Remarks transcript, Sep 2, 2026 (Donald Trump)

We have numerous people—Argentina—lots of people that I got elected. And the—that part of our hemisphere is really turning out to be very much different than it was. They've gone from being left to going right. They're all going right.

We have a good relationship with Brazil, a good relationship, really, with just about all of them now. They have a lot of respect for our country. They didn't respect our country 2 years ago at all.

And so we're doing very well in South America, Latin America. We're doing very well. And these people—flying—I mean, they're the ones that get you there, for the most part, and they're all doing very well. That whole thing is opening up. There's great cooperation between our country and all of South America.

Mr. President, Canada is America's second largest trading partner. Are there any plans for renewed trade talks between the U.S. and Canada? And has there been any decline in terms of Canadian tourism to the U.S.? And perhaps you folks would know that.

Well, I don't know. I can tell you this. You know, Canada has been ripping off the United States for many, many years—for decades, many decades. We lost anywhere from $60- to $100 billion with Canada. We traditionally lose that for last 15 years.

It's a very unfair deal. They charge tremendous tariffs to our farmers. They take advantage of our farmers. They take advantage of our tourists. They take advantage of airlines.

Something that nobody brought up. I'll bring it up right now. They think it's so sensitive, but I don't find it sensitive. Canada has all of its major banks here, and we're their biggest source of income, far bigger than they are in Canada. They basically don't allow banks of America to be in Canada. That's sort of emblematic of the way they treat us.

Think of it. So they have their banks here—Bank of Canada, all of the big banks—big, beautiful banks. I think they have six or seven major banks here. We don't have our banks there. You know why? They don't allow it.

I had a case about a week ago where a friend of mine was buying a Gulfstream jet, and he said: "You know, it's a crazy thing. We're not able—that Canada won't certify Gulfstream." Won't certify it. Gulfstream is the best private jet. You know, considered the best of the best, and they won't certify it in Canada because they make a competitor: Bombardier Global Express.

And so their competitor didn't want them to have competition. So, for approximately 9 years, this has been going on. They won't certify Gulfstream.

So he's very friendly with Gulfstream. He told the head of Gulfstream to call me. Gave him the numbers. We called. We spoke. He said: "Sir, I've spent $60 million trying to get certified in Canada. I can't get certified in Canada. They won't do it."

So I immediately said I'm putting a major tariff on Bombardier and other things that they sent until they're certified. They got certified in 2 hours. [ Laughter ]

I got a call from the Prime Minister, "President, what seems to be the problem?" I said: "Well, you have a little problem. For 9 years, you didn't certify Gulfstream." Essentially, they can't sell any plane in anything having to do with Canada. But Bombardier has free rein over the United States. Both good planes. Very good planes.

And I said, "So what we're going to do is, we're going to charge you tariffs on various products, including Bombardier." We put a nice, big—and within 30 minutes, I guess it took—maybe less—everything got certified.

He told me they spent millions and millions of dollars on legal fees over about a 9-year period trying to do it. I did it in a matter of moments.

But that's the way they treat us. And I thought that was really egregious. It was incredible, because everyone knows how good the Gulfstream is. It's a—it's the best plane, and for them to not be allowed to sell it in Canada—but that's the way they are.

And people are surprised when I say it. Like, I have China coming here. A lot of people say: "Who's the toughest one to deal with? Is it China, sir? Is it China? Is it Vietnam? Is it"—I said, "No, actually, it's Canada." Canada has felt emboldened. We—they had Presidents that didn't know what was happening. Not only the last one, all of them. I mean, they just were taken into—our country's been taken advantage of by Canada.

They took 20 percent of our car industry out. I don't blame them for that, but if we would have had a President that knew what was happening, nobody would have left. Now they're all coming back. All they would have had to do is charge tariffs, and they would have put tariffs on. If you build a car in Canada, you have to pay a 25-percent tariff, and nobody could pay. And if that didn't work, you make it 50 percent, or if that didn't work, you make it 100 percent.

And we have everybody coming. Or you stop doing business with the nation. You know, when we lose $60- to $100 billion with Canada, I could say, "Well, if we don't do business"—because we don't need—we have more oil and gas than they do. We have tremendous forests. We don't need their lumber. We don't need the things they have. They need what we have. They do most of their business with us. I've heard numbers—95 percent. We do a very small percentage compared to others. We do a very small percentage by comparison to that.

