Trump Says 'We Have Total Control' of Strait of Hormuz, Floats Territory Bid

New York Post
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59 Video Views·Aug 17, 2026
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Well, thank you very much.
And this is a great story.
And it's an honor to be with Ryder Williams,
who is a 16-year-old lifeguard, California,
the Santa Cruz area.
And I understand he was a winner right from the time
they first saw him as a lifeguard.
He had a lot of training, a lot of work.
And he saved this young gentleman,
who I had a long talk with.
I said, would you have made it without him?
And he said, not really, right?
Not really.
It was trouble.
So you're going to have a long and beautiful life.
And I just thought it was we were all watching.
Everybody watched and got a lot of publicity
because of the ferocity of the waves.
I've never seen waves.
And that was sort of violent.
We were just discussing.
And at certain times of the year,
mostly like right around now, the waves
get very rough in that area.
And they're swirling.
And if you don't know what you're doing,
it's going to be tough.
Or you're small if you're young.
So I just want to congratulate Nathaniel Ray
for coming through an ordeal.
That means you're going to have good luck in life.
You know, it's called good luck.
I want to say hello to your father who came along for that.
We invited them to the Oval Office and to the White House.
After this, if you'd like, we're going to have them brought up
to the Lincoln bedroom, where you
see the room of Abraham Lincoln.
That's pretty good, right?
And also your sister.
It's really nice.
We have some of the people that Nathaniel and that
worked so much on the whole process with Nathaniel
and were with Ryder right from the beginning.
And I guess you learned from these people.
They taught you how to do what you do so well, Ryder, right?
Yes, sir.
They trained me.
And Nathaniel's very happy about that, Ryder, I have to tell you.
Shane Williams, the father of Ryder.
Thank you very much, Shane.
You did a good job.
I see you're in one of my favorite uniforms.
I'm a big fan of that.
You couldn't be happier, right?
I couldn't be more proud.
When you saw that on television.
It was incredible, actually.
Shannon Williams, that's the mom.
So you did a good job.
It's good genetics.
When you look at him, you can see.
Really good.
Summit Ray, that's the father.
Thanks again, Summit.
We appreciate it.
Layla Ray, sister of Nathaniel.
Thank you, honey.
Aaron Bonin, Santa Cruz lifeguard who assisted Ryder.
And he became quite famous also.
That was a good assist.
He helped you a lot, right?
He helped you a lot.
Thank you very much.
Great job.
Fantastic.
Alex Lescutoff, Chief of Law Enforcement
and Emergency Service in Santa Cruz.
Thank you.
Great job you guys are doing.
Justin McHenry, Assistant Chief of Aquatics
and Lifeguard Operations, Santa Cruz.
Good job.
Were you responsible for the training?
Yes, I helped oversee and guide the training program.
And for a lot of the lifeguards, right?
We train about 200 lifeguards a year.
Great.
At that age, too?
Starting at 16.
That's a lot.
I read that that's a lot to do for a 16-year-old.
That's not easy.
It's a huge responsibility, and it requires a lot of...
That he did it so well, right?
It requires a lot of integrity and resilience.
And I think this particular rescue that Ryder performed
really exemplifies what we're looking for
in a state park lifeguard.
And you couldn't let go for an instance.
If you let go for one instant,
it'd be very hard to find, right?
Oh, absolutely.
In those conditions, losing a victim would be disastrous.
Yeah, really amazing.
You have no idea the respect.
Joel, where's Joel?
State Park Superintendent, Lifeguard Santa Cruz.
Joel, thank you very much.
That's dinner now, or dinner now, right?
Good job, Joel.
And Mike McEnany, State Park Superintendent, Santa Cruz.
Thank you very much.
Well, we're honored to have all of you.
And again, what you did was incredible,
and everybody saw it.
And you'd watch it over and over.
I know when I first saw it, I said,
roll that back, I want to see that again.
Is that really happening?
And both of you people have to be very proud.
The whole group is proud.
And your father is the happiest man in the world,
you know, because I asked him a question.
And I said, so, if that didn't happen,
your life would be ruined.
And you said, it would be a whole different life, right?
