Hello, everybody. Thank you very much. You all set? Well, we're talking about CAFE standards, a very big deal, very important. Today, my administration has taken historic action to lower costs for American consumers, protect American auto jobs and make buying a car much more affordable for countless American families, and also safer.
We're officially terminating Joe Biden's ridiculously burdensome, horrible, actually, CAFE standards that imposed expensive restrictions and all sorts of problems, gave all sorts of problems to automakers. And we're not only talking about here, we're talking about outside of our country because nobody could do it. Nobody wanted to do it and it was ridiculous, very expensive.
It put tremendous upward pressure on car prices. Combined with the insane electric vehicle mandate, Biden's burdensome regulations helped cause the price of cars to soar more than 25 percent. And in one case they went up 18 percent in one year. Today, we're taking one more step to kill the Green New Scam.
It's part of the greatest scam probably -- well, other than Russia, Russia, Russia and a few others I could name. The greatest scam in American history, the Green New Scam, and it's a quest to end the gasoline powered car. This is what they wanted to do even though we have more gasoline than any other country by far.
And people want the gasoline car. They want everything. They want electric. They want any -- they want to have lots of alternatives, but they do want the gasoline car. Right now, it's leading away by a lot. The -- the car business is a very interesting business, but we want to keep it that way. I want to thank Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy; Deputy Transportation Secretary, Steven Bradbury, as well as CEO of Ford, Jim Farley.
Jim, where is Jim?
Right here.
Let's see. Hi, Jim, congratulations. You're doing a great job. CEO of Stellantis, Antonio Filosa. Thank you very much, Antonio.
Thank you very much.
Chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association, Tom Castriota.
Yes, sir.
Thank you very much, Tom. Great to have you. And manager of General Motors Orion plant, John Urbanic.
Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
Great to have you guys here. And you're going to say a few words in a minute about how ridiculous this was, but we've just freed you up. So, you're going to have a good day and have a good number of years. Thanks as well to Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Ted Cruz, Kevin Cramer, Marsha Blackburn, Eric Schmidt and Bernie Moreno as well as Representative Sam Graves, Vern Buchanan, Mike Kelly, Roger Williams, Lisa McClain and Troy Balderson, all great people.
These are great people, and I know there's a lot of support -- long beyond the people that are here. You had tremendous support on this. From day one, I've been taking action to make buying a car more affordable. I signed an executive order to end the unfair expensive electric vehicle mandate. As you know, we had to have an electric car within a very short period of time, even though there was no way of charging them and lots of other things.
It would have cost $5 trillion to build the charging plants. And as you know, in certain parts of the Midwest, they spent -- to build nine chargers they spent $8 billion. So, that wasn't working out too well. That was done before me, by the way; I wouldn't have let it go forward. We're canceling the EPA's absurd tailpipe emissions standards, one of the most important things that -- I've never had a group of people come to me more powerfully and really just devastated that they had to do it, it was killing them -- than the automobile manufacturers, the tailpipe emissions standards.
And I can tell you, your people at Ford were coming to me all the time and they were saying like please, it doesn't do anything and it's killing us and it's driving the cost through the roof. And we revoked Biden's emissions waiver for California so that California communists could not regulate the automobile industry and ruin the entire nation of automobiles, and they were doing that too.
But we have that now under control also with your governor who's got much more than he can control. Now under the new rules being issued today by Secretary Duffy, the Department of Transportation will rescind the Biden fuel economy prices. And I hate to say that because they were really not economy; they were really -- they were anti economy, they were horrible what they were doing to costs and actually making the car much worse.
But these policies forced automakers to build cars using expensive technologies that drove up costs, drove up prices and made the car much worse. The action is expected to save the typical consumer at least $1,000 off the price of a new car, and we think substantially more than that. Under the Trump administration, $70 billion are now being invested in the American auto industry.
Ford has announced it will invest $5 billion across its Kentucky and Michigan plants. Is that a correct statement?
That's right.
That's a lot, $5 billion. You can do more. [Laughter] Creating at least 4,000 new jobs. Stellantis announced that it will invest $13 billion to expand its US-based manufacturing by more than 50 percent and open new manufacturing facilities across the country. And I think a big part of that is also the tariffs.
Because of tariffs, they're coming in, not only the automobile industry -- AI, we're leading China in AI. We're leading everybody in AI. We're leading everybody in everything. We have the hottest country right now. I will tell you, a lot of political people behind me, great political people, very successful political people.
We have the hottest country anywhere in the world. One year ago, we had a dead country and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. And it started from November 5th, but it also started when we did the tariffs. And we've had tremendous support on the tariffs. It's bringing in trillions of dollars of wealth.
It's bringing in national security. And I've stopped eight wars. And of the eight wars, five of them have been because of tariffs and trade. So, they're very important. And General Motors plans to invest $4 billion as it brings its manufacturing back to the United States from Mexico. After falling by 5 percent under Biden, US auto production has surged by 10 percent so far this year.
You know, I won the auto workers' vote, but now even the head of the auto workers said Trump is the greatest president we've ever seen and happens to be right about that. [Laughter] But we're protecting our auto workers and we're making it easier for every family to afford high quality cars. In other words, we're bringing automobiles back and the manufacturing of automobiles back into this country.
We lost 52 percent over the years, 52 percent of our automobile manufacturers. You see it -- closed factories all over the place. Now they're all opening up. They're being -- in most cases they're being knocked down, and new ones are being built in their place. And a big beneficiary is the state of Michigan, but South Carolina, even states that didn't really do too much with the automobiles are opening up plants.
It's been amazing. So, between automobile plants, AI plants and plants of every other nation -- really every other type, including chips. We're going to have a big percentage of the chip market very soon, not because of the CHIPS Act, which was horrible and ridiculous where we just gave these companies billions and billions of dollars, and they just kept the money.
