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Trump's Remarks in Roundtable Discussion on Fighting for America's Seniors
Book: Trump Mocked Father’s Battle With Alzheimer’sREMARKS
Remarks by President Trump in Roundtable Discussion on Fighting for America’s Seniors
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: June 15, 2020
Cabinet Room
2:40 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Okay, thank you very much. Today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and we’re here to discuss our ironclad commitment to protecting and caring for America’s seniors.
We’re joined by Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson — who, by the way, was fantastic over the weekend in various interviews you did, Ben. Really good job, I appreciate it. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie, Administrator Seema Verma, Chief Postal Inspector of the United States Postal Inspection Service Gary Barksdale. And Gary has done a great job, especially with spotting drugs coming into our country. He’s done a fantastic job.
My administration is working tirelessly to stop the depraved criminals who seek to defraud American seniors, of which there are many. But we are doing a very strong number on a lot of them, and nobody has ever done what we’ve done.
snip
Seema? Please.
ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Thank you. Well, from day one, the President has made his commitment to the Medicare program absolutely clear. And like few Presidents before him, he’s always understood the pressing need to modernize the program and also make it more affordable for seniors.
{snip}
You also heard the President talk about the insulin program: $35 for insulin, going forward. I had an opportunity to travel with the Vice President last — last week, and we ran into a gentleman at Dave’s Diner in Pennsylvania, and he came up to us and he showed us his insulin and he said, “You know, I need this for my survival.” And because of the President’s leadership, he said, “I’m going to save $5,000 a year.” So he was really excited, and I think that shows how much the President has delivered to our seniors.
{snip}
So, thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, Seema, very much. Thank you. Great job.
Kellyanne? Please.
{snip}
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q Mr. President, the House Republicans today, they’re asking you to reverse your decision on terminating the relationship with the WHO. Would you consider that?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know. I have to see what they’re asking. I have no idea what they’re asking.
Q It was after an investigation. And they say that —
THE PRESIDENT: I have — I have no idea what they’re asking.
Q — the United States could change back their position as a member.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’ll take a look at it. The World Health Organization has been very disappointing. To the world, they’ve been disappointing. And we, as you know, paid $450 million and close to $500 million on some years. But for years and years, we paid far more than anybody else. And they’ve been a puppet of China.
And — so, no, I’m not reconsidering, unless they get their act together, and I’m not sure they can at this point. But, maybe, certainly over the years, they might. But they have been a disaster. They were wrong on every call, including when I said we’re going to close up the United States to people coming in from China, where China was heavily infected at that time and possibly still is.
And I closed it, and that was a wise decision. There were a lot of people, even on the other side — the enemy; we’ll call them the enemy — they said that was an incredible decision. “I don’t know how Trump made that decision, but he made that decision,” and we saved thousands of lives — hundreds of thousands of lives.
Yeah, go ahead.
Q Mr. President, I —
Q Mr. President, just on a separate issue —
THE PRESIDENT: No, no, behind you, please.
Q I apologize.
Q Mr. President, can you say why you’re suing John Bolton to prevent publishing his book?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t know. I’d have to ask the Attorney General. But I will say, if he’s doing a book, I think it’s totally inappropriate that he does a book.
I think — the guy, I gave him a break. He couldn’t get Senate-confirmed. He was never Senate-confirmed the first time. I don’t think he’s supposed to even be calling himself an ambassador because he couldn’t get Senate-confirmed. He got in through a little trick, and he was there for a fairly short period of time.
I put him here because he couldn’t get Senate-confirmed. This was a non-Senate-confirmed position, as you know. He stayed for a short while, and I felt that it was not appropriate that he stay any longer. I wasn’t impressed.
And somebody said he went out and wrote a book. If he wrote a book — I can’t imagine that he can because that’s highly classified information. Even conversations with me, they’re highly classified. I told that to the Attorney General before. I will consider every conversation with me, as President, highly classified.
So that would mean that if he wrote a book and if the — the book gets out, he’s broken the law. And I would think that he would have criminal problems. I hope so. Otherwise — I mean, they put a sailor in jail because he sent a photograph of his bed and an engine of an old submarine. And this guy is writing — writing things about conversations or about anything, and maybe he’s not telling the truth. He’s been known not to tell the truth a lot.
