Press Gaggle: Donald Trump Speaks to Reporters at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool - May 7, 2026

Hello everybody. Hey!

[Inaudible]

Good to see you. Making progress, huh?

[Inaudible]

We're doing a job on the reflecting pond. It's really beautiful, and it's going to be fantastic. Hundreds of millions of dollars it's been spent over the years foolishly. Hello. Foolishly and uh, we're doing a job that nobody's ever seen anything like it. It was a good idea we came up with and we're doing a sealer, and then some very intricate work with modern materials and it's going to look better than it did in 1922 when it was built.

It was built in 1922, and it had granite pavers. It was granite various materials on top. Uh, the size is very, it's almost, Uh, I guess it's over 200 feet, 2,400 feet long. That's taller than any building in the world if you lay it on its side and very big. Uh, the surface was bad. The leaking was bad. These workers are the most fantastic people.

You know Doug Burgum, he's in charge of it. He's the head of interior and done a great job, and I was getting complaints from people saying that it wasn't good. This is a number of months ago, and I called Doug and he agreed. They spent a fortune. President Obama spent 38 million dollars, closed it for 2 1/2 years.

It was a construction nightmare, construction mess. When they opened it, it didn't work and it leaked. It was a disaster. And, Uh, but I know how to build and we worked with Doug and, and interior and parks. And these guys have been fantastic. So, we're putting a beautiful surface on. It's called the coloring.

Is, it's like a swimming pool but industrial strength, much stronger. Uh, and I think you're going to see something that's amazing. Very interesting is we took all of the, they took 12 garbage trucks full of garbage that was under the water that people didn't see, but they knew it was there. It was a real mess.

And uh, you're going to have basically industrial strength. Uh, it's going to last, I would say 50 years. It'll last, it's going to last a long time and you'll have no leak, guaranteed no leak and it's going to be something very special and it's going to be a beautiful color. The problem, the color was never good because basically it had a gray stone underneath, whether it was the concrete or the granite.

It was a gray stone. And now, we actually picked the color, it's called American flag blue, and so, you can't do better than that. And, uh, so, we had estimates to fix it of about $355 million and it was going to take 3 1/2 years, you can see by the size of it. And so we're going to be able to do it for about a million 8, 1.8 million, and it's going to take one week and we'll be finished I guess, uh, I'm going to give them a little more time.

Let's give it two weeks, but, uh, we're pretty, a lot of the hard work is done. The beautiful work is now, The application is really the fun.

Yes, sir.

Uh, the sidewalk surfaces, they're fixing that too. They're having it repointed, refixed. It's going to be like actually much better than new. It's much more beautiful than it was new because it, it never had the color people wanted, but now, it's going to have the great color. So, it's going to be good.

It's going to last many, many years and it's going to have no leaks, gonna have no problems, gonna be clean and beautiful, and I want to thank Doug Burgum, the job he's done and we're working on some other jobs that are great. We're look- -- working on a, you know, the back terrace of the Lincoln Memorial That was supposed to be the main entrance, but they built two roadways behind it, so nobody ever, it never had access to the Potomac and we're working on that.

We have a beautiful plan for that, the Lincoln Memorial, and we have other things. Also, I guess you want to talk about what you're most proud of is under- -- underneath the Lincoln Memorial. Do you want to discuss that?

Well, underneath the Lincoln Memorial it's built on essentially, uh, arches or stilts like a cathedral. So, there's an undercroft 80 feet high that's only been filled with, with junk and graffiti from back when it was built in 1922. Uh, this summer there's been a long vision, but with President Trump's leadership and support of, uh, donors, they're opening a undercrop museum, which will tell a great story, hold great documents coming as part of the 250th anniversary.

So, 15,000 of the 50,000, there's a 50,000-foot cavern underneath the Lincoln, 15,000 will be opening as a new museum on June 23rd of this year as part of, uh, Freedom 250. And again, uh, we- -- we've never had a president like President Trump who's cared more, invested more or put more time and attention into everything about them all.