But because of what we did with tariffs, they have to build here, otherwise they're going to have to pay tariffs. They won't be able to do business in the United States. And we are bringing -- we're going to have a big percentage of the chip industry. As of about a year ago, two years ago, we had none and now we're going to have a very big percentage when it all finishes out.
So, I'd like to ask Secretary Duffy to do you speak, and then Mr. Farley and then Filosa and Urbanek and Castriota. And also, we're going to ask some of our political leaders to speak because, let me tell you, they went out of their way. This was not easy and people were brainwashed. This is a green new scam.
And people were paying too much for a car that didn't work as well. And now they're going to have a great car that's going to be environmentally friendly. But it's going to cost you a lot less and it's going to work great. All of the nonsense is being taken out of the cars. So, Secretary Duffy, could you say a few words?
Thank you, Mr. President. So, yesterday at the cabinet meeting, the president was talking about affordability. And the way that Democrats talk about affordability is a lie. Today is a perfect example of that. So, these Cafe standards used what was contrary to the law that Congress set a rule that says you have to look at combustion engines.
Biden and Buttigieg actually did an analysis using --
Boot-edge-edge.
I'm sorry, Boot-edge-edge used EVs and hybrids to come up with a 62-mile-an-hour per gallon standard, which I think the car companies will tell you is completely unattainable. So, they spent a lot of money on technology trying to meet the unattainable standard, driving up the cost of a car, number one. And then number two, if they couldn't meet the unattainable standard, they had to trade for carbon costing billions of dollars and, again, driving up the price of the cars.
Mr. President, what Democrats were doing were not making cars more affordable, they were making them less affordable. The consequence of that is going to be that more Americans can afford to buy a new car, which means they're going to be safer on the roads because of all the great new technology we have that save lives.
So, we'll have less death on American roads. These rules are going to allow the automakers to make vehicles that Americans want to purchase, not vehicles that Joe Biden and Boot-edge-edge wants them to build, which is important. But also, this is important for American jobs. The more cars we sell, the more jobs we have in this country.
And so, this is jobs, this is freedom and this is common sense, Mr. President. So, thank you for your leadership. And I appreciate what the Senate did with the Big, Beautiful Bill and what we've done here today. So, thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you very much. The Big, Beautiful Bill, it's something, it's amazing. Wait till people see the benefits and the lower taxes that they're going to have lower regulations. So, how about Ford?
Well, Mr. President and Secretary, all the important lawmakers here, competitors, today is a victory for common sense and affordability. We're very proud of Ford to be the number one auto producer in our country. 80 percent of the vehicles we sell here we make in our country -- and we never left, unlike many of our competitors.
We're the number one exporter and we have the most factory -- auto factory workers. And this Cafe standard that is aligned with customer demand is the right move for a lot of reasons. We were number two last year in EV sales, we were number three in hybrid, and we're the leading brand for combustion. We believe that people should be able to make a choice, as you said, Mr. President.
And we will invest more in affordable vehicles. This allows us to invest in affordable vehicles made in the US, which we will take the lead on, and it will allow us to make vehicles more affordable. So, thank you for making this step for all of you.
Thank you very much. One of the other things we're doing is separate from this meeting, but I think everybody here would agree with it. If you go to Japan, where I just left, and if you go to South Korea and Malaysia and other countries, they have a very small car, sort of like the beetle used to be with the Volkswagen.
They're very small, they're really cute and I said how would that do in this country? And everyone seems to think good but you're not allowed to build them. And I've authorized the Secretary to immediately approve the production of those cars. So you'll be able to buy the -- they really are -- they're actually -- some of them are really beautiful, actually.
If you take a look, Honda, some of the Japanese companies do a beautiful job, but we're not allowed to make them in this country. And I think you're going to do very well with those cars.
So we're going to approve those cars.
We are going to approve --
Would you like to say something about that?
Well, no, I just -- just that he never stops working. So even when he's on Asian time, he's calling me at midnight in the States. But he gave me the directive to clear the regulations on this, to which we have.
Yeah.
And so if -- if Toyota or any other company wants to make smaller, more affordable cars, fuel efficient, we have cleared the deck so they can make them in America and sell them in America.
They're really nice and less expensive. And it really gives people a chance to have a car, you know, have a brand-new car as opposed to a car that maybe isn't so great. And so new car companies start thinking about that. I think it's -- I think it's going to be a tremendous market. Please, would you like to say something?
Thank you, Mr. President. It's a great day for us at Stellantis today, because it's a day where we see CAFE regulation reconcile with real customer demand. That's why Stellantis, we decided to invest through Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler, $13 billion in the next four years, increasing production by 50 percent, delivering to the market five new vehicles and creating 5,000 additional jobs.
That's because we believe in what you, Secretary Duffy, and all your team is doing in this country. We believe in growth and we are ready to invest even more. So thank you very much. Thank you very much also for this great news of the K-cars which we are very interested in too, and we are really looking forward to work with Secretary Duffey, your team --
Yeah.
-- in the future for the next steps. Thank you very much.
Well, get ready for those cars.
We will.
Because we've already cleared the way. You can start right away.
We will. Thank you very much, Mr. President.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Please.
Mr. President, thank you so much for having me.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
We support your leadership for this issue that is so important to the auto industry. I'm here representing the hard-working men and women of Orion Assembly in Michigan.
Right.
The facility, our manufacturing facility there is currently going through a retool so that we can build additional US manufactured pickup trucks and full-size sport utilities for our customers. And we're so excited about that and thank you for your support. Secretary Duffy, thank you as well.
And this is largely coming in because of the tariff situation. We have -- we're taking in trillions of dollars, actually, trillions. And we have so many other advantages, but these great companies are coming back to the United States. They left the United States. If somebody was sitting behind this desk that knew what they were doing, that wouldn't have happened.