So we’ll have to see what the book is all about. But, you know, a lot of people are upset with him for writing a book. A lot of people are very angry with him for writing a book. But it’s up to the Attorney General.
Bill, do you have anything to say about it?
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Well, people who come to work in the government and have access to sensitive information generally sign an agreement that says that, when they leave government, if they write something that has a — that draws on or might reflect some of the information they’ve had access to, they have to go through a clearance process before they can publish the book. And we don’t believe that Bolton went through that process — hasn’t completed the process — and therefore is in violation of that agreement.
Q So what is the DOJ doing, Mr. Attorney General?
THE PRESIDENT: And that’s criminal liability, by the way. you’re talking about. You’re not talking about, like, he’s got to return three dollars that he made on a book. That’s called criminal liability. That’s a big thing. You know, Hillary Clinton, she deleted 33,000 emails. And if we ever found out what those emails say, she would’ve had a liability. That’s what you have: You have liability.
Q Could the Attorney General tell us what the DOJ is doing, in terms of the Bolton book?
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Well, there are a number of things, but the — the thing that is front and center right now is trying to get him to complete the process — go through the process and make the necessary deletions of classified information.
Q But — But the book has been published.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: No, it hasn’t.
Q Yes, it’s been published. It’s just not released yet.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Well, it’s being printed. It’s being printed.
THE PRESIDENT: Hasn’t been released.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: According to sources, it’s being printed. It hasn’t been released.
Q So are you going to court to try and stop him?
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Well, I said what we were doing was to try and get him to complete the clearance process that’s required.
Q His — his lawyer says that he thought that they had completed the process for the changes after that first iteration.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Yeah. He — he hasn’t completed the process.
THE PRESIDENT: He never completed the process. He knew that.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: And this is unprecedented, really, becau- — I don’t know if any book that’s been published so quickly while, you know, the office holders are still in — in government and it’s about very current events and current leaders and current discussions and current policy issues, which — many of which are inherently classified.
Q Have you read the book, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: I have not read it. No. I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen it, but he —
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: — he knows and he was advised not to write it. And he was advised very strongly not to write it until it’s cleared. And he couldn’t wait, and we’ll see what happens.
But I think he’s got — personally, I would imagine he has cr- — like a — when you do classified, that, to me, is a very strong criminal problem. And he knows he’s got classified information. Any conversation with me is classified. Then it becomes even worse if he lies about the conversation, which I understand he might have, in some cases. So we’ll see what happens. They’re in court or they’ll soon be in court. But he understands he did not complete a process or anywhere near complete a process.
Q On a separate foreign policy issue, sir: You’ve faced a little bit of criticism from congressional Republicans, including Representative Cheney, about your decision to withdraw troops from Germany. Are you reconsidering that at all?
THE PRESIDENT: So we have 52,000 soldiers in Germany. That’s a tremendous amount of soldiers. It’s a tremendous cost to the United States. And Germany, as you know, is very delinquent in their payments to NATO. And they’re paying 1 percent, and they’re supposed to be at 2 percent. And the 2 percent is very low; it should be much more than that. So they’re delinquent of billions of dollars, and this is for years. Delinquent. So we’re removing a number down to — we’re putting the number down to 25,000 soldiers. We’ll see what happens. But Germany has not been making payment.
In addition to that, I was the one that brought it up. Everybody talks about “Trump with Russia” — well, I brought this up a long time ago: Why is Germany paying Russia billions of dollars for energy, and then we’re supposed to protect Germany from Russia? How does that work? It doesn’t work.
So Germany is delinquent. They’ve been delinquent for years, and they owe NATO billions of dollars. And they have to pay it. So we’re protecting Germany and they’re delinquent. That doesn’t make sense. So I said, “We’re going to bring down the soldier count to 25,000 soldiers.” It varies. It’s around 52,000 now, but it varies. But it’s a lot and, as you know, those are well-paid soldiers. They live in Germany. They spend vast amounts of money in Germany. Everywhere around those bases is very prosperous for Germany. So Germany takes, and then, on top it, they treat us very badly on trade.
