Elon Musk joins President Trump in the Oval Office on his final day as special government employee
Questions on ElonsFAQ asked in this interview (3)
Transcript
0:00Donald TrumpIt's a little bit nasty. Peter, you haven't noticed that? You have. You've had a charmed life, right?
0:05ReporterYou tell me.
0:05Donald TrumpVery charmed. I think you've had a charmed life. I think what I'll do. You don't mind. Numbers have just come out which are rather extraordinary. And I thought I'd play a tape of one of the people who I've respected over the years from, you know, Joe Kiernan and Rick Santelli.
0:22Donald TrumpThis just came out and we'll just play that for a second.
0:25CNBC (clip)Personal income is up 8, 10, up 8, 10 of a percent. That is almost triple the expectations. The income, the income numbers really, for the first four months of the year, they're stellar.
0:39Donald TrumpThey're really stellar.
0:40CNBC (clip)I mean, I could go back and look at the first four months of many different years. Really very strong numbers. And you're right, this administration is criticized for just about everything under the sun.
0:50CNBC (clip)I've never ever in my lifetime had had glimpses into the politics of an administration in the form of transparency like this one. Why don't we be, you know, give credit where credit is due.
1:04CNBC (clip)Income really shooting up.
1:05Donald TrumpI also thought everybody was going to get one last order of imports that were going to be tariffed and they were loading up on things. How the hell did the hell.
1:16Donald TrumpThey already fixed the trade or not fix it, but to cut it in half, that's crazy. So there wasn't a lot of front loading of things that they needed before the tariffs hit.
1:28Donald TrumpYeah.
1:28CNBC (clip)I'll tell you what, it really does call into question some of the conventional wisdom. And, you know, it's going to be interesting to see what happens next month when we get this number or we see some of the other numbers like current account, see how they fared.
1:43CNBC (clip)Because I don't know, I've been watching these numbers a long time. I don't think I've ever seen the trade deficit cut in half in one month.
1:51Donald TrumpNot bad. Not bad. Come on, guys.
2:00Donald TrumpI see Howard and Scott are here, so it's great. You guys want to stand over here? You might as well. You're the ones that help produce those numbers. And it will only get better.
2:08Donald TrumpThe tariffs are so important and that's why we were so happy with the decision yesterday where the tariffs continue, because without the tariffs, our nation would be imperiled. We would really be imperiled.
2:21Donald TrumpI think I can say that with great charity, Scott and Howard. And so we were very happy to get that decision, that big decision yesterday and today it's about A man named Elon, and he's one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced.
2:39Donald TrumpHe stepped forward to put his very great talents into the service of our nation, and we appreciate it. And I just want to say that Elon has worked tirelessly, helping lead the most sweeping and consequential government reform program in generations.
2:55Donald TrumpAnd, you know, the kinds of things that he's. He's found and his people have found. He's brought a group of very smart people in, and they found things that are pretty unbelievable.
3:07Donald TrumpI have to say that the numbers that we're talking about are substantial, but they're going to be very much more substantial with time, because many of the things that we're working on right now, we're going to have to remember Elon as we find them.
3:20Donald TrumpBut the numbers could double and triple because many, many things. We don't want to go out with them until we're sure, but we've found things that are unbelievably stupid and unbelievably bad.
3:32Donald TrumpWith the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon delivered a colossal change in the old ways of doing business. In Washington, Doge has installed geniuses with an engineering mindset and unbelievably talented people in computers.
3:47Donald TrumpI actually asked Elon one time what's. What's their primary thing? And they have a lot of primary things, all having to do with being smart. But he said the thing that they're really the best at is working with computers so that they can't be outsmarted by somebody that's not.
4:02Donald TrumpNot so honest. That happens to also be good with computers, but not as good as these people. But the mindset in the senior ranks of every federal department, and it's really changed.
4:12Donald TrumpAnd with Elon's guidance, they're helping to detect fraud, waste, and modernize broken and outdated systems. So, as you know, we're talking about various systems and changing systems, and, you know, sadly, it takes a long time to do that.
4:26Donald TrumpYou'll change, let's say, a system at IRS and computerize it properly, where the job can be done in one tenth the time. But it takes. It takes sometimes years to rebuild those systems.
4:39Donald TrumpBut we've started. In many cases, we've started. I will say that this has less to do with Elon, but the air traffic control systems, we're bidding out to the best companies in the world.
4:50Donald TrumpThose systems right now, they were what the previous administration was. Horrible what they did, they spent billions and billions of dollars. And in the end, it didn't even come close to working.
5:03Donald TrumpThey tried to hook up wire to copper and it can't be done. And they just spent billions of dollars and just wasted money. Actually made the system much worse.
5:13Donald TrumpSo we're going to get a brand new modern system. Congress is working with us on that and we're going to get it done as quickly as we can. But it's in the works and once it's done, it'll be good for 30 years.
5:23Donald TrumpBut we have a system that's 48 years old and would have a modern computer hooked into a very outdated computer. And they don't hook up. I mean they didn't hook up.
5:34Donald TrumpSo after spending billions of dollars, they turned on the system and it in never any cases from local to countrywide, they never worked. More than 75,000 bureaucrats have voluntarily left their taxpayer funded jobs to come out and really do the do the job.
5:53Donald TrumpCountless wasteful and unnecessary contracts have been terminated. And you know that we have terminated many, many contracts. And many contracts, Elon, are right now being looked at. And it may be six months, it may be almost a year in some cases.
6:10Donald TrumpWe're going through procedures, we're going through courts. And we'll remember you as we announce billions of dollars of extra waste, fraud and abuse. Just as an example, Doge canceled $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education.
6:28Donald Trump$101 million. And that was just a small section of the Department of Education. $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City. And the landlord never made the kind of money that he made in the last short period of time.
