So thank you all for coming. We'll take a couple of questions. Yeah. Go ahead, please. Thank you. I wanted to touch on the world on fire that you mentioned, but

Let's start, if we could, with your references to Greenland and the Panama Canal and so forth. Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion? No. And can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is

Are you going to negotiate a new treaty? Are you going to ask the Canadians to hold the vote? What is the strategy? I can't assure you. You're talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But I can say this. We need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for our military. I'm not going to commit to that now. It might be that you'll have to do something. Look, the Panama Canal is vital.

To our country. It's being operated by China. China. And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn't give it to China. And they've abused it. They've abused that gift. It should have never been made, by the way. Giving the Panama Canal is why Jimmy Carter lost the election, in my opinion. More so, maybe, than the hostages. The hostages were a big deal. But if you remember, and nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal, because it's inappropriate, I guess, because it's a bad part of

Of the Carter legacy, but he was a good man. Look, he was a good man. I knew him a little bit and he was a very fine person, but that was a big mistake. Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake. We lost 38,000 people. It cost us the equivalent of a trillion dollars, maybe more than probably the most expensive. They say it was the most expensive structure, if we call it a structure, which I guess you can ever built. And

Giving that away was a horrible thing. And I believe that's why Jimmy Carter lost the election, even more so than the hostages. Those two things. If I just talk on Ukraine and Iran, the two negotiations you'll be heading into. On Ukraine, you said just before it's a lot more complicated now. Much more complicated. Do you believe... Because it would have never started. Right, but it has started. Well, not only started, the cities are largely knocked down. So you've got what you've got. At this point...

To hold on the leverage in dealing with President Putin, would you make a commitment to the Ukrainians that you will keep supporting them during the negotiations? Well, I wouldn't tell you if that were the case. And would you make a commitment to provide a security guarantee if they do enter into an armistice or a ceasefire along the lines of the French and the Germans? So, you know, a big part of the problem was Russia for many, many years, long before Putin said you could never have NATO.

Now, they've said that that's been like written in stone. And somewhere along the line, Biden said, no, they should be able to join NATO. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep. And I could understand their feeling about that. But there were a lot of mistakes made in that negotiation. And when I heard the way that Biden was negotiating, I said, you're going to end up in a war. And it turned out to be a very bad war. And it could escalate. That war could escalate.

To be much worse than it is right now.

Well, my view is that it was always understood. In fact, I believe that they had a deal and then Biden broke it. They had a deal, which would have been a satisfactory deal to Ukraine and everybody else, but that Biden said, no, you have to be able to join NATO. And that's always been, and nobody knows more about NATO than I, you know, years ago when I first started this, I didn't know too much about NATO, but I got it right anyway. I said, they're taking advantage. I'm the one that got, and the secretary general was here, as you know, two weeks ago saying that,

If it weren't for me, Netto wouldn't even exist right now, because I raised from countries that weren't paying their bills. At that time, 28 countries, 20 of them were not paying their bills, 21 to be exact. They weren't paying, or they were paying a very small portion. And I raised over $680 billion. That was the number he gave by saying, if you don't pay, we're not going to protect you.

And as soon as I said that, the money came pouring in. But Obama could have said it. Other people could have said it. Bush could have said it. Nobody said it but me. I took a lot of heat. They said, oh, that's a threatening statement. Well, they weren't paying their bills. I said, we're not going to protect you if you're not paying the bills. So in a true sense, I saved NATO, but NATO's taken advantage of us. And one of the problems that I have, and I've said it openly, I said it to President Zelenskyy,

Europe is in for a tiny fraction of the money that we're in now. Whether you like that situation or not, Europe is much more affected than the United States. We have a thing called the ocean in between us, right? Why are we in for billions and billions of dollars more money than Europe? And you know, they're a similar size, a little smaller, but they're a similar size economy as the United States when you add them up.

And yet Europe is in for a small fraction of the number of the United States is in. Now, Biden could have called them up during the term. That's what I did. I said, you have to pay your bills. And they all, one stood up, I won't say who, you'll probably have it, because the papers, the media hated to report on it. But a prime minister up from a country, you know, a famous meeting of 28 nations with no press, no anybody in the room. He stood up, he says, does that mean

If we don't pay our bill, and at that point it was 2%, it should be 5%, it should be 5%, not 2%, but at that point it was 2%, but many people didn't pay. Some people didn't pay anything. But many people were away, including Germany. Germany was at less than 1%.

