President Trump details Operation Epic Fury, claiming a 26-day victory that destroyed 90% of Iran's missiles and sank 154 vessels while demanding zero enrichment and facility dismantling. Cabinet members like RFK Jr., JD Vance, and Marco Rubio praise the operation's success against "radical Shia clerics," contrasting it with NATO's failure and criticizing Democrats for open borders and DHS shutdowns. The meeting concludes with Trump defending his cognitive abilities against Gavin Newsom, attacking the Federal Reserve, and celebrating record tax refunds alongside a 75% crime drop in Memphis. [Automatically generated summary]
Officials are expected to discuss topics ranging from DHS shutdown that's causing along security lines across the country, as well as the latest on Operation Epic Fury.
And President Trump wants his advisors, the people in that cabinet room, to try to figure out how to wind the war down in the next couple weeks, according to the Wall Street Journal.
But between now and then, he might have to unleash hell.
And so far, the U.S. military's role in Epic Fury is getting good marks.
The Fox News poll finds that 58% think the military's performance has been excellent or good.
And here are the bullet points holding things up, holding up the end.
The U.S. demands of Iran, dismantle the nuclear facilities, have zero nuclear enrichment, constrain the missile development, and then keep the Strait of Hormuz free and safe.
They also want them to stop supporting proxy terror groups.
Iran is asking this of the United States.
They want to guarantee no more U.S. attacks.
They want full sanctions relief.
They want the U.S. to pay some war compensation.
And they want a new payment system for passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
They also want the U.S. to pull out of Middle Eastern military bases.
We don't know how many of those things are realistic, but the president still seems to think that both sides are close.
Nobody's ever seen anything like we're doing in the Middle East with Iran.
And they are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they're afraid to say it because they figure they'll be killed by their own people.
They're also afraid they'll be killed by us.
There's never been a head of a country that wanted that job less than being the head of Iran.
And this morning at 10 o'clock, three hours from now, this is going to be the first time that the whole cabinet has gotten together since Epic Fury started so that they can talk about the military part with the War Secretary, the economic part and gas prices with the Treasury Secretary and the Interior Secretary and the Energy Secretary, and also the possible impact on food prices with the Agriculture Secretary.
It looks like the president just tweeted or put this out on True Social.
He said, the Iranian negotiators are very different and strange.
They are begging us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only looking at our proposal wrong.
They better get serious soon before it is too late, because once that happens, there's no turning back and it won't be pretty.
You have an amazing family that were here yesterday in the Oval.
Sworn in.
His family is amazing.
So thank you very much.
We're now on day 41 of the disgraceful Democrat shutdown of Mark Wayne's department.
Congratulations.
You came into a department that shut down.
Shut down by the radical Democrats.
But Democrats are really punishing the American people.
I saw it today on one of the shows where they were interviewing people at the airport and they're all angry at the Democrats.
They're saying they're actually angry at Schumer.
I didn't think anyone knew his name.
One woman said that Schumer is disgraceful.
He's a disgrace to our country.
But they're angry at the Democrats.
They know what's happening.
But they're punishing the American people, including travelers at airports, all in the quest to return to open borders and give amnesty to illegal alien criminals.
They want to give amnesty to some of the criminals that came into our country.
Just about all of them, actually, if you look at it, they love sanctuary cities, which is a sanctuary for criminals.
They want to make sure they're taken care of.
That's what we're fighting about.
That's really what they're fighting.
They don't talk about that, but that's what they're fighting about.
They want to protect criminals.
In many cases, 11,888 murders.
Many of them, I will say, are gone now because of us.
We got them out.
But still have some left.
Should have never happened, should have never been allowed to come into our country.
But we're not going to let it happen.
We're not going to let the Democrats get away with this stuff.
And people are wise to them.
So they need to end the shutdown immediately, or we'll have to take some very drastic measures.
This morning, I want to give an update on the Operation Epic Fury, which is an appropriate name because we are absolutely obliterating them.
Over the past three weeks, we've been hitting Iran's military capabilities at a level that few people have ever seen before.
People never knew there was such a capability.
We have the strongest military anywhere in the world by far.
I built it during my first administration and I used it during my second administration.
Unfortunately, because I'd rather not have to use it.
But it's a display of force and precision and skill like nothing the world has really witnessed, although you get a pretty good witnessing of it in Venezuela also.
That was a smaller version of what we're doing now.
We're crushing their missiles and drone stockpiles, destroying the defense industrial base.
We've wiped out their Navy completely, their Air Force completely.
We've wiped out a large percentage of their missiles.
And the missile launchers, without the launchers, you can't, the missiles don't do any good.
And we've knocked out probably close to 90% of the launchers, probably more than 90% of the missiles themselves.
Between some they fired and more than they fired, we knocked out.
We've also destroyed a lot of the factories.
We're continuing to do that, but a lot of the factories where they manufacture the drones and the missiles.
The drones too are way down.
But the reason they're down is they go one way, they don't come back, because for the most part, we're shooting them down.
But we also are able to, we've really done tremendous damage to the places where they make them.
And just so we set the record straight, because I've been watching the Wall Street Journal's fake news and all these stories that get printed like, oh, I want to make a deal.
They are begging to make a deal, not me.
They're begging to make a deal.
And anybody that saw what was happening over there would understand why they want to make a deal.
But they say, oh, we're not talking to them.
Anybody would know they're talking.
Only a total fool.
And they're not fools.
They're very smart, actually, in a certain way.
And they're great negotiators.
I say they're lousy fighters, but they're great negotiators.
And they are begging to work out a deal.
I don't know if we'll be able to do that.
I don't know if we're willing to do that.
They should have done that four weeks ago.
They should have done it two years ago.
Or they should have done it when we first came into office because two years ago, they had free reign under Biden, Sleepy Joe, worst president in the history of our country.
What he allowed to happen to our country at the borders.
And even with a thing like this.
But not just him.
Every president for 47 years, every president should have done this.