6:44Donald Trump$59 million to a hotel in New York City. $45 million for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma. In Burma. Does anyone know about Burma? $42 million for social and behavioral change in Uganda.
7:01Donald Trump$40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. I can say it's $2 billion to Stacey Abrams and her environmental movement. There was $100 in the account and all of a sudden they found $2 billion in the account.
7:20Donald TrumpAnd I assume that's being looked at. I don't know, I'm not sure. But I assume that's being looked at. Think of that $2 billion. And then Lee will tell you there's another one over there for $20 billion being spent on another environmental.
7:35Donald Trump20 billion. Not, not 20 million. A lot. Not 200,000, which is a lot. So think of it. In her case you have $100 and now all of a sudden she Gets hit with an infusion of $2 billion just before I take office.
7:52Donald Trump$20 million for Arab Sesame street in the Middle East. Nobody knows what that's all about. Nobody has been able to find it. $8 million for making mice transgender. So they spent $8 million on making mice transgender.
8:08Donald TrumpAnd those are better than many of the others. I could sit here all day and read things just like that. But we have other things to do. So it's much, much more than just that.
8:18Donald TrumpWe are totally committed to making the Doge cuts permanent and stopping much more of the waste in the months to come. We want to get our great big beautiful bill finished and done.
8:28Donald TrumpAfter that, we're going to be. We put some of this into. But most of it's going to come later. We're going to have it cauterized by Congress, affirmed by Congress.
8:41Donald TrumpIn some cases, we'll make cuts. In some cases, we'll just use it in a different layer to save the money. But it's hundreds of billions of dollars. Doge has also fully modernized the federal retirement process and continues to work very hard on the IRS modernization.
8:56Donald TrumpBut we're taking that over with Doge and many of the Doge people, Elon, are staying behind, too. So they're not leaving. And Elon's really not leaving. He's going to be back and forth, I think.
9:08Donald TrumpI have a feeling it's his baby, and I think he's going to be doing a lot of things. But Elon's service to America has been without comparison in modern history.
9:17Donald TrumpHe's already running one of the most innovative car companies in the world. You look at his factories and compare them with some of the old factories we have, and it's a big difference.
9:26Donald TrumpAnd the most successful space company in, I guess, in history, you would have to say, the largest free speech platform on the Internet, et cetera. Yet Elon willingly, with all of the success, he willingly accepted the outrageous abuse and slander and lies and attacks because he does love our country.
9:46Donald TrumpI know that very much. He loves our country, comes from another country, a country that's going through trials and tribulations, I would say. But he's all about the usa, and Americans owe him a great debt of gratitude.
10:02Donald TrumpSo I just want to thank Elon for his time as a special government employee. Can you imagine? They call him an employee, but it's a special government employee for coming and helping us.
10:14Donald TrumpAnd he really has changed the mindset of a lot of people. A lot of people thought, you know, maybe we'll cut 1% or 2% or 3%. Then they said, wow, we can cut a lot more than that.
10:25Donald TrumpAnd we're going to do it very surgically. We're going to continue on the march. We're making America great again. When I was in Saudi Arabia, and we were in, as you know, three really great countries, predominantly the three, Qatar was great.
10:43Donald TrumpUAE was great. Saudi Arabia, incredible. What like, such an incredible experience to be in those three countries. But the crown prince of Saudi Arabia and I must tell you, the leaders, the great leaders of the other two that we just mentioned, they all said the same thing, that the United States is the hottest country right now anywhere in the world.
11:05Donald TrumpAnd six months ago, we thought it was dead. It was like a dead country. And it would have been a dead country if we didn't have the right result on November 5, there would have been a horrible, horrible situation was going on with the borders with transgender for everyone, men playing in women's sports and so much more.
11:24Donald TrumpBut they were saying, the hottest country anywhere in the world. And then I played that little clip because that was one person who's respected, but there were two people, because Joe was in that one, too.
11:34Donald TrumpJoe is a good man. But that was one group of people saying something about the success of what we've done over the last four months. They cannot believe it.
11:45Donald TrumpIn the one case, they said they've never seen anything like it as long as they've been doing what they've been doing. They've been doing it for a long time.
11:51Donald TrumpSo I just. I want to thank Elon for helping. And again, you know, the United States right now is the hottest country anywhere in the world. There's no country is hot, and we're doing really well.
12:04Donald TrumpWhere we came when I left, we had no wars. We had no problems. We defeated isis, we rebuilt our military, and we had no inflation. And when I came back, we had a lot of inflation.
12:17Donald TrumpWe had wars all over the place. We had the embarrassment in Afghanistan, where we gave up billions and billions of dollars of military equipment. The most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.
12:28Donald TrumpI believe. I believe that strongly. We have Russia with Ukraine. We had the attack on Israel in October. The horrible attack, October 7th. Horrible, horrible attack. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.
12:44Donald TrumpAnd now we have something where we're really healing a lot of that. We stopped India and Pakistan from fighting. I believe that could have turned out into a nuclear disaster.
12:58Donald TrumpAnd I want to thank the leaders of India, the leaders of Pakistan, and I want to thank my people also. We talk Trade. And we said we can't trade with people that are shooting at each other and potentially using nuclear weapons.
13:13Donald TrumpAnd they were. They're great leaders in those countries, and they understood and they agreed. And that all stopped. And we're stopping others from fighting also, because ultimately we can fight better than anybody.
13:27Donald TrumpWe have the greatest military in the world. We have the greatest leaders in the world. We put one of them in charge of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as you know, General Raisin Cain.
13:37Donald TrumpAnd we wiped out isis, completely wiped out ISIS in three weeks. They said it would take five years, and we did it in three weeks. And that's the way it is.
13:46Donald TrumpBut we don't want to have to use our military. We want to be peace through strength, when we can, and that's the way we're going to have it. So I just want to thank Elon and all of his people.