When he drives around, if he sees something, he calls us, we call the amazing National Park Service. They're on it. They fix it up. That's why we're fixing over 19 fountains around the city. Uh, that's why we've eliminated over 1,000 graffiti sites. Uh, under President Trump's leadership, we've taken care of 82 homeless camps that were in the city when he was elected, making DC safe and beautiful.

Crime is down, beauty is up, all because of President Trump's leadership.

So very big, uh, thank you, Doctor. Great job. Your people are fantastic. The, the whole Department of Interior, the parks has been amazing, and the police.

Yes.

The police have been incredible. You know, we have a very safe city now. We didn't have a safe city. When I first took second term, it was a disaster what happened. And we now have a very safe city. People walk around, they love it. Uh, frankly, doing this would be no good if we didn't have a safe city, but the crime, I think it's down about 88%, something like that.

And Memphis too, and uh, if you go to, down to uh, New Orleans uh, we uh, spent I guess we're in the fourth month, fifth month and we have it down about 78% it's going down to 90%. Memphis is way down. But DC, I don't know, it's like, it's the capital and we had a very, very terrible crime right here. And it's down now, we're going to have it down.

I think we'll get it above uh, 92% down. We took 5,000 career criminals, uh, people that were really, really bad. They came through the open border, I'm sure you guys love open borders, I don't think so. But they came through on the open borders, they came out of prisons and mental institutions and they came all over the place and it is horrible what happened.

And they allowed this to happen to our country. But we got them out and uh, we had 11,888 murderers allowed into our country. We got them out. We got many of them out. We're looking for quite a few, but we got many of them out and the crime rate is uh, as you know, the murder rate in the country is down to the lowest it's ever, it's down to in 1900, 125 years, lowest in recorded history and uh, that's good.

So we're very happy about that. And that goes hand in hand with fixing things up. So as Doug said, I heard 19 or a lot of founders, about 19 maybe more than that. Uh, Lafayette Park is beautiful. I made that contribution. It's pretty significant contribution and Lafayette Park is being rebuilt. Uh, we have uh, tremendous amounts of things going on around Lincoln.

I think to me the most exciting of all is going to be the triumphal arc. We're going to build one of the most beautiful arcs in the world. If you look at Paris and Paris, they have the Arc de Triumph as uh, their number one tourist attraction, even more so than the Eiffel Tower and we're going to have one that's uh, more grand, even more grand because that's one of my, I, I would say that's the best right now.

There are 59 triumphal arcs throughout the world and uh, this will be number 60 and many of them are very old. Some are six, 700 years old and they represented triumph, usually a, a victory, a military victory uh, but we are going to have one that's going to be I think superior to anybody else's. It's going to be a little bit larger and uh, I think a lot more beautiful.

So, and that's going to start I would say very soon. It's uh, uh, it was supposed to be built, you know, the circle by the bridge, by the uh, by the river. It's going to be, I think it's going to be something that will be so special. It's been there for, It's been there like that. It used to be a dirt pan and it wasn't built because of the Civil War. Civil War got in the way.

The Eagles are up, they were built later, but the Eagles are up, but they haven't been, it hasn't been built. And people a lot of times they'll be going over the, uh, river, the bridge and they'll be saying, "Why isn't this built?" And they've been saying that for way over a hundred years. So, uh, you're going to have something built there.

So we're really fixing up Washington DC on a bigger front, even bigger front worldwide. Our military is unbelievable. They're doing an unbelievable job. Uh, we're negotiating with the Iranians. We have, uh, you probably heard we took our three destroyers and we rammed them through some pretty big stuff today and we knocked the hell out of them.

The destroyers weren't hurt in any way. We, the people weren't hurt, but they were firing at us and we were firing back at them and our fire power was a hell of a lot stronger than theirs and they knocked the hell out of them. Uh, they took down a lot of small boats, you know, we call them small boats or fast boats.