They should have done it a long time ago because you cannot give lunatics a nuclear weapon and they would have had a big one.
It stopped really when we did the B-2, but even before that, the Barack Hussein Obama, what he did where he gave them the Iran nuclear deal, gave them free will toward a nuclear weapon.
Basically, he chose Iran over Israel and others that didn't want him to do it.
But I terminated that deal.
Had I not terminated that deal, you would have had a nuclear weapon years ago and it would have been used, guaranteed.
And one of the reasons you know about the guarantee is because their neighbors were sort of like bystanders.
They weren't involved very much.
They didn't choose heavy size.
They didn't want to because people were concerned with Iran.
There was a big black cloud over the Middle East.
They were concerned, but all of a sudden, the world starts and they start shooting at these five, in particular five countries.
They start shooting at Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Oman.
They start shooting at them, and everybody was shocked, including us.
And some of those missiles that were shot at them were locked long before we even started this process.
They were locked and loaded and aimed at those countries.
They wanted to take over the Middle East, but we happened to come along, so it wasn't so easy.
So, right now, their Navy is sunk in the largest elimination of a foreign navy that has taken place, maybe ever, but certainly since World War II.
Their air force is gone.
Their anti-aircraft and communications capabilities are totally dismantled.
And one of the problems they do have when they deal with us is we deal with people, and the people aren't able to communicate with anybody else, you know, because all of their leadership has been gone.
The first level is gone, and they meant to pick a new level, and they're gone.
They're all gone because they didn't make a deal, and because they're sick people, they're really sick.
They're really sinister, sick people.
And if anybody thinks it was okay to have a group of people like this to have nuclear capability, nuclear weapons, and if we didn't attack with the B-2 bombers, they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks of that, maybe four weeks.
But between two and four weeks, they were planning to have a nuclear weapon.
And we didn't hit them at that time with the B-2 bombers in one of the great air raids in history, maybe the greatest.
Dark at night, no moon, no light.
Every single bomb hit its mark and just obliterated that place.
So it's now buried deep under earth.
And it was an amazing thing, but they would have a nuclear, and they would have used it without question.
And you know that because why did they shoot all these countries that weren't even really involved with them?
They weren't involved.
They had no big problems because they're sick, because they want to take over the Middle East, not just Israel.
Certainly Israel would have been the first on their list.
They would have used nuclear weapons, a nuclear.
You don't need too many of them.
But they would have used a nuclear weapon on Israel and they would have used it on the other neighbors.
And then they would have come after us.
And if we had a weak president, they would have done great damage.
But fortunately, you don't have a weak president.
I knew what was happening.
And I think we've been proven right.
You know, they took one missile, it went 2,500 miles.
They supposedly didn't have a missile like that.
They had no missile with that capability.
But they shot the now famous Ireland, the island that the UK was very afraid to give us because they didn't want to get dragged in.
But we don't want to get dragged into their wars either.
One thing we're very disappointed, I'll say it publicly, we're very disappointed with NATO because NATO has done absolutely nothing.
And I've always said 25 years ago, I mean, I was somebody that wasn't a politician, but I was always involved in politics and I understood politics.
I said 25 years ago that NATO's a paper tiger, but more importantly, that we'll come to their rescue, but they will never come to ours.
And I want you to remember that we said this.
They didn't come to our rescue.
Now they all want to help.
When they're annihilated, the other side is annihilated.
They said, we'd love to send ships.
They actually made a statement, a couple of them, that we want to get involved when the war is over.
No, it's supposed to get involved with the wars beginning or even before it begins.
We had the UK say that we'll send, this is three weeks ago, we'll send our aircraft carriers, which aren't the best aircraft carriers, by the way.
They're toys compared to what we have.
But we'll send our aircraft carrier when the war is over.
I said, oh, that's wonderful.
Thank you very much.
Don't bother.
We don't need it.
And we don't need it.
And we don't need them.
We estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission.
And we're way ahead of schedule.
If you look at what we've done in terms of the destruction of that country, I mean, we're way ahead.
Think of it.
They have no navy and they had good ships.
154 ships have been shot down and are resting very nicely at the bottom of the sea.
And we did that in a matter of less than a week because we have the greatest military in the world by far, nobody even close.
So we estimate it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission.
26 days in.
We're extremely really a lot ahead of schedule.
The Iranian regime is now admitting to itself that they have been decisively defeated.
They're saying to people, this is a disaster.
They know.
That's why they're talking to us.
They wouldn't talk otherwise.
But they're talking to us because they've got a disaster in their hands.
They're defeated.
They can't make a comeback.
We're free to roam over their cities and towns and destroy all of their crazy nuclear weapons and missiles and drones that they're building.
And we're doing that.
They now have a chance to make a deal, but that's up to them.
And they'll tell you, we're not negotiating.
We will not negotiate.
Of course they're negotiating.
They've been obliterated.
Who wouldn't negotiate?
They are begging to make a deal.
We'll see if we can make the right deal.
And if they make the right deal, then the strait will open up.
Harmu Strait will open up.
And even now, we don't know if there are any mines.
You know, they have 22 mine, they call them mine droppers.
Think of it.
Who would have 22 mine droppers?
This is a boat that drops mines.
Who has 22 mine droppers?
Except for people with very evil intention.
So every one of those mine droppers has been struck with the same weapon we used to stop drugs from coming into the United States of America.
When we hit those boats, it's the exact same weapon, extremely effective.
We have unlimited supplies and extremely effective.
But they have no more mine droppers.
By the way, speaking of drugs, we're 98% down drugs coming in by water, by the ocean, by the sea.
98%.
And we're trying to find out who are the 2% because we think they're the bravest men anywhere in the world.
Maybe women.
But whoever's on those boats is very brave or doesn't watch television.
But we're drugs coming in by sea, coming in by water, are 98% down.
And now we'll stop the drugs coming in by land.
The land is the easy one.
You had to stop the water.
A lot of it came into the water.
