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Nov. 17, 2025 10:01-10:13 - CSPAN
11:56
Pres. Trump Speaks to Reporters
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donald j trump
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donald j trump [ai]
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Hire from Congress, guaranteed a hand-picked successor.
Tomorrow, the House is expected to vote on legislation to compel the Justice Department to release all of its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
Speaker Mike Johnson announced plans to schedule a floor vote after 218 members signed a discharge petition, enough to force the House to action on the bill.
Watch live coverage of the House on C-SPAN, see the Senate on C-SPAN 2, and all of our congressional coverage is available on our free video app, C-SPAN Now, and our website, c-span.org.
Friday, on C-SPAN's Ceasefire.
At a time when finding common ground matters most in Washington, Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman and Alabama Republican Senator Katie Britt come together for a bipartisan dialogue on the top issues facing the country.
They join host Dasha Burns.
Bridging the Divide in American Politics.
Watch Ceasefire Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
A live look at the White House on this Monday morning, where President Trump has returned after spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago.
Before boarding Air Force One, the president spoke to reporters on his agenda and the planned House vote on the release of the Epstein files that could happen sometime this week.
Here's a look.
donald j trump
From an economic standpoint, our prices are coming down very substantially on groceries and things.
They're already at a much lower level than they were with the last administration.
And we worked on it this weekend, and you're going to see some of the items that were a little bit higher.
They were lower than the last administration, but a little bit higher.
We're going to have some little price reductions, and in some cases, some pretty good ones.
They use the affordability word.
The affordability is much, much better with us.
And again, I go to Walmart and other companies.
And in every case, it's about 25% that a meal, a Thanksgiving meal and surroundings are 25% lower than it was under the Biden administration.
That's a big fact.
And that comes from Walmart and others that do that.
unidentified
Okay?
donald j trump
Any questions?
unidentified
Any update on Benny's Wayland, Mr. President?
On Benny's Waylon update?
donald j trump
No, no update on Venezuela.
unidentified
With the designation of that cartel associated with Maduro, does that mean that the U.S. government can target Maduro's assets for infrastructure inside Benny Wayland?
donald j trump
It allows us to do that, but we haven't said we're going to do that.
And we may be discussing, we may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we'll see how that turns out.
They would like to talk.
unidentified
Mr. President, President Matthew says he's concerned that the Epstein probe you are calling for could be a smoke screen to lock the release of our files.
Is that the case?
donald j trump [ai]
Well, I don't want to talk about it because fake news like you, you're a terrible reporter.
donald j trump
And fake news like you, they just keep bringing that up to deflect from the tremendous success of the Trump administration.
So a guy like Massey, his poll numbers are showing he's at 6% approval rating right now.
And we call him Rand Paul Jr. because he never votes for the Republican Party.
So they're using Jeffrey Epstein as a deflection from the tremendous success that we're having as a party.
unidentified
Mr. President, Venezuela, he said they want to talk.
He said Venezuela wants to talk.
donald j trump
What does that mean?
Venezuela would like to talk.
What does it mean you tell me?
I don't know.
You want to talk to them?
I talk to anybody.
I talk to you, right?
I talk to anybody.
We'll see what happens.
Her life is in danger.
Who's that?
unidentified
Marjorie Taylor Green, she says.
donald j trump
Marjorie Trader Green.
I don't think her life is in danger.
I don't think, frankly, I don't think anybody cares about her.
Okay, what about you?
unidentified
Are you negotiating with lawmakers on health care ahead of a vote next month?
donald j trump
We're negotiating with lawmakers.
And I've had personal talks with some Democrats.
I can't tell you who they are.
I just don't want to do that.
It's not fair to them.
About paying large amounts of dollars back to the people.
You know, this was my idea.
It came up during that, you know, oftentimes under times of stress, like the shutdown, you come up with great ideas that you wouldn't have thought of before.
The insurance companies are making a fortune.
Their stock is up over a thousand percent over a short period of time.
They are taking in hundreds of billions of dollars, and they're not really putting it back, certainly not like they should.
So when I see this, and when I've seen this over the last pretty short period of time, I said, why don't we just pay this money directly to the people of our country and let them buy their own health insurance?
And you know, I made that statement, and I made it a little bit cavalierly, but it sounded good.
And everybody has picked it up, including Democrats.
And I am talking to some Democrats right now about doing that.
People love it.
We're going to take the money, well, if it gets approved, we're going to take the money, we're going to pay it back to the people of our country to go out and buy health insurance.
