.
You're right.
He's not done that. Have you had any direct conversation with him about --
No, I haven't called him. I might call him. I haven't called him, but I believe he's making a mistake by not lowering interest rates. And I think as well as we're doing, we'd doing much better. He's keeping rates too high. He historically has been late, except when it came to Biden. He was recommended by a certain person that I'm not particularly happy with, but he will hopefully do the right thing.
The right thing is to lower interest rates. So we'll see what happens. I think we're sitting on something that's going to be very good. With all the tariff money starting to come in, our country's going to be doing really well and hopefully he'll be -- we don't have inflation. Groceries are down. When I first came in, people were there, they hit me with the first day that I was president.
Somebody started screaming at me that eggs are up. I said, I just got here. And in the first week they were going crazy. You remember that, Linda?
Yes.
They were going crazy. They're this saying that egg prices are too high. I said, I'm here for one week, just leave me alone. This is the fake news media. And I said, what can I tell you? But Brooke Rollins, our Secretary of Agriculture and a group working with her, have done an amazing job and egg prices have gone down 87 percent.
Energy now is down $65 a barrel. They have some energy selling gasoline for less than $2 in a couple of states, Alabama, a couple of great states. But all over the country, it's way down from what it was six months ago, three months ago. And that has a lot to do with the war. When Biden allowed energy to skyrocket, it just skyrocketed.
It was out of control. Russia made a lot more money because they make their money on energy and I kept saying, he supposedly wants to end the war, but he lets energy go out of control. Well, I've gotten it -- we are drilling like crazy right now and we have it down to $65 a barrel. It went up to almost $100 a barrel.
And at that number, Putin and Russia made a lot of money. So I think one of the reasons -- I think he has a certain respect for me, but one of the big reasons is oil prices are down. I think this is a good time to get the war settled. Thank you. Thank you for that question.
Just one more question. [Inaudible] For those of us that live here in the district, you said when you came in, you were going to make Washington, DC great again.
Right.
One of the issues we've got right now is we understand there might be an imminent deal between the owner of the Washington Football Team, whatever you want to call them now, commanders, and locally, in getting the Redskins back to DC in RFK Stadium. That's on federal property.
Right.
Are you going to be involved in that negotiation?
Yeah.
And would one of the stipulations be they change their name back to the Redskins?
Oh, I see. Well, that's a little bit -- nobody's asked me that one. Look, I think when the Indian population is a great part of this country, a great heritage. And we were talking about Massapequa, Long Island, the Chiefs, they call themselves the Chiefs -- or the Kansas City Chiefs. They're not changing their name.
A great team, great people, great owners, great coach and quarterback. I love the quarterback, I like his girlfriend too, his wife. His wife is great. She's been a big fan. The quarterback's mother is incredible. I like that team. They're called the Chiefs. And frankly, I see nothing wrong with it. They call them the Warriors, and not that team, but a lot of other teams and all of these Indian surnames and different names.
And I'm saying that I think that's a positive thing. And when you go back to Indians, they pull this, they don't know why these names are being taken off. They're trying to -- I think it's degrading to the Indian population and it's a great population. And they like when they're called by various names. Now, Washington, the Redskins, perhaps that's a little different, a little bit different.
But I can tell you that I spoke to people of Indian heritage that love that name and they love that team. And I think it's a much -- I think it's a superior name to what they have right now. It had heritage behind it. It had something special. But a lot of the names having to do with different places, not just Indians, but I think it's -- they changed the name of the Cleveland Indians.
Why would you take the name Indians off the Cleveland Indians, and now it's called the Cleveland, something else, right? Guardians. It just doesn't make sense to me. So, we're about bringing common sense back to this country and it may be popular or unpopular, what I'm saying, and I've just said to you. He's a nice guy; he got a lot out of me on this one [Laughter]. But I think most people agree with me. I think it really is demeaning to Indians, but to change the name of the Cleveland Indians, as an example, to the Cleveland Guardians is not the same and I'm sure it has an impact on the team.
Thank you, sir. Elon Musk said he'll be stepping back from his work with DOGE a little bit and only dedicating maybe a day or two a week to it. How long would you like to see that continue and how involved would you like to see him continue to be after?
Well, first of all, I can't speak more highly about any individual. He's an incredible guy. He's a brilliant guy. He's a wonderful person. I've seen him with his family. I've seen him with a lot of his children. He's got a lot of children. He treats them good. He loves his children. But he's a brilliant guy and he was a tremendous help both in the campaign and in what he's done with DOGE. And we're talking about almost $200 million and rising fast because many of the things that we were looking at are now being found out to be fact.