Now it's all pinched.
And these people are trying to come in by land.
And we will, that's the easy one.
But we had to take care of the water first.
Nobody's coming.
Virtually nothing is coming in anymore.
It was hundreds of millions of dollars a week were coming in by water.
They now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to chart a new path forward.
We'll see if they want to do it.
They don't.
We're their worst nightmare.
In the meantime, we'll just keep blowing them away, unimpeded, unstopped.
There's not a thing they can do about it.
They can't do anything about it.
I tell you, if they could, if they could, you'd be hearing about it.
Every one of you, most of you, I guess, said you'll never hit 50,000 during a four-year period because it was too high a number.
Well, we hit it in our first year.
And I said, well, now we have to take an excursion to Iran and we have to stop this maniac who's no longer with us.
The supreme leader wasn't so supreme, no longer with us.
It's very sad.
But we have to stop him from blowing up the world, blowing up the Middle East, and blowing up our country.
And we did that.
And I thought, frankly, I thought the oil prices would go up more.
And I thought the stock market would go down more.
It hasn't been nearly as severe as I thought.
I think they have confidence in maybe the American president and maybe the people sitting around this table.
But Americans filing their taxes this year are receiving record-setting refunds.
It's been a very big story.
Well, it should be a big story.
I don't think you write about it that much, but I speak about it.
You know, I speak about it because if I speak about it, at least people here, you don't write about it.
You don't write about the drug prices going down.
It'll be going down 30, 40, 50, 60%, 70%.
Favored nations, called most favored nations, we're going to be paying the lowest price anywhere in the world before we paid the highest price in the world, Bobby, right?
And now we're going to pay the lowest price in the world.
That's quite a difference.
It's a difference of from 40 to 70 and 80 and even 90 percent.
That's a pretty big difference.
But we're slashing regulations and investment is pouring in from all over the world.
We have the most investment of any country in history has been put into our country in the last year.
And again, we had to take a little detour.
Won't be long.
Gonna end soon.
We had to take a little detour, go to Iran, and we had to put out a fire.
Very dangerous fire that could have blown up big portions of the world, if not the whole thing.
So tomorrow we'll be announcing a variety of actions that we're taking to support American farmers who we never forget.
We love the farmers.
We gave them $12 billion out of tariff money.
We had a tremendous amount of tariff money come in and we continue to have.
We've gone, as you know, the Supreme Court gave us a very unfortunate, foolish ruling, a ruling that gives the people that have ripped off our country for many years, gives them some money back.
It's one of those things.
It's a terrible, terrible, horrible mistake they made, but it's okay because we have another method that's just as good.
We'll use the other method.
But because the tariff money has been so substantial, we gave our farmers who have been mistreated by some countries.
We gave them $12 billion and they're extremely happy and they deserve it.
They've been great.
They never complain.
They just go out and they farm and they wouldn't do anything different.
They wouldn't trade jobs with any of you, except maybe some of the fake media.
I don't know.
Somehow I don't see that.
I like their job better, actually.
I love the farmers.
So we gave them $12 billion.
So in just a few moments, Treasury Secretary Scott Besson will discuss the actions that we're taking to address energy prices, which have not gone up as much as I thought, Scott, to be honest with you.
And, you know, it's not over, so maybe it'll go up a little bit more.
It's all going to come back down to where it was and probably lower.
And my predictions have been right.
Trump was right about everything.
They have a new hat.
Trump was right about everything.
It's pretty right.
But Scott's going to address that.
And I think before we go very much further, I want to ask Vice President JD Vance to say a few words about where we are with the situation.
He's involved with Steve and with Jared on negotiations.
And then some of the others will speak.
We'll have Marco say a few words.
Pete Hegseth, who was born for this role.
I mean, he's doing a great job.
They gave him a hard time.
And now people, I'll tell you, somebody came up to me yesterday, gave you a very hard time, said, you know, I made a mistake.
Pete Hegseth is doing a good job.
So when I tell you who, you're not even going to believe it.
He said, he gave you such a nasty hard time, but you're doing, you're doing great.
And then Steve is going to speak and Scott will speak last.
And if we have any questions, we'll take some questions.
So first of all, is the president summarized this very ably.
But look, the Iranian conventional military is effectively destroyed.
They don't have a Navy.
They don't have the ability to hit us like they could have even a few weeks ago.
And what that does is that gives us options, Mr. President.
Now, there's been a lot of reporting about diplomatic options, about negotiations.
There's, of course, Pete and his team.
There are further military options.
But what we have now that we didn't have when the president took over just a little over a year ago is the ability to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon.
Because when I say options, I think it's important the American people know options for what?
And it's options to ensure that Iran never has a nuclear weapon.
You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on, and they blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed, and that's a terrible tragedy.
What happens when what's on the vest?
It's not something that can kill a couple of people, but can kill many, many tens of thousands of people.
That is the most important American national security objective that exists for any administration at any time is you don't want the worst people in the world to have a nuclear weapon.
That's why the president is doing this.
That's why the president cares so much about this particular issue.
I'll let Steve talk a little bit about the details of the negotiation.
But the last thing I'll say before I turn it over to Marco is I'm very mindful, of course, that we have a lot of folks overseas fighting very ably for the United States of America.
I know Pete and the whole team, we're very proud of them.
But they're fighting at a time where we are about to enter as Christians the most important week of the Christian calendar, the holy week that celebrates the return of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem.
And so I want to say to all of my fellow American Christians, but particularly those serving in the Gulf, that I wish you all a very blessed Easter, a very blessed holy week, and we continue to stand behind you and continue to support you every step of the way.
The most important job any president has is to keep the American people safe.
And every president says it, but we have a president that means it and does something about it.
As the president outlined very clearly to the world on the night this operation began, Iran has been at war with the United States for 47 years.
For 47 years, Iran has been killing Americans and attacking Americans across this planet.
And other presidents had an opportunity to do something about it.
And they all warned about how Iran was dangerous, but they refused to act.