Well, I think NATO should have 5%, yeah. Well, you can't do it at 2%. I mean, at 2%, every country, if you're going to have a country and a regular military, you're at 4%. I think they should be, you know, they're in dangerous territory. I think they should be, they can all afford it, but they should be at 5%, not 2%. I'm the one that got them to pay 2%. But a gentleman stood up, a prime minister stood up, and he said to me, sir, could I ask you a question? You're saying we have to pay our bills. If we don't pay our bills...

Will the United States protect us from Russia? I said, if you don't pay, you mean you're delinquent? He said, yes. He said, if you're delinquent, we will not protect you. I took a lot of heat.

Although it was somewhat closed door, I took a lot of heat from the media. And you know what happened? The money started pouring in. That's why NATO has money. And the Secretary General said it was the most incredible thing he had ever seen in a negotiation. Now, if I would have said, yes, we will, nobody would have paid. I would have loved to have said, yes, we'll protect you even if you don't pay. But that's not the way life works.

Two questions related to each other. First, you said on your first day of office you're going to pardon January 6th defendants. Are you planning to pardon those who were charged with violent offenses? Well, we're looking at it, and we have other people in there, and as you see, I guess 24 or 28 people came now from the FBI that came out very quietly. Nobody reported it, but they had

People in some form related to the FBI. They had four or five people that were strongly related to the FBI. We have to find out about that. We have to find out about Hezbollah. We have to find out about who exactly was in that whole thing, because people that did some bad things were not prosecuted. You know, I see it.

All the time, and you see it too. People that were doing some bad things weren't prosecuted, and people that didn't even walk into the building are in jail right now. So we'll be looking at the whole thing, but I'll be making major pardons. Yes, please. Please. Good afternoon, Mr. President. It's good to see you again. Two questions about Syria.

Well, I won't tell you that because that's part of a military strategy, but I will say it was Turkey. Turkey's been after that country in different names and different forms and shapes for 2,000 years.

Those people that went in are from Turkey. And President Erdogan is a friend of mine. He's a guy I like, respect. I think he respects me also. He's the one that didn't go after certain people after I requested that he not. You know who I'm talking about? The Kurds. I don't know how long that's going, because they're natural enemies. They hate each other. But he didn't do that yet, and he didn't do it in the past also. He started and I said, please don't do that, and he didn't do it.

But if you look at what happened with Syria, Russia was weakened, Iran was weakened, and he's a very smart guy. And he sent his people in there through different forms and different names, and they went in and they took over, and that's the way it is. Do you have concerns about HTS taking control? By the way, I have the envoy here. Is that in the back?

Standing with my son, Eric, is Steve Witkoff, who's just got back from the Middle East, and he's done a fantastic job. He's a great dealmaker. I said, what we need there is a dealmaker, because nobody makes a deal. We have people that understand where the rivers are and where the meets and bounds are, but they can't talk. They can't make deals. Steve's done a great job. I just want to thank you, Steve. You've been working endlessly for

And he's working specifically on the hostages, trying to get them back. Steve, come up for a second. Maybe you might want to say a couple of words. I didn't know Steve was going to be here, actually. He's done a fantastic job, and it's a dangerous job, too, and we appreciate it.

He didn't know about this kind of danger and the other deal-making he does. Now he sees a lot of big danger. Come on up, Steve. Mr. President, can I ask you a second part of that? Hamas released another hostage video. I'm going to give you a little report on the hostages if I can. Steve? Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. President. Wow. Well, I think we're making a lot of progress. And I don't want to say too much because

I think they're doing a really good job back in Doha. I'm leaving tomorrow back to go to Doha. But I think that we've had some really great progress, and I'm really hopeful that by the inaugural, we'll have some good things to announce on behalf of the president. I actually believe that we're working in tandem in a really good way, but it's the president, his reputation, the things that he has said,

That are driving this negotiation. And so hopefully it'll all work out and we'll save some lives. I believe we've been on the verge of it. I don't want to discuss sort of what's delayed it. There's no point to be negative in any way. But I think it's the President, his stature.