They would have said, well, you can sell your car here, but we're going to put 100 percent tariff and you would have never had the auto industry leave. Again, we lost more than 50 percent of our auto industry and now it's all coming back. And I think it's coming back -- ultimately, it's going to be bigger.
I believe it's going to be bigger than it was before, actually. But it's an honor to have you here. And please, would you like to say something?
Yes, sir.
Thank you very much.
Mr. President, Tom Castriota, sir. I'm the chairman of National Automobile Dealers and represent 18,000 dealers in the country, along with 3,000 heavy-duty truck dealers. And what -- the actions that you've done as the president and your administration is definitely going to save our customers money. And you made your promises that let the consumer buy what they want, sir, and you delivered on that.
And the other thing that that you delivered was your promise in the -- in the Big, Beautiful Bill, the tax deduction on loans, that had gone away some years back.
Right.
And now that makes it affordable for our buyers that can -- that can save money through that loan of the tax, anywhere from several hundred to several thousand. So again, sir, I -- on behalf of all the dealers and our customers, we appreciate what you and your administration have done and of course our legislative support as well, Mr. President.
Thank you.
Thank you. That's very nice. And I'm glad you brought that up. We're allowing people to deduct. So if you go out and buy a car. And this is for the middle income but for lower income, no matter what, they never really had deductions. You know, rich people like deductions, but middle-income people were never really afforded deductions, which is very unfair.
You borrow money to buy a car, you're allowed to deduct the interest from your income tax. And I think that's going to be one of the most -- in terms of your industry, I think it's going to be the biggest thing that we're talking about maybe even bigger than CAFE standards. People are going to be able to borrow money, deduct it. So it's going to cost them essentially half.
And they'll be Ð
It'll help. Yes, sir.
I think it's going to be a tremendous factor. They've never had a chance to do that before, and that's all done. That's all in the Great, Big, Beautiful Bill. So it's really terrific. I'd like to ask a couple of our political leaders to say -- because you guys have done an amazing job. This was something that was going to be very tough.
We had to fight lunatics to get it done and they had no answers. You know, it's -- you just present them with the facts and they just say, well, we're just not going to vote for it. They couldn't talk about it, but they didn't want to vote. I see Mike Kelley, my friend back there. He's been with me from day one, right?
Yep.
What do you have to say, Mike?
Well, you know what, I think you hit the key. Everybody's talking about the same thing. In America --
Look at the way they like each other. You can see, there's no hatred between these two guys.
No, as long as I beat his price, we're good friends. No, but you hit the nail on the head. The American people have always been able to choose what they want to buy.
Right.
They don't want to be taken out of a market by people who quite frankly don't even drive their own car and saying this is the way you've got to go going into the future and to say, well, you may say that, but you're not in the market, you have no idea. And I know the business we're in, at the end of the day, if you were there with me, I'd say, Mr. President, other than price, what's keeping you from taking the car home today?
It's always price. And the fact that we can build a car that's affordable that people want to buy, that's the key to it. What you've done is unlock the most ridiculous statute that ever came in with CAFE. It wasn't done by the Congress, it wasn't -- it was done by President Obama after the courts failed on it. So thank you for doing what you're doing.
You're making America great again in every single way. Thank you.
Thank you. It's going to be so big for the auto manufacturers. People aren't even going to believe the impact this has. You know, Mike used to come to my rallies all the time and we'd have a rally. It was like zero degrees. It was freezing, everyone -- and he'd sit there without a shirt on, and I didn't need that.
You know? I didn't say it was pretty, but he sit there in the cold and he didn't mind it at all. I said that's one tough cookie, right?
You lit it up. We didn't need any heat, you were.
There we had a good time. We had a lot of great rallies.
We did. We did, sir.
Pennsylvania. Please, Mr. Congressman.
Thank you, Mr. President, what I represent the dealer, I'm -- I'm a -- I'm a dealer and we got some other dealers in here, but this is huge for the dealer body, the local car dealer. We're going to be able to sell what the customer wants. The manufacturer is going to make what the customer wants. We've got all kinds of options to the big bill that's going to enable people as we talked about to deduct payments and so forth.
As we say in the business, they've never been cheaper than they are today, Mr. President. And it's going to be a great opportunity for the dealer body to sell what consumers want. And 99 percent of the businesses in America are small businesses. Many are car dealers, employ a lot of people. It's going to be a great year for us. We appreciate your leadership and we appreciate -- as a matter of fact, from a retail standpoint, we appreciate the manufacturers going to step up and build cars that customers want and that we want to sell.
So thank you very much and it makes it a great country.
Thank you. He's also a very brave Congressman because he was there on the baseball field that horrible day with Steve Scalise and some other people. He was hit, but he -- he took it very well. He took it very well. You're my pal.
Thank you.
Great job.
Appreciate you.
Great job. Appreciate it. Kevin, could you say a few words of wisdom?
Oh, sure.
One of the really smart economic forecasters, I will tell you, beyond an economist. He's a forecaster. Please.
Sir, I think that there's a massive macroeconomic benefit to what we're doing today. And the way to think about it is that the car that has the best gas mileage that you can buy that has only gasoline is a Honda, that gets about 36 miles per gallon. Joe Biden wanted to make every car on average be above 50. So there's no car made in the US that you would be able to sell two years from now, three years from now under that rule, because what he wanted to do was make everybody have an electric car, as you know.
But here's the thing, that if everybody had an electric car then nobody would be buying gasoline anymore and they'd have to take all the miles that they travel and put it on the grid. And so we would have to increase the production of electricity in the US by 25 percent over the next couple of years if they had their way.
And so you've really stopped a massive disruption for the economy with this. So thank you, sir.
And that wasn't the main reason and yet it certainly is a main reason. You wouldn't have been able to do it even if you wanted. It's just so crazy. That was the mandate which we ended. Troy, would you like to say something?