13:57Donald TrumpMost of those people are staying. Almost all of them are staying, and they're going to be with us. And you're going to see the results coming long into the future.
14:03Donald TrumpEven a year and two years later, you're going to see a lot of the results. And those hundreds of billions of dollars are going to be adding up, and they're going to continue to add.
14:11Donald TrumpIt'll be interesting, really interesting to see what the final number is going to be. But again, Elon gave an incredible service. Nobody like him, and he had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame, because he's an incredible patriot.
14:29Donald TrumpThe good news is that 90% of the country knows that, and they appreciate it, and they appreciate what he did. And I gave him a little special something we have here.
14:38ReporterThank you.
14:39Donald TrumpA very special. That I give to very special people. I have given it to some, but it goes to very special people. And I thought I'd. I'd give it to Elon as a presentation from our country.
14:53Elon MuskThank you.
14:53Donald TrumpThank you, Elon.
14:54Elon MuskThank you.
14:54Donald TrumpTake care of yourself.
14:55Elon MuskThank you.
15:02Elon MuskThe luck on this is amazing.
15:05Donald TrumpLarge luck.
15:06Elon MuskWell, let me say perhaps a few words that this is not the end of Doge, but really the beginning. My time as a special government employee necessarily had to end.
15:16Elon MuskIt was a limited time thing. It's 134 days, I believe, which ends in a few days. So that comes with a time limit. But the Doge team will only grow stronger over time.
15:29Elon MuskThe Doge influence will only grow stronger. I liken it to sort of bosom of Buddhism. It's like a way of life. So it is permeating throughout the government. And I'm confident that over time, we'll see a trillion dollars of savings and a reduction in a trillion dollars of waste of broad production.
15:47Elon MuskThe calculations of the Doge team thus far in terms of an FY25 to FY26 Delta are over 160 billion, and that's climbing. We expect that number will probably go over 200 billion soon.
16:01Elon MuskSo I think the Doge team is doing an incredible job. They're going to continue doing an incredible
16:06Donald Trumpjob,
16:09Elon Muskand I'll continue to be visiting here and be a friend and advisor to the President. And I look forward to times being back in this amazing room. By the way, isn't this incredible?
16:21Elon MuskThis incredible look, I mean, it's stunning, I think, the way that the Oval Office, how the President has just completely redone the Oval Office. It's beautiful. I love the gold on the ceiling.
16:34Donald TrumpThank you. It's pretty nice.
16:35Elon MuskYeah.
16:37Donald TrumpThat's been there a long time. That was plaster. Nobody ever really saw it. They didn't know the eagle was up there. And we highlighted. It's essentially, it's a landmark, a great landmark.
16:47Donald TrumpAnd that's 24 karat gold. And everybody loved it. And now they all see it when they come in. So it's been. It's been good.
16:54Elon MuskThe Oval Office finally has the majesty that it deserves, thanks to the President. So I look forward to continuing to be a friend and advisor to the President, continuing to support the Doge team, and we are relentlessly pursuing a trillion dollars in waste and fraud reductions which will benefit the American taxpayer.
17:18Elon MuskSo that's it, really. Thank you, Mr. President.
17:24Donald TrumpThank you. Thank you. Thank you.
17:29ReporterPresident Trump, the President mentioned that you had to deal with all the slings and arrows during your time at Doge. There's this.
17:35Elon MuskSome of the people, you know, some of the media organizations in this room were the slingers.
17:39ReporterWell, so there is a New York Times report today that accuses you of blurring between.
17:47Elon MuskNew York Times. Is that the same publication that got a Pulitzer Prize for false reporting on the Russiagate? Is it the same organization? I gotta check my Pulitzer counter.
18:00ReporterIt is.
18:00Donald TrumpIt is.
18:01Elon MuskSo I think the judge just ruled against the New York Times for their lies about the Russiagate hoax and that they might have to give back that Pulitzer Prize, that New York Times.
18:11Elon MuskLet's move on.
18:12ReporterOkay, then, next question. I got one for President Trump. President Trump, Biden aides who used to work here are in talks with Republicans in Congress to go and testify about what they did or didn't do to Possibly conceal President Biden's decline.
18:32ReporterDo you think that Dr. Jill Biden should also have to come in and testify about what she did or didn't do?
18:40Donald TrumpWell, I hate the concept of it. It's the wife of a man who was going through a lot of problems, and everybody that dealt with him understood that. And I guess it came out during the debate loud and clear.
18:52Donald TrumpThat was the big. That was the biggest signal of all. They have to do what's right. The country was. There was a lot of dishonesty in the election, as you know, 2020, that's been now caught.
19:05Donald TrumpPeople understand it. It was a rigged election. And when you go further out, when you see the auto pen, I mean, I think the auto pen is going to become one of the great scandals of all time because you have somebody operating it or a number of people operating.
19:19Donald TrumpBecause I knew Joe Biden. Joe Biden was in favor of opening up orders, letting 21 million people into this from prisons and mental institutions and gang members. He wasn't into that at all.
19:30Donald TrumpAnd you know, who signed the. Who signed these orders, proclamations and all of the different things that he signed that set our country so far back. That was. That was so bad for our country.
19:41ReporterWith the auto pen, how would it work? Like, we're in the Oval Office right now. If there was a group of rogue staffers that work for you who wanted to advance a bill or an executive order without your knowledge, how could they do it?
19:55Donald TrumpHow do they go behind it? Well, I hope because I'd read your newspapers or your media the next day and I'd say, well, I didn't approve that and I would find it.
20:03Donald TrumpI mean, they wouldn't get away with it for long because they'd say, I never signed that. Who the hell signed that? Auto pens to me are used to sign letters to people because we get, I think they said, 20,000 letters a week.
20:16Donald TrumpAnd you like to be able. When somebody takes the time to write a letter, it's nice to sort of write back. And auto pens are meant for that. Auto pens are not meant to sign major proclamations or tax cuts or borders.
