Reporter:
Mr. President, to confirm, did you tell the President no to the Press Secretary job?
Dana White:
I don’t tell the President no to anything! No, I didn’t say no. Literally every media outlet was calling me, and I didn’t want to be disrespectful and say anything until he said something first.
President Trump:
We were having a very bad press day, and I said—I don’t know why I thought of his name, he’s been my friend for a long time—I said, “You know, I think I’m going to get Dana White to be my new Press Secretary.” I sent it to a group of the press, and that was it. I was sort of kidding, and then they wrote the story as though I wasn’t kidding, and you were inundated and I was inundated! And he was here anyway, so we thought we’d have a little fun, and we brought Dana here. He would be fantastic.
Reporter:
Dana, first of all, were you surprised by the results of the midterms last Tuesday? And Mr. President, on the campaign trail, you had said that you have stopped Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Why not just declare an end to the conflict and be done with it?
President Trump:
Because we have some great allies there, and we have to make sure they’re not hurt, and they would be hurt. They are right now a lot safer than they were six months ago because Iran’s been very much decapitated, but there’s still the bully of the Middle East a little bit. And I see that we want to make sure they’re okay, and we want to make sure it’s a long-term solution, not just short-term. They’ll never have a nuclear weapon, but we have to make sure that’s long-term. So it’s ending quickly, but we want to take care of people that have been very good to us over the years.
Reporter:
Mr. President, you told 60 Minutes that you felt that your deportation policy may have gone too far, but then you named the architect of that policy, Stephen Miller, to be your Chief of Staff. Have you told him that you want changes to the deportation policy?
President Trump:
We have a very strong deportation policy. There’s no amnesty, no no anything, we keep that. But we focus on the worst of the worst. We want to get the murderers out. We’ve gotten most of them out. We’ve got most of the really bad… you know, they allowed Joe Biden allowed, well, 25 million people to come in. Of that, 11,888 murderers, most of whom committed more than one murder. We’ve gotten most of them. We want to get the worst of the worst, and then we’ll see what happens.
But they came in illegally. Many of them have good jobs now, they’re productive, some of them are even paying taxes, and we’re seeing what’s going to happen. There won’t be amnesty. Somebody suggested, “Will there be amnesty?” No. But they came in, they knew the law, and we’re working with a lot of different groups to see whether or not…
But my policy hasn’t changed. What we are doing is absolutely the worst of the worst. We’re getting the murderers. They allowed people to come in from prisons. They emptied their prisons into our country, many countries, and they emptied our prisons into our country. The drug dealers that we have, the people from the mental institutions… mental institutions all over the world were emptied out. Prisons all over the world. The Congo—in the Congo, their prison population was emptied into our country. All over South America, all over Asia, they did that, too. What Biden did to this country should never, ever be forgotten, and I hope the Democrats will not try and allow that to happen.
Reporter:
We’ve seen the stock market really take, you know, up and down like a roller coaster the last couple days. Today up, last week it tanked…
President Trump:
Not last week—right after the election, it went down $3 trillion. That was because of the result of the election, because the stock market does not want to see Democrats. And your 401(k)s have gone way down because of the ridiculous result. It’s not even a result, it’s almost hard to believe. Now, I wasn’t on the ballot, I shouldn’t take anything personally, but I will tell you I thought it was ridiculous. But the stock market went way down right after that event. Today it’s way up, because I think they feel we have things under control.
Reporter:
Mr. President, when were you first informed that there was an issue with Jensen Huang and the affair, and what was presented to you at the time? What was the concern?
President Trump:
Um, I would say that when I heard about it, first of all, I was amazed, because I view him as a very high-quality person. I’ve known him a long time. It’s actually the largest, I think by value, it’s probably the largest or one of the largest companies in the world. He did that with a chip, you know, when you think about it. He’s got a chip that’s 10 years advanced, can’t be… because of the complexity, can’t even… the Blackwell can’t even be copied. He’s an amazing guy.
I just hope it’s… I hope there’s no problem. If there is a problem, we’ll let you know about it, but I hope there’s no problem. I believe he’s suffering greatly. I read his statement, and I believe he’s suffering greatly—more so because of his family, his wife who he loves, and his family. But he is definitely suffering.
Reporter:
And just to follow up on the… when were you first told of these potential issues with Mr. Huang? You can answer that question.
President Trump:
Well, I’ve been hearing about it, and I’ve been reading a little bit about it over a period of time, but not too long ago. And we’ll look into it, and I know the FBI is looking into it in terms of something else, and I think that he’ll be in good shape.