But they need us. We don't need them. They've taken advantage of us for years, and it's time to stop. We can't lose $60- to $100 billion a year for the privilege of allowing them to make cars. We don't want their cars. We want the cars to be made in Detroit and in South Carolina and in Tennessee and in all of our places where we make cars. We don't want them to be made in Canada. So this is nothing against anybody.

And this started with Trudeau. Trudeau and I used to have it out pretty good, and now we have this new guy, who's a nice guy, but you know, he's just—and then they have the other guy, the slob. I guess some people call him a slob. I don't want to call him that because I want to be nice.

But—and I did change the name of a certain lake to Lake America, just like I changed the name of the Gulf of America—of—Mexico to Gulf of America. And people in this country love it. You know, we have 92 percent of the frontage, and why was it Gulf of Mexico? We have most of the frontage, almost all—93, 94 percent.

So we do things like that because we're fighting for our country.

Canada has taken advantage of us. They have ripped us off for years, and now we're turning the tables very—very easily turning the tables.

Yes.

On the subject of foreign——

Wait, wait, wait. Say it.

On the subject of foreign visitors to the United States, what's your reaction to the recent news that Prince Harry and Meghan have left the United States and have gone back to Britain?

I'm happy about it. [ Laughter ] No, I was not a fan. I thought—look, I had a very good relationship with the Queen. Really good. I got to know her very well. A really good relationship with King Charles. I knew him as Prince Charles and King Charles. I've known him for a long time. He's great—a great guy.

And I thought they treated the royal family with great disrespect. I didn't like it. I didn't like the way she acted. I thought she was terribly disrespectful to the Queen, to King Charles. And I don't know, I—maybe I'm different. I wouldn't have taken them back, frankly. If I were——

If I were the royal family, I would not have taken them back.

Mr. President, thank you. Sorry. The recent resumption of U.S. strikes in Iran have sent oil prices back up to $95 a barrel.

They'll come down.

How long will this renewed campaign go for?

I don't think too long.

And also, given that—what you've said about having destroyed the Iranian military, what is there still left to strike, and why?

Okay. We have controlled and we are controlling the Hormuz Strait. We are bringing lots of boats out every day with millions of barrels of oil. We are, for the most part, doing it without trouble. Every once in a while, they shoot a drone, and we knock it down.

But we have control—very strong control. They were trying to rebuild their radar systems and a missile system and a mine dropper. You know, we got rid of all the mines in the Hormuz Strait.

They were trying to build a rocket that drops mines. Who does that? Did you ever build a rocket that drop—I never heard of such a thing, but that's what they were doing. They were building, and it was almost finished, so we took it out. We saw that they were building it. We see everything that they're doing. They can't move. They can't go to the bathroom without us seeing it. So we saw that, and we took it out.

We took out some other things, and then we hit them last night because they took a shot at us in Jordan—at our base in Jordan. We knocked all of them down. There were, I guess, eight missiles that were shot. We—they were all knocked down.

One we let go because it was so inaccurate it landed in the middle of the desert someplace, so we let it go. Sometimes we let them go if they're not aimed correctly. It's an amazing science. What they can do is absolutely incredible.

We had a case where 111 were shot at a certain ship, fellas. And a hundred—out of 111, all 111 were knocked down. Can you imagine that? Now, 5 years ago, 7 years ago, you couldn't do that. Today, we have technology that's incredible. Nobody has technology like we have.

So we hit them hard last night—very hard. They gave a little love tap, but we hit them very hard last night. We took out all of the new equipment that they tried to build along the Strait of Hormuz—some defensive, some offensive. They were trying to see the ships because they can't see the ships. You know, we're taking out a lot of ships. They can't see it because they have no radar because we blew it up, and we blew up much more than their radar last night. It was—it was a very heavy attack last night, and we're prepared to do another one any time we want. I——

So how long will this continue——

I do think this.

——the back-and-forth?

I do think this: We had gasoline selling—when I decided that I have to go in and stop this because we can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon, so a little more than a year ago, gasoline in Iowa—I was in Iowa making a speech—it was $1.95. Right? And then it went to $1.85. Passed another station, I went—$1.95. Think of that. And $1.85.

And right after that, I called everybody into the office, made my speech, and I said: "We have a problem because Iran is soon going to have a nuclear weapon. And I hate to do this, but we're going to have to do it. Oil will go up, and probably, the stock market will go down."

