President Trump Gaggles with Press at Joint Base Andrews, July 15, 2025

Hello, everybody.

Hello, Doug.

Hello, everybody.

How are you?

We had a big day in Pittsburgh. $92 billion, but it's going to be.

Closer to $100 billion is going to.

Be invested by the biggest financial people in the world.

We had everybody there, from Larry Fink.

To everybody else, you can imagine. And it was a really great day and very productive day.

I think we're over now as a country. We're over $15 trillion of investment, and.

There'S never been anything like that in the history of our country.

There has not been anything like it or even close. So. Okay, do you have any questions?

You announced the Indonesia deal today. You announced the Indonesia trade deal today. How many more trade deals beyond the letters will you announce before August 1st?

We're working on probably five or six. Six of the five or six. I'm not sure I really want to do them. You know, you want somebody that knows how to negotiate. But we'll probably have two or three. You know, we insist on opening up.

The country, which is a big deal.

Indonesia was great. He's a great president, and we made a terrific deal where they opened up the entire country to trade with the United States. We weren't allowed to go in and trade. I think something similar will happen with, I would say, India and we have a couple of others. But I have to tell you, for the most part, I'm very happy with the letters. You know, the letters are a deal. You know, I can't explain it any better. The letters are a deal. The press doesn't want to pick that up. But I will veer from those deals on occasion when somebody is willing, like if Japan would open up their country, they don't do that. They just don't do that. And I don't either. I don't subscribe to it one way or the other, but they won't do that. So we might just stick with the letter. South Korea is inclined to maybe do that, so we'll let you know. But we have letters out. Every time I send out a letter, essentially, That's a deal, Mr. President, with.

The date you gave of August 1st. With the date that you gave of August 1st. Why stick with the date if you're saying that you might.

Payments start on August 1st. The only thing about that's really sacred about August 1st is that's when payments start. So they have to start paying billions of dollars to you and people. Are you a citizen of the country?

Yes, sir.

You'll be very happy because you're going.

To be getting a lot of money.

Just like they found a budget surplus. We have a budget surplus of $25 billion. Everyone said, how did that happen? It hasn't happened in many years. It happened because of good management and tariffs.

Do you plan to release. Sorry? Do you plan to release more details of the Vietnam, China deals? Is there going to be paperwork released, the public showing that?

I don't think it matters how much you release of the deal. We have a Vietnam deal, and I would say that that deal is being pretty well set. Pretty well set. Again, that's an opening of their country. They've opened it up. Just so you know, these were closed countries. They were wonderful people, wonderful leaders, very strong, smart leaders. But their countries were closed to us, but our country wasn't close to them. And so I. But you got to open up your country. So we're going to see. But the Vietnam deal, we may open it.

I mean, I don't know.

I can't tell you. Is it necessary? No. Yeah, I don't think so.

On Ukraine, why did you settle on giving Putin another 50 days? It seems like he's had a lot of time to show he wants peace.

I think really the question should be asked, why did Biden get us into that ridiculous war? Why did Biden bring us there? That should never, ever have happened, that war. This is Biden's war. I'm just trying to end it because.

We'Re saving a lot of lives.

Why do you think his opinion will change in 50 days when it hasn't over the last six months?

Rapidly?

Might not be 50 days. Might be much sooner than 50 days.

When do you think the first Patriot missiles, some of these weapons that our allies will buy, they're already being shipped from what countries?

Germany, and then replaced by Germany. And in all cases, the United States gets paid back in full. So what's happening, as you know, is the European Union, if you look mostly European Union stuff, but let's put it in the form of NATO, it's very similar, but NATO is going to pay us back for everything. In some cases, we're going to be paid back by countries of the European Union directly. We're always getting our money back in full. So we're not going to have any more investment to make. We're getting our money back in full. And if we can make a deal.

That would be great.

We're saving five or six thousand soldiers a week. They're Russian and they're Ukrainian soldiers. They're not American soldiers. And we won't have boots on the ground. But It's a shame. 5,000 last week, they say 7,100 soldiers, both Russia and Ukraine, were killed.

Iran, have you seen any progress in talks with Iran? We haven't really heard about that in a while.

We want to talk. I'm in no rush to talk. They would like to talk. I'm in no rush to talk. Because we obliterated their site.

They'd have to start all over.

In fact, it's obliterated to the point that it's not usable anymore. They'd have to pick a different mountain. That mountain is so blown up inside and so unstable that they would have to pick a different mountain.

Our people really did the job.

Yes, please.

That's our. Would you fire Jerome Powell over the treasury renovation? That's Johnson.

Two and a half million dollars building this place.