Great honor. Thank you. My family is a former dealer, 48 years, Chrysler, Dodge dealer, and then I got into the political world, sir. I had more fun in the dealership world, but I miss -- I miss it, but I still play a big role in automobiles and grateful. I remember under President Obama when the CAFE standards changed, as Mike brought up and going through those challenging times, as a Chrysler dealer before Stellantis came along, it was Daimler before you guys got it. So thank you very much for being here and -- and making these changes.
And as you said that interest on the car loan piece was big and I know that Bernie led the charge on that in the Senate and get it into One Big, Beautiful Bill. That really is a big deal and people need to understand how big a deal that is.
They did a great job. And by the way, we had a great victory last night. Yes, and Matt Van Epps is going to be great.
Like our race, huh?
He's going to be a great Congressman. I think so, really like us, right?
Yeah, like us.
That's one of my early endorsements, right.
Yes, sir.
Can we talk about it? Right here is a man coming in. Let me say hello to you. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership. But the thing I've admired most, you've been in business, you've been in the battles over the years and you're helping lead us out. Most people that are up here have no idea about business or small business; it makes a big difference. And one is -- number two is I would just say in terms of the tax stuff, we're talking about.
One of the things that get missed -- and I'm in Florida, Sarasota region -- is the ability to deduct. Most people have a small business, they'll have a long business, they'll have this, that, they buy a new or used truck, they can take that deduction -- let's say they're in a 20 percent tax bracket, but the vehicle is 60 grand, they can take 20 percent of the 60 grand, get a $12,000 write off, they can pay their payments for the first year.
That's a powerful tool we don't talk about. I don't know why, but at the end of the day, because of what you've put in place, full expensing, that's the tool that you would use. And you could just think about all the people in Florida, just general places. They're buying old vans or new vans. They're buying trucks, mainly trucks.
And they're getting a deduction. They don't even have a payment for a year.
That's right.
So, it's one of the best things for Florida --
One of the biggest things in the -- expensive.
Expensing is a powerful tool, they can write the whole asset off the first year, take that deduction, put $12,000 in their pocket on $20,000. Let me mention one other thing. They got into the e-vehicles, electric cars, and I'm talking to dealers and coming in and coming and talk to me. And basically, they couldn't sell one, they couldn't give one away.
And when these companies -- or they got in because of whatever political pressure under the Biden administration. And they end up realizing that they've got no market. The guy says the car's been sitting there a year, I can't get rid of it. So, they don't understand the market, the people who produce the vehicles, and that's made a big difference in your leadership.
But thanks for what you're doing here today. It's big, it's huge, it'll make a big difference. $12,000 on a $ 60,000 vehicle upfront day one. Thank you.
Thank you very much. You know, we're just talking about something that's interesting. Ford would make -- and I don't want to speak for Ford because we have one of the top people right here.
Mr. President, it's fine if you want to talk about Ford. [Laughter]
Ford would make numerous electric cars in order to sell one Ford-150, because they'd make all their money with the 150, and they were willing to lose money on building two or three electric cars that they couldn't sell in order to make some money on the 150, because the 150 is a monster, I'll tell you what.
No matter where you go, they love that Ford-150. But isn't it a ridiculous model when you have to build two or three cars that you know you're not going to be selling or not be selling for much, in order to really do something that you should have the right to do, which is make a car that you want to make, and that the market wants, right?
So, congratulations on the 150.
Thank you. Best-selling vehicle in the United States. Thank you. [Laughter] Now, it's 100 percent built in the United States.
Now it's only going to do no, but it really is -- it's amazing. It's an amazing brand.
There was a lot of -- there were a lot of stupid things done here.
What would you like to say?
Thank you, Mr. President and Secretary Duffy and all of us, one of the last times I was here is when you signed the electric vehicle CRA, Congressional Review Act, that all of us participated in -- the beginning of really making common sense because it was going to impact 17 other states and really a large part of our economy.
This is about affordability here. I'm just going to say one thing. Well, maybe I already said one thing. So now, I'm going to say two things. When we talk about car and auto, we sort of talk about just, oh, we need a car. Do you know what a car does for a family? You can take your children to school, you can go to the store, you can visit your mother, you can go to church, you can have a job.
You have the flexibility that you need. A car for an American family is about a roadway to prosperity. It's a big deal. And so, by making them more affordable, making them more choice driven by what families want and need, today is a great day for the American family. Absolutely. And the American worker.
Say?
Well, thank you, Mr. President and Secretary Duffy, and to my colleagues that are here. In Tennessee we make great automobiles, and we have a fantastic workforce. And whether you're GM or Ford with their new investment in Tennessee, or Nissan or VW or Toyota with the engine plant, what you see is the components that are necessary to build these cars.
And removing these standards and making cars more affordable does mean that more people will purchase them. But it also means we're going to have to make more cars to meet that demand. And for Tennessee that is a great thing.
So, you know, I'm just sitting here and I'm thinking like, we have the biggest auto manufacturers in the world, they're talking about investing billions -- and they're investing it as we speak -- but billions and billions of dollars in our country, thank you very much, and they're here. They're not like -- well, maybe we'll do it; they're doing it because of tariffs and they're doing it because maybe they like the president and we're doing things like this for them, which frankly, no matter who you are, this should be done.
And we're doing things like deductibility of interest; when you borrow money to buy a car, you're allowed to deduct it from your income tax. That is a massive tax cut for people that probably are going to be trying to buy that car anyway. And I really think that that interest factor is going to be one of the biggest things.
When I -- I was proud of that because I thought of it and it seemed so simple. Other people are allowed big interest. If you're a rich person, you're allowed to have big interest deductions for different things you do. But if you're a middle-income person, has to buy a car, you were never entitled to anything, and now you're getting a full interest deduction on the loan.
