InterContinental New York Barclay
New York, New York
4:28 P.M. EDT
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Well, thank you all for being here. We've had a tremendous three days in New York, at the United Nations. I want to thank the Secretary-General. It's been really incredible what's been taking place. And he's been a fantastic host to a lot of countries.
The meetings I had on a bilat, or close, were pretty staggering. I think we set a new record, but you'll have to check that out. The — we met very, very — for pretty extended periods of time, either two and two, one on one, or just about at that level with Pakistan, Poland, New Zealand, Singapore, Egypt, South Korea, United Kingdom, India, Iraq, Argentina, Germany, Brazil, France, Japan, Ukraine, Honduras, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Other than that, we weren't too busy over the last three days.
And, unfortunately, the press doesn't even cover it. You know, we have — we've made some fantastic deals, like with Japan. For farmers, we have a tremendous trade deal with Japan. And that doesn't get covered because you waste your time on nonsense.
The PMI manufacturers' index has gone substantially up, which was an incredible — Larry Kudlow, wherever you may be — Larry, please stand up. He just gave me these numbers. And existing new home sales are through the roof. Just came out. Oil prices have gone down ever since the Saudi Arabia incident, and they've gone down very substantially. So, we have plenty of oil. But those numbers were surprising to you, Larry. And the extent of the increase. Is that a correct statement? So thank you, Larry Kudlow.
We think we'll make this little announcement to you because — important. You know the so-called whistleblower? The one that didn't have any first-class, or first-rate, or second-tier information, from what I understand. You'll have to figure that out for yourself. But I've spoken with Leader Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans — many of them — and we were going to do this anyway, but I've informed them — all of the House members — that I fully support transparency on the so-called whistleblower information, even though it was supposedly second-hand information, which is sort of interesting.
And other things have come out about the whistleblower that are also maybe even more interesting. But also insist on transparency from Joe Biden and his son Hunter on the millions of dollars that have been quickly and easily taken out of Ukraine and China. Millions of dollars. Millions and millions of dollars taken out very rapidly while he was Vice President. And I think they should have transparency for that. I've informed the Leader about that.
And additionally, I demand transparency from Democrats who went to Ukraine and attempted to force the new President, who I met and is an outstanding person. I just met a little while ago; some of you were there. I think he's going to be outstanding. He got elected on the basis of corruption. He wants to end corruption in Ukraine, and I think that's great.
But they went there and they wanted to force the new President to do things that they wanted under the form of political threat. They threatened him if he didn't do things. Now, that's what they're accusing me of, but I didn't do it. I didn't threaten anybody. In fact, the press was asking questions of the President of Ukraine. And he said, "No pressure." I used the word "pressure." I think he used the word "push," but he meant pressure, but it's the same thing. No push, no pressure, no nothing. It's all a hoax, folks. It's all a big hoax.
And the sad thing about this hoax is that we work so hard with all of these countries — and I mean really hard. This has been — I've been up from early in the morning to late in the evening, and meeting with different countries all for the good of our country, and the press doesn't even cover all of this. And it's disappearing — it's really disappointing also to those countries that are with us and spend so much time with us.
So, we want transparency. We've informed Kevin McCarthy about transparency. And we said, "Vote for it." So I think you'll have close to 100 percent of the Republican votes, I hope.
And it got almost no attention, but in May, CNN reported that Senators Robert Menendez, Richard Durbin, and Patrick Leahy wrote a letter to Ukraine's Prosecutor General expressing concern at the closing of four investigations they said were "critical." In the letter, they implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake and that if they didn't do the right thing, they wouldn't get any assistance. Gee, doesn't that sound familiar? Doesn't that sound familiar?
And Chris Murphy — who I've been dealing with on guns — you know, so nice. He's always, "Oh, no, we want to work it out. We want to work it out." But they're too busy wasting their time on the witch hunt. So, Senator Chris Murphy literally threatened the President of Ukraine that, if he doesn't do things right, they won't have Democrat support in Congress. So you're going to look all of this up.
One other thing — I'm just going off of certain notes and elements of what we've been doing over the last three days, but this just came up a few minutes ago: The "Amazon-Washington Post" just put out a fake article that Acting Director of National Intelligence, Joseph Maguire — who I've gotten to know, and he's a tough cookie — and I was surprised; I was shocked to hear this — was going to quit, blaming the White House for something that they wouldn't let him talk openly, freely. And I was shocked because I know Joe, and he's tough. A tough guy.
And I was really surprised to hear he was going to quit. Before I could even either talk to him or talk to anybody else, he put out a statement — I didn't speak to Joe yet — but he said, "At no time have I considered resigning my position." In other words, the story in the Washington Post was a fake.
"At no time have I considered resigning my position since assuming this role on August 16, 2019. I have never quit anything in my life, and I am not going to start now. I'm committed to leading the intelligence community to address the diverse and complex threats facing our nation." That's from the Acting Director of National Intelligence, a very good man, Joseph Maguire.
So we're having a great period of time. Our country is the strongest it's ever been economically. Our numbers are phenomenal. Wilbur, thank you. And Larry. Everybody. The numbers are phenomenal. Our economy is the strongest in the world. We're the largest economy in the world.