Well, the good news is, the stock market hits new records every day, so the stock market wasn't affected. Although, it would even be higher, believe it or not. The stock market will go up.

But it's very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. As soon as it's over—which I don't think will be very much longer. I've—I don't know how much more they can take. But you know, whatever it is, it doesn't matter.

And I'm not affected by the election. Number one, I'm not running, but my party is running, and I'm going to help my party. But I think my party respects the fact that we're not allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

And frankly, other Presidents should have done that, but they didn't have whatever it takes to do it.

Your endorsement, Mr. President——

Mr. President, on gas prices, you—yesterday you met with oil industry leaders, and you've previously accused them of price gouging. Is that something you brought up with them?

Yes, I did. I want the retail prices—these were mostly retailers, and I want the retail prices to come down.

Go ahead.

And, Mr. President, on data centers, real quickly.

Go ahead.

No, no.

Go ahead.

Mr. President, thank you. On Ukraine, something you've said for a long time is that the war should have never happened. And something you used to say, which was proven correct, was that they—the Biden administration, along with much of the mainstream media, was lying about the number of Ukrainians who were dying in the war. And now we're seeing they're having a shortage of young men. There's these horrific videos coming out of Ukraine where they're kidnapping them off the streets. Their moms, their wives are being thrown to the ground and sprayed with mace while their loved ones get taken away. I'm wondering, have you seen these videos? Because the mainstream media is also not reporting on those. And if you haven't seen them, could I send them to Steven Cheung or——

Sure. You——

——or another member of your staff to show you?

You could send them, and I'll put them out.

But I know about the videos. I heard about them very strongly.

Look, it's a war that should have never happened. If I were—if the election weren't rigged in 2020, that war would have never happened, and it didn't happen for 4 years.

You know, I was there 2016 to 2020, and I would talk to Putin about it. It would have never happened. Zero chance. And when I left, I saw what was going on, and I said, "You know, I think these guys are going to go to war." I thought it was crazy. It would—just wouldn't have happened.

So it's one of the—you know, the way it happened for me was—a lot of people say it was more important. It was more important with the skip and doing this—that this is a more important term than it ever could have been.

But I will say this: One thing is that war would have never happened, and all those young—mostly soldiers, but people—you know, missiles going into towns—but mostly young soldiers. Twenty-five thousand soldiers a month are being killed. Can you imagine that? Twenty-five—that's like a stadium. Twenty-five thousand, on average. And many of them are Ukrainian. You know, they like to say, "Oh, it's all Russian." Well, there are a lot of Russians. Probably more Russians because they're offensive. You know, they're on the offense, as opposed to the defense, and more people die when you're on the offense. But tremendous numbers of soldiers, both Ukrainian and Russian, are being killed, and they ought to stop that stupid war.

And we are continuing—you know, I stopped eight wars. Eight. Some of them would be thought of as much tougher to stop than this, and I got them stopped. But there's tremendous animosity between the two Presidents. Tremendous animosity.

But I think it's going to be pretty close. It's going to be time. They seem to have a new burst of energy. But I think they're going to be—I'm dealing with both of them, and I think they're going to stop it.

But you're right about that.

Mr. President, on Russia as well, is there any hope that Russian President, Vladimir Putin, would do another summit with you in the near future?

Oh, well, he'd do it if I wanted it, but I want to do it when we're ready to do a peace deal. I want to do it. We're—you know, we want to have good relationship with Russia, Ukraine, with everybody. It'd be great for business. Russia's got great land. Got very valuable land. A lot of good things happening.

But no, we could do one—I'll bet I—I could do it immediately. I want to do it when that war is ending, and I think we will.

And on the Federal film tax credit. Are—were you surprised to see Gavin Newsom come out and support that?

That he supported the——

The Federal film tax——

——Trump accounts?

Federal film tax credit.

Oh, the film. Well, he supported two things. He supported the Trump Accounts for children. You know, when they're born, they're going to end up—when they're 18 or 21, they're going to end up being rich people, maybe, and a good chance. At a minimum, they're going to have a lot of money. But at a maximum, they could actually be rich, and these are people, in many cases, that have no money.

But I understood that he just came out and he supported the television.

And it's—just so you know, Canada, again—but Canada, number one, but the U.K., Australia, many countries give tremendous incentives to take our film industry, our entertainment industry, television industry, the making of the product into their countries. I mean, Canada is booming because they give tax incentives. We don't give anything, and we should.