What he said he expects, the red lines he's put out there, that's driving this negotiation. I'm going back probably either this evening or tomorrow night. Are you confident there will be a deal before January 20th? Or is that something that's likely to happen? If there's a deal even at all, and we've been hearing this now for the better part of... I know. I would say... They better be. Right. I would say that the president...

He's exasperated. I don't want to talk for him. But look, I don't know anyone who delegates better than President Trump. He gives us a lot of authority to speak on his behalf. And he exhorts us to speak emphatically. And emphatically means, you better do this. Because the alternative. Do you think they're waiting for President Trump to take office? No. I think they heard him loud and clear. Better get done by the inaugural. But when you say, all hell will be paid. Before I take office.

All hell must be paid if they don't release the hostages. Do I have to define it for you? All hell will break out. If those hostages aren't back, I don't want to hurt your negotiation. If they're not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. And it will not be good for Hamas, and it will not be good, frankly, for anyone. All hell will break out. I don't have to say anymore, but that's what it is. And they should have given them back a long time. They should have never taken them.

There should have never been the attack of October 7th. People forget that. But there was, and many people are killed. They're no longer hostages. I have people from Israel and others calling, begging me to get, you know, we had also people there from the United States, just so you know. They're holding some so-called hostages from the U.S. But I've had mothers come to me and fathers crying,

Can I get the body of their son back? Can I get the body of their daughter back? That beautiful girl where they threw her in the car, pulled her by her ponytail, and threw her in the car like she was a sack of potatoes. I said, what happened to her? Sir, she's dead. Like a 19-, 20-year-old beautiful girl and the way they treated her. And I just say it this very simply. Steve's got a job to do. He's a great guy, great negotiator, great person. They respect him over there already.

It's what we needed over there. We have people that know everything about the Middle East, but they can't speak properly. They don't know. He's a great negotiator. That's what I needed. I could have sent that gentleman right over there, Hussein. He's a great negotiator. There are people, they're rare. Great negotiators are very rare, like a great surgeon. But we have the right person. But I tell this, I don't want to hurt the negotiation. If the deal isn't done before I take office, which is now going to be two weeks,

All hell will break out in the Middle East. Thank you, Mr. President. You've done a great job. Thank you. Mr. President, more than 140 police officers were injured by rioters on January 6th. Will you pardon anyone who attacked a police officer? Well, you know, the only one that was killed was a beautiful young lady named Ashley Babbitt. She was killed. And there was actually somebody else that was killed, also a MAGA person, but people

I don't give it 100% credibility. I'm going to find out about it. We're going to find out. But Ashley Babbitt was killed. She was shot. She had never been shot. She was shot for no reason whatsoever. In fact, they say that she was trying to hold back the crowd. And the crowd was made up of a lot of different people, so we'll see. But I will tell you this. The person that was killed was Ashley Babbitt. The other thing is,

When they talk, you know, there was never charges of insurrection or anything like that. But if there were, this would be the only insurrection in history where people went in as insurrectionists with not one gun, okay? And let me tell you, the people that you're talking about have a lot of guns in their home for hunting and for shooting and for entertainment, a lot of good reasons. But there wasn't one gun,

That they found. And why didn't they find the bomber, the pipe bomber? You know, they know who the pipe bomber is. The FBI knows who it is. The status of the FBI has gone down so far. And the status of the DOJ, or as I call it, the Department of Injustice. It's the Department of Injustice being laughed at all over the world. And hopefully with Pam Bondi and with Kash Patel and with other people that we're putting in, that will all come back.

If you do a poll in the FBI, I guarantee I'm at like 90% with the agents of the FBI, but they have hurt that incredible

Place, law enforcement, I mean, you think of the FBI, they raided this house. By the way, they could have told me, could I see this guy, I would have given them my, I actually told them, come in any time you want, you can see anything. They raided the house and the case was dismissed. And now I'm in litigation, I'm suing them for doing that, and I feel so badly doing it. I'm the President of the United States and I'm suing the United States, but I'm suing them for other things, too.

The FBI has gone so, its reputation has been so horribly hurt between Comey, who is the worst, and all of the others. What's happened to the FBI is, and we're gonna make it great again. We're gonna make the FBI great again. We're gonna make the Department of Justice fair and strong, but fair again.

