Episode 5016： President Trump Unveils The Golden Fleet
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 1 minute
Words per Minute
172.12195
Summary
The Anthem of the Free is a tribute to those who lost their lives in the recent helicopter crash at the hands of a helicopter crash on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, and to the families who lost a loved one in the helicopter crash.
Transcript
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My name is Shane Jenkins, Enrique Tarrio, Robert Morris, Daniel Caldwell, my name is Mickey, my name is Pete Schwartz, Barry Ramey, Brian Nichols, Debra Mamone, Olivia Pollock, John Nassif, Jordan Mack, George, White Wolf, Riley, Robert Gieswine, Kyle Fitzsimons, Adrienne Souther, Andrew Tocchi, Jessica Watkins, Timothy Hale, John McHugh, Billy Cruston.
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This anthem means a lot to me because it's what held us together.
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Against the odds, our faith that our days of this nation will be renewed is still there.
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I, along with my brothers and sisters, weather the storm.
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And my friends and my brothers have also helped me through this tough time.
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Because we are what makes this country the greatest country on this planet.
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We sing for all the people who never made it home.
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We stand as one, united in this fight for liberty.
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Didn't make it back home to your children and wife.
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By any means, we have to keep freedom of speech alive.
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To the cops and military that been fighting day and night.
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So we can have liberty and our God giving rights.
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To all the mothers and fathers that's just trying to protect their child.
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It's Monday, 22 December, year of our Lord, 2025.
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We're trying to not just drive this to number one, as we've already done, but keep it up there.
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The President of the United States is coming out in a moment.
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Captain Fennell, can you give us a few moments before the President comes out at Mar-a-Lago?
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The problems, you've been the number one advocate of this.
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We have a big problem in the United States Navy about shipbuilding and the size of the fleet
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And what do you hope to hear from the President of the United States, sir?
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Well, Steve, first of all, thanks for having me on and Merry Christmas.
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I think for many of us that have been advocating for restoring America's maritime power that's
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been basically gutted for the last 35 years, today is an early Christmas present because
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I expect the President to come out with the members of the Cabinet you've mentioned, and
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they're going to announce kind of a new shipbuilding program.
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And they're going to lead off with the announcement of this new, what they're calling a battleship.
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And it's going to be probably labeled the Trump class.
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And the first ship of the class I've heard is going to be called the USS Defiant.
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And it's based upon the Arleigh Burke destroyer class of ship that we have.
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But this is going to be, I think, substantially larger, more survivable.
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And then there's going to be announcement of other ships that are going to join this.
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And I think what's really important is that we're finally getting a President of the United
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States to stand up and say, America is a maritime and naval power.
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And we're going to focus on shipbuilding, shipyards, dry docks, and reversing the last 40 years of
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degradation with the failures of the littoral combat ship class, the failure of the Zumwalt class,
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the massive problems we've had with the Ford class carriers, the problem with the cancellation
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of this recent Constellation class frigate here in the last two weeks.
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We have had a severe problem in neglecting and balancing out America's national power
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in the hard power arena with naval power and maritime power.
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It's not just Navy warships, but it's the support ships that come with it.
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It's our merchant fleets, and it's our industrial capacity to build ships.
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They have taken the lessons of Mahan and naval warfare for the centuries, and they have been
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And they have the largest Navy on the planet today.
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They have the largest number of anti-ship cruise missiles, supersonic, hypersonic.
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And they have built a force to defeat and sink the U.S. Pacific Fleet and the rest of the
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And this president, I expect, will come out and announce this new class and announce this
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Now, he signed in when he took office here in January.
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Within the first two months after the SECNAV was confirmed, they announced a White House
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We haven't heard much from it, but they, from what I've been hearing, they've been working
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behind the scenes and developing a new structure.
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The new chief of naval operations announced this week that he was going to establish a
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new naval warfighting strategy called the HEDGE strategy, which is designed as an approach
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that reduces operational risk by investing in tailored offsets and tailored forces.
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And it talks about, he said, building a fleet to cover every possible threat is too expensive,
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I'm a little bit worried about that language, so I'm hoping to hear tonight the president
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say, hey, we're not, we're building a fleet to do one thing, and that's to rule the seven
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That doesn't mean we have to be everywhere around the seven seas.
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But given the power of the PLA Navy, we have to build a Navy that can take on and defeat
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And if we can do that, then we can do everything else that's tasked to us.
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And so there's a lot of debate going on about what kind of force structure we need.
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But clearly what we need is warships, lots of warships, mostly manned in my opinion, but
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I think there's going to be a big push for unmanned.
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And we saw in the last month an announcement of an unmanned surface vessel that's going
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In that transition after World War II, you had the Old Navy that wanted to have more battleships,
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And you had Billy Mitchell and you had others that said, no, the future of naval warfare
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is going to be air warfare and you need to build aircraft carriers.
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And of course, Billy Mitchell was court-martialed and there was a huge fight.
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In fact, it didn't really get worked out, I guess, to the late 1930s.