And this is probably more of a Democrat thing, frankly, because they seem to be the Hollywood. Hollywood is dead, and they want it to be revived.

And I've spoken to Netflix, who's a fantastic—Ted, who's fantastic, and Ari Emanuel, and many others. And Jon Voight came to see me about it. Jon Voight came to see me about it 2 days ago. He's a friend of mine. He's a phenomenal actor. Did some of the greatest movies of all time.

I said, "So Jon, what's up?" He goes: "Sir, Hollywood is dying. You've got to do something." I said, "What do you think we should be doing?" And he talked about the tax credits.

And all I'm going to do is offer the tax credits that other tax—other countries are offering. I don't have to do any more. They all want to be in Hollywood. They don't want to lose Hollywood, and the unions want that. The unions are going to work along. I've done a lot of work on that in the last—last week, and I think we have bipartisan support. I think we have tremendous Democrat—I understand Adam Schiff is totally in favor of it. And I'd like to get it done. We call it the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act.

You think Biden could have done that? I don't think so. What do you think? I don't think so. I think he would have——

Mr. President——

Number one, he wouldn't have done that, but number two, he wouldn't have remembered the name. [ Laughter ]

But just so you understand—so it's a revitalization act for that industry, and it's a beautiful thing. It's going to work very quickly.

These people don't want to fly to Australia to do a movie. You know, it's a 22-hour flight, and they don't want to fly 22 hours. And they don't want to go to Canada. But Canada offers big subsidies and big credits. You know, beyond just credit, they offer subsidy.

And we're going to match any country, and we're going to bring a hundred percent of that back—because every one of them, they want to make Hollywood—they want to make movies in Hollywood. That's—they grew up wanting to be in Hollywood. Now you can't make a movie in Hollywood. It doesn't make sense. So we're going to bring it back.

Peter.

President Trump, what do you think about the plea deal down in Florida today? Tiger Woods, who famously called you as he was being arrested, has agreed to have a suspended driver's license for 5 years.

Well, look, I know Tiger very well. He's a great guy. He's unique in so many ways and especially as an athlete, but also as a man.

You know, he suffers great pain. Great pain. He has a very tough situation, because they didn't find alcohol on him. You know, he didn't test positive at all for alcohol. But he—because of his horrible back—because he had, in my opinion, a bad doctor—but he had a back operation that did not work out well, and he is under pain. And so it's a tough deal when you're taking a painkiller because you're under pain—and tremendous pain—and you have a problem, and you test positive. He would have told them that. I mean, it's a prescription painkiller.

But I thought it was very fair. I mean, I think he's going to have somebody drive him. I told him that a long time, "Why don't you get somebody to drive you?" [ Laughter ] So he's going to have somebody drive him from now on. And you know, he's just a very special guy. I'm glad—I'm glad that was resolved.

Mr. President——

Thank you, Mr. President. It just came out that James Talarico in Texas called capitalism oppressive and said it needed to be dismantled. Do you think by embracing socialism and bashing, you know, capitalism, Democrats—that's a wise move for Democrats?

Well, that's one of the least of the bad things he's said. He's said a lot of bad things. He's—I mean, they have a name—a nickname for him. I don't want to use it, but the name happens to be Talafreako, because he is one of the worst candidates I've ever seen.

And you know, we have a guy named Ken Paxton, and some people don't like the way he dresses, or some people don't like the way he interviews or talks. But you know the one thing about him? He was the best attorney general in this country for the last 10 years or more. The most effective, the hardest working—he was the best attorney general in the United States.

And so, I don't care about an interview, and I don't care about the way he dresses. All I know is that he was considered by almost everybody to be the best—the single strongest, smartest attorney general in the United States. And I can attest to that because we have a lot of business and—both governmental and when I was in the private sector. He was the most effective guy there was. And I think he should win on the basis of that.

Yes.

Mr. President, Mr. President——

On Venezuela, what's stopping you from demanding Venezuela set a firm date for the election?

On what?

On an election.

What about it?

What's stopping you from asking Venezuela to set a firm date for an election?

Oh, I just don't think they're ready yet. You know, it's very new. We took them out of a dictatorship, and we're getting along great with the Government. Delcy, as you know, is doing a very, very good job—very highly respected. And—oh, we want that, and they want that. Delcy wants it, but they're not ready yet.

