Remarks transcript, Jul 29, 2026 (Donald Trump)

And you have a thing called the North Sea. And you buy a lot of your energy, as you know, from the North Sea. You buy from Norway, and Norway gets it from the North Sea. They get their—their oil from the North Sea, and Norway's got trillions of dollars in the bank. Trillions. It sells its oil from the North Sea.

And Scotland has a better part of the North Sea, and you have 500, 600, 700 years. You have areas of the North Sea that haven't even been explored yet. You have one of the most valuable oil finds anywhere in the world, and if the United Kingdom would use it, they'd be a wealthy country again.

And, I tell you what, I could not get Starmer to use it. It was incredible. Every oil company that I meet—and these are all big giants—every person that I know in the oil business said: "Please, could you open up the North Sea? Could you get them to open it?" They're dying to do it.

And if you open up the North Sea to the oil companies, Scotland, Ireland, the U.K. as a whole—but it's—I mean, it's right in Aberdeen, Scotland. It's right in Aberdeen. And that would be one of the most vibrant.

You know, it used to be called the oil capital of Europe. Aberdeen was the capital of Europe, and now it's—they don't drill oil, and nobody can understand why.

You have among the—it's among the finest oil—it's the best oil anywhere on the planet. And it's unbelievable plenty—you don't have to pay Norway triple what it costs them to take out. You have your own oil and gas.

If you use the North Sea, the U.K. will be a really rich country. I cannot get the point across.

The new gentleman, when I spoke to him, he said he's going to open up the North Sea. Let's see if that happens.

Mr. President, the Fed today voted to keep interest rates unchanged. Are you surprised by that? Are you disappointed in any way with Kevin Warsh——

No, Kevin is fantastic, but he's got a Board.

not being able to corral his Fed members?

Yes, Kevin's got a Board. He's fantastic. He's a brilliant guy, smart. I know he'd love to see lower interest rates. But he's got a Board, and it's a political Board, and they want to keep rates up.

But we fight through rates. We have the greatest—we have the strongest investment ever made in a country—of any country. It was China, about 13, 14 years ago. We have far greater. Nineteen-point —even Jensen would say that's a lot. Nineteen—and Jensen's spending a tremendous amount of money, by hundreds of billions of dollars. He happens to be in the room. He's spending more than United, actually.

He is. [ Laughter ]

But he's spending $10 billion.

Yes.

But Jensen is spending hundreds of billions, right? I don't know. That's not a bad business, I guess. [ Laughter ]

But no, no. We have $19.2 trillion. It's a—it's the biggest number ever spent in any country by far, and that's over a period of one year.

As an example, as you know, the Biden administration, for 4 years, did much less than $1 trillion. We're doing $19.2 trillion in 1 year.

So we have things that are happening in our country the likes of which nobody's ever seen. Plants and factories are moving in. Toyota just announced they're building one of the largest car plants anywhere in the world—and truck plants anywhere in the world. We are building more automobile plants now than at any time in the history of our country.

Yes.

Renovation Work at the Washington Dulles Airport/The President's Interest in Construction Projects/District of Columbia Public Safety and Beautification Efforts

Mr. President, on Dulles, in particular. This is just one of several projects that you have underway——

Yes.

in the DMV. Why would you say that you're so focused on transforming the Washington region right now?

Well, this is an important one. You know, this is travel.

So, in terms of the importance—I think the arc is going to be incredible. I think the protected ballroom and military center that we're building at the White House is going to be unbelievable. It's very important.

But, you know, this is the airport. This is sort of the lifeblood of a city or a capital—certainly a capital. And this will go from one of the worst—just like Washington. Washington was one of the worst places in this country, and now it's one of the best. You couldn't get into a restaurant because all the restaurants were closing or closed. They were afraid to have it open. Now you can't—if you're a restaurateur, you can't even find space to have a restaurant. The restaurants are booming. So, you know, it's a great thrill.

And, by the way, if you look, Washington is clean. It's safe. People walk to work. Every day, a young man or a young woman comes up and says, "Thank you, sir." I know exactly what he's talking about. They couldn't walk—they were afraid to walk to work. Now they literally walk to the White House. Washington is now a beautiful and clean—we got rid of the graffiti. Seventy-eight monuments and—and different things have been cleaned. They were strewn with graffiti.

We had 28 fountains that—not one of them worked. For years, for decades, they haven't worked. They're all up in service, and nobody's seen anything like it.

We have a clean—we're changing all the grass in all the parks. That's going to be changed very shortly. The parks are—because the grass is very—you know, grass is like human beings. Grass has a life also. And we're changing—we're raking, cleaning, and changing all of the parks.

