A friend of mine, Kid Rock, sometimes referred to as Bob, I know him as Bob, but he's been a good friend for a long time, many years, and he's been after something that is for the good of a lot of people, including in particular the public, and having to do with ticket sales and scalping and all of the gouging that you have been reading about.
It's gotten worse or worse with time.
And I didn't know too much about it, but I checked it out, and it is a big problem.
And I thought, I think you've been trying to get this done for 20 years or something.
He said, Trump got it done in two weeks.
But we came up with a very serious EO.
And I'm going to sign it now.
And maybe I'll ask you, Will, to explain a little bit about it, please.
So this is an executive order, as you said, that deals with the ticket reselling business.
For fans of live entertainment and for entertainers as well, the ticket reselling industry has become a huge issue.
These people use bots and computer algorithms to buy up huge blocks of tickets and then jack up the price so that fans of live entertainers like Mr. Ritchie, I almost called him Mr. Rock, don't have access to concerts the way that they should.
And when they do, it's at exorbitantly high prices.
So what this executive order does, it charges the FTC and the Department of Justice with rigorously enforcing laws on the books in collaboration with state attorneys general that have power over consumer protection and other people who have the power to really crack down on this issue so that entertainers and fans won't be subject to these abusive and oftentimes illegal practices.
I know you put, I want to make sure Alina Haba gets her credit too, because I know she worked very hard on this, but thank you for making this happen so quick.
Anyone who's bought a concert ticket in the last decade, maybe 20 years, no matter what your politics are, knows it is a conundrum.
unidentified
You buy a ticket for $100, by the time you check out, it's $170.
You don't know what you're getting charged for, but more importantly, these bots, you know, they come in to get all the good tickets to your favorite shows you want to go to, and then they're relisted immediately for sometimes a 400 or 500% markup.
And I'm a capitalist and a deregulation guy, but they've tried this in some places in Europe, and it seems to be the only thing that's us as artists be able to get the tickets into the hands of the fans at the prices we set.
unidentified
I'll be the first one to say, and I know the president doesn't like when I say this, but I'm a little overpaid right now.
I know people that can only, they decide on a family vacation or going to their favorite concert once a year rather than, you know, my parents used to go see multiple shows when you can afford them back in their day.
unidentified
And I'd like to take my ticket prices lower, but if I set my ticket prices low, these bots immediately eat them up and they resell for hundreds of dollars more and I'm just making these bad actors rich.
I actually feel that the consumer is going to take the money that they've saved and actually buy merch, which you guys have a big percentage of, or do concessions, which you guys split with the venue on that as well.
unidentified
So I think the money goes for it.
We don't share concessions a lot.
No.
No, those are, we try to, but they don't want to share it in the beer prices and parking or any of that stuff.
But the bottom line is there's money for everyone to be made.
I know it's hypothetical right now, but if you were allowed for some reason to run for a third term, is there a thought that the Democrats could try to run Barack Obama against you?
No, people are asking me to run, and there's a whole story about running for a third term.
I don't know.
I never looked into it.
They do say there's a way you can do it, but I don't know about that, but I have not looked into it.
I want to do a fantastic job.
We have four years, just about almost close to four years.
Time is flying, but it's still close to four years.
And we're getting a lot of credit for having done a great job in the first almost 100 days.
And we have some big things we're going to be announcing over the next two days, and you know very well, Peter.
And I think it's going to be something that's going to bring a lot of wealth back to our country, tremendous wealth back to our country, actually.
And other countries are understanding it because they've been ripping us for 50 years longer, but they've been ripping us off for years right from the beginning.
And I think this is going to be an amazing, you know, I call it a lot of different names, but it's really, in a sense, it's a rebirth of a country because how we could have afforded to do what we did, we help everybody and they don't help us.
I really, the term I like best probably is the liberation of America.
It's the liberation of this country because it's incredible.
Look, we have 36 trillion in debt for a reason, and that accumulates over a long period of time.
So I think what you're going to be seeing over the next couple of days will be very inspiring to a lot of people.
You know, they had a lot of auto plants being built in a certain country.
I don't want to mention the country because we get along great with the country, but those plants aren't being built there anymore.
They gave them up today and yesterday, day before, and they're building them all now in the United States.
And we have many examples, not only auto plants.
Chip companies from Taiwan are coming in.
The biggest, Mr. Wei, he's big.
I said, you are a smart guy, aren't you?