And this president's not someone that's going to refuse to act.
He's not going to leave a danger like this in place.
He's going to address it.
And that is what he is doing.
From the very first night of this operation, the president made it very clear.
People like this, and what I'm talking about is not the people of Iran.
The people that run this country are radical Shia clerics.
These are religious fanatics.
Look what they are doing now at their weakest point.
This is the weakest Iran has ever been.
And look at what they're doing.
They're attacking embassies.
They're embassies.
They're attacking hotels.
Imagine what these people would do if they had a nuclear weapon.
That is an unacceptable risk for the world.
By the way, the president's not just doing a favor to the United States and to our people.
This is for the world.
He defined very clearly on the first night of this operation what the goal was.
We were going to destroy Iran's Navy, and that is happening.
We were going to, if it hasn't already happened, I'll let Pete speak to the specifics of it.
We were going to destroy their missile launching capabilities.
We're well on our way to achieving that goal.
We were going to destroy the factories so they couldn't make more missiles and more drones.
And that is moving forward.
Every single objective the president clearly laid out on the first night of this operation is being effectuated.
Again, Pete will speak to the specifics of it.
This has been an incredibly successful operation.
Every day, it may not get covered because, you know, we're unlike them, we're not bombing embassies and hotels.
We're hitting military targets.
But every day, the Department of War lets the drummer get wicked over every portion of Iran that has these military capabilities, and the results are going to bear fruit for the world.
The world is going to be a safer and a better place when President Trump's mission here is achieved.
And frankly, I think countries around the world, even those that are out there complaining about this a little bit, should actually be grateful that the United States has a president that's willing to confront a threat like this and not allow it to continue to persist.
Because these people will kill as many Americans as they have a chance to do.
And if they have a nuclear weapon, as the vice president pointed out, they could kill millions of Americans in the future.
And that is a risk that was not going to continue to exist as long as we had this president.
Mr. President, it is my distinct honor to be a member of your cabinet and to report to you and your team on our negotiations with Iran.
Mr. President, you directed Jared and I to pursue a diplomatic resolution with Iran prior to Operation Epic Fury, which we did.
However, it became quite clear during these meetings with the Iranian negotiating team that we could not make a deal that fulfilled your objectives of the following.
No enrichment whatsoever.
No chance of weaponizing whatsoever.
Decommissioning of Fordeau, the Times, and Esfahan, which you destroyed in Operation Midnight Hammer.
No stockpiling of any material, which they flagrantly violated.
Turning all enriched material over to us, and a cutback in Iran's missile inventory and range capability of those same missiles.
Throughout our meetings with the Iranians, we heard the following from them.
The Iranians have the inalienable right to enrich.
Then we heard they possessed enough 60% enriched material, 460 kilograms, to make 11 atomic bombs.
Finally, we heard the following statement.
They would not give up diplomatically what we could not win militarily.
In other words, they were again miscalculating the success of Midnight Hammer, which was a total success.
These are incontrovertible signs, among many other signs, sir, that their regime had not given their negotiating team authority to make a deal required by you.
We conferred with you and all the other members of your foreign policy team, Susie Wiles, Pete Hegseph, the chairman, Marco Rubio, JD, Scott Besant, Chris Wright, John Radcliffe, throughout all of these negotiations, and we were repeatedly rebuffed on everything we asked for.
I have no doubt that we exhausted all efforts on behalf of a peaceful resolution, as you directed.
Jared and I both agreed that the Iranians were there to buy time until a weaker president arrived.
This was a flawed strategy, as your clear direction was to never allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon today or any time in the future.
Against that backdrop and our compelling military successes in Epic Fury, we have had multiple reach outs from the region and others who want to play a role in ending this conflict peacefully.
I can report to you today that we have, along with your foreign policy team, presented a 15-point action list that forms the framework for a peace deal.
This has been circulated through the Pakistani government, acting as the mediator, and this has resulted in strong and positive messaging and talks, as you just indicated to the press.
But these are sensitive diplomatic discussions, and you have directed us to maintain confidentiality on the specific terms and not negotiate through the news media as others do.
I can say this.
We will see where things lead and if we can convince Iran that this is the inflection point with no good alternatives for them other than more death and destruction.
We have strong signs that this is a possibility and if a deal happens, it will be great for the country of Iran, for the entire region and the world at large.
Your policy of peace through strength is the most effective tool for a diplomatic resolution here, just as this policy was an effective tool in each and every one of all of the other conflicts you settled in your first year.
Iran is looking for an off-ramp following your powerful threat on Saturday.
Your indications that you are willing to listen to peace proposals have been well received.
You've instructed us that your preference is always peace and that we should make that our priority.
We have delivered that message, sir, along with the 15 points for peace.
Never in recorded history has a nation's military been so quickly and effectively neutralized.
Operation Epic Fury is not an endless war.
It's a decisive campaign with clear objectives to destroy Iran's offensive military capabilities and ensure they never obtain a nuclear weapon.
This is stuff for the history books.
This is stuff for legacy.
Mr. President, you are acting now to ensure future generations do not have to live under the threat of a nuclear arm Iran.
However, you wouldn't know it if you listened to the dishonest hate Trump media, as you referenced.
The folks here in the room, these cameras, they have a choice.
You're either informing the American people of the truth or you're not.
Because I hear it from my people every day.
Behind every headline you write, there's a helicopter crew in the air.
And behind every news banner you write, there's a battalion on the move.
And behind every fake news story, there's an F-35 pilot executing a dangerous mission.
My message to the media is get it right.
This actually isn't something new to me.
I may be a young guy, Mr. President, but I'm not a rookie in this realm.
In 2007, in 2007, I helped lead the surge, the public fight for the Iraq surge.
Stood and watched people stand in the Senate and declare the war is lost before it even started.
Who was that?
It was Harry Reid.
That was the Democrats and the media working hand in glove.
Back then, it was three years into a war.
Now we're three weeks into an operation.