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There's nothing I would like more than to build a series of destroyers or frigates, particularly
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You know, you get too many things are named after, I think, individuals, even heroes.
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You got to get back to the naming them after the virtues, particularly the warrior virtues.
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And I know President Trump, I think, feels the same way.
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That's why the first ship of the class won't be the Trump.
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The first ship of the class will be the Defiant.
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Having drones and unmanned vehicles and all of that, Captain Fennell, really made what
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you're talking about just some fantasy from Victory at Sea, the great series done by Samuel
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Yeah, that's exactly the same fight that's going on today, which is what you just said.
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My pushback is, is that the Pacific Ocean is 20 times the size of the continental United
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So when I hear somebody from Silicon Valley sell me a 24-foot outboard dinghy and said
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it can go 1,000 miles and I can put a 1,000-pound warhead on it, I'm asking, well, how do you
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get all those dinghies out to the Western Pacific to fight the PLA Navy?
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When on an aircraft carrier, I can take one FNA-18 Hornet and I can load up eight 2,000-pound
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bombs and put, you know, massive amounts of ordnance from just one aircraft.
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And there's 50 of those fighters on that aircraft carrier.
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And this notion that the Chinese hypersonic and supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles and
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ballistic missiles are going to find and target every carrier immediately is a fantasy.
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And if that's true, then there's nothing safe in the Western Pacific.
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None of our air bases, none of our HIMARS and other rocket systems that are being deployed
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out there right now or any of our bases in CONUS or Honolulu in Hawaii and Pearl Harbor.
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So the idea that stationary targets are somehow immune from anti-ship and anti-carrier ballistic
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missiles, but carriers are the most vulnerable, is illogical.
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And there's a lot of defensive systems that can be built into our carriers.
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President Trump has announced the Golden Dome for the United States of America.
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Well, why can't we build many Golden Domes for our carrier strike groups and expeditionary
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And the carrier strike group and all the elements of it, submarines, surface ships, and the carrier,
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And before we, the old carpenter's, you know, motto, measure twice, cut once, if you start
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cutting carriers before you have something that's going to replace it in concept, that's
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Back when Billy Mitchell was around, they were just fielding airplanes and they tried to prove
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that the carriers back then were vulnerable to air power.
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And they bombed a ship for like two days and it still didn't sink.
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So there's a lot of survivability to platforms.
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And I think what you're going to hear tonight from President Trump and his leadership is
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survivability of naval platforms has not been a priority.
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And I think that's going to be the new announcement.
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And oh, by the way, he's naming this the Golden Fleet.
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I'm President of the United States, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.
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So I want to wish everybody a big hello and Merry Christmas, and welcome to Mar-a-Lago
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for this exciting announcement of the new Golden Fleet.
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We're calling it the Golden Fleet that we're building for the United States Navy.
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As you know, we're desperately in need of ships.
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Our ships are, some of them have gotten old and tired and obsolete, and we're going to go
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We're delighted to be joined by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, who's doing a fantastic
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Marco Rubio is here, who gave a great few words toward the end of last week.
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He spoke for a couple of hours on what a good job we're doing, which is true.
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As Commander-in-Chief, it's my great honor to announce that I have approved a plan for the
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Navy to begin the construction of two brand-new, very large, largest we've ever built battleships.
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You know, you used to build the Iowa, the Missouri, the Wisconsin, the Alabama, and many others.
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But they will have 100 times the — there'll be 100 times the force, the power.
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And there's never been anything like these ships.
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These have been under design consideration for a long time.
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And it started with me in my first term, because I said, why aren't we doing battleships like
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They'll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.
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So if you look at the Iowa, the Missouri, Wisconsin, Alabama, and others, but they were similar in size,
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But if you take the biggest one, it's 100 times more powerful.
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They're bigger ships, but they hold much more — they use the word lethality.
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Battleships are the largest, sturdiest, and most heavily armed vessel built specifically for naval combat.
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But while America has built many new warships over the years, they've been — they've tended
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to be smaller, much smaller, and not conducive to where we are and where we're going, and
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But including — we've been building aircraft carriers.
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We're going to be going to a superior aircraft.
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We're going to be upping that to a different class of aircraft carrier.
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These cutting-edge vessels will be some of the most lethal surface warfare ships.
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It will be actually the most ever built other than our submarines.
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We have submarines which will have, in many ways, even more lethality.
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Each one of these will be the largest battleship in the history of our country, the largest
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battleship in the history of the world ever built.
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And again, it's 100 times more powerful than the previous Iowa class, it's called.
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Those are the big ones that you'd see on a show.
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I don't know if anyone's seen Victory at Sea, but it was a classic.
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They'll help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding industry, and
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inspire fear in America's enemies all over the world.
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Now they respect us again at levels that they've never respected us.
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We envision that these two ships, we're talking about 10, but we're going to start with two.
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And ultimately, we think it's going to be anywhere from 20 to 25 of these.
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But we're starting with the first two immediately, and we're going to then be very quickly involved
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with, I think, we're going to do another eight.
