Transcript of a press gaggle aboard Air Force One on Nov 2, 2025 featuring President Trump answering questions from reporters on international affairs (Nigeria, Russia/Ukraine, Venezuela, Syria), domestic/legal issues (tariffs and a Supreme Court case, SNAP benefits, shutdown negotiations), economic performance (stock market records attributed to tariffs), and technology (praise for Nvidia and its Blackwell chips). The tone is informal and presidential, with repeated assertions about national security, criticism of prior administrations, and mentions of confidential military plans.
Chapters
Hello, everybody. How are you? Hope you had a nice weekend. Everyone good?
How are you?
Good. I guess we're doing 60 Minutes tonight, but I'm not sure we're going to be in the plane. We may be midstream. We'll see. But I think they did a good job. We'll let you know. We'll see how they cut it. So do you have any questions.
On the ground?
Good. Could be. I mean a lot of things. I envisage a lot of things. They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria and they have other countries. Very bad also, you know that. That part of the world. Very bad. They're killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. We're not going to allow that to happen.
Mr. President, what's going on with Russian assets? Would you say are you going to use those as a negotiating tool? What's Europe's on the frozen. On the frozen Russian assets. So what are you planning to do?
Is this a totally question than Nigeria? It was quite a, quite a turn. I'm not doing that. And what happens is, I guess Europe and Russia are having discussions. I'm not involved in those discussions.
Will your administration provide Ukraine with long range Tomahawk missiles?
Is that something that you're not considering that.
No, not really. It happened. I could change, but at this moment I'm not.
What would be the final straw for you that proves that Putin is really not ready to end what. What would be the final straw for you that proves that Putin is really not ready to.
There's no final straw. Sometimes you have to let it find out. They're fighting. They're fighting it out. It's been a tough war for Putin. He's lost a lot of soldiers, maybe a million. That's a lot of soldiers. And it's been tough for Ukraine. It's been tough on both. Sometimes you have to let it, you know, just get bought out. You know, we have. I've settled eight wars. I thought that that word would be easier than some of the ones we settled. And by the way, we got hostages back. You know, the hostages were so sad. We're talking about dead bodies which people call hostages. But I don't know what to do. I spoke to the parents. We got Nutra, you know, from New York and from the United States. And I spoke to his parents and they're thrilled in one sense, but in another sense, obviously not too great. But we're very happy to have done it. We have three, we got three bodies back today that they found and we're looking for the remainder of the months.
Are you joining the screen on Wednesday? Are you going to the Supreme Court for the tariffs?
I think it's the most important decision, one of the most important decisions in the history of our country because without tariffs, without our being able to use tariffs freely, openly and and in every way, we are really would suffer tremendously from a national security standpoint. The national security of our country is at stake. It's the biggest, I think it's one of the biggest decisions in the history of the Supreme Court. Other countries use tariffs against us if we weren't able to openly and freely use tariffs against them. I'll give you an example.
China, that was going to be a.
Disaster for the world. And I was able to settle it very quickly, very easily because I was able to use tariffs. Tariffs. It's total national security. And economic health is also part of national security, by the way. But without tariffs, our country would be in great jeopardy.
So will you attend the oral argument?
No, I don't think so because I don't want to call a lot of attention to me. It's not about me. It's about our country. I'll be going to Miami. I'm going to make a speech in.
Front of a large group of people.
In Miami and said I wanted to go so badly. I just don't want to do anything to deflect the importance of that decision. If we don't have tariffs, we don't have national security. And the rest of the world would laugh at us because they've used tariffs against us for years and took advantage of us. And you see what's happened. We've become wealthy. Our stock market hit a record high on Friday. A record high. It's hit 48 record highs during my term. And a large part of that is because of tariffs and our good trade deals. Without that, you couldn't make a good trade deal. And you know, we were subject to being abused by a lot of other countries, including China, for years. Not anymore. Tariffs have brought us tremendous national security.
Venezuela, is there a deadline for Venezuela to act against these alleged drug gangs?
I don't ever set deadlines. I do what I do, but I don't set whether it's Venezuela or anything else. I don't set deadlines.
You said that it's not true that you've made a decision on striking inland in Venezuela, but are there actual plans.
For those strikes when you're well, how.
Can I answer a question like that? Are there plans for a strike one Venezuela who would say that? Supposing there were. Would I say that to you? Honesty? Yes. We have plans. We have very secret plans.
Well, who would say that?
You know, what kind of a question is it? Look, we'll see what happens with Venezuela. Venezuela sent us thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of people from prisons, from mental institutions, drug addicts. And so did other countries. That's the bad. I mean, other countries did it, too, because we were run by very stupid people. Very, very stupid people. Biden was the worst president in the history of our country by far. We had open borders and many countries, the Congo, many countries, they sent their prisoners. They sent prisoners, they sent drug dealers, they sent drug addicts, they sent anybody, anybody that they didn't want, they sent them through our country. And Venezuela was one of the worst abusers.
Democrats say that the way that this shutdown ends is if you directly engage in negotiated deal on extending these ACA subsidies.
Well, all they have to do is open up the country. You know, we voted 14 times to open the country. We have voted 14 times to open the country. And they vote to keep it closed. All they have to do is vote to open the country. And we only need five Democrats. They have a lot of Democrats. We only need five. But the Republicans have voted 14 times to open the.
You directed your lawyers on SNAP. You directed your lawyers on Snap on SNAP benefits. You put out that to a social post on Friday, directing your lawyers to look into whether or not you can move around funds. What do they get back to you to find out if you can take.
It's a much easier situation than that. If they vote to open the country, it's opened up immediately. We don't even have to think about that.
I wanted to ask about. Prince Andrew in the UK has had his royal title stripped away because of the Pepsi scandal. I know you're close to the royal family there.
Do you have any thoughts on. I feel very badly. I mean, it's a terrible thing that's happened to the family. That's been a tragic situation, and it's too bad. I mean, I feel badly for the family.
Are you still planning to meet with Jensen Huang? Have you spoken with him after your. Jensen Huang of Nvidia, The CEO of Nvidia.
Yeah, I've spoken to him. What about it?
So are you planning to meet with him? You said when you were.
I meet with. Look, he's one of the great genius of our time. His chips are 10 years ahead of anybody else's. And, you know, I meet with him all the time. He's a great. He's a great American company. He's now the biggest company in the world. So what would you like to know? Nvidia is really just a brilliant company. The chips are 10 years. The new Blackwell that just came out. It's 10 years ahead of every other chip. But there's nothing to beat with other than say, congratulations, but no, we don't give that chip.
Other people.
Are you meeting with the Syrian president?
We don't give that ship to other people.
Are you meeting with the Syrian president at the White House or did you invite him to the Syrian president? The Syrian president.
He may be coming.
I don't know.
I mean, he's working very hard.
We took sanctions off of Syria to.
Give them a chance at survival. And I hear he's doing a very good job.
Thank you very much, everybody. I'm going to try and watch 60 Minutes, but I may be delayed. Let's see if they treat me better.
Than they treat other people.
Although I do say this, they treated Kamala very well. In fact, they changed your answers. I will try, but we may land.
Just as it starts, Right?
It's very split second. But thank goodness for TiVo or something thereof, right? We love TiVo. We love TiVo. One of my favorite. One of the greatest inventions in history. Have a good time. Thank you.