But see, unlike Iraq, this isn't a tie.
This is not parody.
This is not chaos.
This is success, pure American success on plan, and as the president said, ahead of pace.
Over 10,000 enemy targets destroyed.
Over 140, I think now you're right, Mr. President, over 150 naval vessels sunk, underground facilities destroyed, their defense industrial base in shambles.
And overnight, not only do they not have a Navy, Mr. President, they no longer have a Navy commander.
IRGC's Navy commander was killed overnight in operation.
So no Navy, no Navy leader.
Now that he's, here's the thing about the media though.
If President Trump had not acted, you'd be screaming, why not?
And now that he has taken decisive action, you're asking, well, why did you?
It's the same old tired playbook, TDS in your DNA.
But the hardworking, God-fearing, patriotic Americans out there know better.
And you alluded to this, President Obama, Mr. President.
Here's a fact that you don't hear on your networks, but we know.
Many of the Iranian military factories and bases that we're systematically destroying were paid for by the pallets of American cash that Barack Obama flew into Tehran under the Iran deal.
You might call it an inconvenient truth.
Iran took our money and turned it into weapons and bunkers and ammo.
And now we're destroying those weapons and we're writing, you're writing, Mr. President, that grievous wrong.
And make no mistake, we had to act.
And our objectives are clear.
No nukes, no Navy, and a complete dismantling of their missile program and defense industrial base.
And as Marco pointed out, that mission and the VP as well has not changed since day one.
Yet, two days ago, they shot two failed missiles on a target 4,000 kilometers away.
For years, they told the world that their missiles could only range two kilometers.
And to the world, I say London is 4,000 kilometers from Iran.
Washington, D.C. is 3,300 kilometers from Venezuela, another country President Trump did something about that partnered for a long time with Iran.
So you're telling us that Iran is not a threat to the world or to the U.S., President Trump knows better.
And here's what success actually looks like right now.
You mentioned it, Mr. President.
A-10 Warthogs, if you know them, you love them.
And Apache helicopter gunships are flying strike missions inside Iranian airspace and throughout the Strait of Hormuz at will.
See, you only send these slow, low-flying, close air support platforms when the enemy has no meaningful air defenses left.
Their presence is proof that Iran's air defenses are gone.
Their command and control is shattered.
Their top leaders hiding in underground bunkers, while their mid-level commanders are being crushed in the field.
The morale of their fighters plummeting.
We see that disconnect daily.
They're privately admitting, as you said, Mr. President, very heavy losses.
We know that.
President Trump has given us a clear mission.
Our capabilities are only going up, and Iran's are plummeting.
We are here to win, and we're full speed ahead.
So, Steve, we appreciate your efforts.
We pray for a deal, and we welcome a deal, and we have the ultimate deal maker to make it happen.
But in the meantime, as I said yesterday, the Department of War will continue negotiating with bombs.
War is negotiation by other means.
And finally, I want to thank our incredible troops, our pilots, crews, sailors, refuelers, air defenders, the absolute best of America, the real 1% of our country.
I think before I ask Scott to say a couple of words, it would be great if people like the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois would say, please come in and stop the cry.
A beautiful young lady was killed the other day.
And the father was a very good friend of Dan Scavino.
And he took it very hard.
Dan took it very hard.
He liked the father, friends.
They grew up together.
And it's a young lady whose life would be saved if we had what we did.
As an example, in Washington, D.C., which is now a safe city.
All the time, people come up to me in the building.
People that work here, they say, Thank you so much.
I know immediately what they're talking about.
They're able to walk to work.
They walk to work.
You all walk to work.
Some of you were mugged.
I know you told me stories.
Some of you were mugged.
One person in particular was viciously mugged in the group right here.
It's not happening anymore.
You have a safe city.
Louisiana, the governor of Louisiana called me, Can you help me?
With New Orleans, they just had the money grow.
He said it was the safest money grow we've ever had.
Sounds terrible to say.
No murders.
You know, it sounds like who would say this?
No murders, but they always had murders.
They had a lot of crime during money growing.
He said, virtually no crime.
We had the troops down there.
Memphis, Tennessee, I just got back.
We were there.
Crime is down 75% in a short period of time with their five months.
We could do that for Chicago.
We could do that for New York.
We could do that for LA.
And we could do that for, frankly, San Francisco.
I know they have a mayor who's trying very hard.
He's a Democrat, but he's trying very hard.
But we can do it much more effectively because he can't do what we do.
He can't take people out from the city and bring them back to the country from where they came, where they were in prisons.
They were allowed to go in prisons.
There were drug dealers, the highest level drug deals, murderers, 11,888 murders.
San Francisco, a great city, was a great city, could quickly become a great city again.
But, you know, they're going very slowly.
I tell my friends they're very substantial people.
They're in a certain business where people have made a lot of money.
I don't hope that lasts.
But they have a tremendous potential.
It was one of the greatest cities in the world.
Now it's got a lot of crime.
And the mayor is really trying.
Again, a Democrat trying.
And I spoke to him.
He just wants to have a chance.
And I said, we'll give you a chance.
But we can solve it very quickly.
This young lady would be around today if we were around because we have nobody coming through our border.
I mean, literally for nine months at zero.
It's hard to believe that that number could be possible because millions of people came in through Biden.
But nobody even tries.
We don't have the caravans of thousands, 25,000, 30,000 people pouring into our border.
They come up in caravans.
We don't have caravans anymore.
There's no such thing anymore.
It's a name that I think I developed, but somebody developed it, but I think it was me.
I thought it was an appropriate thousands of people would come up and just barge into our country, totally unchecked, totally unvetted.
And this man came in, Dan, right?
And he came in through the ridiculous open border of Biden.
If we were there, the election was rigged.
What are you going to do?
Came back, big comeback.
But if we were there, we wouldn't have had people coming through.
It's amazing.
You know, it's so easy now because everyone knows they're not getting through.
We don't have any caravans.