20:29Donald TrumpAnything having to do with the border, which is so important. And if it happened on my watch, I would be able to see it because the next day or sooner, I'd be reading about something that I knew nothing about.
20:40Donald TrumpAnd who the hell signed this? So I almost never used the auto pen. In fact, yesterday I was signing about 81. I think it was 81 proclamations and statements to people that I think should be signed by us.
20:55Donald TrumpI think when you write letters to foreign dignitaries or presidents or prime ministers, you should be signing those letters. Not done with auto pension. I understand he signed almost everything with an auto pen.
21:07Donald TrumpIt's a very dangerous thing. It really means you're not president. Whoever operated the auto pen and we think we know who that is and it was actually more than one person.
21:18Donald TrumpBut that's not what the presidency is all about. I hardly used to use reinstate the tariffs on China.
21:27ReporterYou said that they violated the agreement
21:29Donald Trumpwith the U.S. well, they did. They were, they violated a big part of the agreement we've made. You know, if you read that whole statement, I was very nice to them, I helped them because they were in trouble with the stoppage of a massive amount of business.
21:43Donald TrumpBut I'm sure that I'll speak to President Xi and hopefully we'll work that out. But yeah, that's a violation of the agreement. Yeah.
21:50ReporterPlease, Mr. President, can you give us an update to the latest cease fire agreement that Israel has agreed to but Hamas still considering well, they're very close
21:58Donald Trumpto an agreement on Gaza and we'll let you know about it during the day or maybe tomorrow and we have a chance of that and I think we have a chance of making a deal with Iran also.
22:07Donald TrumpThey don't want to be blown up. They would rather make a deal and I think that could happen in the not too distant future. That would be a great thing if we could have a deal without bombs being dropped all over the Middle east.
22:20Donald TrumpThat would be a very good thing. They can't have a nuclear weapon. We want them to be safe. We want them to have a very, very successful, let it be a great nation.
22:30Donald TrumpBut we can't have, they cannot have a nuclear weapon. It's very simple and I think we're fairly close to a deal with Iran.
22:37ReporterMr. President, for you on, you said just now that you look forward to being a friend and advisor to the president. So do you expect to continue advising the president and Doge informally or are you going to sort of shift your focus entirely to your companies?
22:54Elon MuskWell, I expect to continue to provide advice whenever the president would like advice.
22:59ReporterMr.
22:59Donald TrumpI hope so.
23:01Elon MuskI mean, yeah, I expect to remain a friend and an advisor. And certainly if there's anything the president wants me to do, I'm at the President's Service.
23:13ReporterMr. Masher, on Doge you said that there was a trillion dollar promise for cuts from Doge.
23:17Elon MuskYes. So I think we do expect over time to achieve a trillion dollars but
23:21Reporterwhat have you found in your time here? Was the biggest roadblock to getting those cuts? Was it the Cabinet or was it Congress or something else? What was the biggest roadblock from your work?
23:32Elon MuskIt's mostly just a lot of hard work. It's really not any one person or Congress. It's going through really millions of line items and saying, does each one of them makes sense or does not make sense?
23:47Elon MuskObviously at times when you cut expenses, those who are receiving the money, whether they're receiving that money legitimately or not, they do complain. And you're not going to hear someone confessing that they received money inappropriately.
24:00Elon MuskNever. They're going to always say that they received money appropriately for an important cause. Naturally, that's what you'd expect, but so we just have to. It's just a lot of work going through the vast expenses of the federal government and just really asking questions.
24:17Elon MuskWhat's this money for? Are you sure it's actually being used? Well, many times we can't even find anyone who defends it. So for a lot of the expenses, there is actually no defender at all.
24:30Elon MuskAnd then we have to just work through the process of stopping the spending where there's often literally no defender. Nobody even knows why the money's being spent. It's truly absurd.
24:38Elon MuskI mean, we find situations where there are millions of software licenses with zero people using them. Zero, exactly. This is the quizzical expression. You're like, surely if there's millions of software licenses, someone should be using them.
24:55Elon MuskNo. And then we just, we've got to go through the process of saying, okay, look, if no one's using the software, we need to terminate this software license agreement.
25:02ReporterDoes your mouse use that?
25:03Elon MuskThat's Everywhere in the.
25:05ReporterMr. Musk, what do you think would be easier? Colonizing Mars or making the government efficient?
25:13Elon MuskIt's a tough call, but I think colonizing Mars and making life multi planetary is harder. And as I said, we do expect to achieve over time the trillion dollars of savings.
25:25Elon MuskWe can't do it in like a few months, but if you say by the. I think the official end of dose for the present may choose to extend is the middle of next year, say by the middle of next year, with the support of the President and Congress, could we achieve trillion dollars of savings?
25:40Elon MuskI think so. We're on track to do so.
25:41ReporterDo you have faith that Congress is
25:43Donald Trumpwilling to go ahead?
25:46ReporterThank you, Mr. President. You had mentioned earlier in the week that Doge had become a whipping boy. And as the President mentioned, you went through A lot to go through this process.
25:55ReporterWas it worth it for you? And what would you change?
26:00Donald TrumpYes.
26:00Elon MuskSo what we found was happening was that if there were any cuts anywhere, then people would assume that was done by Doge. And so we became essentially the Doge boogeyman, where, if, you know, any cut anywhere would be ascribed to Doge.
26:20Elon MuskYou know, a friend of mine's daughter who's at law school at Georgetown thought that Doge had cut the Senate. You know, the internships, the legal internships for the Senate.
26:30Elon MuskAnd we have nothing to do with that. So if they have been cut, there's not to do with us, just as an example. So, you know, it just became a bit ridiculous where anything, any cut anywhere, was Sinhadosh, including things that made no sense.
