Trump Takes Questions From Reporters After Touring Federal Reserve Renovation Project

Forbes Breaking News

President Trump holds a press briefing outside the Federal Reserve renovation project.

Transcript

00:00well thank you very much everybody and it feels very good actually to be back on the construction

00:21site you know if you remember not so long ago we rebuilt the old post office into the trump

00:29hotel and we sold it to waldorf astoria and it was a great success and we had great luck with the

00:36building we did a good job we built it quickly and relatively inexpensively for about 200 million

00:42dollars and that was a big hotel big big project but uh we looked around and tim scott's here

00:49someplace him come on up uh just uh you saw what we saw and the big thing is to get it done they

00:57have to get it done they have to get it finished and very importantly we have to get interest rates

01:02lowered in our country our country is the hottest in the world right now but the one section people

01:07are pretty much unable to buy housing yes because the interest rates are too high we have no inflation

01:13we have a lot of cash coming in the tariffs have been unbelievable now people that didn't even

01:19believe in tariffs are saying what a great move that was we have hundreds of billions of dollars

01:23coming in japan just on one deal is paying us 550 billion dollars and they opened up their economy

01:30it's incredible the deal and uh and they're happy we're happy everybody's happy but uh we should have

01:37the lowest interest rate of any country and we don't we should have every point is worth 365 billion

01:45dollars so we want to get the rates down but we also want to get the fed building finished

01:50so i met with the contractors we toured it with the chairman and we had a very good tour and uh we'll

01:57talk to you about it sometime but uh tim and i uh we sort of understand what happened

02:02too expensive bottom line is this that americans deserve to become first-time homebuyers president

02:08trump has created the best economy in the world the one thing that would make it better is lower

02:13interest rates full employment is even more possible wages rise faster as interest rates come down when

02:19your employment is at 4.1 percent because of your leadership we have revenues coming in at record

02:24breaking maybe last month even more revenue coming in than bills going out which is remarkable they

02:30found 25 26 billion dollars they said where did that come from nobody i think that's been many many

02:36decades since that happened i can't remember that they found 26 billion last month and they said where

02:41did that come from i said why don't you try the tariffs said it was true we took in hunt we're taking in

02:46hundreds of billions of dollars and our country is doing great and we have no inflation and the

02:51numbers the job everything is good the one thing we have to do is get housing prices down and the

02:57interest rates down so people can buy the house because they're all making money but they can't get the

03:01uh the interest rate down we have to amen right and he's been my friend for a long time number of

03:08construction sites did you see this management going on or funds that aren't well i see a very

03:13luxurious situation taking place let's put it that way and i was given a very nice tour by the head of

03:20construction and you know look if you look over here they're trying to open up the basement when you

03:26open up a basement first of all it's the worst space always a basement is the worst space in a building

03:31and it's also the most expensive space to build and especially here because you have a water line you

03:36know you they're going down into the water so they have to build a reverse what's called a reverse

03:41bathtub the water has to be kept out it's very expensive construction so uh it would have been

03:46good if they didn't build it would have been good if they didn't do certain other things if if you look

03:51at the uh kind of protection in the hall have you been able to get in the hall you saw the protection

03:56of plywood i mean that was a lot of money just to protect it for a period of time uh i would have done

04:03it very gingerly and easily and not have to spend you know millions of dollars on protection

04:08and there are things that could have been different look look there's always monday morning quarterbacks

04:12i don't want to be that uh i want to help them get it finished it's been going on for years

04:17and i want to help them get it finished and what we really want to do and i think i can speak for tim

04:22and i think i can speak for the entire senate we can uh speak for everybody frankly is we want to

04:29see interest rates come down our country is booming and the interest rates is a final little notch and

04:35if you look at europe they've lowered 11 times 11 times in a short period of time we've lowered zero

04:42and you know they are competition although we're in the process of probably making a very good deal

04:49with them too they're they want to make a deal very badly very badly so we're making a deal we just

04:55completed our deal with indonesia we just completed our deal with the philippines we're making

05:00unbelievable deals and the money is pouring in we want to get interest rates but on interest rates at

05:06some point does the level of interest rates now slow economic growth uh yeah it never helps it if it's

05:13high never helps it well it's already as good as we're doing think of how well would we do it would

05:19be like a rocket ship as good as we're doing we do better if we had lower interest rates and we should

05:25we're prime don't forget without us the whole world collapses so we should have the lowest interest rate

05:31because you know you can talk about switzerland you can talk about wonderful countries no debt no

05:35but without us everything collapses we should have the lowest interest rate and if you took it down three

05:42points not a little bit but three points if you got us down to one we would save more than a trillion

05:49dollars basically with just a paper transfer you wouldn't be cutting costs of anything you wouldn't

05:54be building anything just a a move of the hand saying we're going to lower interest rates you would save a

06:02trillion dollars a year and there's there's nothing you can do to save that kind of money so so well we we had a

06:11little talk about it and i thought it was a very productive talk uh he'll be able to tell you at

06:17his next meeting but i will say that he did say the country is doing really well and the country is

06:24really doing well yeah please go ahead how would you describe your talk with him to say that the energy

06:29was tense no i didn't think it was tense no i thought we had a good meeting i really know there was no

06:36tension there was no tension i think he had more tension with uh on my great senator to the