Once they know that, when it was easy to come through, when I heard that they had an open border policy, I said, boy, this is going to be, I couldn't believe it.
But when it was actually, you know, it dawned on me because I had built a thousand miles of wall and we were finishing up some and he didn't want to finish it up.
I said, they really do want to have an open border.
And we got it finished.
But that young lady would be alive today.
And she'd be alive for another reason because we would have the National Guard in Chicago and in New York.
and in other places and they love doing it.
It's like training, to be honest, it's actually training.
I never want to take them out of DC.
I mean, maybe somebody later on will do it, but I never want to take, you know, the people, they look, they say, we feel so good, we feel so safe.
We see these beautiful, strong people, and they're so nice.
They help, they open the doors for people.
They carry bags.
They pick up paper when they see paper on the ground.
I looked at DC last night.
I drove to make a speech and I drove through and I said, take me this way, take me that way.
The city's clean.
The fences are down.
You don't have homeless all over your parks.
I mean, we had parks.
There was no room for anything else other than homeless.
It's all clean and nice.
And it'll be even more beautiful in a year from now.
And we have some projects that are great.
This ballroom is going to be something that's so beautiful for the city, so desperately needed by presidents.
I mean, now it's no secret.
The military wanted it more than anybody.
It was supposed to be secret, but it became unsecret because of people that are really unpatriotic saying things.
But it doesn't matter.
Doesn't matter.
It's going to be great.
We're building an arc, a triumphal arc, which will be incredible for the city.
We're fixing up what was the Kennedy Center.
I was honored when the board changed the name a little bit.
Actually, it shows that the Republican and the Democrats, they work together.
It's really something we work together.
I think it's a great symbol, actually.
But we're doing a lot of work.
That building is ready to fall down.
It's in terrible shape.
We're closing it.
We're going to open it with a bang in less than two years.
It'll come in under budget ahead of schedule.
That's what I do.
It won't be like the Federal Reserve that's costing $4 billion or something thereabouts.
Think of it.
$4 billion.
You know, it's amazing.
I said to the group before, I said, everything I do, I get sued.
I build under budget ahead of schedule.
I get sued over a ballroom that's going to be the most beautiful ballroom in the country, so desperately needed.
You won't have to have tents sitting on the wet White House lawn.
If it rains, you get wiped out to honor the president of China or the president of France or the president of somewhere.
We get sued by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
They don't know what they're doing.
Then I just found out we got sued by that group and another group, I guess, on the fixing up of, again, I'll use the old name, Kennedy Center, because they're not fixing up Trump can.
It's going to be beautiful when you add the name Trump.
But the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is a joke, by the way, they didn't sue that building.
They didn't sue anybody.
But they sue me and I build.
And by the way, my building is all donations.
Rich people and people are putting up the money.
Zero taxpayer dollars.
Is that right, Scott?
Zero taxpayer dollars.
Stuff is all done for free, and I get sued.
This could only happen to Trump.
But they don't sue the guy whose interest rates are too high.
That's why we call him too late.
His name is Jerome Powell.
We call him Jerome Too Late Powell.
And done a terrible job.
He suffers from Trump derangement syndrome, as he probably should, because I hit him pretty hard.
But so I don't blame him.
But they don't sue a man who has taken this gorgeous building, ripped it down from the inside, taking ceilings that are as beautiful as you've ever seen, taking the ceilings down instead of leaving them, taking walls down that were two feet thick of solid concrete and plaster, replacing them with six-inch walls with no insulation.
I said, let me ask you, are you going to put insulation in?
No, it's not in the budget.
Insulation costs $5.
Now you're going to hear the guy next door.
If he's next door to me, I'll be able to hear his military plan.
I'll know exactly.
If Lutnik is in there, I'll say, oh, I know exactly what Lutnik's got planned.
It's the craziest thing I've ever seen.
They've ripped this gorgeous building apart and you can never build it again.
You can, I could, but it costs a lot of money.
But a normal person can never build.
So you're going to have crummy little walls, a flat little ceiling eventually, but right now you don't have anything.
And nobody sues this guy.
And then when Janine Pirro, working with Pam and others, has the courage to sue to find out what happened to maybe $4 billion at a building that may never be occupied by Kevin Wars.
He may never get there.
We're going to have to find him some space in the White House.
We'll put him in the basement of the ballroom.
But when, now think of it, when Janine Pirro and Pam and the group, when they bring a suit, it's like, oh, this terrible thing.
And then we have a judge that attacks us, attacks us.
As I'm signing a trillion-dollar airplane contract to buy brand new fighter jets, brand new B2 bombers, of which we just ordered plenty.
I can't do that with the press.
Use your pen, but I like the pen the best.
But I'll sign it.
I could do like Biden did, you know, give it to somebody else to sign or an auto pen or maybe sign it separately in another room, but I can't use your pen.
And I could even paint the White House on it, sir, if you like, in gold, almost real gold, not bad.
And I could even do your signature, sir.
And by the way, this was not staged.
I just saw the pen sit there.
I thought that this is an example of how $25 million spent by me at the Federal Reserve Building would be a better job than $4 billion that they're spending.
And you know, one of the things that Kevin Wars told me, he said they ripped down the nicest building.
I don't know what building they're talking about.
They ripped down a building, Scott, right?
Kevin Wars said it's the most beautiful building in Washington.
Well, sir, as always, you're a tough act to follow, but that is very illustrative.
Your economic leadership has made our military mission possible.
Mr. President, national security, as you always say, is economic security.
Your leadership has shown the American people that there is no prosperity without security.
That our mighty military on one side, but the U.S. economic strength is fighting off this evil regime.
The Iranians believe they are fighting a two-front war.
It is the military war that our great warriors are prosecuting.
But on the other side, they are trying to take control of the global economy through a choke point that we believe does not exist and that we will overcome.
Your historic operation at Epic Fury seized a generational opportunity to demolish a regime that has coordinated over four decades of global terror and claimed thousands of American lives.
