Trump Speaks on Ukraine, Tariffs While Browsing Teslas

A very small group of people. And I just want people to know that you can't be penalized for being a patriot. And he's a great — he's also done an incredible job with Tesla and, I mean, nobody else. Has a car company started up in the last 30 years that's been successful? I don't think so. And not only successful, but super successful. And because he's able to find billions and billions and billions of dollars of fraud and waste and all of the things — I mean, our country is going to be very strong very soon because of a lot of the things that he's done and a lot of the things that I'm doing. And there's no better team, but there's no better — for what we're doing, there's nobody like this. And he shouldn't be penalized. And when I watched the other day, I said, I can't believe it. It should be the opposite. People should be going wild. And they love the product, but because he's finding all sorts of terrible things that have taken place against our country, they want to penalize him in an economic sense. And I just think that's very unfair. So I just wanted to make a statement. I'm going to buy one. Now, here's the bad news. I'm not allowed to drive because I haven't driven a car in a long time. And I love to drive cars. But I'm going to have it at the White House, and I'm going to let my staff use it. I'm going to let people at the place use it. And they all — they're all excited about that. I'm not allowed to use it. Can you believe it? One of my — The Press One of my great things in life is that I can — you know, I like to drive cars, but I'm not allowed to. And I will say, this one — the Cybertruck, I bought for a very special young woman. Do you know? I'm sure you've never heard of her kind. And she's a great golfer, and she puts the clubs in the back. And I guess it's a very safe deal. She loves it. And I actually bought one about a year ago. And she loves it. And it's very safe. It's very strong, heavy. It's all steel — stainless steel. But the cars themselves — so, what is this one, you know? That's the Model Y. So I have a lot of information that's put in the price. Yeah. I want to make a good deal here. You know, I do notice this. They have one which is $35,000, which is pretty low. What is that all about? Yeah, it's — I guess you're right to make the point that Tesla's aren't all expensive. You can get a Tesla for as little as $35,000. And I just wanted to thank the President for his support. This means a lot. And also thank everyone out there who is supporting Tesla. It's really terrible that there's so much violence being created against people at Tesla — Tesla supporters, Tesla owners, Tesla stores. These are innocent people who've done nothing wrong. So, you know. But nobody has been — I mean, it hasn't been — there's been some physical damage, a little damage. And we want to keep it that way because — I don't want to say this, it's just not the appropriate, but law enforcement is out there watching everybody. We don't want this to happen. And not to somebody that's been so good to our country. He didn't have to do this. He didn't have to go through this. And we can't let it happen. And aside from that, I happen to love the product. It's always — it's a lot nicer if you also happen to love the product. And he's done a really good job. Go ahead, Peter. The Press Is there — I guess this is for Elon Musk. Is there a discount? President Trump wrote the art of the deal. Is there any kind of room for negotiating here? The President Let me answer that. I know he'd give me a discount, but honestly, I don't want to ask for one. You know, I'm President, so I want to pay full price. The Press And what is your message to President Trump? Buying a new car while there are some folks who will see this flip at home, and they are struggling with their retirement accounts down at the moment. Uncertainty about work ahead. President Trump Well, I think they're going to do great. I think we're — our country had to do this. We had to go and do this. They've taken away — other countries have taken away our business. They've taken away our jobs. I did it initially very strongly against, as you know, China and some others in the first term. And it was a very successful term. We had no inflation. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. And then we had COVID, which we had to straighten out, so I didn't want to be doing anything with respect to other countries at that time. And we did a great job with it. We handed the stock market over. It was higher than it ever was. And think of that — higher than it ever was to that point before. And nobody thought that was even possible. We did a great job. But we had the greatest economy in history. This economy, in my opinion, is going to blow it away. But what I have to do is I have to get the workers back. I have to get the factories open. We have — 90,000 factories and plants are closed from what you had just prior to NAFTA, which is not very long ago. Ninety thousand. Think of it. Ninety thousand factories and plants are closed from what it was. And it's just not right. So — and we gave it away. Presidents before me gave it away, and I could name every one of them. But they gave it away, and we're taking it back. We're taking our jobs back. And one of the things I'll say, by the way — speaking of Tesla, he manufactures more cars. I mean, he opened this incredible plant — one of the largest plants in the world — in Texas. Could you talk about that a little? Mr. Miller. Yeah, it's worth noting that the Tesla cars have the most U.S. content of any cars on the market. So they're the most American-made. We have the biggest factory and the most advanced automotive factory in Texas that we've opened and continue to expand. And so this is a very much a — it's a — these are great products. A Model S is one best car ever. You know, so all these cars have won incredible awards. So they're great cars, and they're American-made. And I think, you know, try it. You'll like it. Yeah. And I'm just saying, beyond the cars, they're great. But we have to celebrate somebody that has the courage to do this. He could have said, I'm not doing anything. I'm not going to get involved. Let the country go to hell. He didn't want to do that. And remember, he's going to find — and we're up to almost $500 billion worth of waste and fraud. And if he has $500 billion — we're giving $2 billion here, $2 billion there. Not millions. It was a — if it was $1 million or $2 million, that's a lot of money. But we're talking