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And then we're going to ultimately and pretty quickly have a total of about 20 to 25.
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We envision that these ships will be the first of a whole new class of battleships to be produced
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From Theodore Roosevelt, the great white fleet, you remember that, the great white fleet,
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to the legendary USS Missouri, whose massive guns helped win World War II, America's battleships
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have always been unmistakable symbols of national power.
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And I want to congratulate John Thalen, who is your secretary, Secretary of the Navy.
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And I said, you're absolutely on the right track.
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We have missiles, which are much more expensive.
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By the way, these battleships have tremendous numbers of missiles, but they also have guns.
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And in many ways, guns can do the trick just as well as missiles at a tiny fraction of the cost.
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Once completed, these new 30,000 to 40,000 ton plus vessels will be the flagships of the American naval fleet.
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And there has never been anything built like them.
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And I just want to be very clear that we're building them here.
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We're working with others, but we're building them here.
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We'll be negotiating with some of the companies that are running those yards, taking over the yards.
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We used to build a ship a day during World War II.
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By the way, we're 15 to 20 years advanced in our submarines over anybody else.
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That was one of the things that I did in my first term.
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We make the best submarines by far in the world.
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We're at least 15 years advanced ahead of anybody else in submarine development.
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The most powerful weapon anywhere in the world.
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So the battleships are going to be armed just in terms of guns and missiles at the highest level.
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They'll also have hypersonic weapons, many hypersonic weapons, state-of-the-art electric rail guns, and even the high-powered lasers that you've been starting to read about.
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We have lasers where you aim the laser at a target, and it just wipes it out.
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We're going to have — there'll be the most sophisticated lasers in the world, and the most sophisticated laser in the world will be on the battleships that we're building.
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She launched cruise missiles currently under development, which will be instituted pretty quickly, but they're under development, and they've proven to be extremely lethal.
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The U.S. Navy will lead the design of these ships along with me, because I'm a very aesthetic person, alongside our partners in American industry.
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And we're going to have Pete Hegseth and Marco and a lot of very talented people involved, but a lot of it's already been done.
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The construction will create thousands of American jobs.
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I mean, already we have factories being built unrelated to this, although AI will be a big factor when it comes to these ships.
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In our mission to make the United States Navy stronger than ever before.
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Again, when you talk about 100 times the power of these massive ships that we had years ago, it's pretty amazing.
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And next week, I'm going to meet with the defense prime contractors.
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And we're going to be talking about production schedules, because they're too slow.
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We have many countries, allies that are wanting to buy.
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We make the greatest equipment in the world by far.
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Nobody's even close, but they don't produce them fast enough.
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So we're going to be meeting with them to talk about the production schedules.
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We're going to have strong production schedules.
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And the only way they're going to be able to do that is to build new plants, even with the F-35.
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And it takes too long to deliver them to allies or to ourselves.
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The only way they're going to be able to deliver them is if they build new plants.
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They don't want to build new plants, because that's expensive.
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So we're going to be discussing production schedules.
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We'll be discussing the pay to executives, where they're making $45 and $50 million a year
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Again, we make the best equipment in the world, but they don't make them fast enough.
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And we're going to be also discussing dividends.
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We want the dividends to go into the creation of production facilities.
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So we'll be talking about all CapEx, dividends, and the pay.
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I want them to put the money in plant and equipment so they can build these planes fast, rapidly,
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I mean, I have sold more planes than any president, by far, times, probably 20.
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That includes commercial planes, Boeings, etc., but it also includes fighter jets.
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And I'm always having to say five years, six years, seven years, helicopters, Apache helicopters,
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So we don't want to have executives making $50 million a year, issuing big dividends to
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And then they say, well, we don't have the money to build the plant.
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And that's what I'm going to be talking to them about.
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They're going to start spending money on building airplanes and ships and the things that we
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Last week, the Navy announced a brand new class of frigate, and they're going to be working
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Hanwha, a good company, recently agreed to invest $5 billion in Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
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We're opening up the Philadelphia Shipyard, once a great yard, now it was a long time
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ago, decommissioned, but now it's reopening, working with the Navy and working with private
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The record-setting defense bill I signed last week authorized $26 billion to build new
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ships, including destroyers and various others.
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We already have a lot of submarines, as you know, under construction.
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We're building a lot of submarines, I tell you.
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To be exact, we have right now 15 submarines under construction or ready to start.
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And we have, again, the greatest submarine in the world with our technology, like they
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Well, I would say submarines are a bigger deal than chips.
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We have, we're at least, at least 15 years ahead of any other competitor.
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We're also building right now three large aircraft carriers, in addition to the ones we have.
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And we have, actually, interestingly, we have a lot of submarines.
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How many submarines do we have now altogether, approximately?
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We have over 30, but these are the super-duper subs, and there's nothing like them.
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So we're going to be doing from 12 to 15 brand-new submarines.
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We'll be fixing up places for our great sailors to live.
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And we're going to be working very hard with companies, but we're also going to be penalizing
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For instance, when they built the Ford, Gerald Ford, the cost overruns were ridiculous.