Many people, especially the Democrats, underestimate the will of the American people for short-term volatility for 50 years of safety that we are going to have on the other side of this.
And I believe energy prices will be lower, inflation will be lower.
Before, we had the appearance of security, which is not real security.
Now, the American people and the world will have absolute security.
Through your maximum pressure campaign, Treasury has worked to uncover all financial lifelines through the regime and cut them off.
You gave that order last March.
This was not something that happened overnight.
This is something that has been contemplated for almost a year.
The Iranian financial system collapsed in December.
We have systematically weakened Iran's ability to fund operations and procure weapons, and that required months of preparations.
Threats to American national security have no place in the global economic system.
The oil market is well supplied.
We have taken actions to ensure oil supplies stranded at sea are made available to the global market.
Your bold actions, like the Development Finance Corporation's Maritime Reinsurance Program, in conjunction with Central Command, will soon provide shippers through the Gulf region with a level of security we have never seen before.
Mr. President, we are starting to see more and more movement in and out of the Gulf today.
And this is more than yesterday, and this is the beginning.
I am confident that shipping traffic will continue to increase on a daily basis, even before we secure the Straits.
Turning to the home front, the U.S. economy remains strong.
We had a strong economy thanks to you.
We are the best insulated in the world thanks to your energy efforts in term one and term two.
The U.S. is an energy superpower.
American workers' purchasing power is finally being restored.
The latest figures indicate robust real compensation increases.
We are starting to see the working family tax cuts benefits bearing fruit this tax season.
44% of tax returns have claimed at least one of your signature policies: no tax and tips, no tax and overtime, no tax and social security, deductibility of auto loans.
The average tax refund is up more than 10% for working Americans.
The economy you vitalize through your pro-growth policies is well positioned to withstand these temporary disruptions.
The United States dollar has reasserted itself as a safe haven asset.
The U.S. dollar has appreciated since the hostilities began because everyone knows thanks to your efforts, the U.S. economy is the best position in the world and capital is flowing in.
Efforts to reprioritize economic security are ensuring the United States remains secure, resilient, and prepared for the challenges ahead.
As we approach the 250th anniversary, America will never be safer and more secure militarily and economically.
just such a ridiculous question thank you mr. president There's been a report that potentially the U.S. is looking at diverting some munitions, air defenses that were meant for Ukraine to the Middle East.
As an example, in California, every time prices go down, his prices go up because they, you know, the gas tax is bigger than the tax itself, bigger than the product itself.
It hasn't, I mean, we've thought about it, I guess, but honestly, when I did this, I knew it was going to be a little bit.
We had the greatest economy ever.
We had the greatest stock market in history.
I said, we're going to take a little bit of a hit, a short-term hit.
It's going to end up going much higher than it was, in my opinion.
I said we're going to have a great stock market.
Nobody thought we could get to 50,000 or 7,000 in the respective indices.
Nobody thought that that was going to happen, but it did in the first year.
They said it couldn't happen in four years, that you wouldn't hit 50 in four years, but you could maybe get close.
We hit it in the first year.
And I said, this is a good time to solve a problem that you have to solve.
And that's what I did.
But the gas tax, you know, people have talked about it.
It's something we have in our pocket if we think it's necessary.
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And if I can follow real quickly, you just recently took off Secretary Duffy, 17,000 truckers off a road that could, quite frankly, could not speak English, which is a safety issue.
Could we ever extend that to Uber drivers, Lyft drivers, cab drivers?
There's someone who takes a lot of Uber, a lot of my drivers.
The problem is that our states are the ones that issue these licenses.
So with commercial drivers' licenses, we do have some federal control.
But again, we have thousands of people who can't speak the language, long-standing rule, and it's a safety issue.
But if you can't understand road signs, if you can't communicate with law enforcement when you're pulled over and communicate what's on your rig, huge problem.
But the last administration, Mr. President, they let truck driving schools self-certify that they were qualified to train truck drivers.
And so this is like the Elyrian Center.
So you pay $800 and you get a certificate that you passed a CDL driving school and they have no skills.
They don't have the knowledge and they don't have the skills.
They haven't gone to any of the testing.
And then they get licenses and they're killing Americans on our roads.
So it's remarkable.
The rot that the last administration allowed to take place, we are ending that.
And I need partnership with our states.
Even California started to come on board.
Even Gavin has started to play ball with us, which is surprising.
Not all the way, a little bit, a little bit of a shock.
Yeah, it's interesting because I just saw something that the nursing home business and the daycare centers in particular, they went out and inspected them in Minnesota and they didn't exist.
They're knocking on, it happens to be a young man, Nick, nice young man.
He's done a very good job.
They're knocking on doors.
It's like homes.
And they're getting hundreds of thousands of that.
They said to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there, we're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight boats, eight big boats of oil.
This was two days ago.
And they'll sail up tomorrow.
That was three days ago.
And I didn't think much about it.
And then I watched the news and they said, a very good anchor, actually.
Happy to be Fox.
But I watched it and they said, something's unusual happening.
There are eight boats that are going right up the middle of the Hormo Strait.
Eight big tankers are going loaded up with oil right through.
And I said, well, I guess they were right and they were real.
And I think they were Pakistani flagged.
And I said, well, I guess we'll deal with the right people.
And actually, they then apologized for something they said.
And they said, we're going to send two more boats.
Yeah, it's amazing because by putting ICE there, look, the press was very unfair to ICE.
So was everyone else.
These are great American patriots.
They have a tough job.
They have to find murderers and take them out of our country.
I wouldn't want to do it.
You wouldn't want to do it.
Most people wouldn't want to do it.
They do it.
And, you know, 11,888 murderers.
And that's murderers.
That's not drug dealers.
That's not lots of other things.
It's not people from mental institutions.
Entire jail populations were released from major countries and let into our country through the open border.
And ICE has done an amazing job.
I wouldn't want that job.
It's a tough job, dangerous job.