Because all they did was attack me because I'm their political opponent. And that includes with local judges like Marshawn. You ought to find out. Ask them, why do I have a gag order where I'm not allowed to speak? Think of it. I'm the President of the United States, and I'm not allowed to speak. Why?

Because if I did speak, people would understand the scam. It's a scam. And we have very dishonest judges, and New York judges are very bad. We had one that valued this house at $18 million because it was good for their case. He actually valued it. That chandelier is worth more than $18 million. He valued this house at $18 million. And we have another one who was so nasty, so horrible, such a brute.

Most vicious, vile person. These are New York judges. But we've won most of the cases, so we're very happy about that. Please. Well, we need Greenland for national security purposes. I've been told that for a long time, long before I even ran. I mean, people have been talking about it for a long time.

You have approximately 45,000 people there. People really don't even know if Denmark has any legal right to it. But if they do, they should give it up because we need it for national security. That's for the free world. I'm talking about protecting the free world. You don't even need binoculars. You look outside, you have China ships all over the place. You have Russian ships all over the place. We're not letting that happen. We're not letting it happen.

And if Denmark wants to get to a conclusion, but nobody knows if they even have any right title or interest, the people are going to probably vote for independence or to come into the United States. But if they did do that, then I would tariff Denmark at a very high level. Have you asked your staff to draw up plans for acquisition? No, we're not at that stage, but I haven't even entered office yet.

You draw some criticism and a lot of attention for some of his actions and provocative statements about foreign affairs, including in Europe. Your reaction to that, is that appropriate for... You mean where he likes people that tended to be conservative? I don't know the people. I can say Elon's doing a good job, very smart guy. I don't know the people you're talking about. He was... I know he said some negative things about a couple of people that are running for office, but that's not so unusual. Yes, please.

I wanted to ask you about Ukraine and Putin. How soon do you anticipate going to meet with Putin to discuss the Ukraine situation? Well, I can't tell you that, but I know that Putin would like to meet. I don't think it's appropriate that I meet until after the 20th, which I hate because, you know, every day people are being – many, many young people are being killed, soldiers. You know, the land is very flat.

And hundreds of thousands of soldiers from each, many hundreds of thousands from each side are dead. And they're laying in fields all over the place, nobody to even collect. There's land mines all over, it's a disaster. But it's very flat, it's great, it's farmland, and it's very, very flat. And the only thing that stops a bullet is the human body. And the human body is stopping a lot of bullets. I hope to have,

Six months. No, I would think, I hope, long before six months. Look, Russia's losing a lot of young people, and so is Ukraine. And it should have never been started. That's a war that should have never happened. I guarantee you, if I were president, that war would have never happened. I'll be announcing somebody.

Mr. President, if you were to work under the assumption that you're serious about making Canada the 51st state of the United States, the leader of the Conservative Party in Canada said, under no circumstances will I ever be the 51st state. Maybe he won't win, but maybe he will. To Dave's point, you had suggested that you were considering military force to acquire Panama and Greenland. Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada? No. Economic force.

Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like. And it would also be much better for national security. Don't forget, we basically protect Canada. But here's the problem with Canada. So many friends up there. I love the Canadian people. They're great. But we're spending hundreds of billions a year to protect it.

We're spending hundreds of billions a year to take care of Canada. We lose in trade deficits. We're losing mass. We don't need their cars. You know, they make 20% of our cars. We don't need that. I'd rather make them in Detroit. We don't need the cars. We don't need their lumber. We have massive fields of lumber. We don't need their lumber. We have to unrestrict them because stupid people put, you know, restrictions on, but I can do that with an executive order.

We don't need anything they have. We don't need their dairy products. We have more than they have. We don't need anything. So why are we losing $200 billion a year and more to protect Canada? And I said that to, as I called him, Governor Trudeau. I said, listen, what would happen if we didn't subsidize you, if we didn't? Because we give them a lot of money. We help them. As an example, we're buying icebreakers. And Canada wants to join us in the buying of icebreakers. I said, you know, we don't really

Want to have a partner in the buying of icebreakers? We don't need a partner. No right. Nope. No right. Here's what we have. We have a right not to help them with their financial difficulties, because we owe $36 trillion still. We're going to start knocking it out pretty fast. But we're going to be able to do it because of energy and other things. But no right. No, no. No right. But why are we supporting?