We don't have people. We don't have the tents anymore. We don't have all the barbed wire up. We don't have the wire up.

Washington's become a beautiful city. It's become a hot city. But, you know, even more importantly, the United States right now is the hottest country anywhere in the world.

Mr. President, just a point of clarity on the—the airport. No Federal funding will be required. What did you mean when you said Congress may need to approve?

Yes.

So——

Sean, do you want to talk about it?

So it's going to be bonded for $22.5 billion. United is going to partake in part of the payment. But the airlines who participate in the project are going to pay for it.

If I can just make one point of clarification.

Yes, please.

We have some permitting we have to do, but we think, in the spring, we—this will be—this is both Concourse A. We think we can start construction in the spring of next year. So we're trying to move at the speed of President Trump. It's never fast enough. [ Laughter ] But we're—we're going as quickly as possible so we can give a deliverable for the American people very quickly.

And the other thing Sean's doing, which I think is so important, maybe more important. I don't know if it can be more important than this.

But he's working on air traffic control. We have an obsolete system. It's 50 years old.

You saw the helicopter crash, a year ago, into a plane. That was a disaster. And things like that would never happen. Bells would have gone off in 4 or 5 minutes before it happened. You would have heard—the bells and whistles would have gone off.

Right.

And a thing like that couldn't have happened if you had proper——

Yes.

——proper air control.

So what's happened is, we are working very hard on getting the finest in the country—now, in—in the world. We've examined the systems of almost every good country, in terms of air traffic control, all over the world. And we have the best people working on it in the world.

It's true.

And it will make—I mean, so often you'll see somebody—even bonking into each other at an airport. But where planes come too close—where planes, in the case of the helicopter, hit—they hit—the helicopter hits the plane. We are working on air traffic control to redo the entire system, including the new towers, because the towers are obsolete.

You know, you don't think of it. You see a tower, and it looks fine. You go into those towers; they're literally falling down.

It's true.

So we're talking about new towers and all new air traffic control, which will give us the safest anywhere in the world.

Why do you—why do you think Dr. Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment so many times today when he has a pardon? And why couldn't—what's—what was stopping him from just giving an honest testimony this morning?

Well, look, I've never been a big fan of Fauci. Why he did that was very simple: His lawyer told him to. You know, I don't know if he would have been better off not doing it. There were a lot of questions that I guess he could have answered and some, maybe, he didn't feel comfortable in answering. But his lawyer told him to do that.

Bev.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham hasn't mentioned publicly migration at all since he's gone into Number 10. Did you——

Well——

Did you discuss it with him?

I did, briefly. He's going to have to mention it because it's killing your country. Killing.

He won't talk to GB News.

He's killing your country.

He won't talk to us.

And not him. I mean, we'll have to see. I know Starmer did very little about it. And they're coming from all over the world. They're coming from Africa, they're coming from South America, they're coming from different parts of Asia, and they're invading Europe. I mean, they're invading Europe. It's an invasion. And the U.K. is a prime suspect.

Mr. President, on Todd Blanche. Senator John Cornyn of Texas has been hesitant to back the confirmation. Seems to be some sort of deal that he's talking about. What is your reaction to his hesitancy?

Well, all I can say is Todd Blanche is outstanding, and I thought he's—I thought it was pretty routine because he's so good. He's—you just wouldn't find a better person.

So I don't know. Maybe John Cornyn's upset with me because I didn't endorse him. I don't know what it is. But I haven't heard that there's a problem. I heard he's going through quite nicely.

And do you think Senate Majority Leader John Thune, after the comments you heard regarding SAVE America and some other stuff, do you think he's still the man for the job?

Well, we're going to find out, and I'll let you know.

It was a beautiful service yesterday for Senator Graham.

Right.

Beautiful eulogy that you delivered. As far as Senator Darline Graham is concerned, based upon your conversations, is she going to focus primarily on foreign affairs, like her brother, or will she focus more on domestic issues?

I think domestic, really. I've spoken to her a lot, and she's much more focused on domestic, including costs and pricing.

And do you think——

I think she'll be outstanding.

On Jay Clayton. He was just confirmed by the Senate. Would you——

Yes. He's great.

Would you like to see him continue with Bill Pulte's work in exposing election interference——

Oh, yes.

in 2020?

I'm sure. I'm sure he will. Bill did a great job, and Jay is just—has just been confirmed. And, you know, he's outstanding. He was the head of Sullivan & Cromwell for many years, and he's very outstanding. And I think he's going to do a fantastic job.