So what happens is by putting them at the airport, and I just say, do me a favor, take off your masks.
And they did for that.
Not for when they're looking for some, you know, cold-blooded killers and they're in the net, but for that.
And they did.
They took them off.
And the passengers, I see the interviews of people.
They're saying, these are nice people.
One person said, he's a very strong man, but he's a nice guy.
He grabbed my bag.
He helped the woman with a bag that she couldn't lift.
And I'll tell you, I don't want to use the word rehab because there's nothing to rehab, but rehab from the press, you know, because the press is so tough on them.
And these crooks in Minnesota, these crooked politicians and dirty cops, they're dirty cops, they're dirty politicians.
Waltz is a dirty, crooked politician.
The attorney general is a crooked guy.
He's no investigations.
And I hope JD is going to do a great job.
He's in charge of it now with somebody who's very talented.
And because of the fact that I'm President of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine taking.
That's right.
And I, yeah.
And I decided that I was going to vote by mail-in ballot because I couldn't be there because I had a lot of different things.
But you know, we have exceptions for mail-in ballots.
You do know that, right?
So if you're away, we have an exception.
If you're in the military, we have an exception.
If you're on a business trip, we have an exception.
If you're disabled, we have an exception.
And if you're ill, if you're not feeling good.
So I was away mostly in Washington, D.C., so I used a mail-in ballot.
But I appreciate the question because I know it was so well meaning.
We have so heavily degraded their coastal defense capabilities and their naval capabilities that any strategic or operational attempts to do those types of things are extremely limited.
And we continue to move over the top of that.
Now, whether Iran makes a wise choice or not to try to execute that is part of how this deal comes together.
But with every passing day, the military pressure that we're putting on them lessens their ability to really hold that militarily at issue.
No, because it's like they view President Trump like Simon Buller.
He's the liberator of a country.
And this is a country where they, you know, they love American baseball.
You look on the street, they're wearing NBA jerseys.
And Delcey and her team working with us, getting back.
Chris and I both experienced it was the first time in Venezuelan history that they had the free press allowed to come onto essentially what's their word White House, the police show of Minaflores.
And it was like it was an emotional thing for people that had been for 20 years that never had a chance to be there.
So whether it's the, and then production, it's showing up in production.
The American companies that are coming back, most of those American companies have many American Venezuelan team members.
One company in Houston's got 600 Venezuelan Americans that know more about reviving that industry.
So their GDP went is a one-fourth of what it was before.
They want to get back.
They remember what it was.
Their production on oil production is going to is climbing towards 50% increase just in the three months we've been here.
That flows to American refineries on the Gulf Coast, lowering the price of gas in America.
Mr. Witcoff and JD and Jared will tell me whether or not they think it's going along.
And if it's not going along, maybe not.
And we have a lot of time.
You know what?
It's a day.
In Trump time, a day.
You know what it is?
That's an eternity.
Say it, what?
unidentified
European Parliament just passed a major deportation plan.
Some of the tenets of it are that member states can deport rejected asylum seekers to third countries regardless of whether they have a connection to it.
It allows for detention periods of up to two years and also offshore return hubs or detention centers similar to our who did this who does which country?
And it's harder because they stick together in a ridiculous policy like men playing in women's sports, open borders for everybody, including murderers and anybody else that want it.
We're open to you.
Come in, murderers.
You know why they do that?
They do that for a couple of reasons, but they do it for votes because they think they're going to vote for the Democrats.
Even though I did great with the Hispanic vote, tremendous with the Hispanic vote.
You know, I turned that whole thing around.
The Hispanics like me, and I like them.
And you know, it's interesting with Hispanics.
When I built the wall, everybody said, Oh, that's going to ruin us for the Hispanic.
It was just the opposite.
They know all about immigration and they know all about death and crime, and they're smart people and they have common sense.
They wanted to be protected from the people that were coming into our country.
So, you know, I won the election with a very tremendous Hispanic vote.
And I think it's higher now than it was then.
So, we're a party of common sense.
The Democrats are a party of insanity.
They're a party that will destroy our country.
If I didn't win this election, I believe our country would have been destroyed by now.
One year, that's all it would have taken.
If you had Kamala or Sleepy Joe, either one, it wouldn't have mattered.
They're the same thing.
Two sleepy people, two stupid people.
I believe, and by the way, Gavin Newscomb, who is one of the candidates, I believe he took himself out of the running when he says he suffers from mental disability.
And a reporter said it was terrible that I talked that way about somebody with mental disability.
I said, I have no problem with it, but I don't want a person with mental disability to be my president.
I mean, you don't want to have a person with mental disability being a president.
And Gavin Newsom said that he can't read a speech, he can't do almost anything.
And then he said he's as dumb as all the people in the room.
And he got accused of being a racist, which was an amazing.
I thought it was the worst interview I've ever seen anybody give.
He's actually a very stupid person.
So I believe he's out of the running.
I think that that statement, that interview, he admitted that he's a stupid person.
I don't want a stupid person being president.
You know, I'll say it right now.
I say it because no press never reports it.
I'm the only president that ever took a cognitive test.
I took it three times.
It's actually a very hard test for a lot of people.
It wasn't hard for me, but it's a cognitive test.
It starts off with an easy question.
And by the time you get to the middle, it gets tougher.
By the time you get to the end, very few people can answer those questions.
They get very tough mathematical equations and things.
I took it three times.
I aced it all three times in front of numerous doctors that I have no idea who they are.
And I was told when I went in, they said, Doc Ronnie told me this.
My current doctors are fantastic doctors.
They said, well, if you take it, you know, it's Walter Reed.
It's essentially a public hospital.
And if you do badly, it's probably going to get out.
But I aced it.
I got them all right.
And one doctor said, I've never seen anybody get them all right.
I've been doing the test for 20 years.
I want people, I would love to see anybody that's a president or a vice president or anybody that has any chance of being a president, I would like to see them take a cognitive test because we had a man in this office that had no clue what was happening.