Uh, they're both small and they're fast with some weaponry on the front, you know, this is what, So they, This is now replacing the Navy. They had a Navy 159 boats, they have none, okay? They're all at the bottom of the sea so they replace that with what they call the fast boat. It's a fast boat, big deal.

It's fast. It's got a machine gun on front. Uh, they've been knocked down, they knocked out quite a few of them today. Uh, yesterday they knocked out eight. The average eight a day. This is some group of people we're dealing with. So, uh, you know, it's very simple. Somebody said, "What's your plan?" I said, "The plan is very simple.

Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. It cannot have a nuclear bomb and it's not going to have." And, uh, they're, uh, really at the end of the line and really are at the end of the line. Now, unless you guys feel differently. Now these guys I think will say that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, would you say?

We wouldn't feel very good if they did because this, what you're doing and all the work that you do and that we do, it wouldn't look too very good after a while with these characters. We're not going to give them the right to have a nuclear weapon. There's zero chance. And they know that and they've agreed to that.

Let's see if they are willing to sign it. So do you have any questions, please?

Mr. President, can you talk about your meeting with President Lula earlier? Was there anything agreed on --

Yeah, we'll talk about it, but, you know, you have some of these construction workers that I love. I love because they all voted for me. I would say 100% or 99. I think --

100%.

I think about 100.

Yes, sir.

Uh, can we get those guys over here so they're not standing? We're on, There they are. I saw you over there. There's no way I'm leaving you out there, fellas. So who didn't vote for Trump? Anybody?

[Laughs]

Huh? Thank you.

[Laughs] We're from Oklahoma.

I would say that's right.

We're from Oklahoma.

We, we love you guys.

Oh, really?

We just said --

Thank you.

-- you agree?

I don't know.

Iran cannot have --

Yes, sir.

I love that guy.

[Laughs]

Did you know they're from Oklahoma?

Are you from Oklahoma?

Yes, sir.

So Trump won Oklahoma, 77 counting.

Yes, sir.

I won all 77, right?

Yeah.

I won it in a landslide, like the election. But you know whose second was? Ronald Reagan was at 56, I was at 77. And by the way, you have a very good basketball team.

Yes, sir. [Laughs]

I was watching the other night. I may try and come to one of those games. I like your basketball team.

[Laughs]

These guys are fantastic. So they're doing a job, they're working hard. And anybody, Does anybody think Iran should have a nuclear weapon so they can blow you up? [Audience responds "No"]

It's a very important thing that we're doing, right?

Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

And oil is coming down and the stock market today just hit an all time high. You know, I was reading about doom and gloom. We had to do, we had to do what we did. We took a little U-turn. We just hit the highest number in the history of our country with the stock market. And I said to my people, "We're going to have to take a little U-turn and go to the lovely country of Iran and blow them up a little bit because they're not going to have a nuclear weapons."

[Laughs]

And they're not. We're not going to ruin you. These guys work so hard to make things beautiful. We're not going to let a nuclear weapon ruin it. So thank you, guys. Are you also from Oklahoma?

Yes, sir.

How did that work out?

He --

They, they wanted super quality, right?

That's right. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

We breed quality. Oklahoma breeds quality,

We love it. He's doing a good job, Markwayne. You know, Markwayne could have been a senator for the rest of his life. Maybe he could have been president. Who the hell knows?

[Laughs]

I don't recommend it.

[Laughs]

But wa- -- he was your senator and he wanted to do this. He wanted to work with a man named Tom Homan, who I'm sure you never heard of.

Oh, we've heard of him. Oh, we know him.

So Tom, how good a president is Trump?

The best president of my lifetime.

[Laughs] Yes, sir.

I got a question.

[Inaudible]

I got a question. Are y'all legal?

[Laughs] Yes, sir. Yes.

Right. Okay. Good.

Actually, from Oklahoma, the answer's probably yes.

Indian side. [Laughs] Yes, sir. I talked to y'all. [Laughs] There you are.