Reporter:
Mr. President, you say the war with Iran will be ending fairly soon. You’ve made this claim dozens of times over the past eight months. Why should…
President Trump:
Well, no, I made the claim that they won’t have a nuclear weapon, and they won’t have a nuclear weapon. Well, we knocked them out a year ago. That was… I said I was going to do that, and I kept my word on that. Now what we’re doing is we’re… it’s really status quo territory. We’re keeping it going. We have the greatest military blockade ever. We have the new Iron Gate. Iron Gate is land, so by land and by sea. And we will take care of business.
Look, Iran… I hope we’re going to be able to make a deal with them, but nothing’s going to happen, and if we have to, we’ll take very serious… We are so loaded. We just have another aircraft carrier—it’s all loaded up to the gills with brand new, beautiful stuff. We’re making more military equipment and munitions right now than at any time in the history of our country. We’ve built and are building more plants. Our defense companies are building more plants than ever, at any time in the history of our country. And many of those plants are opened, some opened and some are opening soon.
We’re building new Patriots, we’re building new Tomahawks, new THAAD systems, and we have more under construction now than at any time ever. And we’re taking it, and obviously we’re taking it for ourselves first. What happened is it wasn’t so much Iran—Joe Biden gave $350 billion worth of free equipment to Ukraine. Now, that was unbelievable. Now they pay, and we give it to the European Union, and we have a very good relationship. We took them from 2% to 5% is what they’re paying now, which is pretty amazing. Nobody thought that could happen, but they pay full for the equipment. Joe Biden gave free equipment, $350 billion.
And we are now building more military equipment and munitions than at any time in the history of our country. We just had, just in case, another aircraft carrier. We have many sailing over and just arriving in the Middle East, so we have three, and they’re all locked and loaded. And hopefully, we don’t have to use them.
Reporter:
Are you going to bring up the case of Jensen Huang with President Xi when you visit with him next week?
President Trump:
No, I don’t think so. I mean, maybe. I’m sure President Xi will ask me about it. I just know Jensen very well. I just think he’s a very honorable man. I mean, he built a great company, American company, and I think he’s a very honorable guy, and I feel very confident that he’ll be in good shape.
Reporter:
And sticking with Jensen Huang, when you went to China earlier this year in May, did you know about these alleged ties with the Chinese spy then, or no?
President Trump:
No, I didn’t hear about it then, but a lot of people have heard about it. And Jensen totally denies that he had… I asked him today, because I did speak to him today just to see if he’s feeling all right—”How you doing?”—and I asked him about that, and he said he had absolutely no idea that the person in question was a spy.
Reporter:
Are you concerned…
President Trump:
I asked him that question: “Did you have any idea that she was a spy?” He said, “I had no idea that she was a spy.” And I really believe him, yeah.
Reporter:
Are you hoping for a breakthrough on Ukraine at the talks in Abu Dhabi this week?
President Trump:
I just believe that Ukraine and Russia are tired of fighting. They’re tired of seeing dead young soldiers, mostly soldiers—most of the people are soldiers. Think of it: they’re losing 25,000… Dana, can you imagine 25,000? That’s like a stadium! Madison Square Garden, where you have your fights, 25,000, that’s what it holds. And they’re losing that every single month—dead young, beautiful people. And it’s got to stop.
You know, it doesn’t affect us, but I’m able to get them together, and we’re meeting now, right now as we speak. And the meetings are going okay, but we’re trying to get it settled only because we want to say… it doesn’t affect us as a country, but it affects me. 25,000 people a month are being killed.
Reporter:
Mr. President, a number of Senate GOP members are urging the conference to delay their leadership votes tomorrow. We know that John Thune is running unopposed in the Senate. Do you think that Mr. Thune has earned the right to lead the Senate?
President Trump:
Well, look, he’s a very fine man. I know him very well. But that’s really up to the senators. I like John Thune. I wish they could get more produced, you know? We’ve had Save America up there, we’ve had voter ID and proof of citizenship and many other things. It’s not easy. He’s got some people that… first of all, you have 100% negative Democrats. They never vote yes, they always vote no. That means he has to get almost 100% of the Republicans. And you have some Republicans in there—I can name them, but why should I?—that are very difficult. And you know, I said as leader, you have to get those people. But John’s a good man. I guess they’re going to be voting tomorrow, or maybe it’s delayed, I don’t know what the status is. But you know, he’s a friend of mine. I wish the Senate could get more done.
Reporter:
You spoke about Venezuela. Do you plan on having elections there before the end of…
President Trump:
At some point, yeah. At some point, yes.
Reporter:
Mr. President, earlier today you posted on social media where you questioned whether the midterm election results were honest. Do you believe that the election was rigged? And separately, did you watch Senator Thomas Massie lay out his articles of impeachment this afternoon?
President Trump:
No, I don’t watch Massie. Look, Massie is a loser. He shouldn’t be taking up the time of Congress or the Senate or anything that he’s doing. The guy’s a stone-cold loser. Always… he’s a Republican, but always he would vote against. We could come up with the best bill we could come up with, and he would always vote against. There’s something wrong with him.