And I think that's going to have one of the biggest impacts. But we're here with companies that are investing tens of billions of dollars in our country as we speak. It's not going to be in two years or three years. A lot of it's because of the expensing provision in the bill, in the Big, Beautiful Bill, but a miracle is happening in our country.
It's a miracle. This is just the auto industry, but we have other industries where it's the same thing. They're building all over our country and something -- this is -- a revolution is happening. It's a business revolution; it's a jobs revolution; it's a car revolution. We're bringing back the car industry that was stolen from us because we had people that didn't know what they were doing sitting at this desk, and they put the wrong people in because they weren't advised properly.
And this is really an incredible thing that's happening. Go ahead.
Well, thank you, Mr. President. And I think in many respects pretty much everything that could be said has been except that I think what Kevin talks about in terms of the cascading economic opportunity from this one single event is just the tip of the iceberg. When you think of all the rules and regulations that you have repealed, I think it's more important frankly than the tax cuts.
However, in the Working Family Tax Cuts Act, remember we made permanent a lot of really good policy from the first Trump era, not the least of which for small businesses is bonus depreciation. The opportunity to depreciate the year that you purchase an F-150 for your small business or a large truck for your farm.
I just think we're going to roll into 2026 and we're going to see an escalation of economic opportunity, the likes of which I probably have never seen.
I think nobody's ever seen it. Nobody in the world because there's never been 18 or whatever it ends up being. In 10 months, we have $18 trillion being invested. We never had $1 trillion being invested. And Biden had much less than that. Think of it -- he had less than $1 trillion over four years. We have $18 trillion in 10 months.
And it's actually as of nine months, so there's never been anything. Eric, what would you like to say?
Mr. President, thank you and on behalf of the people of the great state of Missouri, who we actually make things from F-15s to F-47s now, thanks to you we'll be building the F-47, and then F-150s. And those are real jobs, and we make things in Missouri. This is going to go a long way, I think, for making things more affordable for normal people.
Nothing could be more American than driving a car on a highway, and this is going to make that more accessible for more people. So, thanks for your leadership.
Your state's doing a great job.
They love you too.
It's a great place. Thank you. Please.
Thank you, Mr. President. I'm going to talk to you just a minute from a rural perspective, because these Cafe standards were absolutely unworkable in rural Missouri. We need vehicles that are practical and affordable and can haul for our small businesses, for agriculture. And it just simply didn't work. Those Cafe standards didn't work.
So, I applaud you and Secretary Duffy for your hard work and what you're doing on behalf of rural America.
Well, it was keeping a lot of manufacturers out of our country too. They said we're not going -- are you crazy? They thought -- outside manufacturers thought we were absolutely insane with all of the different things. Just made up nonsense. It was like made up. It was really made up by people that hate our country.
I really believe. Does anybody else have anything to say?
I'd say about two -- two quick things, Mr. President.
Oh, yeah. Bernie, I didn't see you.
Two quick things I think are really important. So the person who sat behind this desk before you gave $7,500 in subsidies to multimillionaires who are leasing electric Rolls-Royces, electric Porsches, electric Lamborghinis. We're getting $7,500 from that taxpayer. And these Democrats sit on this floor and say that Republicans are for millionaires and billionaires.
We are the opposite of giving $7,500 to multibillionaires to at least foreign electric vehicles. Number two, because of your policies at the beginning of the year, 51 percent of the cars made -- that were sold in America were made in America, 51 percent before you got sworn in. Last month, that number was 57 percent.
We moved it six points, which nobody thought would be possible in four years. We did it in 10 months. That's something that maybe the news should cover a little bit more. And we've driven down the price of automobiles. The car prices for consumers are down before you did this.
Just about everything is down. You know, this whole thing is, they use the word affordability. It's a Democrat hoax. They're the ones that drove the prices up. And all they do is say, affordability and you're supposed to say, oh, that means they had low prices. No, we inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country.
They say 48 years, but let's say that's history. I don't believe that. Biden had, because of his stupid ways and his -- between his energy policies and his spending policies, we had the worst inflation in the history of our country and now our prices are coming down and they're coming down for cars and they're coming down -- I mean, did you hear yesterday when Chris Wright from energy, the head of energy in our country, said there are now parts of our country, its parts, it's all happening, $1.99 for gasoline a gallon.
And we have it at $2.50, $2.60. It was at $5. And that's bigger than any tax cut we could give, you know, for the average family. That's considered bigger than any tax cut. So the word affordability, when they mention it -- you ever watch him? It's all about -- I saw the young lady that lost last night. She lost by a lot more than they thought.
And we have a great new candidate in the -- in the -- in Congress, really great, Matt Van Epps. But I saw last night, she said it's all about affordability, all about -- They never talk about like the specifics. Everything was through the roof. Eggs, when I took over eggs were four times higher than they ever were.
We got the prices down to the lowest level. I mean, amazing, but they never -- you got to watch. They're Ð they're great con people. It's like the Inflation Reduction Act and after they got it approved, because everybody said inflation reduction, they admitted it had nothing to do with reducing inflation.
It's a con job. I think affordability is the greatest con job. They look at you and they say, affordability. They don't say anything else. Everyone says, oh, their prices were so low. No, they had the worst inflation. We had the highest prices we ever had and now they're all coming down, including beef is coming down.
Beef was up there a little bit. Our ranchers did well, but we got to make them do a little bit less well perhaps, but the beef is now coming down. Coffee is now coming down. It's all coming down and it's a beautiful thing to see. But remember this, when they use the word affordability, they just say -- they never say anything else.
This election is about affordability, and then they go on to the next subject. It's a con job. They caused the highest prices in the history of our country, the worst inflation in the history of our country. And we're getting those prices down and they're coming down rapidly. And you'll see those results very soon.
Anybody else want to say a few words? Oh, Ted. Ted, I -- it's unbelievable.
I'm easy to miss.