Had my opponent won, we would be second right now because China was catching us so rapidly, we would've been second by this time. And unless somebody does a very poor job as President, we're going to be first for a long way, because we've picked up trillions and trillions of dollars in value and worth of our country, and China has lost trillions and trillions of dollars, and millions of jobs, and their supply chain. And they want to make a deal.
This year, America came to the United Nations stronger than we have ever been before: Since my election, the United States has not only brought our economy to a level that we have never seen, the most jobs that we've ever had — you know you've heard me say it many times — African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, the best unemployment numbers we've ever had. And the most and best employment numbers: 160 million — very close to that number — in jobs. We've never been anywhere close.
Wages are up, and inequality is down. Something that people don't like writing about. But wages are up. I used to speak during the campaign, and I'd talk about wages where people were making less money three years ago than they were making 21 years, 22 years ago, and they'd have two jobs and three jobs. When I say "three years ago," I'm talking into the area sometime prior to the election. And they were doing very badly. And now, for the first time in many years, wages are up and employment is up, and unemployment is down. And it's a beautiful thing to watch.
In a week of active and ambitious diplomacy here at the United Nations, America renewed our friendships. We advanced our values greatly and made clear to everyone that the United States will always defend our citizens to promote prosperity.
I met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, at length, of the United Kingdom, continuing our discussions on a magnificent, new bilateral trade deal. So we'll see what happens with respect to Brexit, but I suspect we'll have a fantastic deal with the UK. It should be much bigger than it has been over the last number of years. Over the last 20 years, frankly. It should be a much bigger deal.
That's true with many countries. We're going to have much bigger trade deals with a lot of countries that have an opportunity to come. And they all want to do business with the United States, especially now.
Earlier today, I stood alongside Prime Minister Abe of Japan — a friend of mine, a great gentleman. Had a great reelection. And we signed a terrific new trade deal, which tremendously helps our farmers and ranchers, and technology. The technology companies are really big beneficiaries.
We also held very productive conversations with leaders of Pakistan, India. And many other nations are achieving stronger ties of fair and reciprocal trade. And with respect to Pakistan and India, we talked about Kashmir. And whatever help I can be, I said — I offered, whether it's arbitration or mediation, or whatever it has to be, I'll do whatever I can. Because they're at very serious odds right now, and hopefully that'll get better.
You look at the two gentlemen heading those two countries — two good friends of mine — I said, "Fellas, work it out. Just work it out." Those are two nuclear countries. They've got to work it out.
This week, we also made incredible strides on national security with President Duda of Poland. We signed a joint declaration advancing defense cooperation. And, crucially, Poland has agreed to put up 100 percent of the money — something I don't think you've ever heard said before. But they're going to put up 100 percent of the money, of hosting additional U.S. military personnel that we'll be taking from various other countries. We won't have more over; we'll have — we'll be moving them around.
Poland is building us phenomenal new facilities. They're spending everything, and they're going to really do a job. But we'll be moving a few thousand soldiers, and Poland will be paying that for it.
Together with Prime Minister Lee of Singapore, I signed an important agreement extending our defense cooperation. This hasn't been changed in many years. Then, yesterday, I met with prospective members of the Middle East Strategic Alliance, which is a group that I know very well; I know all of them. And through this effort, the nations of the Middle East are taking more responsibility for securing their own future and their own neighborhood. And they're also reimbursing us and paying us for a lot of the military work that we incredibly do.
But because we're now independent, energy-wise — we're energy independent — we have very few boats going over the Middle East. We used to have them going through the Straits all the time. And you probably noticed that, every once in a while, they go after somebody else's. They haven't gone after ours yet. If they do, they've get big problems. But we have very few boats going over there. They were saying the other day, they've never attacked an American boat, and I'm not asking for trouble. But if they do, they know they have far bigger trouble. But then they said, "But, you know, we don't see very many American boats over here anymore."
This week also brought extraordinary progress to nations of our own hemisphere. In recent days, we've achieved historic asylum cooperation agreements with El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. We were with El Salvador today. A great young gentleman became the President. He's strong and tough, and he's taking care of crime. He was really something today. I was very impressed with him. And likewise with Honduras, who we met. We signed a cooperation agreement with both, and also with Guatemala.
We're working with our partners in Central America to ensure that asylum-seekers can pursue relief as close to their home countries as possible. That'll make a tremendous difference at our southern border.
And Mexico — I have to say, President Lopez Obrador has been outstanding — an outstanding partner. And he's doing a great job in Mexico. The cartels are way down, and the numbers — our Secretary is here now — the numbers are way down. Way, way down. And we're doing that without the help of Congress, meaning the Democrats in Congress who won't give us a single vote to take care of loopholes.
We have loopholes that are so horrible, and it would be so easy to fix. And they know they should be fixed but they don't want to do because they don't want to give Trump any credit because it's all about the election. That's all they care about. They don't care about our country; they care about the election.