I've been reading about him over the years, but he controls a large portion of the chip business, as you know.
You don't get smarter.
They're going to be investing $200 or $300 billion.
Apple's investing $500 billion.
You know, they always built their places in China.
Now he's building here.
I think because of the, you speak to Tim Cook, because of the election, but maybe more importantly, because of the tariffs.
He's got really an obligation to do it.
But we have many, many companies that you haven't even heard of.
But I think we'll be at $5 trillion very soon.
And if you think about this, we've never been anywhere near that.
I don't know if we've ever been at a trillion dollars.
I think that we're going to be at $5 trillion of investment.
I think you're going to have investments very shortly.
We're already three and a half, and we have commitments, verbal commitments, for a lot more.
And numbers like that have never been done in this country.
And it's going to get harder.
This is in two months.
It's really in less than two months, because since we've really gone out with it.
And we have other interesting things happening.
But to me, the whole tariff situation, and essentially they've done that to us for many years.
So if we're anywhere near $5 trillion in two months, this could be numbers like the country's never seen.
And every time you hear a dollar spent, that's another job because the jobs are coming with it.
So auto plants, chip plants, pharmaceuticals, lumber coming in.
We have things happening in this country.
I don't think, I'm not sure that they've ever seen it.
Steel, you know, we have tariffs on steel.
They've been here for a while.
Steel and aluminum.
Nobody's ever seen anything like we're witnessing now.
Nobody's ever seen.
I think most of you agree with that.
I mean, there's nothing much you can't agree with.
We have things happening in terms of jobs and investment, the likes of which I don't think we've ever seen.
If you look at, let's say, four to five trillion dollars in a period of a month and a half, that's even more than you do with your concerts, which are always sold out, right?
Nobody's ever seen numbers.
And think of it, where Apple's at 500 billion, as I said, but they always used to spend that money in China.
Now they're spending it here.
That means they're going to build, now they don't have any tariffs.
Remember, there are no tariffs if you do your product here, if you build whatever it is in the USA.
One of the things we're also trying to get is if you build, if you buy a car that was built in the USA, you get a deduction on interest.
So if you go out and borrow money to buy a car, if it's built in the USA, never been done before.
It's a big deduction for people that really aren't used to deductions, frankly.
Because people that buy cars like that are not big into the world of deductions.
And now they're going to learn about deductions.
So I think it's going to be great.
Yeah.
unidentified
Are you going to move ahead with a universal tariff for different individual tariff rates on a whole variety of different countries?
about uh some of the problems they have with the environmental which we're going to clean up we're going to probably go back to 1926 if you If you look, we're going to go back probably to a 2020 standard.
So we'll have 2020 standard, and that's just a few years ago.
Oh, they're making it so difficult.
All over the world, they're making it.
It doesn't mean a damn bit of difference even for the environment.
It doesn't matter.
They make it impossible for people to build cars.
So we're going to be doing much different.
2020 is a strong standard, but they've taken it to a level now that makes it very difficult to build a car.
So we're going to be bringing it back to a standard that is a very good environmental standard, but it makes it possible to build a car.
unidentified
Have you heard any concerns from the automakers, though, about the tariffs on parts that will go into effect over the coming years?
I didn't charge them anything, you know, for a big month for that first month.
And they brought a lot of material into this country because they could bring it in without tariff.
If you look at Canada and Mexico, they were driving hundreds of thousands of cars into the market because they avoid the tariffs by doing it before the tariffs go on, which would be Wednesday.
And I looked at the, I saw some of your shows, where cars are lined up for miles and miles.
Some of them didn't have fenders on them.
Some of them didn't have the roof on yet.
They're driving it here brand new.
They're driving it in because they want to avoid the tariffs.
I let them have that.
They sort of took advantage of it because, you know, that wasn't part of the deal, but that's okay.
They're great American car companies and car companies.
And so I gave them a little break on that.
unidentified
Are there any countries that you're not targeting on Wednesday?
I want to see him make a deal so that we stop Russian soldiers and Ukrainian soldiers and other people from being killed.
But mostly it's Russian and Ukrainian soldiers.
They're losing at least 2,500 human beings, beautiful human beings, a week.
And I wanted to stop.
And some people would say, why do you worry about Russian soldiers or Ukrainian soldiers?
I worry because it's like they're just like you people.
They're like us.
They're like all of us.
And I seem to have an ability to do those things.