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We're going to be talking about that with that company.
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In World War II, the United States built upwards of four ships per day.
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And it's, now, they weren't all big warships, but they were ships, freighters, tankers.
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And it's a tragedy that we allowed this incredible capability to just go astray.
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We're going to restore America as a major shipbuilding power.
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We're going to ensure the USA is the most powerful fleet anywhere in the world.
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And long into the future, with battleships helping lead the way and the submarines.
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And again, nobody competes with us on submarines.
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And I'd like to ask Secretary Hegseth to say a few words, followed by the secretary.
00:26:56.240
By the way, we have drugs are down 96.2 percent coming into the United States.
00:27:08.460
And soon we'll be starting the same program on land.
00:27:13.280
But every one of those boats that we knocked out saved 25,000 lives.
00:27:20.500
So, we save 25,000 lives every time we knock out one of those boats with the drugs pouring in.
00:27:27.700
I mean, people say, oh, gee, do you think, do you think it was really drugs?
00:27:39.380
When you see a boat with four engines or five engines on, you know, going 40, 50 miles an hour, well, they get hit.
00:27:47.080
We save 25,000 lives every single time we knock out a boat.
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We're trying to figure out who the other 4 percent are, frankly.
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And we're going to have the same success, but even quicker, because it's much easier on land.
00:28:07.060
If they want to come by land, they're going to end up having a big problem.
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They're going to get blown to pieces, because we don't want our people poisoned.
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300,000 people died, probably last year, 300,000.
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Somebody said last night, it was only 175,000 people.
00:28:25.660
That's like three stadiums, big football stadiums filled up with people died.
00:28:34.080
So we're doing a great job, and we enjoy doing it.
00:28:42.160
Trillions of dollars is coming into our country from other countries and companies.
00:28:46.680
They're building factories and plants, including auto plants, all over the United States of America.
00:28:52.620
Without tariffs, they wouldn't be doing anything, although they were very happy with the November 5th election.
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But it's only because they want to avoid paying tariffs that they're all coming in.
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And again, the biggest number was $3 trillion in history.
00:29:07.520
Now it's $18 trillion, and that's just in 10 months.
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That's investment in the United States, including plant and equipment.
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And I'll ask Pete to say a few words, and then John, if you have any questions, we'll take them.
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There are no fishing poles, no fishermen, and no fishing boats.
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And with every strike, we're saving American lives.
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No other president was willing to do real deterrence.
00:29:46.580
It's an honor to be here, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, Secretary Rubio, to talk about
00:29:54.200
You can talk about it, or you can invest in it, and you can build it.
00:29:57.980
And that's exactly what President Trump is doing.
00:30:00.760
At the Department of War, we're restoring the warrior ethos.
00:30:06.900
We put into law getting rid of DEI and political correctness.
00:30:12.920
And you've seen it in record recruiting in the spirit of the Department of War.
00:30:18.820
He's doing it again with historic investments today in shipbuilding.
00:30:23.320
And we're reestablishing deterrence, whether that's at the border, whether it's through
00:30:26.860
Golden Dome, what happened with Midnight Hammer, and what Iran found out, those drug boats,
00:30:31.880
and, of course, the Houthis opening up the shipping lanes.
00:30:37.220
And the announcement of the Golden Fleet, anchored by new battleships, the biggest and most lethal
00:30:42.740
ever, accomplishes all three of those things and marks a generational commitment to American
00:30:49.980
Across the entire department, we are developing new operational concepts, deploying cutting-edge
00:30:55.360
technologies, and making major investments, including in our Navy.
00:31:00.820
This is happening in all domains, including space, as the president has talked about before
00:31:07.180
So it's the highest of domains and the lowest of domains undersea, and especially today
00:31:12.740
in sea power, that always has to be decisive, has been in the history of America, and will
00:31:18.040
continue to be under the leadership of President Trump.
00:31:20.800
We will make sure that anything that flows from our country and with our allies flows freely
00:31:29.480
New and better ships will provide that deterrent today and for generations to come.
00:31:34.800
This new class, these new investments, will be the types of things that for decades, for
00:31:39.900
centuries, the American people will look back and thank President Trump for having the vision
00:31:44.060
and the willingness to invest right now in capabilities we need today, tomorrow, and long into the future.
00:31:50.300
So, Mr. President, thank you for this investment, and I'll hand it over now to the Navy Secretary.
00:31:57.580
Mr. President, Secretary Hegseth, Secretary Rubio, thank you for being here on a very consequential day.
00:32:07.940
From my very first conversation with President Trump about serving as the Secretary of the Navy,
00:32:13.660
he's talked about the great Iowa-class battleship and why America doesn't build ships anymore
00:32:19.020
with that kind of offensive firepower that takes the fight to the enemy.
00:32:24.580
During my time in the job, I've talked extensively with our combatant commanders,
00:32:29.400
like Admiral Paparo and Admiral Cooper, and our CNO, Admiral Cottle.