It's terrible, I mean, the fraud, the waste, the abuse, the -- everything that's happened is just terrible. So, I also know that he was treated very unfairly by the -- I guess, you'd call it the public, by some of the public, not by all of it. So, he makes an incredible car, makes -- everything he does is good.
But they took it out on Tesla, and I just thought it was so unfair because he's trying to help the country. But he has helped the country. I also want him to make sure that he's going to be in great shape. And I know he is -- I mean, he's going to be -- he's going to do great. He loves the country. He didn't need to do this.
He did it and I told him, I said, you know, whenever you're ready -- I'd like to keep him for a long time. But whenever you're ready, he's an exceptional guy. When you see those rockets go up and come back and land in the same gantry, nobody else can do that but this man. So, he's just an incredible person and he's a friend of mine and he's a nice person, too.
He's a very nice person. He really helped the country saved us a lot of money. And I heard him say that he'll start easing, which is always -- he was always, at this time, going to ease out. And when he goes back to Tesla, that'll be taken care of. It was just -- it's artificial. These were sick people that thought they were doing something.
He really -- he's a great patriot and he should -- really it should be -- it shouldn't be the way, that should never have happened to him. And I will tell you right now, he makes a great product. He makes a great product. It's a great car. It's great everything, Starlink is great. What he does is good. He's doing medical things that are amazing, and we have to, at some point, let him go and do that, and we expect him to be doing it about this time.
But I'll talk to -- I'll talk to Elon about it. Thank you for the question.
[Crosstalk]
-- a second question. Canada has an election coming up. How -- would you have a prediction for that? And what do you think the results --
With respect to Canada?
With the negotiations?
Oh, I don't want to predict other nations' elections. It's tough enough doing this one. Look, I love the Canadian people, I like Canada, but it's costing us $200 billion a year to support Canada, $200 billion. And I say why are we doing that? You know what? We can make our own cars. We have more energy than they do. We have more energy than anybody in the world.
We don't need their lumber obviously; we have more lumber. We have a lot of lumber. We have a lot of everything that they sell us, but in particular cars. They took a large percentage of the car making and I want to bring it back to this country. I really don't want cars from Canada. So, when I put tariffs on Canada, they're paying 25 percent, but that could go up in terms of cars.
When we put tariffs on, all we're doing is we're saying, we don't want your cars, in all due respect. We want really to make our own cars, which is what we're doing in record numbers now. You know, we're going to be at record levels in a very near future because of all the plants, the car plants that are being built.
And I'd rather see them made in Michigan and made in South Carolina and made in different states, Tennessee. We have a lot of great car-making states, and we have some that aren't car-making yet, but they will soon be car-making states. And that's what I want to see for our country. At the same time, I want to help Canada as to -- I have spoken to the current prime minister.
He was very, very nice, I will say, very nice. We had a couple of very nice conversations, very good. But I don't think it's appropriate for me to get involved in their election.
[Crosstalk]
-- if I may, this deal that you have with Russia, does it include recognizing Russia's sovereignty over Crimea?
Well, everything is good. I just want to see the war end. I don't care -- if they're both happy, if they both sign an agreement -- I have no favorites. I don't want to have any favorites. I want to have a deal done. I want to save the lives. Now, with that being said, we're spending hundreds of billions of dollars through Biden.
Biden should have never let that war happen. We're spending hundreds of billions, maybe $350 billion we've given to Ukraine, and we could use that money right here. So, I'd like to see that. But most importantly right now is when I see the pictures, the satellite pictures of the battlefield, if I can stop that because of an ability I have to do things, I want to see if I can do that.
Mr. President, on tariffs, you just mentioned that 25 percent could go up on cars in terms of Canada. Does that mean that you're considering changes to the auto tariffs and auto parts?
No, we're not considering it now. But at some point, it could go up, yeah, because again we don't really want Canada to make cars for us, to put it bluntly, we want to make our own cars, and we're now equipped to do that. They took a lot of our car business. Mexico too took a lot of our car business. We want to make the cars here.
I'm running this country; I'm not running Canada. And that's why I asked Trudeau, who I call Governor Trudeau affectionately, but I asked him why are we spending $200 billion to support Canada, to subsidize Canada? And he was unable to answer the question. I mean, why are we doing that? And I have to be honest, as a state, it works great.
As a nation, considering the fact that most of the nation -- you know, 95 percent of Canada, what they do is they buy from us, and they sell to us. They sell to us. If we didn't buy their oil, if we didn't buy their -- and we don't need their oil, we have more oil than anyone. But we don't need their oil, we don't need their lumber, we don't need their cars, we don't need anything.
So, I said why are we doing this? Why are we spending $200 billion? It doesn't make sense. If we needed something that would be a different subject. So, I'm working well with Canada. We're doing very well. We're working on a deal. We'll see what happens. But again, why -- representing this country, why are we spending $200 billion to support and subsidize another country?