And if I can do that, I think it's a very worthwhile thing to do.
And I think we will.
No, I want to make sure that he follows through.
And I think he will.
I don't want to go secondary tariffs on his oil, but I think it's something I would do if I thought he wasn't doing the job.
I did it with Venezuela, secondary tariffs, and you know what happened?
Every boat left the harbor.
Did you see that?
It was a beautiful thing to see.
The whole harbor emptied out.
My words weren't even finished.
I have these massive, these massive ships.
They're actually taking the hoses and dumping them into there.
They couldn't get out of there fast enough because they know I don't play games.
So I think he's going to live up to what he told me.
And I think he's going to fulfill his part of the deal.
Now, then you have Zelensky, and hopefully he's going to live up.
I see he's trying to renegotiate the rare earth.
You know, we did something because, as you know, the Europeans get paid back the money that they gave, and we don't, because Biden is an incompetent president, and he should have asked for rare earth, or he should have asked for the loans to be guaranteed in some form.
That's what Europe did.
Europe is in for $100, probably $100 billion.
And we're in for $350 billion.
So we're in for more than three times.
And now you could make it a little bit less than that, but it doesn't matter, whatever the number.
We're in for substantially more than Europe.
We could be in for $350 billion.
They have no idea because Biden wasn't a good bookkeeper except for himself.
And what happens is we made a deal for rare earth.
It was all done.
And I heard through you, I haven't spoken to them yet, but through you I heard that they're now saying, well, I'll only do that deal if we get into NATO or something to that effect.
Well, that was never, number one, discussed.
Number two, I think it's going to be very, long before Putin, they said you're not going into NATO.
And it could be, that's probably the reason the war started, actually.
unidentified
We're four hours away from a very special election.
Wisconsin, Florida, want to share your thoughts on Republican voters to not sleep on this in the two very important races together.
So anyway, but yeah, there's a big race, and I hope you get out and vote for the Republic.
The woman is a radical left lunatic.
And let's see who wins.
But the woman will be very bad.
And, you know, Wisconsin's a big state politically.
And the Supreme Court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin.
So if whoever it is that's running, including, you know, even Senate races, et cetera, but whoever it is in four years that runs, having Wisconsin is a very big, you know, we won it early and big, but winning Wisconsin is a big deal.
So therefore, the Supreme Court choice, is the one you're talking about right now.
I mean, you know I've used tariffs for lots of different reasons, but I could see, you know, one point in tariffs with China, a big country, would be probably worth more than all of TikTok, as valuable as TikTok is.
It's big stuff.
So there's a great example.
That's a great question, actually.
I'm a very flexible person.
I could use that for that.
Like, maybe I'll take a couple of points off if I get approvals for something.
I happen to think the relationship with my son, I happen to think the relationship was hurt very badly by the witch hunt that went on, Russia, Russia, Russia, and all the crap that they put Don through, who knew nothing about it.
But Vanessa and Don had a very good relationship.
They have incredible children, five, incredible children, all good athletes, all great students, they're like great.
Which was to me very sad because I think they're both great.
Don and Vanessa.
Tiger actually called me a few months ago and he and they have a very special, very good relationship with Tiger.
I played golf with him a couple of times over the last month, and he's a fantastic guy and a fantastic athlete.
And he told me about it.
And I said, Tiger, that's good.
That's good.
I'm very happy for both.
I just let them both be happy.
Let them both be happy.
They're both great.
unidentified
Tabala and China.
Tabala and China.
China, South Korea, and Japan say they're going to work together in cooperation to respond to the tariffs that you're going to put into effect this week.
Are you concerned that this move, the tariffs this week, could push some of the United States' closest allies to work with China?
We want to do what's right for the country and even the world.
You know, it affects the world, not just this country.
This has been the piggy bank for the entire world.
So it really does affect the world, and that's important to me also.
unidentified
Yeah.
Mr. President, in the past you have said that you want the quick return of Austin Tice, a Marine Corps veteran and a journalist, both went missing in Syria over 12 years ago.
Have efforts been made to locate Austin Tice, been extended beyond Syria, including potential leads in Iran.
And do you have plans to get in touch with Ms. Deborah Tice, the mother of Austin Tice?
And also at the same time, organizations like Hostage Aid Worldwide have been on the ground in Syria searching for Austin Tice for many years.
Can I get your comment on the future, potential future plans to locate Austin Tice and to bring him home finally?