I have to say this, I think he's terrible. I think he's a total stiff.

But the one thing I didn't see.

Him as a guy that needed a palace to live in.

You talk to the guy, it's like talking to nothing. It's like talking to a chair. No personality, no high intelligence, no nothing. But the one thing I would have never guessed is that he would be spending $2.5 billion to build a little extension onto the Fed. Is that a viral nobody's ever seen?

I think it sort of is, because.

If you look at his testimony to the House and the Senate, you take a look at the testimony, it's under earth. That whole thing is. He's not, you know, he's not talking about the problem. It's a big problem. 2.5 billion, and that's 2.5 billion. Now, that's going to be a lot more money than two and a half billion to expand and with all of. To house thousands of people to give him information. And yet, out of the 71 economists, and they included me, me and one other person got it right. I got it right, and one other genius got it right. They had. Everybody else was wrong. 69 were wrong and 2 were right. I was one of them. And I don't have a lot of people. I have hours.

I have. I have a few people.

He has thousands of people, and he got it wrong. No, I think when you spend $2.5 billion on really, a renovation, I think it's pretty disgraceful.

President, have you spoken to President Putin since your announcement yesterday? And do you think when you speak to him on the phone, does he say that he wants peace? What does he say to you?

He says he wants peace.

He does. So far, it's all talk and no action. If you think about Pakistan, we did so many. The Congo, and I mean, look at. Look at the deals we've made. We made all these peace deals. Look at Rwanda. It was an impossible deal to make with the Congo. I made that. I made all of these deals. Serbia, Kosovo, and here's the one deal. And actually, Vladimir called me up. He said, I'd love to help you. With respect to making a deal with a couple of them, like Iran, I'd love to help you. I say, vladimir, I only want to help with one deal, Russia, because you're the only deal that we're not doing too well on.

He oftentimes. Oftentimes he said no. He wants peace. And I think he does. I hope he does. We're going to find out soon. And it could be before the 50 days.

Twice yesterday, when you were talking about this, you mentioned conversations you had with the first lady after talking with President Putin. Has she influenced your thinking on this at all?

She's very smart, very neutral. She's very neutral. In a sense, she's sort of like me. She'd like to see people stop dying. You know, people said, are you for one side or another? I'm for the side of people stopping dying. We have 5,000, 6,000, and 7,000 people a week, at least. And that doesn't include people from the cities and towns that are having rockets lobbed in there. I mean, people are dying in the cities and towns, too, but we're talking about 7,100 in the last eight days died. And I'm for stopping that chair search.

Sir, is Scott Bessant, your Treasury secretary, your number one option whenever Jerome Powell leaves, or is he your top option?

Well, he's not, because I like the job he's doing. That's why he's not.

Oh, sir. I don't know if he was on.

The plane, maybe he wasn't, but I do like the job he's done. So in that sense, probably he's not that much of an option. Scott's been great. He's been terrific. He did a good job today. He's a very soothing force, you know.

He's soothing, all right, Mr. Presidential.

I'm sorry. Pharmaceuticals will be tariffed probably at the end of the month. And we're going to start off with a low tariff and give the pharmaceutical companies a year or so to build, and then we're going to make it a very high tariff because we got.

To move them in.

Look, there's two ways you do it, you make money and. Or you have them move here so they don't have to pay the tariff. Those are the two ways the pharmaceutical companies are moving back to America where they should be.

Semiconductor. Is that in the same timeline? The semiconductor tariff?

Similar.

Actually.

Less complicated, but similar. Semiconductors and chips.

I know you've urged people to move on, but I'm curious. Why do you think your supporters in particular have been so interested in the Epstein story and so upset about how it's been handled? Why do you think that is?

Why they would be so interested?

He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is. I really don't. And the credible information has been given. Don't forget we went through years of the Mueller witch hunt and all of the different things. The Steele dossier, which was all fake, all that information was fake. But I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff. It's sordid, but it's boring. And I don't understand why it keeps going. I think really only pretty bad people.

Including fake news, want to keep something like that going.

But credible information, let them give it. Anything that's credible, I would say let them have it.

Mr. President, a question on AI. How do you want Americans to think about it? Are you concerned about job loss or privacy? Or do you think this is the new technology?

It's interesting because we need jobs. We need a lot of people to work. You know, we're building, we're going to.

Be building very shortly hundreds of factories, including A.I. we're building a lot of car factories. They're all coming in from other countries now in order to avoid paying the tariffs. And we need people working.

So if I can help us with.

That, that's a positive because we're not going to have enough workers to take.

Care of it if we don't create something. So whether it's robots or whether it's AI, we need somebody to take care of. Do you agree with us?