00:32:34.200
And what I've learned is, is that not only is the President's idea a good one,
00:32:37.980
it's something that Navy desperately needs and now has a formal requirement for.
00:32:43.080
The future Trump-class battleship, the USS Defiant, will be the largest, deadliest, and most versatile
00:32:51.320
and best-looking warship anywhere on the world's oceans.
00:32:55.900
I want to thank the President for his vision to make this game-changing capability for the United States Navy.
00:33:02.620
The Iowa was designed to go on the attack with the biggest guns.
00:33:08.040
And that's exactly what will define the Trump-class battleships.
00:33:11.800
Offensive firepower from the biggest guns of our era.
00:33:21.120
And for the first time in generations, we'll have a new leg in America's nuclear deterrence
00:33:26.700
because the Trump-class battleship will carry the nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile.
00:33:33.640
Striking dominance isn't all that the Trump-class battleship brings to the fight at sea.
00:33:39.580
It has the size and capacity to serve as a flagship for our fleet commanders
00:33:44.280
so that they can command and control naval forces far out to sea.
00:33:49.020
As shown in the series, and the President mentioned it, victory at sea,
00:33:54.060
Admirals Bull Halsey and Raymond Spurance commanded the war in the Pacific
00:33:58.640
from their battleship flagships during World War II.
00:34:02.260
Now this new battleship will command everything from warships to drones and everything in between.
00:34:12.780
And this is just one piece of the President's golden fleet
00:34:15.920
that we're going to build with the investments he talked about.
00:34:19.080
A new frigate, the right frigate, the one our warfighters have told us they need.
00:34:24.880
More amphibious power for our Marines with new capabilities like the medium landing ship.
00:34:31.440
As part of the Navy's high-low mix, we're moving out aggressively on unmanned vessels
00:34:36.500
with funding from the President's one big, beautiful bill
00:34:39.520
to bring options to the fight and pull new, non-traditional defense partners
00:34:48.840
And we're making a generational investment in support ships.
00:34:54.700
And that kind of shipbuilding is the spark that will ignite the industrial base
00:34:58.880
and help power the commercial shipbuilding that the President has called for.
00:35:04.120
Under your leadership, Mr. President, we will have more tonnage and firepower
00:35:08.860
under construction than ever before in our history.
00:35:12.880
Building the President's golden fleet means jobs across the United States now.
00:35:18.160
There will be work for shipyards everywhere, from Philadelphia to San Diego,
00:35:22.940
from Maine to Mississippi, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf Coast.
00:35:26.860
And for manufacturers that will build components for this battleship in every state.
00:35:35.200
We must bring back our American maritime industrial might.
00:35:39.040
And he has told me many times that as Secretary of the Navy,
00:35:42.480
it is my job to equip our sailors to win the fight at sea
00:35:48.780
To conclude, the USS Defiant battleship will inspire awe and reverence for the American flag
00:35:57.900
It will be a source of pride for every American when it brings home our brave sailors
00:36:03.180
who will sail Defiant, raise their fists, and say,
00:36:09.800
And our adversaries will know when the Trump-class USS Defiant appears on the horizon,
00:36:20.060
I just want to mention that John Phelan is one of the most successful businessmen in the country,
00:36:46.040
He's taken probably the largest salary cut in history.
00:36:52.260
And you needed that kind of a brain to do it properly.
00:36:55.520
So I just wanted to give you a little information on him, which is probably enough.
00:36:59.920
But one of the most successful men in the country.
00:37:05.060
And he understands finance in addition to what we're talking about.
00:37:07.980
And somebody who's doing a fantastic job is Marco Rubio, Secretary of State.
00:37:12.880
And Marco, maybe say a few words and then we'll answer some questions.
00:37:26.080
This is the ability, once again, to rebuild, to have industry in the United States.
00:37:31.160
This is generational in the change, not just in terms of applying American war power,
00:37:37.920
The U.S. Navy is the single biggest source of peace in the world of all of our forces
00:37:47.020
The ability to make things again in our country has been critical to what the President's agenda
00:37:55.800
And generations of Americans will be grateful for it.
00:37:59.220
By the way, I think I'd just like to point out that these ships are made of steel as
00:38:08.320
Battleships, the great battleships at six and seven inch steel hulls.
00:38:12.780
And these are going to be likewise made out of very powerful steel.
00:38:17.520
Our steel industry is coming back very strongly, by the way.
00:38:22.660
And we're going to be using them for the steel, but as opposed to an aluminum side,
00:38:31.200
So, John, we're going with all steel, I understand.
00:38:34.580
And that's going to be something that people are surprised.
00:38:38.320
More expensive, but not even comparable in terms of the importance and the strength.
00:38:45.140
What's your timetable for these first two ships?
00:38:49.620
We're going to start almost immediately, and we'll probably talk in about two and a half years.
00:38:55.060
And in terms of the mission, do you see it as a counter to China?
00:39:14.600
But there will never be anything built like these.
00:39:27.060
You know, I thought about taking some that are in dry dock and changing them.