Absolutely.
Amazing.
It's incredible what Ryder did.
I'm grateful to him, and Aaron, and the rest of the team,
and even the Good Samaritans that were there.
I mean, it's just such a privilege
to be sitting next to him today, and be able to celebrate
his birthday tomorrow.
And I'll bet you'll stay a little bit related
to this group of people, because you realize
what a fantastic job they do.
Probably, you know, it's interesting,
because they're saying that you have, in that area,
so many different saves.
You're saying that night you helped somebody out.
Maybe not to that extent, but you helped somebody out.
But maybe lifeguards don't get the credit they deserve.
This really showed how important it is in certain areas.
So, certain areas of the country, you could say,
are just very susceptible to people getting in trouble,
right?
And was this one of the worst on the state,
on that entire coast?
I mean, do you have other areas?
Because that looks like a very dangerous place,
the way those waves — on a beautiful day, right?
The characteristics on that given day
made it a little more difficult.
You know, it was a warm day,
so there's lots of folks on the beach recreating.
And then combine it with that large surf
and the strong currents that we have in the area
made it treacherous.
But California's coastline is very diverse,
and we have very remote and rugged sections of coastline
that our lifeguards work on every day.
Do you have areas where you don't have lifeguards
that are very dangerous,
and people innocently go swimming,
and they don't have a chance, probably, right?
Yeah, there certainly are unguarded areas
within the state and around the nation.
And, you know, people getting in without the knowledge
or ability to recreate in those waters
can be extremely dangerous.
And you have a lot of that.
Is this one of the more dangerous areas, the Swirl?
I'd say it's — during the summer months,
it's one of our more dangerous summer beaches, yes.
Yeah, it looked amazing. And it didn't stop.
You know, the water came in and just keep coming.
It was — and it looked like you were almost on shore,
but you weren't really on shore.
It's deceptive.
It was a fantastic thing.
Do you have any questions?
Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. President.
And congratulations.
And congratulations on being honored here, Mr. Lee.
Let's give the questions for them just for this,
and then we can ask a couple later.
Go ahead, please.
Thank you, Mr. President. So, thank you for doing this,
first of all.
What do you hope young Americans in our country
take away from this incredible young man's story?
That's a great question. I mean, look,
they're going to look up to Ryder.
They're going to look up to Nathaniel,
the way Nathaniel handled it.
He was cool, considering the problems he was —
I was watching. He was — you were very cool.
And they're going to gain respect.
I think, you know, very importantly,
they're going to gain respect for what these people do,
having to do with lifeguards and having to do with safety.
This was an unbelievable experience.
Anybody watching, like, it's not my world,
but I respect that world. I always have.
But never maybe so much as I do now.
So, I thought you bring, you know,
to your profession, to what you do and what you do so well.
You brought tremendous grace and experience.
Really, tremendous grace.
Tremendous — a feeling that it's so amazing
to see this happen, to see it before your eyes.
And I don't think any other — I've seen serfs.
I've seen rescues before.
I've never seen anything quite like this.
It's been a great thing for your profession.
And people are going to respect it even more,
respect you even more.
So, I just thought it was really a very worthwhile event
to have it at the Oval Office.
So, congratulations, guys.
Okay, so, I actually have a question.
If you don't mind, can I have a question
for the young gentleman as well?
Go ahead, sure.
So, first of all, a lot of people
were very inspired by what you did.
Can you tell us what was going through your mind
at those dangerous moments?
And what would you like to do in the future?
How has this experience as a lifeguard shaped you?
In those dangerous moments that we have,
we always try to fall back on our training.
You're trained so well by many to handle
that situation as best we can.
So, I really was thinking about how to get the boy
out of the water as fast as I can.
And for shaping my future,
I want to be a firefighter in the future,
hopefully go to the paramedic school.
And hopefully —
Is that a good start? We're giving recommendations.
You may have some good recommendations.
Go ahead.
First of all, thank you.
You are an inspiration for all of us, I think.
And especially, you give us hope for your generation.
And along those lines,
do you have a message for your generation
about service and what you're doing?
