You want to get them over here? You, put them over here. Put them over here, please. There's some room over here. Over here.
Make some room.
[Inaudible, discussion among gathered guests and press]
Well, thank you very much, and today we're very thrilled to swear in the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Paul Atkins. He's a fantastic man, and with great experience, but he's -- above all -- he's very smart. congratulations to Paul, his wife, Sarah, and his entire family who are with us today.
Thank you very much and congratulations. Great job. That's great, Sarah. We're all so grateful to be joined by our secretary of the treasury, who's doing a -- it's the easiest job. I think it's probably the easiest job right now in government, would you say? Companies are coming out of the -- countries are coming from all over, they want to just sign, sign, sign.
We're doing OK, but you're doing really well. Thank you very much. And Scott's going to be doing the swearing in. No one in America is more highly qualified to lead the SEC in this exciting time, than Paul. He's devoted his entire life to the cause of free, clear pro-growth and pro-innovation securities markets.
After graduating very, very high in his class, I will tell you, Vanderbilt University School of Law, Paul began a distinguished career practicing securities law in New York City before joining the staff of the SEC in the 1990s. In 2002, Paul was appointed as the Commissioner of the SEC, a commissioner and rode that to a fare thee well.
He was so respected. He was a role which he promoted economic freedom and represented the agency at the U.S. EU Transatlantic Economic Council, highly respected the World Economic Forum and the Transatlantic Business Dialogue. After completing his term in 2008, Paul began a successful consulting practice and continued to advocate for a commonsense approach to securities regulation.
Extremely complicated stuff, and he put a lot of commonsense and saneness into it. Without heavy handed bureaucracy and the harming of investors and workers and consumers and frankly, our country itself, Paul has also been a leader in the emerging crypto and blockchain industries and served as co-chair of the Digital Chamber's Token Alliance.
He's the perfect man to lead this agency at a time when crypto innovators are urgently in need of, and they want so badly, they want it to happen, regulatory certainty and clear rules of the road. In addition to helping build this new framework that will allow the United States to maintain its financial and technological dominance long into the future, Paul will end the weaponization of the SEC and stop the lawless enforcement practices that occurred during the Biden administration.
They were vicious people. They were vicious and horrible for our country. Paul is passionate about protecting American liberty and American economic leadership and we are truly grateful and honored that he has answered the call of public service, as he always has. He's a man that just we were looking for the right person for this very important job, and he was at the top of everyone's list.
So Paul, I want to congratulate you and your family. You have an incredible family. And you have an incredible father and husband. I can say that. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. If I'm not, please speak up now. So thank you very much. Sarah, thank you very much. And I'll ask Scott to come up and do the swearing in. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
Put your hand on the Bible, please. I --
I, Paul Atkins --
-- do solemnly swear --
-- do solemnly swear --
-- that I will support and defend --
-- that I will support and defend --
-- the Constitution of the United States --
-- the Constitution of the United States --
-- against all enemies --
-- against all enemies --
-- foreign and domestic.
-- foreign and domestic.
That I will bear true faith --
That I will bear true faith --
-- and allegiance to the same.
-- and allegiance to the same.
That I take this obligation freely --
That I take this obligation freely --
-- without any mental reservation --
-- without any mental reservation --
-- or purpose of evasion.
-- or purpose of evasion.
And that I will well --
And that I will well --
-- and faithfully discharge --
-- and faithfully discharge --
-- the duties of the office --
-- the duties of the office --
-- on which I'm about to enter --
-- on which I'm about to enter --
-- so help me, God.
-- so help me, God.
Congratulations.
Thank you, very much. Well, thank you all very much and especially, thank you, Mr. President. I'm really honored by your trust and confidence that you've placed in me to head the SEC. But I really must say, the Oval Office has never looked better. One could really describe it as glistening, and I've heard stories about it and it's true.
It's the touch of a confident president leading with optimism towards an American golden age.
Thank you.
So thank you for that. And so to my wife, Sarah, and to our sons, Stuart, Peter and Henry, thank you all for your steadfast love and support. I'm grateful for the sacrifices that each of you have made to enable me to serve America. And thanks to Secretary Bessant for administering the oath as well. But a note about my family real quickly, today would have been my father's 114th birthday.
