Trump Speaks To CEOs At Business Roundtable Amidst Stock Market Volatility

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President Trump speaks at the Business Roundtable Quarterly Meeting.

Transcript

00:00for a conversation with Chuck Robbins of Cisco.

00:05I'm delighted to ask you to join me in welcoming back

00:09to the Business Roundtable the President of the United States.

00:38Thank you very much.

00:39It's a good group out there.

00:42That's a good guy.

00:42Don't get better, actually.

00:45Thank you very much.

00:46Mr. President, thank you for being here.

00:48Thank you for coming back to the Business Roundtable.

00:50We're very honored that you would agree to accept our

00:53invitation in the first BRT meeting after your

00:56inauguration.

00:57That's true.

00:58Actually, that's true.

00:59And I have a lot of friends in the audience.

01:01A couple that I don't like particularly much, but for

01:05the most part, very good.

01:06And as we were talking about backstage, this is

01:11the largest attendance that we've ever had at a

01:15Business Roundtable meeting.

01:16Well, it's a great honor.

01:19So, if you don't mind, we'll jump in.

01:21Okay.

01:22So, first of all, congratulations on the

01:25ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia today.

01:27That was hugely significant, as you know.

01:32Well, it's Ukraine, but we hope to get Russia.

01:34It turned out to be the — you know, I've been

01:38saying that Russia has been easier to deal with so

01:40far than Ukraine, which is not supposed to be the way

01:43it is, but it is.

01:44And we hope to get Russia.

01:47But we have a full ceasefire from Ukraine.

01:49That's good.

01:50That's very good.

01:51And then this — the people in this room — and we're

01:53going to tie this back together — the people in

01:55this room obviously are very interested in all the

01:56conversations going on around trade and tariffs

01:59that are important here.

02:01And then you've also had a large-scale effort to root

02:03out wasteful spending in the federal government.

02:06And I believe there's a thread that kind of ties

02:08all that together, and I'm just curious if you could

02:10share with us what that is.

02:12Well, it's basically make America great again.

02:15We have a bloated, very dishonest, in many cases,

02:20federal government and bureaucracy that's been a

02:24long time coming.

02:25Somebody should have done this many years ago.

02:27And we're cutting numbers that, you know, nobody's

02:30ever seen before.

02:32Doge, as we call it, affectionately — you've

02:35been all hearing that term a lot.

02:38Elon's been doing, really, a fantastic job.

02:40He suffers a little bit because of it.

02:43People go after him.

02:44But actually, if you — I think, in the end, it'll

02:47maybe reverse itself and be just the opposite.

02:49That's happened before.

02:51There's people that — they tend to go after one

02:56group or another, but basically it's the other.

02:57You have — they go after conservatives, and when

03:01somebody stands up and fights, it ends up —

03:03their business ends up doubling.

03:06You can see that.

03:06Just a little example.

03:07Goya Foods, he was just a wonderful man — the owner

03:11and family, and largely Hispanic foods.

03:16And they went after him because he supported me.

03:18And this was the end of the first term.

03:23And he fought back, and it ended up that he ended up

03:26tripling his business.

03:27And it's, today, a much bigger business than it

03:30was before.

03:31And there are many examples of that.

03:32And maybe it's going to be that way with Elon.

03:35When I saw what was happening with his, you

03:37know, the concerted effort by paid — I think they're

03:39paid agitators.

03:42And when I saw what was happening, I said, I want

03:44to buy a Tesla.

03:47And we just went to the front.

03:49He had four beautiful cars there.

03:52And I bought one in front of the press.

03:55It was a very public purchase.

03:59And they're beautiful and do a great job.

04:01Very good competitors with Mary and everybody else.

04:04You know, he's done a great job.

04:06And he shouldn't be sacrificed or have to

04:08suffer because he wants to help government.

04:11It's not that he's a Republican, which he's,

04:13you know, not strong.

04:15I mean, I don't — sometimes, I'm not even

04:16sure what he is, in terms of his philosophies.