I didn't see -- it's very rare that I would miss you. Go ahead, please.
Well, Mr. President, I want to congratulate you on behalf of everyone here, for the leadership that you're showing. And -- and this is a victory today for consumers. This is a victory for affordability. Your critics like to say the word affordability. Under Joe Biden and the Democrats, they put mandate after mandate after mandate on cars and trucks and they drove the price up thousands and thousands of dollars.
And with the actions you're taking today and you put on top of that, the One Big, Beautiful Bill, you know, most of the Senators here on the Senate Commerce Committee and on the Commerce Committee, we worked together to zero out the CAFE standards. We wrote that into the law that the CAFE standards went to zero.
What does that mean? It means you can now as a consumer buy the car you want, it also means people's lives will be safer. Because what these regulations did is they forced cars to be more expensive and made of plastic instead of steel, because you had to make them lighter to comply with these standards. So you'd get in a wreck and people would die.
That's crazy.
The result of what you're doing, you're literally saving people's lives and you're making it where families can afford to get a new car. These actions will drop the cost of cars and trucks, thousands of dollars. That makes a real difference. And I'll make one final point. You know, about half the members here are car dealers and I will say my good friend, Roger Williams, out in the lobby, he tried to sell me a car.
Which didn't surprise me, but I just -- just want to give props to Mike Kelly. He showed he was savvier because he tried to sell you a car and you could afford a much nicer car than I can. So well done, Mike. Roger, you just went to the wrong customer.
That was $100 cheaper [Inaudible]
The thing that Ted just said it's true, plastic instead of steel. Think of that. And people died because of that. The plastic was plastic in an auto accident and it broke up and people were shattered because of that crazy deal. But that's a really good point. Go ahead.
And Mr. President, I'll tell you, the Senate Commerce Committee on January 14th, we're going to have a hearing with all of the big three there and Tesla. And the entire hearing is going to focus on how your leadership has reduced the burdens on carmakers that's lowering costs, that's giving consumers more choices and it's producing more jobs in America.
And it's highlighted that's a real record of success.
Yeah, well, we're really -- it's an honor and you know, they were going by California, we had like two different countries, California and 15 that followed California because you had 15 states follow California and the rules from California were just like everything else. That's why people are leaving. That's why it's -- it's such a mess.
It's got such -- there's a state with such unbelievable potential, but what they did with the car industry is incredible and that was -- you know, the car companies didn't know what to do because they had two standards and you can't build two different cars for the same country. And what we're doing today is very big.
Would anybody like to say something? Would you like to say something, my friend?
I just want to say thank you.
Thank you.
Brian. Hold it. Brian.
Mr. President, thank you. Once again --
And we love you, Brian.
Oh, I love you too, Mr. President.
OK. He's a good -- he's a good man.
Well, I appreciate that. I've always said you've tackled three -- the three M's, mortgage, munchkins and marriage. You've solidified all of those. I'll add motor vehicles to that now. My question I got, one about consumer confidence. We just came off one of the record high Black Friday, up 9.1%.
Record high, highest ever, biggest amount ever purchased in one day. Yeah.
Which I think counters this narrative of affordability because apparently the Americans are spending money. So I want to see how do you view that for a consumer confidence being so high going into Christmas and going into next year? And I do have one for the auto group after you [Inaudible] that.
Yeah, I just think that we do, we have tremendous confidence in the country. You know, one of the things in terms of confidence, when -- if you go back a year and a half, you know, it's amazing we're like into 10 months already. But you go back a little bit before the election, because after November 5th it started changing rapidly, even though we weren't running it until January 20th. But when -- when you look back and you look at the enlistment of soldiers, people that wanted to join the military, the Army, Navy, the Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, it's like booming.
It's all -- Space Force. But we had -- we had a very, very -- we had the worst recruitment in the history of our country. A year later, we have the greatest recruitment in the history -- You can't even get in. Getting in is like getting into a top college that you couldn't get in. People want to be in the service now and that includes the police and firemen and other things.
You couldn't hire police, you couldn't hire anybody in the Army or the Navy. You couldn't get people in and we now have gone from that to record recruitment. We're getting -- and we're getting high quality people, amazing people wanting to be in the military. They have spirit now. You know, call it what you want, but that's part of it. But they have great spirit now.
It's a great thing. Go ahead, ask your second question.
OK. My second question, I've got a lot of close family friends that are in the automotive business, own dealerships all across Southern California. They sent me a question to ask you. There's a thing called a mileage blocker that -- that is installed on vehicles. It's a type of a computer chip which alters the actual mileage driven on the vehicle so that when you have a leased vehicle that's turned in, they're losing thousands of dollars.
They've got to go chase down these manufacturers. What can we do to track down these manufacturers of this illegal computer chip that's really hurting the automotive industry?
Have you heard about this?
Yes, sir. They're getting built in China and most of them are coming out of Great Britain, sir. They're being distributed through China through distributors selling them online through Great Britain. Yes, sir.
Wow. That's so good, what do you think?
Oh, look at that. Yeah, that's good.
Bernie, do you know anything about that?
It works on older vehicles and, obviously, we've got to do a better job --
[Crosstalk]
This is something -- I've never heard of it. Very good, I appreciate it. We never heard of it. That's pretty good.
Mr. President, you released video of that first boat strike on September 2nd, but not the second video. Will you release video of that strike so that the American people can see for themselves what happened?
I don't know what they have, but whatever they have we'd certainly release, no problem. You know, we stopped -- every boat we knock out, we save 25,000 American lives. And if you look at our numbers, the drugs coming in through sea are down 91 percent. I'm surprised it was 9 percent you want to know. I don't know who's doing the 9 percent, but it's down 91. And we're going to start very soon on land and I'm sure you're thrilled to hear that.