A country, $200 billion plus a year, our military is at their disposal, all of these other things, they should be a state. That's why I told Trudeau when he came down, I said, what would happen if we didn't do it? He said Canada would dissolve. Canada wouldn't be able to function if we didn't take that 20% of our car market. Again, they send us hundreds of thousands of cars. They make a lot of money with that.

They sent us a lot of other things that we don't need. We don't need their cars. We don't need the other products. We don't need their milk. We got a lot of milk. We got a lot of everything. And we don't need any of it. So I said to him, well, why are we doing it? He said, I don't really know. He was unable to answer the question. But I can answer it. We're doing it because of habit. And we're doing it because we like our neighbors. And we've been good neighbors. But we can't do it forever. And it's a tremendous amount of money.

And why should we have a $200 billion deficit? And add on to that many, many other things that we give them in terms of subsidy. And I said, that's okay to have if you're a state. But if you're another country, we don't want to have it. We're not going to have it with European Union either. European Union, we have a trade deficit of $350 billion. They don't take our cars. They don't take our farm product. They don't take anything. And so we're not going to have it with them either.

Brian, go ahead. Yes. Happy New Year, by the way. Thank you. We have some breaking news. You may not be aware of this, but it looks like Canon has blocked the DOJ from releasing the Smiths report until further court proceedings. Get your thoughts on that. Well, that's a big story. Yeah. So if I get it right, the fake witch hunt started by the DOJ

Having to do with books and records, and Biden had many more, and he wasn't protected by the Presidential Records Act, I was. But all of that fake stuff that took the lives of people, I mean, literally destroyed people. People are destroyed because of what they did. Destroyed. But we got to be president.

But Biden did it for 40 years. He did it when he was a senator. That was illegal. And they ruled it was illegal. How about that? They said, it's illegal, but he's unfit to stand trial. So he can stand and be president of the United States, but the prosecutor found that he's unfit for trial. I was going to use that as a major talking point, but I never got to use it because all of a sudden I had a new candidate who was also sort of unfit to stand trial, right?

But so what you're saying is that the judge just blocked the, so Cannon was thrown off the case. They dropped their appeal because he had no case. They dropped all of that, the lawsuits against us. They lost the lawsuit. So this is Doreen Jacksmith. So he dropped the lawsuits. He was told to by the DOJ because they had no lawsuit. They lost in court.

In front of a very strong and a very brilliant judge, they lost in court, and that pertained to other cases in other courts. So he wanted to do a report, just before I take office probably. So he'll do like a 500 page report, and it'll be a fake report just like the investigation was a fake investigation. And I said, well, wait a minute, this guy was thrown off in disgrace, in disgrace. He's going back to The Hague or wherever they're gonna send him, in disgrace.

Because he failed so badly. Because it was a fake case against a political opponent. They thought they were going to use this to beat me. So what you're saying is, and I'm just hearing that, that they're not allowed to issue the report. So if they're not allowed to issue the report, that's the way it should be. Because he was thrown off the case in disgrace. Why should he be allowed to write a fake report? It'll only be a fake report. That's great news. Good.

And if I can just follow up real quickly, you want to comment, many Americans are angry that we're sending millions of dollars every month to the Taliban. Do you anticipate- It's not even believable. Billions of dollars, not millions, billions. We pay billions of dollars to essentially the Taliban, Afghanistan, and that's given by Biden. That's the same man that took away 50 to $60 trillion worth of value from the United States. Think of it, probably our most valuable asset.

Took away our most valuable asset. This can't be allowed to happen. We are now a nation of common sense. When he does that, 625 million acres, this can't be allowed to happen. Thank you for the information. Most other people probably knew about it, but they wouldn't have told me, right?

On the campaign trail, you vowed to bring down the prices at grocery stores very fast. Yeah, we won't do it fast. But then you recently told Time magazine that bringing down prices would be very hard. So what can the American people expect when you get into offices? It's always hard to bring down prices when somebody else has screwed something up like they did. But we'll bring them down. We'll get them down. Energy is going to bring down prices. We're going to have a lot of energy. And energy is what brought it up. Energy and their bad spending is what brought it up. And energy is going to bring it down. We're going to have prices down.