So are you here pretty much until this gets finished?

Yes, sir. Absolutely.

Are you with the company, with the contract?

I'm with those two men behind you. Yes, sir.

That's good. That's good. You got a good look at crew back there, fellas, huh?

Yep. Thank you, thank you, sir. Mr. President, you are here against the backdrop of the war in Iran.

Yeah.

Uh, why focus on all these projects right now when [Inaudible] to the war?

You know why? 'Cause I want to keep our country beautiful and sane. Beautiful also.

Thank you.

Place was a disgusting place. It was Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and we had a, a pe- -- a terrible disg- -- I don't know, you, you probably don't see dirt, but I do. And you walk down this, this pond, if you would have walked down, they'll tell you better than anybody. They had to take 11 or 12 truckloads of garbage out of that lake, out of that water.

And it sat there for years like that. And that's not what our country's about. Our country is about beauty, cleanliness, safety, great people, not a filthy capital.

What is the status --

It's such a, a stupid question that you asked. You're, we're fixing up the reflecting pond to the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and you say, "Why are you fixing it up?" Because you can understand dirt maybe better than I can, but I don't allow it. This is one of the worst reporters. Uh, she's with ABC Fake News and she's a horror show.

She's saying, "Why would you bother fixing this up?" Why would I bother taking 11 or 12 truckloads of filth out of the water in front of the Lincoln Monument? That's what made our country great. Beauty made our country, people made our country great. A question like that is a disgrace to our country. Any other questions?

Mr. President, Mr. President, I'm also with ABC News.

Fake news.

Can I ask you about the Hantavirus? Have you been briefed on the virus?

Yes, I have.

Can you tell us what you learn in these briefings? Should Americans --

Well, I think you're going to be told everything and you already have. Uh, it's very much we hope under control. It was the ship and I think we're going to make a full report about it tomorrow. We have a lot of people, it's a lot of great people are studying it. It should be fine. We hope.

Americans, should Americans be concerned that it's going to spread? And how are you hoping --

I hope not.

-- to get those people home?

I mean, I hope not. We'll do the best we can, yeah.

To get the A- -- Americans that are on the ship home?

Go ahead.

Mr. President, detail you're meeting with President Lula today. Was there anything agreed on between the two of you?

No, we had a great meeting with the president of Brazil. Uh, we are doing a lot of trading and we're going to do some increased trading. We talked about tariffs. We talked about, you know, they would like to have some tariff relief. Uh, but we had a very good meeting. He's a good man. He's a smart guy.

Uh, Mr. President, for after the strike is the ceasefire with Iran still on?

Yeah, it is. It's, uh, they trifled with us today. We blew them away.

[Laughs]

They trifled. I call that a trifle. I'll let you know when there's no cease, you won't have to know. If there's no ceasefire, you're not going to have to know. You're just going to have to look at one big glow coming out of Iran.

And --

And they better sign their agreement fast.

Uh, yes, could you give us an update on what is the latest in those talks you had with the --

No, it's going, the talks are going very well. But they have to understand if it doesn't get signed, they're going to have a lot of pain. They're going to have a lot of pain.

What was their --

They wanna sign it, I will tell you. They wanna sign it a lot more than I do.

What was their response? Are they giving you some kind of [Inaudible]

I think that's what you want to hear, fellows, right? Or do ya wanna hear a different tone. That's the only thing they understand. They don't understand it. We had three world-class destroyers go through the, the Strait today. Uh, any other country under the circumstances wouldn't have done shoot- -- shot missiles at it and drones at it, and these stupid boats that came at it. They got blown away in about two minutes.

Uh, their tanker got blown. You know what we did with the tanker? We didn't want to create an environment, so we shot out the rudder and a tanker's going around, spinning around in circles. Uh, they should not have done that today. Uh, we thought they might, we didn't know, but we were prepared. They shot missiles.

Every missile was knocked down. Every drone was knocked down, and the people that shot it are no longer with us.