On Ukraine, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were there last night with Vladimir Putin. Can you give us an update about those talks? It sounds from what the Kremlin is saying that they're not going to compromise. Can you tell us what you've --
I don't know what the Kremlin is doing. I can tell you that they had a reasonably good meeting with President Putin. We're going to find out. It's a war that should have never been started. It's a war if I were president -- we had a rigged election. If I were president that war would have never happened.
It's a terrible thing. But I thought they had a very good meeting yesterday with President Putin. We'll see what happens. You know, when I was in this office and I talked about no cards, I said you have no cards. That was the time to settle. I thought that would have been a much better time to settle. But they, in their wisdom, decided not to do that.
They have a lot of things against them right now. But you have -- President Putin had a very good meeting yesterday with Jared Kushner and with Steve Witkoff. What comes out of that meeting I can't tell you because it does take two to tango. You know, Ukraine -- I think we have something pretty well worked out with them.
They're very satisfied considering. But the sad part is if I were president, no war would have ever happened. They would have had 100 percent of their territory. Nothing would have happened. It's a very sad situation. So, think of this -- last month, 27,000 soldiers, 27,000 -- that's like you take a stadium, a football stadium, not an arena and you cut it in half.
27,000 people died, young -- mostly young soldiers died last month in one month and that's the only reason I'm involved. You know, we're not spending any money in the war, we're selling to NATO. We're not being ripped off like we were under Biden. Biden was handing everybody everything we had, giving us -- giving them all the missiles, everything they wanted free, no charge.
He had no idea what he was doing. They're paying top dollar, full price for everything, goes to NATO and then NATO distributes it, NATO pays us. So, we're not -- it's not money. We would all -- I think I can speak for everyone behind here. The politicians I know and the auto manufacturers are good people, they don't want to see 27,000 people die for no reason whatsoever.
And that's the only reason I'm trying to help. Yeah, please.
Mr. President, switching to Venezuela for a second, have you checked back with President Maduro? I mean is your pressure campaign working? And do you think -- has he responded today?
You tell me, is it working? It's not a pressure campaign, it's much beyond that, I think. But I spoke to him briefly, just told him a couple of things. We'll see what happens with that. Venezuela sends us drugs, but Venezuela sends us people that they shouldn't be sending. They sent us -- they emptied their prisons into our country.
They sent us killers, murderers. They sent us drug dealers at the highest level. They sent us gang members. They sent us people from their mental institutions. They emptied their mental institutions into our country and so did other countries, because we had stupid people running this country, really stupid people.
And I think probably you had some stupid ones and yet some smart ones, but they were bad people too, because nobody -- not all of them were stupid. You can't cheat on elections like they did and be stupid.
[Crosstalk]
Did you talk to him a second time or just that one time?
What's that?
To Maduro, did you speak to him again?
No, I didn't.
Mr. President, if you do find -- When you spoke with Mr. Witkoff and with Mr. Kushner --
Last night.
Last night, did they give you the sense that President Putin still wants to end the war, still wants to make peace?
He would like to end the war. That's what they -- that was their impression. Now, whether or not -- that was their impression. You know, their impression was that he would like to see the war ended. I think he'd like to get back to a more normal life. I think he'd like to be trading with the United States of America, frankly, instead of losing thousands of soldiers a week.
But their impression was very strongly that he'd like to make a deal. We'll see what happens.
Mr. President, the boat strike, if it is found that survivors were actually killed while clinging on to that boat, should Secretary Hegseth, Admiral Bradley or others be punished?
I think you're going to find that this is war, that these people were killing our people by the millions actually, if you look over a few years. I think last year we lost close to 300,000 people were killed. That's not mentioning all the families. Have you seen what happens with the families of not only the people killed, the people that are trying to get their son or their daughter off of this poison that they've been fed?
I think you're going to find that there's a very receptive ear to doing exactly what they're doing, taking out those boats. And very soon we're going to start doing it on land too, because we know every route, we know every house, we know where they manufacture this crap, we know where they put it all together.
And I think you're going to see it very soon on land also. Yeah, please.
So, to be clear, you support the decision to kill survivors after the --
[Crosstalk]
No, I support the decision to knock out the boats. And whoever is piloting those boats, most of them are gone. But whoever are piloting those boats, they're guilty of trying to kill people in our country. Yeah, please.
The House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Jack Smith to ask about his investigation of you. I wondered -- for a deposition. I wondered if you'd prefer to see that as a hearing so that the American public can see the questions and the responses more easily.
I'd rather see it probably at a hearing. Look, Jack Smith is a thug. He's a failed prosecutor. He's a bad man. He's a bad -- he's an evil man. He hurt a lot of people. Forget about me. You know, I do this stuff, but I got indicted many times by a guy that they were dismissed. He's a bad guy. He's a sick man.
There's something wrong with him actually. I think Jack Smith is a sick man. There's something really wrong with him. I'd rather see him testify publicly because there's no way he can answer the questions. But Biden knew this was going along. Kamala knew it was going along and there's a lot of things happening right now that they don't like.
One of the things is the autopen. Everything he signed, almost, with the exception of the pardon of his wonderful son, Hunter, just about everything he signed was not signed by him. He had no knowledge of it. He didn't know what it was. People sitting around the beautiful Resolute desk knew exactly what it was.
And those people are guilty, in my opinion, of a major crime. Everything that was signed by that autopen he -- the man operating the Autopen, and I'm sure there are more than one because I think some of the people can operate it themselves, some of the high-level people operate it themselves. They would just go in and sign his name with an autopen onto very important documents.
Not only pardons but policy, maybe Cafe standards, OK, as an example. Who signed Café? If you asked Biden, what's a Cafe standard, he would have absolutely no idea. He'd say where is the cafe located. The guy didn't know anything. Look, that just shows you what a rigged election can be, but you understand what I'm saying.
Thank you.
Nvidia. You've had conversations with --
I did with Jensen. Smart man.