about billions of dollars being given to defunct, you know, scams, given to people with no — with nothing. They have nothing going. They open up a subchapter-S corporation, and they put $2 billion into it from nowhere. And we've caught a lot of them. I wish we could catch all of them, but we've caught a lot of them. And he's been largely responsible. So we have to celebrate him. And it's not that he's conservative. I don't even know if he's conservative. I will tell you this. I've been doing this for — I've known him for a pretty long time. He endorsed me. I didn't know him that well when he endorsed me. But in the time I've known him, he has never asked me for a favor. He didn't ask me for this. I said, you know, Elon, I don't like what's happening to you. And Tesla is a great company. I don't like what's happening. It's, from our standpoint, American cars, American-made. He employs thousands of people. He's got — at the same time, he has the most modern plants in the world. I said, I don't like what's happening to you. I'm going to do it. I didn't even know he was going to come. He's never asked me for anything. He endorsed me, and he never asked me. I didn't even know he was going to endorse me. The guy has never asked me. He's not saying — in fact, I could go a step further. I ended the electric mandate. Okay? I ended the electric mandate, and I figured, when's this guy calling to raise hell with me? And he never called. I mean, it's — he never called me. If I were him, I would have called. Because he's probably even better than I am. The Press. Mr. President, is he rubbing — is Elon Musk rubbing off on you? Is electric, then, the way to go? It's not that — I'm not — this isn't for electric or gas, because people have their choices. I'm just saying that I know people that have these cars. I know one man — we see him all the time. He's constantly — he has five of them. He thinks it's a great — and he was a big guy for Ferraris and other things. And he says, man, this — it blows him away. I know other people. They have three, four — they love him. They love him. And some people like the gas, and they should have their options. I'm all about options. But I'm telling you, I ended the electric mandate, and I was waiting for a call. I said, Did Elon call yet? They said, No, sir. The next day, What about Elon? Did he call? He never even mentioned it to me, never complained. Until this moment, I'm just bringing it up. Who would do that? He has never asked me for a thing, and he's built this great company, and he shouldn't be penalized because he's a patriot. He's an incredible patriot. And I don't even know if he's a Republican. I really don't. The Press. Mr. President, I'm not sure if he was. You're going to have drops, and markets are going to go up, and they're going to go down. But you know what? We have to rebuild our country. Our country has been stripped of its jobs, of its factories. And I'm tired of seeing where they build apartments, cheap apartments in an old, broken-down factory. But you have factories all over the place that are empty from many decades ago, and we're going to change it around. And it's all taxing policy. You know, it's really a policy, because we have great workers, great people. It's really a policy of taxing and incentives. And I'm bringing the incentives back. And I'll tell you what, numerous plants — and I don't want to mention specifically, but I'll mention this one — numerous plants in Mexico and other places that were under construction or soon to be under construction are now coming here, and they've dropped that because it was unfair, what was happening. Mexico, they were building cars. They were selling them into the United States with no tax, no nothing. And in the United States, we were allowing them to take our jobs and take our factories, and we don't do that anymore. Now, from a President, it would be a lot easier if I just coasted for another four years. I would have been an eight-year President. I had the best economy in history in my first four years. I would have done very well with this one. And I had a decision to make. Do I want to do this or do I not? Do I want to do it right? The right thing to do is what we're doing. We're going to get our jobs back, and we're not going to be laughed at. Now, I will say this, that already Canada — and I respect very much. As you know, there's a very strong man in Canada who said he was going to charge a surcharge or a tariff on electricity coming into our country. He's — he has called and he said he's not going to do that. Okay? He's not going to do that. And it would have been a very bad thing if he did. And he's not going to do that, so I respect that. But we were just informed that he's not going to do that. Look, we've been treated very unfairly by Canada. We've been treated very unfairly by Mexico. But we've been treated very unfairly by every country all over the world. The European Union is horrible. Horrible. And we're going to get it back. And I have a choice. I could just coast — and eventually, there'd be a blow-up down the road, maybe a long way. But we owe $36 trillion, and we're going to get it back. We're the biggest. We're the best. And I'm very optimistic. I have to tell you, I'm very optimistic about the country — much more optimistic this way than if I did it the easy way. I could have done it the easy way. I could have coasted. Biden left us a mess. He left us tremendous inflation, tremendously high costs of products. He left us a mess. But he also left us a mess with millions of people that poured into our country that are criminals. Millions of those people happen to be criminals. And we're looking for them all over the place. We're looking for them. And Homan and Christie are doing an incredible job. But he left us a horrible situation, and we're changing it. But one of the things we're changing is we're going to make our country really wealthy again. We're going to bring our jobs back. Right now, we're like a chicken that's being plucked at from all over the world. We're not going to let that happen anymore. But very importantly — and I said it — Ukraine. Ceasefire. Ukraine. Ceasefire. Just agreed to a little while ago. Now we have to go to Russia and hope President — hopefully President Putin will agree to that also. And we can get this show on the road. We can get — we can get this horrible war. We're 2,000, 3,000 soldiers a week. Every week, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 sometimes. I get the reports. And they're not American soldiers. They're Ukrainian.