I hope that everybody can take away from this
and try to help more people,
try to look out for everybody around you,
and just try to help everybody out as much as you can.
What's the average age of a lifeguard in your area?
I'd say a lot of this last year,
a lot of them were 16 to 17 years old.
And you have some that make it a profession, right?
A lot. So, do you have 35, 40, 45-year-old men?
That's great.
And they lead a beautiful life on the surf, right?
And they would rather do nothing else, right?
That's very good. I think it's great.
Mr. President, on another topic.
Well, wait. Let's finish on this topic.
This is very exciting to me.
You know, it's so exciting to see something like this happen.
He's a real hero.
You know, when you see that — I don't know if I'd do it.
I wouldn't, probably.
You're lucky I wasn't —
you're lucky I wasn't on the surface that day.
I don't know. But, no, he's a real hero.
It's an amazing thing.
And he is a real lucky guy, too.
God was watching you, right?
Great. Go ahead, please.
Mr. President, I have a question about Iran,
but I would like to ask you something
about the rescue as well.
Following this, there's been a push in Congress
to officially affirm that open-water lifeguards
should be recognized as first responders.
That would apparently really open up access
to benefits, more federal programs.
Would you support that push?
Well, I think they have gone a long way to get that done.
You know, it's something most people don't talk about.
We have a lot of other things we talk about.
And first time I've ever heard the question.
But this is something that's been going on, I guess.
Is that right? I'd like to put my weight behind it.
So, let's take a look at it. Very important.
Yeah. I like the — I like the idea.
Why do you ask that question?
I mean, is this something that's been discussed very much?
Well, I think in the wake of what happened here,
there's a possibility something like that would happen.
And, Mr. President, your memorandum of understanding
with Iran expires today.
Are you any closer to reaching a final deal
on ending Iran's nuclear program today
than you were 60 days ago?
Let's finish up with Ryder, and then when we're done,
we'll answer a couple of those questions.
Yeah.
Thank you, Mr. President, again. So, for a young man
and for those who trained him here.
So, as a parent, I'm very concerned
when I see moments like those.
What's your message to parents across the country?
Do you want to really improve their children's safety,
especially when they're younger like this?
Well, I think you have to be going to the right beach,
number one. And I think you have to have lifeguards around.
Right? Because you could go to that water.
It looked so beautiful — the day.
It was such a beautiful day, everything nice.
The water didn't look that bad. And then, all of a sudden,
you see these violent waves come in.
That's what amazed me so much. I studied it.
I said, this is incredible.
I've never seen that kind of roughness in water.
I've seen unbelievably — I've seen tragic things happen.
But I've never seen water that looks so calm
and then every 15 seconds, you know,
the violence comes back in.
I think, really, you probably have areas —
I'll bet you have areas that you think should have,
as you call them, guards that don't have.
Do you think — can you imagine having more guards
along the coast, parts of the coast,
that aren't guarded where people die?
Yeah, certainly. The National Water Safety Action Plan
and the California State Action Plan
both call for more supervision. And by supervision, we mean —
Do we lose a lot of people due to lack of,
you know, covering an area?
It can be challenging in some of those spots
because of the economy.
To live there is expensive. It's a coastal beach community.
And there's million-dollar homes on the beach,
and our lifeguards are making a little more than minimum wage.
But it can be challenging to live in those spaces,
so it's hard to retain employees in those areas.
As the lifeguards grow older
and they want to make that a profession,
which is a noble profession,
they make much higher salaries, right?
Yeah. Yes. If they become a —
I mean, they make a good living.
If they become a full-time lifeguard,
which in our department requires you to become a peace officer —
I see. Okay. Well, that helps for that other question.
It does. They — that's a livable wage.
And, you know, they can become members of the community
and live where they're working and give back.
So, will you be doing it? You help so much with Rider.
Will you be doing it as a profession,
or will you be doing other things later?
So, I'm actually a full-time firefighter paramedic
with a fire department in California,
and I've stayed on the books with State Parks
because I owe this program a lot, and it's done a lot for me.
Oh, that's cool. I love being here,
helping train people like Rider,
so I plan on staying around for a long time.
That's great. Good job. That's fantastic.