I think you're going to see some pretty drastic price reductions. As an example, food, bacon, ham, apples, everything has gone through the roof. It's one of the reasons I won. So as you know, as I said it, inflation was one of the reasons I won. But I think the biggest reason I won was the fact that they are allowing prisoners to come into our country

They released their prisoners, their murderers. Thousands of murderers are now walking around the streets of our cities and farmland all over, murders, people that have killed. Many, 32% have killed more than one person. They released them from their jails, their prisons, and their mental institutions and insane asylums into our country. I believe that's the reason we got such a large vote. Maybe one or two more questions. Yeah, please, go ahead. Go ahead, can we, you go.

So can you, President Carter is laying in state today in Washington. You had some harsh words for him about the Panama Canal. Is there any disconnect there? Do you feel a little bit bad about doing that on this day? No, look, I liked him as a man. I disagreed with his policy. So, hey, he thought giving away the Panama Canal was a good thing. I think it cost him the election. That and the hostages. I actually think that was a bigger factor because that's a deal that just should not have been made. But

Again, this was a question that was asked of me. I didn't bring it up. I didn't want to bring up the Panama Canal because of Jimmy Carter's death. But people don't bring it up. But you and other people have asked me about it. No, it's a deal that I was very strongly against. I was a young guy when this took place. But just why would we spend all of that money, lose 38,000 people to malaria, the mosquito? They were dying. It was horrible what was happening.

They paid them four times more than they would make in the United States, but they knew they were going to go over there and die. And they died in the jungles of malaria. There was nothing we could do to stop it. And then we gave it away for $1.

You appeared to open the door in your radio interview yesterday for a two-bill approach. Is it still your preference for one big, beautiful bill, as you have said? Well, I like one big, beautiful bill, and I always have, I always will. But if two is more certain, it does go a little bit quicker because you can do the immigration stuff early. Now, you have to understand, for immigration and for the wall, we won the case on the wall. You know, they tried to sell the wall for five cents on the dollar, by the way. And

We had fortunately a judge that stopped that, but they were already discarding the wall. And five cents in the dollar, and you know what they were doing? They were calling us up and saying, we'll sell it back to you at 200 cents. In other words, double what we paid for it. So they were going to buy it from this guy for five cents in the dollar. They were making deals. And fortunately, we had a very smart judge that stopped it cold. I think he called for an investigation too, and he should.

But think of it, they were selling the wall that was exactly the wall that the Border Patrol wanted, that was designed by them. Steel, concrete, rebar, exactly as they want. Very heavy steel, very powerful steel, hard to cut. Very, very heavy, 7,000 pound concrete, which is a very strong concrete. Everything was top of the line. Very expensive, would be double what we paid for it then, six years ago. But let me just tell you,

They were selling it for five cents on the dollar to people, and those people were calling us, asking us to pay them 200 cents because it's a good deal because we can have it immediately. And you know what immediately is? Just leave it in place. No, no, the papers haven't written that, though. That deal is like all the other things that these people do.

Either hate our country or they're very stupid. And I don't believe they're stupid because nobody can cheat on elections like they cheat and be stupid. They either hate our country or they're stupid. So remember what I said because nobody wants to report it. They were selling the wall for five cents on the dollar and trying to resell it back to us for 200 cents or less.

But for 200 cents on the dollar, that's a nice return. I watched their news conference, and I thought it was a very good news conference. Honestly, I think they've come a long way. Meta.

Facebook. I think they've come a long way. I watched it. The man was very impressive. I watched it. Actually, I watched it on Fox. I'm not allowed to say that. Say it. Do you think he's directly responding to the threats that you have made to him in the past? Probably. Probably. The last time you were here, you were asked a question about the U.S. possibly launching a preemptive strike on Iran. You said you wouldn't answer that question. When who? Obviously.

The U.S. launching a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. I said I don't talk about it. It's a military strategy. But it is a legitimate question. Well, it's not really because only a stupid person would answer it. Look, it's a military strategy.

And I'm not answering your questions on military strategy. All right, one more. Brian, go ahead. Could you give us a preview of what you might be talking to leaders of Congress who are expected to come here in the next couple of days? And you've got a very supportive Congress behind you. They're great. So we have a wonderful Republican Congress. We have a leader that I have a lot of confidence in. I think he's going to be hopefully a great leader, a great speaker.