Right. In your conversations with him, have you kind of given a sense of where you are with export controls and the types of chips that Nvidia can give to China?
He knows, he knows very well. He's a -- he's done an amazing job. Nvidia, very good. Yeah.
Mr. President, when do you expect for phase two of the Gaza peace plan to be implemented and --
Well, it's going along well. You know, they had a problem today, I understand, with a bomb that went off and hurt some people pretty badly, probably killed some people they're telling me it just happened, but it's going on. We have peace in the Middle East; people don't realize it. We have tremendous support.
59 countries there's tremendous support. But we'll -- phase two is moving along, yeah, it's going to happen pretty soon.
Mr. President, did you speak with House Republican leadership about your decision to pardon Congressman Henry Cuellar? And are you concerned that you made a vulnerable Democrat perhaps less vulnerable with that decision?
It didn't matter. He's a respected person. He was treated very badly because he said that people should not be allowed to pour into our country, and he was right. He didn't like open borders. He didn't -- he was on the border. You know, he represents a very respected man. He represents the people on the border, and he saw what was happening.
And as soon as he made that statement, I then said I'll bet he gets indicted, and that's what happened. You know, I put out my Truth from that -- I did a Truth, wonderful Truth. We love Truth. But what happened is he got indicted for speaking the truth and his wife got indicted, Imelda. And that's sort of a first.
Usually, they leave the wives alone, right? Don't they, Congressmen?
Yeah.
Typically, they indict somebody, put them in jail for the rest of his life, but the wife can just sit home and cry or she'll find a new man. You know? A lot of times they find a new man, makes them much happier. In fact, a lot of times they like that man better than the one that's in jail. Go ahead.
Mr. President, thank you. The mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, is saying that he's actually proud to have the largest Somali community in the country. And his police chief is --
Well then he's a fool.
Well, his police chief is also saying --
I wouldn't be proud to have the largest Somalian -- look at their nation. Look how bad their nation is. It's not even a nation, it's just a people walking around killing each other. Look, these Somalians have taken billions of dollars out of our country. They've taken billions and billions of dollars. They have a Representative, Ilhan Omar, who they say married her brother.
It's a fraud. She tries to deny it now, but you can't really deny it because, you know, just happened. She shouldn't be allowed to be a Congresswoman. And I'm sure people are looking at that and she should be thrown the hell out of our country. And most of those people -- they have destroyed Minnesota. OK? Minnesota, you have an incompetent governor.
You have a crooked governor. He's crooked as hell, but he's incompetent. Waltz's -- he should be ashamed, that beautiful land, that beautiful state, it's a hellhole right now. And the Somalians should be out of here. They've destroyed our country. And all they do is complain, complain, complain. You have her.
She's always talking about the Constitution provides me with -- uh, go back to your own country and figure out your constitution. All she does is complain about this country, and without this country she would not be in very good shape. She probably wouldn't be alive right now. So Somalia is considered by many to be the worst country on earth.
I don't know. I haven't been there. I won't be there any time soon, I hope. But what Somalia and what the Somalian people have done to Minnesota is not even believable. It's not even believable. And a lot of it starts with the governor. A lot of it starts with Barack Hussein Obama, because that's when people started coming in. And you have to have people come in that are going to love our country, cherish our country.
They want to kiss our country good night. They talk about our country. We want them to pray for our country. This is not the people living in Minnesota. And she's a disaster. She should not be -- and her friend shouldn't be allowed -- frankly, they shouldn't even be allowed to be Congress people, OK? They shouldn't even be allowed to be Congress people because they don't represent the interests of our country.
Anybody else?
Mr. President, you -- on Somali immigrants -- The automakers spent billions on meeting the Biden EV rules. Should they be able to recoup that somehow given the change? And there's a question about --
No. I'm not letting them recoup. They're going to do just fine. You know how they recoup? From this point forward, they'll do very well.
Can you also talk about USMCA and what you're thinking about renegotiating that with the automakers?
Well, we're -- you know, that's just an ongoing thing. It expires in about a year and we'll either let it expire or we'll maybe work out another deal with Mexico and Canada. But look, Mexico and Canada have taken advantage of the United States, like just about every other country in all fairness. It's not them.
I'm not blaming them. But every country -- because we had stupid people running our country. We had a lot of stupid people running. That's why we have $38 trillion in debt. But the beautiful thing about the tariffs is we'll start paying off that debt. The money coming in -- they're finding money in our country now that they never knew existed.
The other day $30 billion, where did it come from? I said, why don't you check the tariff shelf. They said, sir, that tariff hasn't started yet. It doesn't start till January. I said no, it started two months ago. They called back, sir, you're right. It was from tariffs. No, we have a whole different country.
I hope the Supreme Court -- I pray that the Supreme Court understands the importance of the sensible -- really, I mean this would be country threatening if something happened with regard to that. You know, the people that brought that case are bad people. They're very bad people. They hate our country. They represent foreign countries, including China, but they represent -- and China is paying us a lot of money now in tariffs.
But they represent people that really don't like our country much. And I know some of them and they're scum. In my opinion, they're scum. They're absolute scum. And they're not suing for any good reason. They're just suing to see if they can stop it because they make money if this country does badly. You know?
So, but we're taking in trillions of dollars. We're stopping wars. We have great national security because of tariffs. And then to think that we have to even go and justify this, the reason a lot of these people -- I can tell you this, maybe we would have had the political people. We wouldn't have these people without tariffs.
The people that are up here from Stellantis and Ford and General Motors, great companies, including this gentleman right -- they wouldn't be here today if we didn't have tariffs. They'd be building their plants in Mexico and other places. They're leaving Mexico and they're leaving Canada. They're leaving because they ripped off our country.
They took our businesses away from us and now because of tariffs, they're all coming back. So it's a great thing. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you very much.