Mr. President [Inaudible] has Iran officially responded to the one-page offer?

Well, it's more than a one-page offer. It's an offer that's basically said they will not have nuclear weapons. They're gonna hand us the nuclear dust and many other things that we want.

Have they agreed to that so far, Mr. President?

Yeah, they've agreed but --

On hand --

When they agree, it doesn't mean much because the next day they forget, they forgot they agreed. And, you know, we're dealing with different sets of leaders. When you talk about regime change, you know, they keep talking about regime change. Well, we got rid of the first regime, we got rid of the second regime, we got rid of most of the third regime.

And then they say, "Oh, is that regime change?" I think, I think it's the ultimate regime change.

How close would you say that you are to a deal right now with Iran?

Could happen any day. Could, And it might not happen, but it could happen any day. I believe they want the deal more than I do.

Are you aware of the FBI raid on Virginia State Senator Luis Lucas's house --

Who, who's it? Who --

Virginia State Senator Luis Lucas, she's a Democrat.

I'm not aware.

It was yesterday. Not aware of it?

No.

Mr. President, is your trip with China still going ahead --

Yeah.

-- which companies you're- do you have --

I have a very good relationship with President Xi. We've had a great economic time. China's been great for us economically, but not for other presidents. But we've, uh, done very well with China. We're going to have a meeting with President Xi. It's going to be, I think, quite amazing. He's been a, -- been a friend of mine.

I got, I've gotten along with him very well over the years. We have had no problem, and we've had no problem with China and our end, everybody said, "Oh, China, China." We've had no problem with China.

Have you spoken to Secretary Rubio since his meeting with Pope Leo and did you ask him to --

No.

-- pass on a message yet?

I spoke to him. I, I just said, "Tell, tell the Pope very nicely, very respectfully, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon." So, when he comes to their defense, also tell the Pope that, "Iran killed 42,000 innocent protestors who didn't have guns, who didn't have weapons." Tell that to the Pope.

What happens now when, There's a Christian pastor in China that's been in prison since October. I know that members of your administration have pushed, uh, to highlight the protection of Christians.

What's his name?

His name's Ezra Jin. Are you going to press, uh, President Xi on his release?

Well, I've heard about it, but I will certainly look into it. Yeah. I'll look at it. I'll look. I'll bring it up. Yep.

The court of international trade just before you came over --

I've gotten a lot of people out, you know, I've gotten a lot of people out of different countries, including China. Uh, people that were hostages or held. So, we'll take a look at that including Pastor Brunson, as you know, from, uh, in that case it was tricky. So, we've- we've done a lot of that. I do a lot, and I don't pay six billion dollars to get somebody out like Biden used to do and Obama.

They give six billion dollars to get some personnel.

What's your reaction, Sir, to the court of international trade ruling against your 10% across the board there?

Well, we were surprised. We, we had one very positive vote. We had two, uh, radical left judges that voted against it. So, nothing surprises me with the courts. Nothing surprises me.

What happened?

So, we always do it a different way. We get one ruling and we do it a different way. We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars from tariffs, and we're taking, uh, we're taking it away from countries, frankly, that have ripped us off for years, and now, they're not ripping us off anymore.

What happened with Project Freedom, Mr. President? Why was that suspended? Administration officials were talking about this in the next phase of the war.

Because there'd be really wonderful leadership at, uh, place, As you know, uh, Pakistan has been fantastic and their leaders have been fantastic. The field marshal and the prime minister and they asked us not to do it. We'll go back to it if we have to. Uh, they asked us not to do it during the negotiation.

Are, are you considering maybe going back to that now that gas prices are more than $4.50?

Well, no, gas prices have come down today. Have you looked? They've come down very substantially today. The gas prices, You know what's happened today? Gas prices are way down, and the stock market is way up today. So, gas prices have come down and I- I saw today that, uh, they broke negatively, In other words, two hour positive position, they broke our way very substantially.