00:39:32.700
And then when I said that, you know, if we did, it would be about, we could increase,
00:39:37.540
if we doubled them, they'd be at like just a tiny fraction of what one of these was.
00:39:42.640
This is the new technology, which is incredible.
00:39:49.160
Mr. President, Kuli Rosas with Most Peaceful Without Media.
00:39:52.280
You just referenced the lower amount of illegal drugs that are coming by sea.
00:39:57.200
And you just said that you're going to start that same program on land soon.
00:40:02.340
Or are you referring to other countries of Latin America?
00:40:11.180
What are we going to do with the oil that we have?
00:40:15.560
The United States seized 1.9 million barrels of oil on December 10th.
00:40:23.000
Are we going to sell it or put it in the strategic oil?
00:40:37.100
About Venezuela, sir, have you spoken to American oil companies that have had their assets seized
00:40:41.920
about what a post-Maduro Venezuela would mean for them?
00:40:49.540
Why do you feel like this initiative was neglected for so many years?
00:40:52.700
And does this come amidst the rising tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela?
00:40:58.920
Well, you had a different kind of a president before me.
00:41:04.020
They didn't mind drugs pouring into our country.
00:41:06.360
They didn't mind the jails of Venezuela and Tren de Aragua being emptied into the U.S.
00:41:11.500
where they take over Colorado and other places.
00:41:17.860
I hope people are enjoying it because we've never been respected more than we are now.
00:41:29.120
Were you surprised by the number of photos of Bill Clinton in the Epstein files?
00:41:35.700
Were you surprised by the number of photos of Bill Clinton in the Epstein files?
00:41:39.460
And can you commit to their full release by the end of the year?
00:41:42.160
Some of the victims were protesting that too many of them were redacted.
00:41:45.320
I know there are a lot of people that are angry about all of the pictures of other people,
00:42:02.680
But this is what the Democrats, mostly Democrats, and a couple of bad Republicans are asking for.
00:42:10.120
Everybody was friendly with this guy, either friendly or not friendly.
00:42:16.660
The head of Harvard was his best friend, Larry Summers.
00:42:24.840
And as a, you know, as a person that was in Mar-a-Lago, I threw him out.
00:42:33.340
I think it's the hottest place in the world, but it's the hottest place in Florida.
00:42:41.040
But, no, I don't like the pictures of Bill Clinton being shown.
00:42:44.480
I don't like the pictures of other people being shown.
00:42:52.180
But you probably have pictures being exposed of other people that innocently met Jeffrey
00:43:00.600
And they're, you know, highly respected bankers and lawyers and others.
00:43:05.380
And they'll end up, because of guys like Massey, who's a real lowlife, whose polls are down
00:43:10.820
to about 9%, by the way, in the great state of Kentucky.
00:43:14.160
If you look at Kentucky, Kentucky is such a great place.
00:43:18.720
But, I don't know, they've got a couple of people in there that are very strange in terms
00:43:31.680
Because what this whole thing is with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous
00:43:38.700
Like, for instance, today, we're building the biggest ships in the world, most powerful
00:43:43.740
And they're asking me questions about Jeffrey Epstein.
00:43:48.500
I believe they gave over 100,000 pages of documents.
00:43:56.020
Because a lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people
00:44:02.560
But they're in a picture with him because he was at a party.
00:44:08.380
So a lot of people are very angry that this continues.
00:44:12.060
A lot of Republicans are angry because of the fact that it's just used to deflect against
00:44:17.940
Look, we have $18 trillion coming into our country.
00:44:20.500
We have, I believe, we're going to have the most successful economy in history.
00:44:46.500
And the problem is a lot of Democrats are being caught up in the web.
00:44:54.240
He's now been forced to resign from every board he's on.
00:45:00.340
Now he was, you know, he was at Epstein's Island a lot.
00:45:11.960
But instead of talking about the battleships, or instead of talking about most favored nations,
00:45:17.540
drugs, we're bringing down drug prices, like at a level that has never even been thought of.
00:45:23.780
But by thousands, think of it, by 1,000 percent, by 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 percent in some cases.
00:45:32.400
A drug that sells for $10 in London is costing $130 in New York.
00:45:39.720
We're bringing it down to $20, and they're going to go up to $20.
00:45:43.460
So they're going from $10 to $20, which is a doubling.
00:45:52.340
So we're going down, if you can do your own math, but it's 2,000 percent, 3,000 percent.
00:46:02.420
And, you know, the New York Times had a story about it, a small story, way in the back of the paper.
00:46:06.840
It's the single biggest thing to happen in, with respect to drugs, probably in 50 years.
00:46:16.600
In my first term, I was able to get drug prices down one quarter of one percent.
00:46:21.780
It's the first time in 28 years that they went down.
00:46:27.180
Now we're doing them 2,000 percent, 1,500 percent, 1,200 percent.
00:46:32.080
That pill that sold for $130 will now be selling, as an example, for $20, because the rest of the world took advantage of us.
00:46:48.160
I called up the heads of the countries, as an example, France.