I would say maybe Madison Square Garden because anybody that was there, the owner of the garden, Jim Dolan, who's, you know, to me always been terrific, he said this, he's never seen anything like it.
We had, when you announced Madison Square Garden, you know, it's a big arena, but we sell out big arenas.
We sold out in Milwaukee.
We sold out at every big arena.
We never had empty seats.
It's amazing.
They talk about Bernie Sanders gets 2,000, 3,000 people.
These crowds, I get 107,000 people in New Jersey.
In Butler, PA, we had over 100,000 the second time.
We had 55,000 the first time.
We have big crowds.
I would say Madison Square Garden, because I grew up in New York and the garden is great.
Jim Dolan treated us well, but everybody said they, because I think I could have filled it up 10 times.
We had hundreds of thousands of people that were stacked all the way back to the Hudson River and on the other direction back to Fifth Avenue.
Nobody's ever said, I don't mean with a line, I mean like 50 deep, like 50 deep this way.
The streets were closed, the whole thing, it was crazy.
And when you take that, you know, you want to do well at Madison Square Guard.
You don't want to have empty seats.
But we could have sold it out, Brian, 10 times, and everybody knew it.
So, I have a very good relationship with the Middle East.
In fact, if you look at Michigan, I won the vote by a lot.
People were a little surprised.
And I have a very good relationship with Mohammed and the king.
Son is Mohammed.
He's great.
Crown Prince, actually, he's Prime Minister, too.
He's got a lot of good titles.
But he's great.
And the king has been wonderful.
And if you remember, last time I went to Saudi Arabia, I put him first on the list because they agreed to buy $450 billion worth of American goods, military and otherwise.
And they did.
And it was an unbelievable day.
It was in this gorgeous ballroom.
And companies were there from many, many, probably 100 companies.
And they were given anywhere from 40 or 50 million dollars to less and more, actually.
Some of them were given numbers that were just many times that amount.
I think we had a couple of $20 billion deals and big stuff.
And it's a very rich country because of oil.
And we are a very rich country ultimately when we straighten it out because of oil.
Oil is always good.
And I agreed to do it again, and they've agreed to spend close to a trillion dollars of money in our American companies, which to me means jobs.
So they're going to spend hundreds of billions of dollars giving them to American companies that are going to be making equipment for Saudi Arabia and other places in the Middle East.
And for that, I think it's worth it.
I did it last time, $450 billion.
And the press was there.
It was one of the most unique days I've ever seen where companies would get up and you're getting $20 billion.
They named the company.
The chairman were all there, every chairman and top person in the company.
We sold and we partook in $450 billion worth of investment into American companies.
And they announced the company, the amount of money, a billion dollars, $5 billion, $25 billion.
And the chairman of the company, many of whom, you know, well-known figures, prestigious figures, great business leaders, went up, they shook the hand of somebody, and they would sit down.
And we just had a big investment made.
So it was a record.
Nobody ever beat it before.
$450 billion worth of jobs.
I view it as jobs more than anything else.
And now we're close to a trillion dollars.
So it's more than double the number that we did when I first came to office.
Here's a look at our live coverage coming up today on the C-SPAN networks.
On C-SPAN at 10 a.m. Eastern, the House gavels back in to work on repealing regulations on overdraft fees imposed by banks.
And in the evening at 9, we'll bring you coverage from Spectrum News, Wisconsin, of the special election for a state Supreme Court seat.
Over on C-SPAN 2, the Senate will continue work on the Trump administration's nominee to be the U.S. Ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, who previously served as acting attorney general during the first Trump administration.
And on C-SPAN 3, we'll be live at 9.30 a.m. Eastern with a confirmation hearing for President Trump's pick to be chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Lieutenant General John Kaine, before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
And in the afternoon at 2, a House Oversight Committee hearing on the declassification of files related to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.
You can also watch these events live on the C-SPAN Now app or online at c-SPAN.org.
C-SPAN's Student Cam competition challenged middle and high school students nationwide to create documentaries with messages to the new president.
Our panel of judges evaluated over 1,700 thought-provoking student films on their use of multiple perspectives.
C-SPAN awarded $100,000 in total cash prizes, and our grand prize of $5,000 goes to Dermot Foley, a 10th grader from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Congratulations to all our winners.
The top 21 winning entries will air on C-SPAN starting April 1st.
You can also watch all the award-winning documentaries anytime at studentcam.org.