And I said, “Look, I’ve got to challenge him.” And I challenged him, and he lost in a landslide to a very good man. We have a very good man, Ed Gilraine, who’s great, took his place. But, you know, I went and did something that is very tough to do. Now, I challenged others, also—I challenged Cornyn, I challenged Tillis, and I challenged, if you look at Louisiana, Cassidy. Three. So that makes things a little bit harder to get their votes, because I wouldn’t say they like me. But of all of them, I would say there’s something wrong with Thomas Massie. He was an automatic no vote. You could go in with the greatest bill, bills where even Democrats were voting, and he’d be no. And I said, “What is wrong with this guy? He’s a sick, sick guy. There’s something wrong with him, actually.”
Now he’s after Pete Hegseth. He doesn’t like Hegseth. But really, what has Hegseth done? He won the war. He was in charge, he won the war in Venezuela, as I said, 48 minutes. It was flawless, nobody killed. And he certainly… I think he’s won the war in Iran, but he’s certainly winning the war. Iran would love to make a deal, and they’ve been obliterated—their navy and their air force. So he won the war in two places, two big places, very important, very impactful. And they were won. They’re not like Vietnam where nothing was won, or Afghanistan or Iraq or any of these wars where nothing was won. There was nothing won, just lots of death. And then let’s leave.
In one case, they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon; in the other, we’re making hundreds of billions of dollars for this country. So I say this: Pete Hegseth won two wars, and oh, let’s impeach him! What about impeaching the gentleman from Biden—his person that disappeared for two weeks, and nobody had any idea where he was? What about impeaching the people that ran the Vietnam War? What about impeaching that went… that ran Iraq and Afghanistan and all of these other wars where thousands of lives have been…
You know, we lost 18 people. 18! They lost 65,000 in Vietnam. We’re in there for seven months; they’re in there for 21 years. What about impeaching those people? What about impeaching the leaders of these stupid wars that were done when nothing was gained? In Iran, they won’t have a nuclear weapon—that’s a big thing. Now, short-term, probably bad for me, because people want to have a little bit lower energy costs. We’ll get it back down. I created the lowest cost, you know, it’s even lower now than it was with Biden and Obama. But I’ve done something different: they won’t have a nuclear weapon, that’s a big thing. And with the other, we’re making a fortune, and we have tremendous amounts of oil. We’re going to have… we have more oil, including Venezuela, than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined, by far. In fact, by two, yeah.
Reporter:
Do you believe the midterms were rigged, sir? To follow up, do you believe the midterms were…
President Trump:
Well, I think the numbers were terrible in terms of those early votes. You look at all those early votes. And look at another one: I’m watching Alaska. So you have a guy named Dan Sullivan and another guy named Dan Sullivan runs. And one’s a J and one’s an S. And the one with a J, which is the fake Dan Sullivan, tries to have his initial changed to S. He never ran before, he never was a political person before. He was fraudulently put in the race, and then they tried to change his middle name so it was an S to confuse.
So Dan Sullivan and the woman, Peltola, they’re very close. He’s only, I guess, she’s 4,500 votes [ahead]. But this fake Dan Sullivan, because of confusion, only because they meant to vote, has 2,500, almost 3,000 votes. That means he wins the election. But in addition, they have a second person they put in, and they made a big issue with the second, and that person is 4,000 or 5,000 votes. Those votes should go also, but even if you don’t include that, you have a Dan Sullivan and a Dan Sullivan, and the Democrats put him up in order to confuse the voters. So anybody that voted for that second Dan Sullivan, the fake Dan Sullivan, was supposed to be a vote for the real Dan Sullivan. So they stole it, and that election should be called right now, because Dan Sullivan won easily if you add up the numbers. Now, if you add up the numbers for the second person they put in, he’s leading by 6,000 or 7,000 votes.
Go ahead, please.
Reporter:
You have multiple times given Vladimir Putin… stand by… you have multiple…
President Trump:
Mr. President Defense Secretary won two wars. He was in charge, we all won. I had great people…
Reporter:
Massie says that he’s carried out…
President Trump:
Massie’s a loser, just like you’re a loser at CNN. Just like your ratings are a loser. Massie is a loser, stone-cold loser.
I ran… I did something that nobody’s done. I took on a guy that was, in his own way, sort of popular in his state, and I beat him badly. Beat him easily with a man that never ran before, but a good man. Massie has a lot of hatred in his heart. I heard what Massie did. I don’t want to watch, I don’t want to waste my time watching him.