And the sad part is, with all of the tremendous work that we've done this weekend — whether it's Secretary Mnuchin or Secretary Pompeo, who had some outstanding, outstanding meetings — with all of this tremendous work that we've done, the press doesn't even cover it. And the Democrats did this hoax during the United Nations week. It was perfect. Because this way, it takes away from these tremendous achievements that we're taking care of doing, that we're involved in in New York City, at the United Nations.
So that was all planned, like everything else. It was all planned. And the witch hunt continues, but they're getting hit hard in this witch hunt, because when they look at the information, it's a joke. Impeachment? For that? When you have a wonderful meeting, or you have a wonderful phone conversation?
I think you should ask. We actually — you know, that was the second conversation. I think you should ask for the first conversation also. I can't believe they haven't, although I heard there's a — there's a rumor out they want the first conversation. It was beautiful. It was just a perfect conversation.
But I think you should do that. I think you should do, and I think you should ask for VP Pence's conversation because he had a couple conversations also. I can save you a lot of time. They're all perfect. Nothing was mentioned of any import other than congratulations. But the word is that they're going to ask for the first phone conversation. You can have it anytime you need it. And also Mike Pence's conversations, which were, I think, one or two of them. They were perfect. They were all perfect.
It's very sad what the Democrats are doing to this country. They're dividing. They're belittling. They're demeaning our country. So many leaders came up to me today and they said, "Sir, what you go through, no President has ever gone through. And it's so bad for your country." People laugh at the stupidity of what they've asked for. And here we could do asylum. We could do all of these different things so easily. We could do asylum quickly. We could do loopholes; get rid of them.
Instead, we actually made deals with Mexico and with Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras. And we're doing it with them instead of with our Congress, but we're doing it. We get it done.
The wall is being built, by the way. It got little coverage. I went to the border. It's going up in New Mexico. It's going up in Arizona. It's going up in California, believe it or not. They really wanted that wall in California, in San Diego. As soon as it was completed, they said, "We don't want a wall." They were begging me for a wall. I should take it out and move it to another location.
We were with the Governor — spoke to him a lot — but the Governor of Texas, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, Attorney General of Texas, the senators of Texas — Cornyn, Ted Cruz. And we're building an incredible wall. That's going to — number one, it's going to look great. It's going to be virtually impossible to cross unless you're one hell of a mountain climber. It's very tough. It's going to be very tough to get people and drugs over those walls, because they're the real deal.
I went to the Secretary of Homeland security, and he got all his people together. I said, "Give me four walls — your optimum. Every single thing included." And they give me 20 percent less, 20 percent less, and 20 percent less — meaning, less cost. They came back, they said, "This is the wall, sir. This would be the best." We have the panels on top, which are anti-climb panels. I don't know if you noticed the steel on top. We have a different design for a different area, but this anti-climb is very tough. They've — we had people going out and real climbers telling us which is the toughest to climb. But these are anti-climb panels. Very tough to get across.
And the wall is going up, many miles a week. And we hope to have over 400, but maybe as much as 500 miles, which we'll pretty much do it because you have a lot of natural barriers; you have mountains, you have really rough rivers. You have some really rough land that you can't cross very easily. So they serve as their natural walls. But we — we'll have, we think, over 400, but we could even have 500 miles.
To combat the malice, corruption of both the Venezuelan and Iranian dictatorships, today I issued proclamations suspending the entry into the United States of senior regime officials and their families.
And further, to promote American values, on Monday I was proud to be the first President in history to host a meeting at the United Nations —
I'm so surprised; first President for this. I can't believe that I'm first. I spoke to Franklin Graham about that. I can't believe it.
— at the United Nations, on protecting religious freedom and liberty for people around the world.
While some partisans and unelected bureaucrats in Washington may choose to fight every day against the interests and beliefs of the American people, my administration is standing up for the American people like no administration has in many, many years. You forgot the American people. You totally forgot the American people.
This week, every — every week, I really can say — of my presidency, we're standing up for American prosperity, American security, and the American way of life. And together, with our friends and partners, we're building a more peaceful, prosperous, and promising future.
We have a tremendous relationship now with a lot of nations that are very happy with what's going on, and that includes in South America, where they've been so helpful, where nobody thought this would be possible. The relationship with Mexico is an example, or El Salvador, or Honduras, or Guatemala. Nobody even knew about it. Yet, we sent them hundreds of millions of dollars, and all we got back was caravans of people pouring in.
We had tremendous — we had tremendous — it was terrible. And we've got that stopped, and the countries are now helping us. And we stopped those payments, by the way. We don't pay those countries that money anymore. But I will tell you, if they're as good as they seem to be — they're really doing a job on crime and stopping the wrong people from leaving and coming to the United States — we'll be helping them a lot with economic development projects and other things.
So, with that, we had a tremendous three days. It was beautiful to see. Made a lot of new friends. I read you a list of all the countries I saw pretty much one on one. And it's been very busy, but it's been very, very fruitful.
So we could take a couple of questions. I'd love some questions on some of the things that we accomplished at UNGA, instead of the witch hunt — the phony witch hunt questions, which I know that's what you want to ask because it's probably better for you, but it's not better for the country.
So maybe we'll take a few — a few questions. Please.