26:46Elon MuskAnd we would agree it made no sense. So there are many things that occur in the government because it's the banal evil of bureaucracy. It's sort of the, frankly, largely uncaring nature of bureaucracy.
27:04Elon MuskAs the great Milton Friedman said, money is spent most poorly when it is someone else's money being spent on people you don't know. And that's how federal spending is.
27:17Elon MuskAnd then you can't really even blame the individuals, because the way the government works is complaint minimization. So when you do try to. When someone within the government tries to stop that money being spent, there's usually someone that complains, and then their manager will say, it's not worth the trouble, just pay it anyway.
27:37Elon MuskThat happens over and over again.
27:38Donald TrumpSo Was this replacement, Mr. Moss?
27:41Elon MuskI think it was an important thing. I think it was a necessary thing, and I think will have a good effect in the future.
27:45ReporterThank you. President Trump. This week, there was a video on board a plane that showed the first lady of France slapping her husband, Emmanuel Macron. Do you have any world leader to world leader, marital advice?
28:03Donald TrumpMake sure the door remains closed? That was not good. No. I spoke to him and he's fine. They're fine. They're two really good people. I know him very well, and I don't know what that was all about, but I know him very well, and they're fine.
28:24ReporterWhat do you think about the Democratic Party plan to avoid being swept in every battleground state again by spending $20 million to study how to speak to American men?
28:37Donald TrumpWell, you know, they spent. They spent $2.8 billion. We spent $1.5 billion. We spent much less. We spent about half of what they spent, and at the end, they were $28 million short.
28:50Donald TrumpThey had to be. They spent $2.8 billion. That's a lot. But they couldn't get 28 million at the end. And now they want to spend. I read that they want to spend money to learn how to talk.
29:00Donald TrumpLet's fake. You don't want to be fake. You shouldn't have to hire consultants to say what America needs, because, you know, then they should be. The consultants should be running the deal, not them.
29:10Donald TrumpBut I read that they want to spend a lot of money in each state. So we won all seven swing states. Seven out of seven. We want a lot more than that.
29:17Donald TrumpWe want the popular vote. We want everything. And they want to spend money to find out what they did wrong. And, I mean, I can tell you what they did wrong.
29:25Donald TrumpI could tell you every one of their programs. When they say men playing in women's sports, I would say that's not a winner. When they say transgender for everybody, I think that's not a winner.
29:36Donald TrumpWhen they say open border so the entire world population of criminals can pour into our country, I don't think that's a winner. I mean, I can. I just gave them that for free.
29:47Donald TrumpBut I don't know if they'll change their ways. I see them all the time. I see people that I know in Congress, Democrats. They're trying to justify some of the things I just said.
29:56Donald TrumpYou can't justify them. They're, you know, I always hear they're 8020 issues. I say they're not 80 20. They're 97 3. They might be 99 to 1. They're not 80 20.
30:07Donald TrumpThey wish they were 80 20. And they're wasting a lot of money if they're going to continue with that nonsense.
30:12ReporterAnd this one's a little bit more of a Page Six question, but back when you hosted the Apprentice, you mentioned once in 2012 that Diddy was a good friend of yours back then.
30:21ReporterHe has since found himself in some very serious legal trouble. Would you ever consider pardoning him?
30:29Donald TrumpI. Well, nobody's asked. You had to be the one to ask, Peter. But nobody's asked. But I know people are thinking about it. I know they're thinking about it.
30:37Donald TrumpI think people have been very close to asking. First of all, I look at what's happening, and I haven't been watching it too closely, although it's certainly getting a lot of coverage.
30:48Donald TrumpI haven't seen him. I haven't spoken to him in years. He used to really like me a lot, but I think when I ran for politics, he sort of.
30:56Donald TrumpThat relationship busted up from What I read, I don't know. He didn't tell me that. But I'd read some little bit nasty statements in the paper. All of a sudden, you know, it's different.
31:06Donald TrumpYou become a much different person when you run for politics and you do what's right. I could do other things and I'm sure he'd like me and I'm sure other people would like me, but it wouldn't be as good for our country as we said.
31:17Donald TrumpOur country is doing really well because of what we're doing. So I can't. It's not a popularity contest. So I don't know. I would certainly look at the facts.
31:26Donald TrumpIf I think somebody was mistreated, whether they like me or don't like me, it wouldn't have any impact on me. Mr. President, on the big, beautiful bill,
31:34Reporteron the big, beautiful bill, would you like to see the Senate build in some support for your tariffs on the big beautiful bill, or should that be a standalone bill?
31:42Donald TrumpI have great support on the tariffs. I mean, I was so honored that we got that ridiculous stay lifted because that would have taken away presidential power. It would have taken away everything that was granted by the founders.
31:54Donald TrumpIt would have been a terrible thing. And it would have, most importantly, would have left us vulnerable. We have a lot of countries that use tariffs on us and use them viciously, actually viciously.
32:04Donald TrumpAnd if we didn't have the power to use tariffs on them and instantly, not when you go back to Congress and try and get hundreds of people to agree on something that would take months to get.
32:14Donald TrumpJust one simple proclamation. If we didn't have the power to counteract their powers, you wouldn't have a country left. We have to act fast. We have to be fast and nimble, as they say.
32:27Donald TrumpAnd that was a really great moment, I think, yesterday when that stay was lifted. And hopefully now we'll go to court and just win that battle. Because if we don't have the power to do what they're doing to us, we are going to be a great nation.
32:42Donald TrumpNo longer.
32:45ReporterElon Musk was once idolized by folks on the left in this country before joining your administration. Now he's considered a hero by conservatives. Why do you think this man, what he's done in American life has been so politicized?
32:56ReporterDoes it.
32:58Donald TrumpHis life has been amazing. I mean, I look at so many different things. I look at. I look at that rocket being, you know, guided back into position. I've never seen that before.