06:41right he's pretty tough cookie he was uh you might say well i mean the bottom line is we we had an

06:47honest candid conversation about some of the overruns at this building we had it in my banking committee

06:53and he said we were wrong and turns out we were right thank god president trump and his team took

06:57enough time to dig into some of the details and the details are clear we need to get this project done

07:03we would like to keep it where it is or a little lower but at the end of the day the point is that

07:07instead of talking about interest rates instead of talking about first-time homebuyers instead of

07:12talking about the heat in our economy that's a good thing we're talking about an overrun on the federal

07:18reserve building as opposed to the federal reserve objective of lowering and keeping our economy full

07:23you know as an example they built parking spots under a building next door really expensive that's very

07:30expensive when you're starting to build parking lots underground parking lots that's a very expensive

07:35uh thing a lot of people i know they park their car and they walk a block or two blocks or something

07:42but it is a very expensive thing but that is what it is and that's okay

07:46look uh i i would love to see it completed i don't want to put that in this category

08:00it's a very uh complex thing that could have been made simple i built a great hotel and the great

08:10hotel that everybody in this group knows very well it's called the old post office and it's a much

08:15bigger project than this and i spent 200 million dollars building it and it was down it was taken

08:21down to the steel for the most part taken down you know you've seen it go up and i built it quickly

08:26and i built it for 200 million dollars a much bigger job than this spent 200 million and it's

08:31got marble bathrooms the top fixtures the best of everything all brand new so you know this is a very

08:37expensive job i don't know it got out of control and that happens that happens it's a shame

08:42you negotiate on auto tariffs your auto tariffs no i'm not negotiating on auto terms

08:48does the eu looking at 15 percent like japan well it depends japan what japan did is they brought down

08:54their tariffs they gave us 300 550 billion dollars because they didn't want to pay 20 they were 28

09:00percent and they gave us 550 billion dollars up front 100 500 we get 90 they get 10 90 they get 10

09:10and there's no payment it's not a loan or anything it's a it's a signing bonus i call it but they gave

09:17us 550 billion and took down the tariffs a little bit and then they agreed to open their economy to

09:23everybody this was not easy this took you know a lot of people walked out of rooms and things sometimes

09:28they walked out of rooms went back to japan i said where are they they went back to japan and then they

09:33called and they said can we make a deal they came back a couple of times this happened this was as you know

09:38it was over a period of months and uh ultimately they agreed to open their economy now the opening

09:45of the economy is worth more than 550 billion dollars the payment that they made it's worth more

09:51so between that and the payment we reduced it down to 15 percent but they were at about 28 percent and

09:57then they they bought it down basically but could other countries buy it yeah i would let other countries

10:02buy it down i feel good about it i mean look i have one dispute and the dispute there could be

10:12some things with money and you know uh where it comes from how it's come from uh how it's uh printed

10:18where it's printed all of the standard things with the fed but i just want to see one thing happen very

10:24simple interest rates have to come down if the interest rates don't come down we're knocking it out of

10:30the park with high interest rates if interest rates come down then that final little element

10:35kicks in that's housing and and the sad part is that people wonderful young people young couples

10:41starting off they can't get a mortgage because the rates are too high tim knows that better than

10:45anybody i think mr president if the rates are hurting families in the country why let that keep going for

10:50another eight months why not just fire because to do that is a big move and i just don't think it's

10:55necessary and i believe that he's going to do the right thing i believe that the chairman is going

11:02to do the right thing i mean it may be a little too late as the expression goes but i believe he's

11:07going to do the right thing the fact is it's it's so big what's taking place in america where the king

11:14of saudi arabia says you have the hottest country anywhere in the world and i thought you were dead

11:19one year ago i thought we were dead i just left nato as you know they're agreeing to pay five

11:24percent we're not paying anything we send them the equipment they pay for 100 of everything now for

11:29the war ukraine but i just left nato and every one of those leaders said every country they said and

11:37and very smart country very success you know very successful countries frankly and every one of them

11:43said you have the hottest country in the world we did that over a period of a year

11:47less than a year i mean if you think i mean less they say a year ago we were dead

11:52and today so i'm here six months and we did it over and we had the help of men like this and people

11:57like standing right behind me they're great they're great professionals they really are they're great

12:02professionals and in a short period of time we made it the hottest country in the world with all of

12:07that being said we'd like to see we can always do better and we can do better if interest rates come down

12:12that's right good job you do you do a nice job i watch you a lot thank you i appreciate that mr

12:17president do you have a name in mind to replace the chairman i do one person two people maybe three

12:24any clues i'd pick him but i think he's not leaving the senate no sir we're not i'd pick him

12:28no there's no pressure no we want to have you know his term comes up soon uh i think he's going

12:40to do the right thing everybody knows what the right thing is even people that believed in you

12:44know the higher rates they're all on board they all want to see the interest rates come down it's very

12:49important mr president he doesn't do the right thing in cutting interest rates as he said i don't

12:54think we're going to do that i don't i don't think so yeah that's a terrible thing the uh i have great

13:03respect for tulsi and the documents they found on president obama frankly it was an obama thing but it

13:10was the people that worked under him also working with him and no it's a very very serious thing thank you

13:20mr president on doha what was the final straw for his negotiator to pull out thank you very much

13:27right this way straight to cars you're welcome straight to cars

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