And Bill was great.

Yes, please.

Mr. President, in light of advanced ChatGPT AI models escaping their lab and conducting cyberattacks, are you considering stronger controls on AI? And would you consider negotiating regulations with China?

Well, we're looking at AI. We're looking at controls. We're also making sure that we lead.

So we're leading China in AI by a lot. China has virtually no controls. It's freewheeling a little bit. So, we have to be careful in both ways. We don't want to restrict them, where, all of a sudden, we come in second to China.

Whoever wins with AI is going to win. That's how big it is. So it's bigger than the Internet ever was. It's bigger than anything ever was.

So I don't want to restrict. I know many of these people. I don't want to restrict them from doing great work.

Yes, please.

On what scenario do you see Iran attacking U.S. installations and personnel overseas and you withdrawing? Or are you always——

Oh, I don't see that. No, we're not—no, we're going to hit them very hard.

Are you always——

I mean, I can actually say that because they're not—there's very little they can do about it.

It was a different group than we're dealing with. They've already apologized, but, you know, we got to smack them a little bit.

Are you always going to hit back when they strike?

Will I always hit back?

Yes.

Pretty much, yes.

Mr. President—just on—a point of clarity on that, sir. Is that in response to the attempted ballistic missile strike on Jordan last night, when you say it's our turn to hit back?

I—yes, I think it—more so that, yeah, because there was another smaller event.

But no, they sent five 8,000-mile-an-hour missiles at us, and fortunately, we had our people operating the greatest equipment in the world, namely the Patriot system. Think of it: Five missiles going 8,600 miles an hour—big ones—coming right at us, and all five were shot down. How about that, right? Pretty good.

Only we—nobody else could do that but us.

Yes.

Can I ask how was your—how was your meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday? Do you——

It was good.

Do you see a time scale for getting that conflict resolved?

No, it was good. Look, you know, he's out doing his thing. I'd like him to end the war.

So it's very simple. I get along with both. I get along with President Putin. I get along with President Zelenskyy. I'd like—I told him I want to end the war, get the war ended. Thousands of people—25,000 people died last month. That's standard, and it's not acceptable.

So I said, "Just end the war."

Thank you, Mr. President. On the war. Do you want the House to come back before August 31st to act on the Russia and Iran sanctions bill after it clears the Senate this week?

Well, if it's necessary. I mean, it shouldn't be necessary, to be honest. But if it's necessary.

I'd like to—are you talking about the Lindsey Graham?

Yes.

So I'd like them to add Iran as tariffs, not just as sanctions. I think it's important. That's what Lindsey wanted. Because I heard that they have tariffs on Russia but not on those five countries with—having to do with Iran.

I'd like to see tariffs on Iran. It would make it much stronger. So perhaps—you're very good at this—you can maybe tell them. I think they should put in for Russia, but I think they should put in for Iran. And that's really what Lindsey wanted.

Yes, please.

And on Iran. One more, sir. Sorry.

And good job at the dinner the other night.

Thank you.

Did a great job.

Thank you. Appreciate that.

President Xi told you that China would not give or sell Iran any weapons.

Yes.

And there's a new report that Iran's about to get 400 rocket launchers from China, going through Pakistan to Iran.

Well, that would be surprising. I mean, things like that happen, but that would be surprising. He told me very strongly he wouldn't partake.

And he knows I'd be quite disappointed.

Yes, please.

Mr. President—Mr. President——

But he's coming here, I think, on September 24 too, so——

Two questions. First, we're coming up on the 25th anniversary of 9/11, and a good number of 9/11 families have called on New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, to not attend a number of these memorial services. What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I think they're having a hard time with Mandami [Mamdani; White House correction]. The people having to do with—anybody having to do with 9/11, right now, on the victim side—and there are a lot of them—they're very unhappy with what's going on in New York, and they're very unhappy with the mayor. I understand that.

Yes, please.

Oh. Thank you, Mr. President. Senate Republicans are underway negotiating the budget. Would you sign a CR without the SAVE America Act attached? Is that something you want to see?

I'll have to look at it, but they should get the SAVE America. How simple can it be? Voter identification, proof of citizenship.

I mean—now, you have to understand the—the Democrats—not one Democrat will sign because they want to cheat. There's no way they can get elected if they don't—if that happens, but we should have unanimous Republican support. And if we don't, people should look at those Republicans.

But think of it: Who would not sign voter identification with photo? And who would not sign proof of citizenship? Only people that want to cheat.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Bev.