33:06Donald TrumpI thought it was a space movie. I thought it was a movie. You look at what he's done in terms of communication, it's been unbelievable. So many different. Even tunnels going underground, not having to go through all the process of going.
33:20Donald TrumpYou know, he's got a company that does that. He's got so many different companies. Starlink as an example. He saved a lot of lives, probably hundreds of lives. I don't even know if you remember, but I called you, they needed Starlink in North Carolina.
33:35Donald TrumpAnd I didn't know what the hell Starlink was. I said, what is it? Who owns it? He said, do you know Elon Musk? I said, you happen to know the gentleman this was before his government stay?
33:45Donald TrumpAnd they said, we really need it. Because North Carolina was literally became an island. It was. People had no communication. They had no access to anything, and they were dying.
33:56Donald TrumpAnd I called up Elon, and you can't get it because it's so successful. It's very hard to get. And he had so much of it brought over there. And they told me it was unbelievable.
34:04Donald TrumpIt saved a lot of lives. So, you know, he's just done a lot of things.
34:07ReporterHe.
34:08Donald TrumpI don't think. Frankly, I don't think he gets credit for what he's done, but he's. And he's a very good person, too. You know, what if he wasn't a good person.
34:17Donald TrumpIf he wasn't. But he did the same things, you know, I'd probably maybe speak differently. He happens to be a really good person who loves the country. Mr. President, on the one big, beautiful
34:27Reporterbill, you had indicated this week that there were some things you didn't like about what had passed in the House. What changes do you want to see the Senate make?
34:35ReporterAnd you had also indicated there were things you didn't like about the bill. What would you be suggesting he pushed senators to change in their version?
34:42Donald TrumpWell, I'll tell you, I'll go first. It's an unbelievable bill. It cuts your deficits. It cuts. You know, it's a huge cutting. But there's things I'd like to see maybe cut a little bit more.
34:52Donald TrumpI'd like to see a bigger cut in taxes. It's going to be the largest tax decrease or cut in the history of our country. I'd like to see it get down to an even lower number.
35:03Donald TrumpI was shooting for a slightly lower number. I would have liked to have done that. But with all of that being said, when you look at the tax cut and the fact that the original tax cut, which made us so successful that we had the most successful four years in the history of our country, the economy.
35:21Donald TrumpAnd this is going to be even better. And you see that by the reports that came out just yesterday or tonight, I guess they were released this morning at 8 o'.
35:29Donald TrumpClock. You see the kind of numbers where somebody that's a pro is like, whoa, I haven't seen numbers like this since I've been doing this. You know, these are human emotions of professionals that have never seen numbers like.
35:42Donald TrumpAnd we've just, we've just started. The bill is a great bill. It's going to be jiggered around a little bit. It's going to be negotiated with the Senate, with the House, but the end result is it extends the Trump tax cuts.
35:57Donald TrumpIf it doesn't get approved, you'll have a 68% tax increase. You're going to go up 68%. That's a number that nobody's ever heard of before. You'll have a massive tax increase.
36:11Donald TrumpIf it does get approved, you'll have a large tax cut, the largest we've ever had. When you add the past tax cuts that we got you, the Trump tax, they call them the Trump tax cuts.
36:24Donald TrumpIt's an amazing bill. It does amazing things with all of that. It's going to be adjusted a little bit over the next coming weeks and I think it's going to be passed.
36:33Donald TrumpThe Republicans want to pass it with all of the great things it does, including an extension of debt. It's the extension. We have to extend the debt. If we don't extend debt, we're in default.
36:44Donald TrumpNow the Democrats might like our country to be in default, but in 250 years, we've never been in default. That was handed to them by a very well meaning man that gave it to them because he thought it was the right thing to do.
36:57Donald TrumpIt could have been their problem before the election, but this man thought it was the right thing to do and he was well meaning. I don't hold anything against him for that.
37:05Donald TrumpBut that was put on our plate when it should have been on the Democrats, September 28th, a famous date. It should have been taken care of by the Democrats.
37:14Donald TrumpBut this person, a man of power, gave it to us so that in June that comes due. Well, we have to take care of that because if we don't take care of it, we have a country in default and we don't ever want to have a country in default.
37:30Donald TrumpYou know, I'll tell you, a certain Senator Elizabeth Warren said that she would never, ever allow a default on our debt. She would never let it happen. And she would like to get rid of the debt ceiling, what's called the debt ceiling.
37:49Donald TrumpI call it the debt extension, because we really need an extension that she'd like to see that gotten rid of. And there are many people that agree, many Democrats agree with that.
37:58Donald TrumpBut we gave that through and you know, I don't want to say an error. He did it well, meaning they gave that to us. It was a Democrat problem just before the election, would have had a huge impact on the election.
38:12Donald TrumpAnd to our benefit, we won anyway, but to our benefit, but felt that really for the good of the country we should extend that. But Elizabeth Warren and various other people would like to see that her whole career, she wanted to see it terminated, gotten rid of, not being voted on every five years or 10 years.
38:33Donald TrumpAnd the reason was because it's so catastrophic for our country. And I always agreed with her. That was one thing I agreed with her on. Now, I haven't spoken to her, but I would say that if you asked her that question now, she'd say, no, no, it's their problem.
38:48Donald TrumpBut it's a very unfair, unfortunate situation. It's a very unfair situation. And she happened to be right on that it should be gotten rid of or it should simply be extended.
38:58Donald TrumpBut that's one of the things that gets taken care of in this bill that automatically gets extended for a four year period. And it should be. But I agree with Elizabeth Warren on that.
39:08Donald TrumpI think you should get rid of it. It's too catastrophic. Yeah, please go ahead.
39:13ReporterWhat message do you like to send to international students? Are they still welcomed to study in the United States? And one question for Mr. Musk.
39:21Donald TrumpThe students. Well, we want to have great students here. We just don't want students that are causing trouble. We want to have students. I want to have foreign students.