Because if they didn't have us and if we didn't spend that money, as Trudeau told me, they would cease to exist. He said that to me, they would cease to exist, which is true, certainly as a country.
On tourism, there's been a steep drop off in international travel to the United States. It was down 12 percent last month, down even more from Western Europe. Why do you think that there are fewer people suddenly who want to travel to the United States?
Well, there could be a little -- there's a little nationalism there, I guess perhaps. It's not a big deal. But with the dollar being where it is, because China would always fight for having a low dollar. Japan would always fight for having a low dollar, meaning a low yen or in the case of China, the yuan.
They'd always want to have -- China would always -- I'd speak to President Xi a lot. I'd say, it's unfair that your yuan is so low. I'd call up a great man, Prime Minister Abe, great man, Shinzo, who was unfortunately assassinated. And I used to tell -- he was a good friend of mine. I used to say, Shinzo, you can't let your yen go down.
It makes it very hard for us to sell tractors. It makes it very hard for us to get tourism. And our dollar is a little bit on the low side, and that means that a lot of tourism is going to come in. But I could see a little bit nationalism at work. And I could see it likewise with us not wanting to go to certain countries, but that will work out very easily.
Do you think some people are scared to come here because they hear the stories of tourists who are detained for a few days or even a week or two?
No, no, we treat our tourists great. We're the tourism capital of the world. There's no place like this. And there may be a little bit of nationalism, but I doubt it. I actually doubt it. Yeah?
Mr. President, has there been any direct contact between the US and China on trade at all?
Yeah, of course, every day.
Every day. And then secondly, would you support a millionaire tax?
I think it would be very disruptive because a lot of the millionaires would leave the country. In the old days, they left states. They'd go from one state to the other. Now with transportation so quick and so easy, they leave countries. You'd lose a lot of money if you do that. And other countries that have done it have lost a lot of people.
They lose their wealthy people. That would be bad because the wealthy people pay the tax. OK?
Sir, how did the talks today go in London? Do you think that the asks from Ukraine and Europe --
I think they went well. We got to get two people, two strong people, two smart people to agree. And as soon as they agree, the killing will stop, but yeah, I think they went well, pretty well.
Mr. President, we understand that you economic team, many of them are here today, JD Vance has negotiated what's been called a monster trade deal with India, like, biggest one ever. Can you share with us what some of the framework of that might be?
You said England.
India.
India?
India. Modi.
Oh. They're not very complicated, these deals. It's about the tariffs. India charges almost more than any other country in the world. And believe it or not, we do very little business with India, other than the fact that I like the prime minister very much. He's a friend of mine. He was here two weeks ago, as you know.
And we stood right outside, did a news conference. Unfortunately, the grass was very wet and it was very hard for people to stand on the grass. They got their shoes all ruined. But other than that, it was a very good news conference and he's a great guy, but we do very little business. You know why, because the tariffs are so high.
They have among the highest tariffs, higher than China. They have among the highest tariffs in the world, and I understand they're going to reduce those tariffs. But it's really sort of their problem, not ours. We do very, very little purchasing in India and selling. We do very little selling. I mean, Harley Davidson, I said, how are you doing in India?
This is about six years ago. They came to lunch as a great American company. They make the motorcycles. And I said, how are you doing in India as an example? Well, we don't do any business there. Why, because the tariffs are too high. I said, that's interesting. Well, what are you going to do? He said, well, we're going to build a plant in India, and that's what they did.
I don't want that to happen. They were forced to build a plant. Well, essentially, what we're doing is same thing. Remember, there's no tariff when they build their plant here and everybody wants to build because they don't want to -- and the higher the tariffs go, the more likely it is they come in and build a plant.
I mean, if it's 25 percent, that's fine. If it's 50 percent, you'll get more plants, 75, you get more. At 100, you get more than that. And they're all coming in at numbers that nobody's -- I don't think, Howard, there's ever been numbers like we've seen.
Never.
$7 trillion, $8 trillion worth in two months because it took me a month to get started, in all fairness. But in two months we -- uh we did this and now we're coming up on 100 days, first 100 days. And I think we're going to be close to $8 trillion. There was never any president that did even a tiny percentage of that.
OK. Any other questions?
[Inaudible] deal signed, one of the deals signed by your 100-day mark, and China is saying that we're threatening and blackmailing them into a deal. What would be your response to that?
Well, I mean, China, look, I have great relationships in China, with President Xi in particular, but China has been charging us massive tariffs for many years. That's one of the reasons they were able to steal so many of our companies. They took our companies out of America and they built their plants in China.
And one of those things -- so now we're reversing it, but at levels that nobody's ever seen before. No, we're going to get along great with China. I have no doubt about it. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.