Colonel Atkins was a veteran of World War II and Korea, and yesterday would have been my late mother's birthday. So it seems altogether fitting to honor them and the example that they've set so that their son could stand here speaking to you all today. So to my friends, my family, my colleagues who have worked with me throughout my career and helped make my appointment by President Trump even possible, thank you for your work and dedication.
There are many who quietly serve the nation in mostly unsung roles and I continue to be the beneficiary of your professionalism and good judgment. So at the helm of the SEC, I can confidently say it is a new day. It's time for the SEC to end its waywardness and return to its core mission that Congress set for it, investor protection, fair, orderly and efficient markets and capital formation.
I will work to protect investors from fraud, keep politics out of how our securities laws and regulations are applied and advance clear rules of the road that encourage investment in our economy to the benefit of Americans. A top priority of my chairmanship will be to provide a firm regulatory foundation for digital assets through a rational, coherent and principled approach.
We will work to ensure that the United States is the best and most secure place in the world to invest and to do business. So Mr. President, again, thank you very much for your graciousness and extending such a warm welcome to my family and me today in this storied room. I look forward to working with you, with colleagues in your administration and with Congress to advance your agenda to bolster the economy and build on U.S. leadership of the global market.
So thank you very much.
Thank you. Congratulations.
Thank you very much. Thank you, sir.
Thank you very much.
Pleasure.
Any questions for Paul?
Mr. Atkins, if I may. Can you provide a -- I guess, what is your sense of how The CFTC and the SEC will differ when it comes to crypto regulation?
I hope that we won't. Brian Quintenz, whom the president has nominated, is a great guy. I've known him for years and I intend to work closely with him and I really look forward to his leadership there. I think there's no reason why the two agencies can't be working cheek to jowl on these issues for the American investor and the American economy.
Mr. Atkins, do you have a view on Chinese-listed stocks on the U.S. exchanges?
Well, that's subject of statute and Congress has acted. And I mean, I look forward to diving into those issues.
Mr. Atkins, do you have a sense, will the Democratic Commissioner continue in her role?
Her term, I guess goes through -- well, it ended last year and I guess she can hold over till the end of the year. So it's up to Mr. President and Congress to deal with that.
Mr. President, on China, your press secretary has suggested that some progress is being made. Are negotiations actively underway? And do you agree with Secretary Bessent who has suggested that the current standoff with China is not sustainable?
We're doing fine with China. We're doing fine with every, I think almost every country. Everybody wants to have involvement with the United States. As you know, we were losing $5 billion a day during the Biden administration, during that last year, was a horror show what they were doing on trade, $5 billion a day.
And now we have it down to a very low number because we're getting 25 percent from the automobile industry, from autos. We're getting 25 percent for steel, 25 percent for aluminum, and we're getting the baseline of 10 percent. And think of it, we're losing almost $2 trillion, on trade and those days are gone.
We're not going to do that again. We're not going to let that happen. We're being ripped off by almost, I don't say every, but very close to every country everywhere in the world, just being ripped off left and right. You had no leadership. You had people that didn't know what they were doing, and we're going to turn the country around.
You know, we have a very nice phrase, Make America great again. That's what we're going to do and it's going to start with trade. We're doing really well. I see the stock market was up nicely, but this is a transition period and it's going to be a little while, but we are doing well with every country. Ultimately, we have something they want.
And you have to view it that way, we have something they want, and they want very badly. And you know, it's going to be -- they're coming in, they're taking treasure, they're taking jobs when they do that, and they have to pay. And they don't have to pay if they come in and create their own jobs. You know, if they do their product here, if they build their product or make their product in the United States, we have absolutely no tariffs and we welcome people.
But we're taking in a lot of money from tariffs and our country is getting stronger all the time because the other was not sustainable.
[Crosstalk]
-- started with China, are you going to play hardball with them? Are you going to mention COVID or --
Well, I'm not going to -- I'm not going to say, no, I'm not going to mention COVID. I'm not going to say, oh, I'm going to play hardball with China. I'm going to play hardball with you, President Xi. No, no, we're going to be very nice. They're going to be very nice, and we'll see what happens. But ultimately, they have to make a deal because otherwise they're not going to be able to deal in the United States and we want them involved, but they have to, and other countries have to, make a deal.