04:20But he's a great guy.

04:21He's a patriot.

04:22He wants to see the country straightened out.

04:25And he's done a fantastic job with those.

04:27We've found massive fraud, abuse, waste.

04:32And we had many, many jobs where there was nobody

04:35working but getting a check.

04:37We had contracts that expired years ago, but

04:41they were continuously being paid.

04:44Probably — I'll bet you it's $500 billion,

04:48perhaps, if you add it up so far.

04:51And we're trying to get to a trillion dollars.

04:53That's a big — that's a big number.

04:55And he did have an ability to do something that a

04:58lot of people didn't think of.

04:59He'd come in with bigger ideas.

05:02We'd say, we want you to cut down the size of your

05:05agency by 2 percent.

05:07And we thought that was good.

05:09He came in.

05:09He said, 80 percent.

05:10I said, what the hell is going on?

05:12Eighty percent.

05:14And largely — and we had to do it carefully, and

05:17we had some little hiccups, not big hiccups.

05:21But we saved a tremendous amount of money for the future.

05:23This is going into the future.

05:26And in some cases, it would be 80, and in some

05:28cases, it would be 5 percent or 2 percent or 3

05:30percent, you know, depending on the agency.

05:33But — and you can almost — you're all great

05:36professionals atop, and you can almost look at some

05:39of the agencies and see which ones had to be cut

05:42and which ones didn't, also in terms of their

05:44importance and in terms of being current.

05:48So we saved a tremendous amount of money.

05:50And I think, you know, it's — I don't know if

05:51it's going to reach a trillion, but it's going

05:53to reach a lot.

05:54And it was an honor to have Michael there yesterday.

05:57You got to see a little bit of it.

05:58We had a conference.

06:00And a lot of investment coming into our country,

06:03much more than I've ever seen.

06:06Apple is investing $500 billion.

06:09IBM was with us yesterday, and they're investing a lot.

06:12Just companies all over.

06:14I could name them.

06:14You've read most of them, many of them.

06:17But hundreds of billions of dollars is being invested.

06:20That wouldn't have happened if I didn't win the election,

06:22number one.

06:23And I think, number two, the tariffs are having a

06:25tremendously positive impact.

06:28They will have, and they are having.

06:30We have car companies that are not building in Mexico.

06:33Now they're building in the United States.

06:35Some of them, the plants were already started,

06:37and they stopped construction, and now

06:39they're going to build in the United States.

06:41It was very unfair.

06:42They'd build in Mexico and sell them across the

06:45border with no tax, no nothing.

06:46They'd take away our jobs.

06:47They'd close up places in Michigan and all over the

06:49country, and they'd build them in Mexico.

06:52In many cases, they were owned by China — built

06:54in Mexico, owned by China.

06:56And that's all stopped now.

06:58They're all coming — they're all coming here.

07:02Honda is building a massive plant in different places

07:06— Indiana, South Carolina, but also in Michigan.

07:11A lot in Michigan.

07:12A lot of activity is happening.

07:14They're looking all over the place for places.

07:16And that's because there is a good spirit.

07:19There's a renewed spirit.

07:20And also, very importantly, the tariffs are — they

07:24don't want to pay 25 percent or whatever it may be.

07:27It may go up higher.

07:28It may go up higher.

07:29Look, the higher it goes, the more likely it is

07:31they're going to build.

07:32And ultimately, the biggest win is not the tariff.

07:36That's a big win.

07:36That's a lot of money.

07:38But the biggest win is if they move into our

07:40country and produce jobs.

07:41That's a bigger win than the tariffs themselves.

07:44But the tariffs are going to be throwing off a lot of

07:47money to this country.

07:49And we've been ripped off for years by other

07:51countries — many, many decades.

07:53And they were doing the same thing.

07:55But I think we'll do it better.

07:56And I think we have a bigger advantage because

07:58we really are the piggy bank.

07:59They weren't.

08:00The Press Thank you, Mr. President.

08:04You've also mentioned rebuilding the American

08:05—

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