00:46:52.300
I spoke to a very good man, President Macron of France, and I said, Emmanuel, you have to raise your drug prices.
00:47:06.160
Look, you ask me if we go to $10 to $20, you're going to come way down to $20.
00:47:11.960
Now, in all fairness, no other president even tried.
00:47:14.640
But if they did try, there was actually a fake story in stupid USA Today.
00:47:22.620
But I saw a story where Biden was trying to do this.
00:47:35.720
So he would say, and the other leader said the same thing.
00:47:39.920
I said, no, no, you're going to do it 100 percent.
00:47:45.880
Because, again, if you go from $10 to $20, they're doubling their price.
00:47:53.100
Because we're going to get the lowest drug prices in the world.
00:47:56.300
Whatever the lowest price is called favored nations.
00:48:07.460
I said, Emmanuel, you're going to do it 100 percent.
00:48:17.080
He said, why do you keep telling me I am when I'm not?
00:48:20.120
Because if you don't do it, I'm going to put a 25 percent tariff on everything France sells
00:48:26.780
And that's approximately 20 times more than I'm asking for with respect to drug prices.
00:48:42.260
On Monday morning, you'll have the 25 percent tariff.
00:48:45.460
Everything you sell in the case of France, it was wine, champagne, cars, everything they
00:48:51.840
It's 25 to 30 times the price of what we're talking about at 25 percent.
00:49:01.080
The drug companies were difficult, but fine, because we have a certain control over the
00:49:13.460
So we will take that pill price down as an example, talking about not just pills, we're
00:49:20.860
We'll take it down from $130 a pill down to $20 a pill.
00:49:27.080
And the rest of the world will take it from $10 a pill up to $20.
00:49:34.520
And it's covered, barely covered in the New York Times because it's a fake newspaper.
00:49:39.360
Mr. President, on shipbuilding, how is the administration plan to ensure that there
00:49:44.220
is sufficient workforce availability as you're producing these ships?
00:49:48.620
How is the administration plan to ensure there is sufficient workforce availability as you're
00:49:54.500
We're going to have tremendous workforce availability.
00:50:00.760
We're going to have a lot of robots helping us because we need it.
00:50:04.020
And because we're going to town, we're building a lot between the AI and the auto plants.
00:50:09.980
We're going to have robots, but that's going to help us.
00:50:14.160
And in order to operate, you're always going to need people.
00:50:17.880
You know, you could have robots, but you're going to have to get somebody to start those
00:50:21.720
robots and you're going to have to improve the robots.
00:50:24.860
But we're going to have robotic factories plus manpower.
00:50:30.440
We're going to need the help of robots and other forms of, I guess you could say employment.
00:50:37.380
We're going to be employing a lot of artificial things.
00:50:41.840
But the beauty is we're going to have more jobs than we've ever had.
00:50:44.800
Just so you know, a number came out the other day.
00:50:47.840
We have more jobs right now in the United States.
00:50:51.160
More people are working right now in the United States than at any time in the history of our country.
00:50:58.960
So we'll have the help of, you know, mechanical help, if you want to call it that.
00:51:08.580
They'll make they'll do better than they ever did.
00:51:11.300
OK, Mr. President, some may have been expecting a different kind of announcement today,
00:51:16.520
hearing your secretary of war and secretary of state here.
00:51:19.220
You mentioned strikes on land in Venezuela more than 15 times, even now, just in your recent remarks.
00:51:25.660
Why should Maduro take your threats serious, seriously?
00:51:36.320
I mean, we have a massive armada formed, the biggest we've ever had and by far the biggest
00:51:50.000
If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it'll be the last time he's ever able to play
00:52:03.020
They sent people from mental institutions and insane asylums into the United States, just
00:52:08.340
walked right in because Biden had an open border policy.
00:52:12.620
What the Biden administration did to our country can never be forgotten.
00:52:16.280
They took in millions and millions, 25 million people over the course of four years.
00:52:21.960
Many of those people were murderers and drug dealers, prisoners, rough prisoners, 11,888
00:52:32.040
More than half of them killed more than one person.
00:52:50.460
Venezuela took advantage of the open borders that Biden created more than any other country.
00:52:59.520
Look, I mean, you have a very weak governor in Colorado.
00:53:02.020
Look what happened in Colorado, where they would occupy apartment houses.
00:53:06.260
And he didn't want to do anything about it because he was scared.
00:53:14.100
So in response to the United States taking sanctioned oil from Venezuela,
00:53:18.560
Colombian President Gustavo Petro criticized the United States by saying,
00:53:22.700
well, the Southwest has stolen land and that it should be returned to Latin America.
00:53:26.220
I just wanted to know what your response to that is.
00:53:27.800
Well, he has to watch because, you know, he's got drug factories.
00:53:39.080
And he's got to watch his ass because he makes cocaine and they send it into the United States of America from Colombia.
00:54:00.100
They have at least three major cocaine factories.
00:54:07.200
By the way, it's made and sold into the United States.
00:54:11.800
You've named Governor Landry to be a new special envoy to Greenland.