Yeah, please.
Policy question, Mr. President.
There's a lot of debate right now
about these license plate scanners
that are going up across the country.
They're called flop cameras.
People are worried that the police might misuse them.
Have you heard of them? What's your stance?
Well, it's being studied right now.
You know, you have pros and cons, right?
It's being studied right now.
We'll have an answer, sort of, as to our views on it
over the next couple of weeks.
Mr. President, John Offutt said you'd rather travel
with your aide, Natalie Harp, and build the ballroom
than do your job as President.
What is your response, John Offutt?
You mean Pee Wee Herman? Pee Wee Herman lookalike?
No, I would much rather do other things.
It's a — we're building a great facility here.
We're fixing a White House that hasn't been taken care of.
You can look at this.
This room was a disgraceful situation in the Oval Office,
and it was let go.
The whole building, the White House, was let go.
The exteriors were falling apart.
The columns were falling apart. The whole place was a mess.
In addition, they've been trying to get a ballroom
for the last 150 years.
And when I said I was going to build a ballroom,
the military asked if they could see me.
And they say, Sir, we have an opportunity
to go down deep into the ground
and build a military facility to go to the White House
and to go with all of Washington, D.C.,
which would be so valuable.
And then they came up with the drone port on top,
which would be a major drone port
to protect the White House and all of D.C.
And all of those things added up,
and it became much more than just a ballroom.
And I said to myself, wow, what an opportunity.
I mean, if I was just going to build a ballroom,
I could have had it built very quickly because I do these —
I build very well and very quickly.
We went five stories down into the ground.
We did a lot of tremendous things for the military —
things that they could never get.
They said, This is an opportunity that we have
because you're building the ballroom,
that if you would be willing to spend more time,
we would love to be able — we've been trying to do this
at the White House for many, many years.
And they've been trying to have a ballroom at the —
at the White House for many, many years.
Now, what happened is, we used to use tents.
And the tents are usually made of either plastic —
a plastic material or canvas.
And they wouldn't stop a .22 caliber.
They wouldn't stop anything, in terms of safety.
Be very dangerous.
And they haven't used a tent for years.
They haven't had any big — like, we have President Xi
coming on September 24th or so. I think it's September 24th.
And we'd love to have 2,000 people coming to dinner
and celebrating a nice evening, et cetera, et cetera.
But we only have a room that's going to hold 89 people.
And 89 people is not appropriate.
So, maybe more importantly, it's totally secure
with bulletproof windows, bulletproof sides.
It's drone-proof. It's missile-proof.
Every — at the top of the line.
And we need it, and especially with what's happened,
unfortunately, to the world, you could say.
Yeah.
On Oman, this morning — this morning,
you said you would bomb the ass out of Oman
if they got in the way of reopening
the Strait of Hormuz.
Would you say you're out of patience with Oman?
A strategic partner?
No, I don't think they behaved very well,
but we'd handle them very easily,
just like we do other states.
Mr. President, Mr. President, I have two questions.
There was a report by Center Square
that nearly two dozen Democratic attorney generals,
months before your re-election,
were basically planning already lawsuits against you.
I wanted to see what your comment is on that.
Second question.
Well, I heard about that.
I'm not surprised because they've weaponized
this country like never before.
The Democrats — or the Democrats, as they're called —
they've weaponized the country like —
nobody has ever seen anything like it.
When you see the reports that are coming out now,
that you would have never seen
if I had not won the election in a landslide.
But you would have never seen it if I didn't win the election.
But the reports that you see coming out now
and the kind of illegal activity
that they've used on the 2020 election
and beyond is — is earth-shattering.
These are very dishonest people,
so I wouldn't be surprised to hear that.
Mr. President, Mr. President, I'm sorry.
This is on D.C.
You have mentioned before if the Democrats get in,
again, that they may eliminate the filibuster next time
and make D.C. a state.
A while back, Senator Mike Lee had floated an idea —
It wouldn't be a state. It wouldn't be —
I mean, if we're talking about us, we have, as you know,
a very radically left-person elected mayor,
who I haven't met. I'm sure she's very nice.
But very, very, very radical left.