And when the war is over, gas will fall down at levels that you've never seen before. You'll be down to where you were, maybe even lower. We had it down to, I was in Iowa, and we were at 85 or about 85, we broke, we broke --

Dollars --

We broke it. We broke it. We had numbers --

Well --

that nobody's seen in a long time. So you had, uh, $2 --

-- that nobody's seen in a long time. So you had, uh, $2 a gallon. We were down, I think you were $1.85, $1.90 in Iowa, in a lot of other places. Outside of California where California charges such a high tax on the gasoline when you take that tax off, but California has a tremendous -- I don't know if anybody knows.

California was the third-largest area for oil. And you were telling me and, uh, Chris was telling me before we're talking about California oil. They had, California is like an oil, it's rich with oil. But stupidly, 15, 16, 17 years ago, people stopped drilling. It was third to Texas and another state, probably Oklahoma.

But, uh, when, when this is over, I think you're going to see oil prices drop down to the levels where they were and maybe lower. There's a lot of oil out there. And the stock market hit a new high. Nobody thought that was possible. Stock market today for the 59th time since I'm president hit a new high and people that have 401(k)s, you guys have 401(k)? Then you gotta like me. Does everybody have a 401(k)? 'Cause you gotta like Trump if you do. The 401(k) is right.

Excellent.

The 401(k)'s are through the roof. All right. One or two more.

Mr. President. Mr. President, I --

I want to look at the surface because I like the surface better than I like --

Mr. President, why would you endorse, um, either, uh, John Cornyn or Ken Paxton than a --

I'll make a decision. Yeah, I'll make a decision.

When will you make your decision?

Maybe relatively soon.

Would you consider curbs on oil exports on --

I like them both. I like them both. Huh?

Sir, would you consider export curbs on oil or jet fuel if supplies get tight right now?

I don't need them. We don't need them. And we have tremendous amounts of oil. We're, we are not suffering oil. And again, ships are coming all the way. Where they used to go to Hormuz, they're coming all the way up. And we have hundreds of ships coming up to Texas, coming up to Louisiana and coming to Alaska, filling up and they're going back and making a lot of money.

But Mr. President, on another project. You have repeatedly said that taxpayers have not paid for the ballroom at the White House. Why should taxpayers now be on the hook for a billion dollars --

Well, they're not, because that's for many of the projects. That's for projects having to do with safety in, uh, this, in a certain section of the White House grounds. That's not all for the ballroom. And we're putting up $400 million to do the ballroom section of the ballroom. We are putting that up privately.

I am doing it along with other patriots that love our country. Uh, but they wanna do certain things militarily with respect to the ballroom, having nothing to do with us or having to do with the safety of the president. So having to do with a lot of things, but we are going to have a safe ballroom. It's under construction.

It's ahead of schedule. It's right on budget. It would be three to 400 million that we're putting up. And a lot of that money will be going to safety also. But they're, the House approved or the Senate approved, I guess, or they're going and looking at approving. I don't know if we got approved yet, but they're talking about putting up a certain amount of money, having to do with security at the White House and the East Wing.

Yeah.

W- -- will you commit to publicly releasing the amount of money that the private donors have put into the ballroom?

Well, I have no problem with it. You're not supposed to because it's done under a way where you don't have to do that, but I have no problem. They're unbelievable people. Uh, these are great patriots. They're putting up, You know, it's the only place in the world you can give a $400 million ballroom, you put up the money and they're unhappy with it. They think the taxpayers should pay for it. So this will be the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world and it'll be the safest ballroom by far anywhere in the world.

And you won't have a fiasco like you did Saturday night two weeks ago.

Are you expected to have the Qatari jet by July 4th?

Uh, by July 4th, yeah, we think we're going to have it. Yeah. We do think we're going to have it. Thank you very much for the question.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you press, thank you press. This way. Thank you, press. Thank you, press. Thank you press. Thank you, press. Thank you, press.

Call me, please.