39:28Donald TrumpI think Harvard, you know, it's close to 31%. That's a lot. Our country has given $5 billion plus to Harvard over a short period of time. Nobody knew that.
39:40Donald TrumpWe found that out. I wouldn't say that was a Doge thing, but we found that out over a period of time. That was sort of a Trump thing. We ended up in litigation for other reasons because they're very anti Semitic.
39:51Donald TrumpAnd in finding out and in going through the books, we found out that the country gave them $5 billion plus much more than that, actually. And we're having it out with them.
40:03Donald TrumpAnd let's see what happens. I think we have a very good. Well, it's a very sad case. It's a case we win. We can't lose that case because we have the right to make grants.
40:12Donald TrumpWe're not going to make any grants like that. But I don't think Harvard's been acting very nicely. I think Columbia wants to get to the bottom of the problem.
40:21Donald TrumpThey've acted very well and there are other institutions too that are acting. But Harvard is trying to be a big shot and all that happens is every three days we find another hundred million dollars that was given last two days ago we found $200 million more.
40:37Donald TrumpThe money is given to them like gravy. I'd like to see the money go to trade schools where people learn how to fix motors and engines, where people learn how to build rocket ships because you know, somebody has to build those rocket ships.
40:50Donald TrumpAnd I'd like to see trade school set up because you could take 5 billion plus hundreds of billions more, which is what's spent and you could have the greatest trade school system anywhere in the world.
41:01Donald TrumpAnd that's what we need to build his rockets and robots and things that he's doing and to build lots of other things. And you know, I went to school with people, in some cases they weren't good students, but they could fix the engine of a car better than anybody I've ever seen.
41:16Donald TrumpThey could take it apart blindfolded. They had an ability at that and they did very well. They made a lot of money. You know, it's a very skilled job.
41:23Donald TrumpIt's great. But I'd like to see a lot of money going into trade schools. I've always felt that. And we probably found our pot of gold and that's what's been wasted at places like Harvard and the money has been wasted.
41:35Donald TrumpYeah, places. I wanted to ask quickly, Mr. Musk, is your eye okay? What happened to your eye? I noticed there was a bruise there.
41:41Elon MuskMr. Well, I wasn't anywhere near France so. But
41:49Donald Trumpwhat does that mean? I didn't notice. First lady of France. I didn't notice.
41:56Elon MuskSo yeah, no, I was just horsing around with Lex and I said go ahead, punch me in the face. And he did. Turns out even a five year old punching you in the, in the face
42:04Donald Trumpactually that was exited. X could do it if you knew. Ex.
42:09Elon MuskI saw his mom right now but I didn't really feel much at the time. And then I guess it bruises up, but I just horsed him out of the cage.
42:16Donald TrumpI didn't notice it actually.
42:19ReporterI know that you try to stay pretty neutral because not your War, but
42:25Donald Trumpby the way, not my war. I just want to solve the problem for people. This was not a war that was going to happen if I were president.
42:31CNBC (clip)Right.
42:31ReporterAnd so not your war, but as you try to fix it and as you survey this hellscape of the Ukrainian
42:38Donald Trumpfront lines, it's horrible.
42:39ReporterAnd you guys, you and your team deal with a very stubborn Vladimir Putin and Zelensky. Yeah, but do you look at this conflict, Zelensky, too, any differently now? Like, do you look at this and see Putin as the good guy or the bad guy?
42:54Donald TrumpSo I've known him very well, and I went through a lot of things with him because Russia was, you know, the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax turned out to be a total hoax.
43:06Donald TrumpNew York Times, they got a Pulitzer Prize. They have to give back the Pulitzer Prize. That's my lawsuit. And they're doing very poorly in that lawsuit. But, you know, they wrote stories about how it was true and it was false.
43:16Donald TrumpAnd, you know, a lot of Washington Post also, I have gotten to see things that I was very surprised at. Rockets being shot into cities like Kiev during a negotiation that I felt was maybe very close to ending.
43:36Donald TrumpWe were going to solve a problem, and then all of a sudden, rockets got shot into a couple of cities and people died. I saw things that I was surprised at, so.
43:47Donald TrumpAnd I don't like being surprised, so I'm very disappointed in that way. With that being said, I'd like to see it end. 5,000 people, I think the number is even more than that.
43:57Donald TrumpBut 5,000 people a week are being killed. Mostly soldiers, but also people that live in little cities and towns throughout Ukraine. And I'd like to see that stop.
44:09ReporterAnd I asked Caroline this yesterday, but I want to ask you directly. So many of the things that you're trying to do are held up in court right now.
44:18ReporterIf the courts are going to have so much influence over US Policy, do you wish you would have just become a judge instead?
44:25Donald TrumpYeah. Well, look, it wasn't meant to be that way. If you look at the founders, the president had certain powers, and you have, You're. You're three groups, and they all had supposed to be equal, pretty equal powers.
44:38Donald TrumpBut you can't have a judge in Boston running foreign policy in places all over the country because he is a. He's got a liberal bent or he's a radical left person.
44:50Donald TrumpThat's what the executive branch is for. And you have checks and balances. But we had millions of people pour into our country. Many, many criminals poured into our country.
44:59Donald TrumpMurderers, murderers, mental institutions from all over the world being emptied out into our country. And if we don't get them out and get them out quickly, we're going to could lose your country very easily.
45:10Donald TrumpThese are, this is a bad that anybody would allow this to happen to our country. You know, with all of the things we took over, inflation, we took over some wars, we took over a lot of problems that didn't exist when I was president.
45:22Donald TrumpNone of it existed. We wiped out Iceland. Other than that, we had no wars. Putin was never going to hit Ukraine. Israel would have never been attacked. That attack, as you know, Iran had no money.