00:54:14.720
How do you what do you see that role entailing?
00:54:16.560
And is it still your intention that Greenland become part of the U.S.?
00:54:19.080
Well, he called me and, you know, he viewed Louisiana, the Louisiana Purchase.
00:54:38.480
They have a very small population and I don't know.
00:54:41.940
They say Denmark, but Denmark has spent no money.
00:54:47.120
They say that Denmark was there 300 years ago or something with a boat.
00:55:00.580
We need Greenland for national security, not for minerals.
00:55:04.260
We had some we have so many sites for minerals and oil and everything.
00:55:07.160
We have more oil than any other country in the world.
00:55:12.740
And if you take a look at Greenland, you look up and down the coast, you have Russian and
00:55:23.960
So we're making him, Marco, today a special envoy to Greenland.
00:55:30.380
On Ukraine, can you give an update on the talks that took place this past weekend and could
00:55:35.620
a trilateral discussion of sort be the next step for Ukrainian, U.S. and Russian delegation?
00:55:40.360
So the talks on Ukraine, Russia are going along.
00:55:42.940
They lost, as you know, 27,000 soldiers last month.
00:55:54.700
And I say that, you know, there's tremendous hatred between these two leaders.
00:55:58.360
Between President Putin, President Zelensky, tremendous hatred.
00:56:15.260
But I think, Marco, we have that in pretty good shape to have that stopped.
00:56:21.180
And I thought this would be in the middle of the pack.
00:56:25.960
But there's a lot of hatred between those two people.
00:56:40.180
We stopped a potential nuclear war between Pakistan and India.
00:56:44.160
And the head of Pakistan, highly respected general.
00:56:52.320
And also the prime minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved 10 million lives, maybe more, by getting that war.
00:57:02.400
And he actually said the other day that President Trump saved 10 million lives, maybe more.
00:57:11.060
The only one I haven't solved yet is Russia and Ukraine.
00:57:14.740
Are you still working for the Christmas Day deadline with Russia and Ukraine?
00:57:18.600
And have you spoken with Putin or Zelensky or plan to push the deal?
00:57:24.000
Look, we don't lose any money in that war anymore.
00:57:29.840
We now sell missiles, planes, all of the best military equipment.
00:57:36.080
We got NATO to go from 2 percent GDP to 5 percent.
00:57:41.720
Nobody's going to write that, but nobody believed it.
00:57:44.480
And they take that money and they pay it to the United States for weapons.
00:57:53.700
And NATO takes those weapons and probably distributes them, but gives a lot of them to Ukraine.
00:58:01.000
So we're not, we don't lose any money like we did with Biden.
00:58:17.820
You remember at the beginning of that whole thing, I gave them javelins.
00:58:24.220
And President Obama at the time gave them sheets.
00:58:31.880
But you know, the bottom line, it's time for, I think they're all tired of that war.
00:58:39.500
The U.S. was in active pursuit of a sanctioned oil tanker yesterday.
00:58:43.380
Are you able to share what became of that tanker?
00:58:46.340
No, it's moving along and we'll end up getting it.
00:58:54.440
It came out of Venezuela and it was sanctioned.
00:58:58.040
Is it a goal in Venezuela to force Maduro from power?
00:59:10.240
Look, Venezuela did terrible things to the United States.
00:59:15.320
They sent hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people into our open border.
00:59:26.220
They sent their mentally insane and incompetent people into our country more than any other country.
00:59:35.260
And we just let them come right in because we were run by a stupid president.
00:59:43.280
Mr. President, have you set up the meeting with the health care insurers just yet?
00:59:49.020
I think we're going to meet with health care, the health care insurers, the insurance companies.
00:59:54.260
So what I'm asking for in health care is very simple.
01:00:03.780
They're going to have a tremendous increase in premiums, which is Obamacare, which is them, the Democrats' fault.
01:00:12.300
So what I want to do is we spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year that go to insurance companies.
01:00:19.760
I want that money to go to the people and let the people buy their own health care.
01:00:29.300
Now, before I do that, I'll meet with the insurance companies, just as I met with the drug companies, as you know.
01:00:35.960
We're meeting with four other drug companies, Johnson & Johnson, but they've all agreed.
01:00:41.840
We're passing the baton over on RAV to John Solomon and Justin News.
01:00:45.620
We're going to continue on the War Room channel here.
01:00:49.180
We're going to continue the press conference, and Captain Fennell, Natalie Winters, will join us immediately after the president answers questions.
01:00:58.900
I don't think any other president ever tried to get it because they never thought they could.
01:01:02.840
But with respect to the insurance companies, I want to meet.
01:01:06.880
There's essentially 14 of them, 10 big, but there's a total of 14 pretty much, oh, pretty big.
01:01:13.060
And I want to meet with them, and I want to say, I want you to cut your rates way down, way, way down.
01:01:17.480
And maybe if they do that, we'll be able to not cut them out.
01:01:21.540
We'll be able to continue to deal with them, which is probably a little easier process.