And if they don't make a deal, we'll set the deal because we're the ones that set the deal. Scott and Howard and myself and others, we're going to be setting the deal, and it will be a fair deal for everybody. And it will be a -- I think it's a process that's going to go pretty quickly. We've spoken to many, many countries and we're getting their views on things.
You know, there are a lot of things. They have VAT taxes; they have everything you can have. Don't forget as an example, the European Union was set up to take advantage of the United States. That's why it was set, and they've done that. But they're not doing that anymore. Yeah?
Mr. President --
[Crosstalk]
-- will you allow -- will you prevent Hamas from having any role in governing a postwar Gaza? And will Hamas have to be permanently eradicated for a ceasefire to be reached?
Well, we're not going to let Hamas do that, and we're going to see what happens with Gaza. But we've made a lot of progress in the Middle East, tremendous, should have never happened. That date, that very special date, October 7th, should have never happened. It would have never happened if I were president, but we'll be stopping that whole situation.
Yeah, please.
Earlier today, Treasury Secretary Bessent suggested that tariff rates as high as they are now is effectively an embargo of trade between the United States and China. Do you see it that way?
That's true, 145 percent is very high, and it won't be that high. It's not going to be that high. It got up to there. We were talking about fentanyl where various elements built it up to 145 percent. No, it won't be anywhere near that high.
What level do you think it will come down to if you haven't [Inaudeible]?
It'll come down substantially, but it won't be zero. It used to be zero. We were just destroyed. China was taking us for a ride and -- just not going to happen. It's not going to happen. We're going to be very good to China. I have a great relationship with President Xi, but they would make billions and billions and billions of dollars a year and they would build their military out of the United States and what they made.
So, that won't happen, but they're going to do very well. And I think they're going to be happy, and I think we're going to live together very happily and ideally work together. So, I think it's going to work out very well. But no, it's at 145 percent. They will not be anywhere near that number.
[Crosstalk]
Mr. President, Reagan Reese with the Daily Caller. On the work that your team is doing on the border, are you happy with the rate of deportations right now?
Oh, it's amazing what they've done on the border. Thank you for the question because, honestly, it's one of the great successes. We have virtually nobody coming in illegally. We do have people coming in legally because we want people to come in, but we have nobody coming in through the border virtually that -- we were having hundreds of thousands of people a month come in under Biden and they came in from prisons; they came in from mental institutions; they came in from gangs in Venezuela and other countries all over the world, not just South America.
They were emptying their prisons into the United States. Venezuela emptied its prisons out, but many countries emptied their prisons into the Congo, as an example, in Africa, emptied their prisons into the United States. And we're getting them out and I hope we get cooperation from the courts because we have thousands of people that are ready to go out and you can't have a trial for all of these people.
It wasn't meant -- the system wasn't meant. And we don't think there's anything that says, look, we are getting some very bad people, killers, murderers, drug dealers, really bad people, the mentally ill, the mentally insane. They emptied out insane asylums into our country. We're getting them out and a judge can't say no, you have to have a trial, let's -- the trial is going to take two years.
And no, we're going to have a very -- we're going to have a very dangerous country if we're not allowed to do what we're entitled to do. And I won an election based on the fact that we get them out and we've done an amazing job. Look, we've stopped -- everybody admits, even the radical left, we have got the strongest border we've ever had.
Even stronger than what I had for four years. We had a great border. We solved the problem, but it's actually -- it's a tad stronger, which is -- I don't know if that's disappointing or not to me. I said I beat my own record. But I appreciate the question.
Mr. President, Daniel [Inaudible] with [Inaudible]. Thank you for taking my question, sir.
Thank you, Daniel.
[Inaudible] Can you tell us about how you managed to lower prices [Inaudible]?
Well, thank you, Daniel. The question is about prices. Prices are going down, not going up. One of the big things is energy is going down. I see that we had a couple of states where gasoline was at $1.98 a gallon. Nobody thought they'd see that for years maybe. And that's a big thing. And we opened up our wells, we opened up our drilling.