Now, they could put it in a health account.
We can do it a lot of different ways.
But they'd buy their own health insurance.
They can negotiate price.
And it's going to be locked so they can't go out and buy a Cadillac.
They can go out and buy health insurance.
unidentified
Mr. Conference, Mr. President, is it time for Congress to move legislation that puts pressure on Russia and puts pressure on him?
donald j trump
Well, I hear they're doing that, and that's okay with me.
They're passing legislation or putting, the Republicans are putting in legislation that's very tough.
It's sanctioning, et cetera, et cetera, on any country doing business with Russia.
They may add Iran to that, as you know.
I suggested it.
So any country that does business with Russia will be very severely sanctioned.
We may add Iran to the formula, you know.
unidentified
Tucker Carlson recently had a friendly interview with anti-Semite Nick Cuentes.
Tucker Carlson, what role do you think Tucker Carlson should play in the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement going forward?
donald j trump
Well, I found him to be good.
I mean, he said good things about me over the years.
I think he's good.
We've had some good interviews.
I did an interview with him.
We had 300 million hits.
You know that.
Look, I can't tell him.
Well, you let me finish my statement.
You are the worst.
You're with Bloomberg, right?
You are the worst.
unidentified
I don't know why they even have you.
donald j trump
We've had some great interviews with Tucker Carlson, but you can't tell him who to interview.
I mean, if he wants to interview Nick Fuentes, I don't know much about him, but if he wants to do it, get the word out.
Let him, you know, people have to decide.
Ultimately, people have to decide.
The mayor of New York, I will say, would like to meet with us and we'll work something out.
But he would like to come to Washington and meet, and we'll work something out.
We want to see everything work out well for New York.
unidentified
You yourself had dinner with Nick Cuentes at Mar-a-Lago a few years ago.
What role could he play in the conservative movement?
donald j trump
Well, I didn't know he was coming, and he was with, as you know, somebody, Kanye.
And Kanye asked if he could have dinner, and he brought Nick.
I didn't know Nick at the time.
And he did.
He came along with a few other people.
He brought a few people with him.
Meeting people, talking to people, like for somebody like Tucker, that's what they do.
You know, people are controversial.
Some are, some aren't.
I'm not controversial, so I like it that way.
unidentified
Venezuela, are you discussing options with Congress?
Are you going to Congress to discuss potential options?
donald j trump
We like to keep Congress involved.
I mean, we're stopping drug dealers and drugs from coming into our country.
And I actually told Marco and some of the people, our Secretary of State is doing a great job, by the way.
I said, go to Congress and let them know we're not letting drugs come through Mexico.
We're not letting them come through Venezuela.
And let Congress know about it.
We don't have to get their approval, but I think letting them know is good.
The only thing I don't want them to do is leak information that's very important and confidential and may put our military at risk or whoever is doing, you know, CIA, military, et cetera.
But I did say, I said, go and see Congress, see the representatives that we're supposed to be seeing, and be open about it.
If they say, we don't want you to stop drugs from coming into the country, I don't think that would be good, yes.
unidentified
Are any other countries committed to helping the U.S. with Venezuela, or is all our actions still?
donald j trump
Yeah, we have great support because it's all about drugs.
Well, in Venezuela's case, it's about drugs, and it's also about thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that they've released into our country.
And some are gang members from Trenda Aragua.
Some are drug, many are drug dealers, some are murderers.
So in the case of Venezuela, it's about the prison population.
Their almost entire prison population was released into the United States.
You know what that means?
Their prison population was released into the United States.
And we're getting it out.
We're doing an amazing job.
We have a strong border now.
We have everything, our country's doing so well.
But what the Biden administration did to our country should never be forgotten.
And the single worst thing they did is allow 20 or 25 million people to pour into our country.
People from prisons, drug dealers, mental institutions, bad people, gang members, to allow that to happen to the United States, totally unchecked and unvetted, should never be forgotten.
What they've done to our country is a very big thing.
But we are correcting it.
We have strong borders now.
We have a great economy.
The prices are coming down.
The Democrats like to use the word affordability, but their affordability was terrible.
The problem with the Democrats, they lie.
They do it so well.
They talk about affordability.
But I'm the one that's getting the prices down.
As an example, they had the highest inflation in the history of our country.
I have it down now to a normal level, and it's going down further.
Thank you very much, everybody.
unidentified
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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And now, New Jersey Democratic Senator Corey Booker meets with Democratic activists at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
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