And we have a leader, by the way, in the Senate, I think has been great. John Thune has been doing a fantastic job. But it goes through the House first. And the question is whether or not we do the two bills, the one bill. And, you know, look, I can live either way. I like the idea of the one big bill, but I can live either way. But they'll be coming down. The senators also will be coming down. And then ultimately, we'll be meeting in the White House in a few weeks. But right now, this is the winter season. You know, they sort of call this the winter White House.

It was built, I don't know if you know this, Marjorie Merriweather Post and E.F. Hutton built this. It was the greatest of all the estates in our country. And I saved it, and I got a lot of credit for saving it. Most of these big, great houses have been knocked down in Palm Beach, just about all of them, actually. And you'd build 10 mansions on one site.

We saved it. But this was built as the Southern White House. And she gave it to the government. And, by the way, Jimmy Carter gave it back. He said it's too expensive for the United States. So I didn't realize that. Actually, Jimmy Carter, Nixon was through Watergate. He came down. Nixon came here once, and he thought it was incredible. But he had a thing called Watergate, if anybody remembers that. And so he had other things on his mind, to put it mildly.

Jimmy Carter felt that it was too extravagant for the country, so fortunately for me, he gave it back to the foundation, and I bought it from the foundation. Some Republicans say in trade for a massive bill that you and they share the interest in, they want to see big spending cuts. Do you agree with that? Well, I'm okay with spending cuts. I like spending cuts. I'm on the record for spending cuts. And the debt ceiling...

It was given to us. It shouldn't have been. But it was put in our lap. And what I want in terms of debt ceiling isn't the ceiling. I just don't want to see a default. That's all I want. I never talked about spending more money necessarily than all I want to see is no default. Because nobody knows what would happen if there was a default. It could be 1929 and it could be nothing. But that was put into our lap. And it shouldn't have been, but it was. And so we'll handle it.

Debt ceiling is not about raising a lot of money. It's really just about extending it. I just want to see an extension.

How much can you do by executive order? Are you planning to do on executive order when it comes to immigration? And how much do you want Congress to tackle this issue? And also, on day one, what executive orders are you planning? Well, I have the safest border in the history of our country by far. You remember the famous chart that I brought down. I love that chart very much for a lot of reasons. But I have the safest border by far in the history of our country. And when I took it over, it was a mess. Nothing like it is now.

This is ten times worse. I got elected because of the border the first time, and I think I got elected largely because of the border the third time. And the second time, I did equally well. Well, not as well as the last time, but I did very well. And I will say, this was too big to rig. You know the expression? Too big to rig. They couldn't do it. They tried, but they couldn't do it. I didn't get very much from Congress at all. I just said that we're being invaded, and I took the money out of the military.

Much of the wall, I built over 500 miles of wall, much of that wall was built through money that I put into the military. We took it out because we couldn't get things from Congress in those days, and we took it out. And that wall was built largely with money coming from the military. So, very simple. I went to the military, I said, our country is being invaded.

By very similar, nothing like what's invading our country now. They weren't releasing prisons into our country, and they weren't releasing mental institutions in, but some bad dudes were coming in. And I said, our country's being invaded. And I took that money largely from the military. I was sued nine times.

By the Democrats in Congress, and I won all those suits. And we built five, we ended up building 571 miles of wall. Once that wall was built, they start going around it. So we're gonna add another 200. That would have been up in three weeks. And then we had a very unfortunate election result. And they said, we don't wanna put it up, we'll sell it. And they started selling it for five cents on the dollar. What a second.

So we'll do this again. I just want to thank everybody very much. I'm just telling you, this will be the golden age of America. This is the golden age of America. We're going to have a great country again. We're a country right now under siege. We have so many different problems. And nobody respects us overseas, but now they do. The Italian prime minister, as you know, came here the other night, just flew in and flew out. She wanted to see me. And great respect is being shown when I went to the cathedral

In France, great respect was shown by the prime minister, the president, by everybody. France was, and by the way, I have to say they did a great job in the cathedral. But great respect is being shown to our country again. And we have a great country, but we have to run it properly. It's going to be run properly.

We want to get back those hostages for Israel and for us. You know, we do have people that are hostages being held. And I'll just say it again. If this deal is not done with the people representing our nation, by the time I get to office, all hell is going to break out. Thank you very much. Can you clarify what you mean by military force in the Panama Canal?

Thank you.