And we would have to federalize D.C.
You know, we've made D.C. great.
When I got here, it was a very dangerous capital.
I would have said to Ryder,
Don't come. It's too dangerous.
Now I can say, You can walk down the street.
You can grab Nathaniel and all your friends.
You can walk in. You're going to be very safe.
But if you were here a year and a half ago,
the numbers were horrible.
The crime stats, the murders, the death,
the drug dealing, everything was —
we have one of the safest — we've taken it
from one of the most unsafe cities in the country
to as safe a city as there is.
Amazing what's happened to Washington.
And it's our capital. We have to have a safe capital.
And we did it through a lot of different reasons,
but we also put the National Guard here.
But in addition to that, the cleanliness,
the new grass, the graffiti is all gone.
We fixed up 82 monuments, fountains, and other things.
The places — and when you see it in six months from now,
it's going to be even beyond that.
We're proud of our capital.
I think these things are important,
whether you build —
whether you do something to fix the White House,
where, you know, now they've never had a real estate
develop or a good one — a real good one here before.
They might not ever have one again.
But, you know, fixing up our great capital
is a very important thing.
I think it's very important psychologically.
It's very important from the standpoint of people
being able to come to the country
and not get murdered in the capital.
People would come here. We had one of the worst —
one of the most unsafe cities in the country.
Now we have one of the safest.
Just to finish, we have —
we had a real problem with restaurants.
Nobody wanted to have restaurants.
Entrepreneurs — restaurant entrepreneurs.
Now you can't get space. Every restaurant is packed.
The place is booming.
People aren't going to get mugged and raped
and beat to hell and shot and killed in Washington, D.C.
One of the safest places.
Crime is down 84 percent.
And I did that in a short period of time.
It's also down in Memphis, where we went specifically.
And it's also down in New Orleans.
I was asked by the governor, could I do something?
Because they were having Mardi Gras.
It was very bad.
And they had the best Mardi Gras they've ever had.
The safest Mardi Gras that they've ever had.
And we could do it in New York. We could do it in California.
We could do it in Chicago if we were asked to do it.
But the crime stats in the whole country —
down 15, 16, 70 percent. A record.
Why hasn't — why hasn't Kim Jong Un responded to conversations?
How do you know he hasn't responded?
Yeah, he has.
Did he speak to them?
What's their conversation?
That's very positive.
Well, just so you understand what South Korea — look,
South Korea has been protected by us for many, many years.
And during my first term, they agreed to pay close
to $3 billion a year for protection.
Because we don't — you know, they essentially weren't banged.
And I asked them to do that.
At my request, I said, not right.
They weren't happy about it, but they agreed.
I asked for $10 billion.
And they were very unhappy.
But we agreed, for a short term,
there would be $3 billion,
and next year it would go up, and the next year it would go up.
So they started paying for their protection.
When the election was rigged,
and I ended up watching for four years and then coming back,
I watched Biden rescind that $3 billion a year,
for whatever reason.
When I called recently the President of South Korea,
who I like — I think he's very nice, actually.
When I called him, I said,
Would you like to give us a little hand?
We don't need help with Iran.
But if you'd like, give us a hand with Iran.
He said, No, thanks.
And I said, Wait a minute, we have 39,000 soldiers over there
guarding you from Kim Jong Un, your next-door neighbor.
And you're not going to help us
on a very easy military operation in Iran?
That's strange. No, no, we'd rather not get involved.
I said, Well, why are we involved in helping you?
So — and I want to help them.
But, you know, when you ask somebody,
Would you like to give us a hand?
And they say, No, thanks.
And then we're guarding them from a country
and paying ourselves billions of —
it's costing us billions and billions of dollars to protect.
Not only them, but other countries.
Look at NATO.
We spend hundreds of billions of dollars
protecting Europe from Russia.
Hundreds of billions, mostly from Russia,
but from other things, too.
And then they say, Well, they don't want to get involved
with getting — you know, guarding the strait
where they get most of their oil.
They get 50 percent of their oil.
And they don't want to get involved.
Why are we doing it?
So all I want is fairness.
And South Korea, I get along with them very well,
but they were paying $3 billion a year.