We have more product now for sale, and we're also going to be selling outside of the country to a large extent. It's going to bring down our deficits -- largely going to bring down our deficits. But if you remember my first week, I was standing here, Paul, and they were screaming about eggs. The cost of eggs have gone through the roof.
They were up like 500 percent -- crazy, like four or five times and we won't have eggs for Easter they were saying -- be no eggs, you can't order eggs, they wanted us to order plastic in the shape of eggs. Well, yesterday we had 48,000 people at the Easter hunt, they call it the Easter Roll at the White House, and we had all eggs.
And as you know, the cost of eggs has come down like 93 percent, 94 percent since we took office, and they're pretty much normally priced now. Great job. Our Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, did a very good job. But groceries have come down, it's all coming down. The only thing that hasn't come down, but it hasn't gone up much, are interest rates.
So, we think the fed should lower the rate. We think that it's a perfect time to lower the rate. And we'd like to see our chairman be early or on time as opposed to late. Late is not good.
Mr. President, you've said -- .
I don't want to talk about that because I have no intention of firing him.
Mr. President, there are reports that you're considering doing something for moms across the country, giving them some type of bonus whenever they have a child. Are you considering that or [Inaudible].
Sounds like a good idea to me. Yeah, please.
You have no intention of firing Jerome Powell, because your Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett, a few days ago said that you and people in the White House are studying this idea possibly even before his term ends. Do you have any plans on doing that?
None whatsoever, never did. The press runs away with things. No, I have no intention of firing him. I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates. This is a perfect time to lower interest rates. If he doesn't, is it the end? No, it's not, but it would be good timing.
It would be -- it could have taken place earlier. But no, I have no intention to fire him.
Have you talked to him, sir?
I don't want to comment on that. That doesn't matter.
Mr. President, you said -- when can we expect the Epstein documents to be released, the rest of them?
Which documents?
The Epstein files.
I don't know, I'll speak to the attorney general about that. I really don't know. I know that we've done the RFK, the Kennedy, Martin Luther King is out there very shortly. So, we'll find out. But -- and we've really, really announced -- we're doing them in full transparency. When we did JFK, people were saying, oh, maybe it wasn't all.
It was all. And people actually went up to the office and they looked at some things that were not really easily available and they were amazed that we gave it all. And I don't know if it solved any problems for people. People still have questions one way or the other, but that I'm not. But 100 percent of all of these documents are being delivered.
Yeah, please.
Mr. President, you said you're ultimately going to make a deal with China, but where do things stand right now? Have you talked to them? The secretary [Inaudible]
My relationship with President Xi is great. It was -- it's been great for a long time. We've had a very good relationship, and I think we'll make a deal with China.
Mr. President, in your meeting with -- ?
If we don't make a deal, we'll set it, we'll just set the number, and I think they'll want to be a part of the United States. We're doing great. We're going to -- this is the golden age as Paul said, we're talking about the golden age. It will never be a time like this in my opinion, and China wants to be a part of that too.
Mr. President, in your meeting with -- Sir, on the [Inaudible] investigation. Are you getting intelligence briefings? And do you think --
I have. I have. I'll keep that to myself.
Mr. President, is there a meeting --
Very personal.
Are you concerned about the impact of tariffs on West Coast ports or just the sharp drawdown in Chinese imports?
No, I think that everyone's going to do well in this country because of tariffs. We have $7 trillion of investment already. You can go back many years, and for a whole year, they haven't had anywhere near that. Mostly, they'd be well under $1 trillion of investment and we've got $7 trillion. We really started five weeks ago.
And in just a few weeks, literally, we have $7 trillion, which is a record for a year. There's never been a year with that much, and that's coming in, I think for two reasons. It's coming because of an election that people liked and it's coming in because of tariffs. And if you look at Apple, Apple is going to start building here.
Right now, they're in China, mostly. $500 billion, we have the computer -- All of the computer chip companies are coming in at levels that nobody's ever seen before, as you know. Jensen came in for $500 billion. You saw that, a great guy, highly respected. Mr. Wei coming in for $250 billion. Nobody's ever seen anything -- and the auto companies are coming in. I can name eight right now, already, auto plants that are either starting or about ready to start construction.
There's never been -- and the United Auto Workers and the nonunion workers in the automobile industry. They love Trump and I love them. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Congratulations, Paul.