You know, we have—we've taken them out from a very powerful, ruthless dictatorship where many people were in jail. You know, those people have largely been released from jail. They were political prisoners. But we sort of had that in this country too, where we have a vicious—we had a vicious—that last 4 years, it was run by some—not Biden so much; he didn't know what the hell was happening. But the people that surrounded him at this desk, they were vicious, violent people. Smart people, but they're—they were nuts. Radical-left lunatics.

You had a very powerful, very nasty dictatorship in Venezuela, and they're just not going to be ready for it yet. But soon. We look forward to doing it and soon.

Mr. President, how serious are you about renaming the Strait of Hormuz the "Trump Strait"? And if so——

No, no, it was just thrown out. [ Laughter ]

——how would you do it?

That was just thrown out.

How would—how would you do it?

Go ahead.

It was just thrown out there.

Mr. President, your endorsement of Darline Graham was pivotal. It was crucial in helping her win her runoff election. There's another close election that's happening out in Alaska. Senator Sullivan is in a tight race. Do you——

He's a good man.

Do you anticipate actually traveling——

Yes.

——out to Alaska to help him out?

That means you're going to have to go with me. [ Laughter ] Yes, I do. I'll go out there to fight for him.

Just to show you how crooked the Democrats are: First of all, they have rank choice, which is a crooked form of voting. It's totally dishonest. Rank choice. They throw everybody into a hat, and somebody backstage that nobody knows picks a winner. It's ridiculous.

But they have a man named—we have a very good Senator named Dan Sullivan. The Democrats put up another man named Dan Sullivan. So we have two Dan Sullivans on the thing. And by the way, the other man who had never been in politics, had never voted. He hasn't voted for years. A totally—pretty nonpolitical person, I guess. But never had any thought of running. All of a sudden, he's running for the Senate in Alaska. His name is Dan Sullivan. They have the same name.

And that guy got 2½ percent in the recent primary. And that's—you know, 2½ percent is a lot when it comes to winning elections. And it's a disgrace. They went to the court, and the court made it a little bit easier. They put an initial or something on the one name. [ Laughter ] But it's very unfair.

I will go to Alaska to help Dan Sullivan get elected. Dan Sullivan—it's like Ken Paxton. Dan Sullivan is a great Senator. Dan—I mean, you look at the thing he's—the things he's done. He would call me all the time, because I think no—I definitely know: Nobody has helped Alaska like Donald Trump. We've invested billions and billions of dollars and created trillions of dollars in value. You have Japan. You have South Korea. You have all of these people now going to Alaska to load up with fuel, load up with oil, build pipelines, everything else.

Dan Sullivan has done a great job, and I will—it's a long trip. I love Alaska. You know, I won Alaska by a landslide.

Thirteen and a half points, sir.

How much?

Thirteen and a half points.

Oh, I thought it was 23 or 24. [ Laughter ]

Why did you think—why do you——

Thirteen and a half is a lot.

What do you think, Peter? Not bad.

Why do you think—Mr. President, you won it by 13½ points. Why is this race so close——

I don't know.

——given your strength there?

Well, it's close for one reason: that they have a phony Dan Sullivan. This guy is a phony. And he was put up by the Democrats. And they don't admit it, but it's been so proven.

So I will go to Alaska to make sure that a great Senator gets reelected. I will be going to Alaska. I'm going to be going—the last 30 days before the election, I'll be making a lot of stops.

You see how I helped Darline? You see how—how I helped the Governor—the future Governor of Oklahoma? He was way behind, and I endorsed him, and I did tele town halls for him. I did, and he ended up winning against somebody that seemed to have an insurmountable lead. He's great. He's going to be a great Governor for Oklahoma.

I won—in Oklahoma, they have 77 counties. As you know, all three times, I won 77 counties. They like me.

Peter, I think I should just move there. [ Laughter ] They like me. They seriously like me in Oklahoma—and you know who second was? Ronald Reagan at 56. But I won 77 out of 77 counties in Oklahoma.

And I endorsed him, and he won, and it was an amazing victory. You know, that was a victory that everybody said couldn't happen.

So I'm going to be campaigning for numerous people, both Congressmen, a few Governors. I love the Governors, but we're interested in the Senate, and we're interested in the House. So I'll be campaigning for the House Members, and I'll be campaigning for Senators.

Yes. Wait.

Are you concerned about the lack of Senate-confirmed individuals at both the civilian and military level at the Department of the Army right now?