And then they convinced Biden
that I was probably a bad person and they shouldn't.
And he immediately rescinded that order.
So we were getting paid.
We would have been getting paid a lot more.
But we can't go around and protect all of these countries,
especially when they're not there to help us.
On expiration of the Memorandum of Understanding,
are you any closer today to reaching a final deal
to end Iran's nuclear program?
Well, they want to make a deal,
but they're not going to make the kind of a deal
that I feel is necessary.
Look, we're in there for one reason.
Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
You understand that.
Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,
and they won't have a nuclear weapon.
And right now, them building one,
after what we did previously with the B-2 bombers,
going to be a long time we have.
But Iran cannot have — it's very simple.
They can't have a nuclear weapon.
How do you respond to folks who say
that you are prioritizing the interests of adversaries
in North Korea over our long-time partners
by scaling back your military activities?
I'm making it much safer.
You see, I'm actually making it much safer.
Kim Jong Un has always treated me with great respect.
And we've met on numerous occasions,
actually — two primary occasions —
spoken and spent time.
I understand him. He understands me.
You're doing war games. I get along with him.
You know, he didn't like Biden. He didn't like Obama.
He didn't like anybody.
But I get along with him very well.
No, what I'm doing is making things safer.
Just the opposite.
Mr. President, quiet, quiet, quiet.
You're very disrespectful in front of this young man, okay?
Don't you find her disrespectful?
He understands. Quiet.
Who are you with? Fake news.
You're fake news.
You're a loud — you're a loud, boisterous person.
You're fake news. Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet.
You're a fake reporter, and you report fake news.
Go ahead.
Mr. President, is there enough food on the USS Lincoln?
Yeah, it is. That was a CNN fake report.
The Lincoln has been out there for a period of time —
good period of time.
But over the years, we've had him out there much longer.
I was at a group meeting,
and an admiral came up to see me over the weekend.
And it was at a big group,
and he happened to be an admiral retired.
He said, I've been on ships that are out there
much longer than that, sir.
And I know people on the Lincoln.
They say it's beautifully maintained
and beautifully taken care of.
And other people went out, and they found out to be true.
It was fake news reported from CNN.
Mr. President, there was a report
that a senior intelligence official with the CCP
just bought a historical building
overlooking the White House. Have you heard about this?
Do you have a reaction to that?
Mr. President.
Mr. President, yes. Mr. President.
Yeah, go ahead. Behind you. Behind you.
The British Prime Minister recently,
reportedly sent text to someone impersonating Susie Wiles.
Are you concerned about his judgment
or the state of communications between the two countries?
No, but who happened? What happened? They sent text?
Apparently, the Prime Minister sent text
to somebody impersonating Susie Wiles.
No, I'm sure that he had a miscommunication.
Mr. President.
He's the Prime Minister. You know, I spoke to him.
We had a good conversation, a couple of them.
We had a good conversation.
One of the things he is going to do,
I think he's going to open up the North Sea.
That'll make UK pretty rich, I'll tell you.
Mr. President.
If he opened up the North Sea,
now he's got an immigration problem
and he has an energy problem.
He would have solved one of his problems.
That would be a big thing. That would make UK rich.
If you open up the North Sea,
it's one of the great finds anywhere in the world.
And if they would open up the North Sea,
UK would be rich again.
Mr. President.
Yes, Mr. President, have the people-
Don't we find them nice?
Huh? Nice people, right?
He's saying, where do people like this come from?
Your son is saying,
where do people like this come from?
Go ahead.
Especially her.
The people who are opposing the ballroom and challenging it,
have they offered any sort of solution or sort of compromise
or are they just saying there should be a wall there?
The people that are opposing the ballroom are people that,
in my opinion, are very disloyal to our country.
Very, very disloyal to our country.
And I think we're doing very well.
We're way ahead of schedule. We're under budget.
It's going to be the most beautiful ballroom of its kind.
You know, when I was in China, we went to the Great Hall of China.
It was this big, beautiful building.
And we don't have anything like that.
And we have to have that. It's very important.
But we also are getting tremendous military protection,
drone protection. The building is drone-proof.