I agree. So many jobs to build. I mean, think about $15 trillion. That's 5 million people working in these factories, building them. Great high paying jobs in America that President Trump has brought back. So those jobs of course are in the wings. So let's go, let's train America and.

Let'S get it going.

What do you say? What would you say about this?

Yeah, well, I think with AI as Howard and The President said, we're going to need more workers in this country because President Trump, as the greatest economic developer that this country has ever had, has brought back this record amount of foreign direct investment and a record amount of US Investment going back into job creation. But the mix is going to change. AI will take jobs away, like software development, because AI can and write code, but I can't wire a building, do plumbing. I mean, if kids go into the trades today, they're all going to be making 150 grand and they'll have amazing lives, build companies, start businesses. I mean, this is, this is part of the boom of America, because middle class, working class, working Americans will never have had it as good. They have a lower taxes, lower regulation, and more opportunities to go to work, to build things.

We need people, we really need because we're building so many factories, industries in the country. And so I can help with that.

But what also is going to help are going to be robots. You know, the robots, I think, are.

Going to be a big deal, and.

That'S going to help Also sanctions.

Sir, on the secondary tariffs. Are you concerned that secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian oil will hurt American consumers? Higher gasoline prices?

I think that whole thing is going to go away.

Eventually.

It should have gone away.

And Putin does say, I want peace, I want peace.

But so far he hasn't lived up to that. So I think it's going to go away. But we're going to find out soon. We're going to find.

Can you give us more details on the sanctions? Is it 100% sanctions on Russia or.

They're very fighting, they're very significant and they're going to be very bad for the countries involved. I mean, they'll be very, very powerful and very bad for the countries involved. And I hope we don't have to pull that string and maybe we won't. We'll see. It's got to end. Got to stop the killing.

Mr. President, were you frustrated today that the House wasn't able to move on that crypto legislation?

The interesting thing is that 12 votes were votes where they wanted it to.

Be stronger in terms of crypto people.

I figured, oh, wow, that's sort of interesting because I was focused really on today's meeting. Not that, but the interesting is the votes, those negative votes were because they.

Wanted it to be as a safeguard. They wanted to be stronger for people.

With Bitcoin or crypto. They wanted more strength, which is interesting.

Refine in the UK trade deal.

We have a little to discuss, but the deal is really very well done, but I'll meet with the prime minister. We have a good relationship and I think it's going to be. And it'll be very shortly and it'll be probably in Aberdeen, Scotland, at the event.

Which state besides Texas would you like Drivelton to gerrymander? Which state besides Texas would you like Republicans to redraw? The congressional lines?

Them?

I'll let you figure that one out. But we have about four of them. In three cases it's one, and in one case it's two or three, five.

Are you concerned California will turn around and do the same thing?

Republicans in California, you never know what's going to happen. But we've done pretty well in the courts. In California, as you see, we're batting about a thousand. Ultimately, we start off a little slow and then we get a lot of hits.

You said today at the event in Pittsburgh that if it wasn't for Mr. Ludnick, Mr. Besson, who want to do more deals, that you would basically just go with the letters. You've said that a few different times. I just want to clarify, do you just want to go with the tariffs and move on?

But they would like to make deals more than me. I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm just like, in my opinion, he and Scott and maybe even Doug, to a certain extent, you're more like me, I think. But they would like to make deals more than me. I'm very happy with the deals the way they are. Those are very right.

Those are very simple deals.

It's whatever the percentage is. And we base that on a lot of things, including the deficit and, you know, various things. And, you know, I think it's a much chance to wait. Don't forget, we'll be releasing a letter soon talking about many countries that are much smaller, where you're not going to do letters per se. You might do an individual letter, but it's going to go very quickly and.

The number will also be less. These are countries that are many of them, you know, like 200 countries, you.

Understand, Caribbean countries, African countries. You have a huge amount of countries that are small and the president's just going to deal with them sort of the way he thinks is the right.

Way to deal with them. Probably set one tariff for all of them.

Over 10% tariff on that.

Probably a little over 10%. Yeah.

15, 20.

But we do, you know, it's still significant.

What about Israel, Mr. President? Is that related to your other, like the Gaza negotiations? Is that tied up in other issues.

Israel is going to be fine. We had a great victory with Israel. That was a great, great victory, what we did with the B2 bombers and all of that. And, you know, I never thought of it, but so many people are thanking me. They say no president had the guts to do it because, you know, this has been going on for 25 years. In fact, when the pilots came to the Oval Office, they said, sir, we and our predecessors have been working on this attack for 25 years. Have a good time, everybody. Thank you.

Thank you very much.