We won two wars! We won two wars, and we’ve made the world a lot safer place. And then we’re supposed to be… why haven’t we gone after all these other people that ran wars that lost? What about this? What about… what about good old Lloyd? Why didn’t we go after him? Why didn’t we go after the people that disappeared? They’re in charge of the military and they disappeared, and nobody knew, had any idea! Nothing happened to him. What about all these people that lost wars? You don’t go after them.
All I can say is this: we have the highest recruitment numbers. You know, when I came in, when I was campaigning, we had the worst recruitment—people wanting to join the military—in the history of our country. We couldn’t fill any of the spots, it was a disaster. Now we have the best numbers we’ve ever had. More people want to be in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, even the police, Space Force, firemen—anybody with a uniform. So now we have the best numbers we’ve ever had. And I will say this: the soldiers, the actual soldiers, the great people that do the work, the great patriots, they love Pete Hegseth. So if you go back two years ago, before I got into office, two years ago we could not recruit people, and you know that better. The Army was way behind everybody. Now we have waiting lists of people trying to get in. He’s done a very good job.
Reporter:
Mr. President…
President Trump:
Go ahead.
Reporter:
Vladimir Putin… you have given Vladimir Putin multiple deadlines over the last 22 months to enter into a ceasefire, but also to meet directly with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He has repeatedly ignored your demands, yet you have provided…
President Trump:
Well, you say he’s ignored… has he been fighting us in the war? Yeah, yeah. Let me ask you this question: who you with? Who you with?
Reporter:
With MSNow.
President Trump:
MSNow? That’s a fake. That’s a fake deal, I don’t want to… Go ahead, go ahead. MSNow gets the worst ratings in their history. Used to be MSDNC. It’s one of the worst… you’re a fake network.
Go ahead, Jennifer.
Reporter:
Jennifer, today was Steve… today was Stephen Miller’s first day here at the White House. Stephen Miller is doing a great job. What changes has he made so far, sir?
President Trump:
I think he’s going to be great. He’s been with me from the beginning. He’s smart, he’s tough, he’s fair, and he actually will get along, I think, very well with the Democrats.
Reporter:
Would he let you cut a deal with Democrats on immigration? I want to put a finer point…
President Trump:
They’re going to try, and you know, I’m open to it. We’re not going to have amnesty or anything. We’re going to… you know, people are going to do it the right way, have to do it. It’s unfair to other people, but certainly I’m open to it.
No, no, not you. Not you. Go ahead.
Reporter:
I wanted you to put a finer point on when exactly you were made aware of the intelligence around Jensen Huang…
President Trump:
Oh, I’d have to check, but this has been going on…
Reporter:
Put an intelligence memo out last year. Did you read that memo?
President Trump:
I’d certainly check with the intelligence people. They could have mentioned… certainly it didn’t make much of an impact on me.
Reporter:
Yeah, one of your first tests for bipartisanship in this new era is going to be working with Democrats on this permitting bill, which is expected to get a vote today.
President Trump:
Permitting bill is a great bill that’s supposed to be bipartisan. We are behind it 100%.
Reporter:
Are you going to whip that in the House at…
President Trump:
We may see, but the Democrats want that. I mean, maybe they’ve changed, but they want it as much as the Republicans.
Reporter:
You’re going to approve wind turbines in the future? You’ve been very critical of them. That’s part of…
President Trump:
No, I will not approve wind turbines.
Reporter:
Well, that’s part of the bill, sir. A key part of the bill.
President Trump:
Well, the bill has been fully negotiated. I will not approve wind turbines, because wind turbines are a major loser.
Reporter:
Is it still your plan to take Cuba, as you said before? It was going to be your pleasure to take Cuba in your mandate. Do you still plan on taking Cuba, or…
President Trump:
Well, Cuba is falling. It’s a failing nation. It’s got an ideology very similar to what the Democrat ideology is, and it’s a failing nation. It’s a communist nation, socialist nation—sort of everything all wrapped into one. We have tremendous people who were treated very badly, Cuban Americans, and they voted for me 94%, and we take care of those people. But Cuba is a failing nation. We will help them on a humanitarian basis. We are helping them, actually, but we’ll see what happens. Cuba is going to be interesting. I would imagine it will fall fairly soon.
I can’t keep this man waiting. He’s a very, very powerful man, so let me ask… wait, wait, wait… so let me ask you the big question: Dana, would you like to be Press Secretary of the United States of America? Look at the sign! You’d have this behind you all the time—”The White House, Washington.” Would you like that, or do you just want to stay with this ridiculous UFC, huh?
Dana White:
Thank you for the offer, sir. For… for the offer. I have no… I do not want to be in politics.
President Trump:
I am devastated to hear this! Goodbye, everybody! Thank you, everybody!
Just to conclude, our country is doing really well. We’re respected by everybody in the world, something that was not true two years ago. Our country is doing better than it’s ever done before. Thank you very much.