45:37Donald TrumpThey didn't have money for Hamas, they didn't have money for Hezbollah. They had no money whatsoever. That wasn't going to happen. All of these things that happened weren't going to happen.
45:45Donald TrumpYou wouldn't have had inflation. So it's very sad when I came back, but the thing that is the hardest is that they allowed 21 million people into our country.
45:57Donald TrumpAnd many of those people are stone cold criminals. They moved their criminal population into the United States. And of all the things that you know are bad, I solved inflation.
46:12Donald TrumpI believe already I got the fuel prices down. The fuel prices came down. That's one of the reasons they screwed up the energy. They screwed up the cost of gasoline and oil and gas.
46:23Donald TrumpAnd you had tremendous inflation, the greatest inflation probably in the history of our country under Biden. And when people said, oh, but the economy was. No, the economy was terrible for the people because they couldn't afford the energy.
46:36Donald TrumpAnd the energy brought everything else up. Energy is the big deal. But with all of that, we solved that already in four months, we solved it. $1.99, $1.98 gasoline.
46:47Donald TrumpFirst time people have seen that in a long time, since my term. But the hardest thing to solve is millions of people pouring into our country, many of whom are criminals.
46:57Donald TrumpBecause remember, these countries are smart. Their leaders are very street smart. They're sending the people that they don't want. They don't want the people that are there, that are law abiding, that are productive, that are working hard.
47:11Donald TrumpThey want people that are in jails. We have them, they allow them to come in. And I always look to the other side like, why would somebody do something?
47:20Donald TrumpYou know, in business I try and study why would they want to do this? Why would they want to sell it? Why would they want to buy it? One thing I can't figure out is what would an administration, what were they thinking when they allowed millions of People from prisons all over the world.
47:38Donald TrumpNot just from South America, Venezuela, all over the world. From the Congo in Africa. Hundreds of people, thousands of people from the Congo. Rough, rough prisoners from Asia, from Europe, rough parts of Europe.
47:56Donald TrumpWhy would they allow them to come into our country? Why would they do that? It's the one thing I can't figure out, and I don't believe it was Joe Biden.
48:06Donald TrumpI really don't. I mean, he's been a sort of a moderate person over his lifetime. Not a smart person, but a somewhat vicious person, I will say. If you feel sorry for him, don't feel so sorry because he's vicious.
48:19Donald TrumpWhat he did with his political opponent and all of the people that he hurt, he hurt a lot of people. Biden. And so I really don't feel sorry for him.
48:28Donald TrumpBut he wasn't a person that would allow murderers to come into our country. He wasn't a person that was in favor of transgender for anybody that wanted it. Take kids out of families, et cetera, et cetera.
48:41Donald TrumpSo I just don't understand why, why a thing like this, how a thing like this could have been allowed to happen. Very sad. It's very sad. Very sad for our country.
48:56Elon MuskI think the fundamental moral flaw of the left is empathy for the criminals and not empathy for the victims. Empathy for the criminals, but not empathy for the victims.
49:07Elon MuskAnd there's been way too much of that. That needs to stop. To the President's point, there's been immense judicial overreach. That is unconstitutional, that was never intended, and it's undermining the people, people's faith in the legal system.
49:22Elon MuskIt needs to stop. It's gone too far, Mr. Meister.
49:27Donald TrumpAnd just today we had. Just a couple of hours ago, we had a great decision from the Supreme Court. Thank goodness. That was very important. We had two important decisions yesterday on the tariffs because, again, we have to be able to fight a fair fight with other countries.
49:45Donald TrumpHoward, would you say I would. We have to be able to use tariffs to fight people that use tariffs on us. I mean, if we didn't have that power of tariffs, we wouldn't.
49:54Donald TrumpWe would economically be destroyed as a country because they will destroy us. Other countries will destroy us with unchecked tariffs. We can check them when we have the use.
50:04Donald TrumpThey tried to take that. That power away from us. And if you take that power away, we're not going to have a country. We won't have an economically viable country.
50:12Donald TrumpBut it's very important on immigration that we be able to get people out without having to go through a long court case. I mean it was up to some of these judges.
50:22Donald TrumpEvery single one of these millions of people, millions of people, criminals, prisoners that were let go from jails because they save a fortune when they do. They brought them into the United States.
50:34Donald TrumpYou know what they're saving, the money they're saving. But some of murders. It's very important that we're able to get those people out of here fast, bring them back to their country where they belong.
50:44Donald TrumpAnd those countries take them because if they don't take them, they have to go through the wrath of the United States and they take them. But we have judges that don't want that to happen.
50:53Donald TrumpAnd it would be, it's a terrible thing the, that's going through the court system right now, that whole situation. But when ICE and with border patrol, they've done an incredible job.
51:06Donald TrumpWhen they do this incredible job and they capture 100 killers and drug dealers and we can't keep them for years here as we go through trials. We have to get them out rapidly.
51:21Donald TrumpAnd we know who they are, we know who they are and we're very careful about who they are. But we have to get them out rapidly. Or again, we're not going to have a country.
51:30Donald TrumpOkay, maybe one or two more.
51:33ReporterPresident, that tariff may also affect companies like Tesla which has parts manufactured abroad. And this is also to you, Mr. Musk.
51:42Donald TrumpWell, he's going to end up building his whole car here. I mean, I thought he built his whole car. Pretty much he does. He's got incredible factories and like I looked at one in Texas.
51:51Donald TrumpIt's unbelievable. I know all of the manufacturers will build their parts here too. I mean I, it used to bother me. They make a part in Canada, part in Mexico, a part in Europe and sent all over the place and nobody knew what the hell was happening.
52:07Donald TrumpI think it's ridiculous. You build a car, make it in America and I gave them a little leeway on that, you know, gave them some leeway. But over the next year they've got to have the whole thing built in America.
52:18Donald TrumpThat's what we want. We want America to buy American built cars. Thank you very much everybody.