It's missile-proof, as much as something can be missile-proof.
It's totally bulletproof.
Any bullet, nothing can go through the windows.
We have, you know, walled, top-of-the-line stuff.
It's very safe.
And, you know, the one thing — it's not for me,
because I'm going to be here a very short period of time.
When it's finished, if it finishes right on time,
on budget, on time,
I'll be there for four, five, six months.
This is for future Presidents. This isn't for me.
This is for future Presidents.
And it's a gift. We're making a gift to our country,
spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build a ballroom.
And it's a gift from great patriots of this country,
from — as an example, I mean, I'll give you names.
I've released some of the names.
In fact, I wanted to put them out today,
but we got a little busy. And this was — frankly,
being with this group of people was very important to me.
But we'll be putting them out — some of the people
that contributed.
But this is a gift to the United States of America.
No taxpayer money is necessary.
And you're going to have the finest ballroom
anywhere in the world.
It's not something I wanted to do,
but it's something that's needed.
And again, I'm not going to get to use it very much,
because by the time it's completed,
I'll have four or five months left —
three months, who knows. But we're ahead of schedule.
It's going to be the best of its —
in the world — of its kind in the world.
There'll be nothing like it in the world.
It fits beautifully with the White House.
It's gotten fantastic reviews, architectural reviews.
People think it's incredible.
And when you see it, you'll say,
wow, that's really something.
And that's what the United States is all about.
We have to have that. But in addition to the ballroom,
we're building a great military complex.
The people that started the lawsuit —
the head person, I believe, was fired.
And she was fired from another event just before that.
And she's the one that started.
And it's a national trust,
but the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Now, they say it's a United States.
They use the word United —
but it's not related to the United States.
In fact, the United States doesn't even contribute to it.
It has nothing to do with it. It stopped contributing
when they realized there were nothing but troublemakers.
Years ago, it stopped contributing.
So this isn't like an official United States Bureau
or United States agency.
They stopped contributing to the National Trust.
And it's called the National Trust.
It has this great name, National Trust
for Historic Preservation.
There are a bunch of troublemakers
that the United States, many years ago,
long before me, stopped contributing to.
The woman that started it was fired.
She's no longer there. So this is the remnants of it.
And the bottom line is they're trying to stop something —
and they won't be successful —
but they're trying to stop something
that's almost completed.
When you say — when you say — when they brought a suit,
why didn't they bring the suit a year before?
Why didn't they bring the suit in the middle of construction
when $400 million almost is spent on its construction?
Why wouldn't they have started the suit a year early?
Everybody knew it was going to be — I mean, it was no secret.
Everybody knew that it was taking place.
So they should have done that.
But the National Trust is very disloyal to the country
because they reveal things.
You know, I said the problem with the suit —
I told them this —
is that we have many military things in this ballroom.
And ideally, they shouldn't be revealed.
But now they are revealed, so the world knows about it.
That's okay. They shouldn't have done it.
They're very disloyal.
But I think we're doing really well.
We're way ahead of schedule.
And somebody — and many Presidents
are going to use it for many years to come.
The country will have one of the greatest gifts
it's ever received.
One more. One more.
The Press.
Last week, you said that you would soon declare
the Strait of Hormuz to be a territory of the United States.
Could you elaborate on what you meant with that?
Well, I just think it's a great idea.
Yeah. I mean, we control it.
We control it with the blockade.
We have a blockade. We control it with a blockade.
And I like the idea of declaring it a territory.
We can — we have total control over the Strait.
Now, they can be a nuisance.
They can put a mine in the water,
and people don't like having mines hit their billion-dollar
ships, you know, et cetera.
But the blockade has been very effective.
And, you know, we're taking out —
now, maybe that will stop,
or maybe it will open up even further —
but we're taking out millions of barrels of oil a week.
If you look at the kind of numbers that we're doing,
we're doing — the Strait is open.
And the oil prices are coming down,
and they will continue to come down
unless we decide to do something far more drastic
than we're doing.
Iran is in big trouble.
They have 300 percent inflation.
The country is a mess, and the military is totally defeated.
Thank you very much, everybody.