We have trade with the EU — and Germany being the biggest member. Very, very badly on trade. And we’re negotiating with them on that, but right now I’m not satisfied with the deal they want to make. They’ve cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars over the years on trade, so we — we get hurt on trade and we get hurt on NATO.
Now, with NATO, I’ve raised other countries $140 billion; they’re paying $140 billion more because I interceded. I said, “Look, you know, we’re protecting you. You have to pay your bills.” Because it was going like this until I got here. Now it’s gone like a rocket ship. But one of the only countries that hasn’t agreed to pay what they’re supposed to pay is Germany. So I said, “Until they pay, we’re removing our soldiers — a number of our soldiers by about half.” And then, when we get down to 25,000, we’ll see where we’re going.
But Germany has been delinquent. And why should we be doing what we’re doing if they don’t pay? And they’re supposed to pay. And the number they’re supposed to pay, actually, at 2 percent — the 2 percent should be higher. And we’re also talking about for many years. This isn’t a new phenomenon. This has going on for many years, where they’ve taken advantage of the United States.
But everybody has — under Biden and under Obama. What they’ve done to this country is unbelievable. And I’m not only talking about Germany, by the way; I’m talking about plenty of other countries.
But NATO now is paying $140 billion more. If you look at Secretary — the Secretary General, who’s terrific — Stoltenberg — he’s been terrific. He’s probably my biggest fan. He said, “Nobody else could’ve done what Trump did,” because I raised the other countries by $140 billion. Because we end up paying the difference; the United States pays the difference to protect Europe.
So we protect them and then they take advantage of us on trade for many, many years. We’re not talking about now. Less so now. For many years. So we’re working on a deal with them, but it’s — it’s very unfair. And I would say, by far, the worst abuser is Germany.
Q Mr. President, you said last week, on Seattle, that if the Mayor of Seattle or the Governor of Washington didn’t take steps to end the occupation of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, you would step in and you would do something. They —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. One hundred percent.
Q They still haven’t ended it. They’re negotiating. Are you considering taking action?
THE PRESIDENT: They’re not negotiating. You know what they’re negotiating? Garbage removal. They’re nego- — these people have taken over a vast part, a major part, a very good part of a place called Seattle. Seattle is big stuff. That’s a major city. And we have a governor who’s a stiff, and we have a mayor who said, “Oh, this going to be a lovefest.”
And, by the way, these are violent people that took it over. These are not people that are nice people. I saw on your network today, John — I saw what went on with the hitting and the punching and the beating and all the other things going on in Seattle.
And you have a governor that doesn’t do a damn thing about it. And you have a mayor that doesn’t know she’s alive. She’s talking about, “It’s going to be a lovefest this summer.” No, if they don’t do the job, I’ll do the job, and I’ve already spoken to the Attorney General about it.
But if they don’t do the job, we will do the job.
Q What can you do?
THE PRESIDENT: About 10 different things. Eith- — any one of which will solve the problem quickly.
Q Could we go through a whole list or a partial list?
THE PRESIDENT: We don’t have to go through any list. We can do a lot of things.
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s incredible also that the radical-left press doesn’t cover it. They’re acting like nothing happened. You turn on the news, you look at the news, you look — you don’t even see stories about them. If the right ever took over a city, conservative Republicans took over a city, it would be the biggest story in history. You can’t even find stories about Seattle. It’s incredible.
Q How much longer will you wait?
THE PRESIDENT: They’ve taken over — we’ll see. They ta- — I’ll tell you what: The American public is very angered by that. Seattle is a major, important city. And the Democrats — I guess you can say “radical left,” but it’s not even radical left; it’s just Democrat. Where we have a problem are Democrat-run cities.
If you look at Minneapolis, if you look at other cities that have had trouble, they’re Democrat in virtually every case that I can think of. I can’t think of one other case. These are Democrat-run cities. Minneapolis where the police are told to run — “Run. Run for your lives. Don’t do anything.” And if I didn’t get involved and send in the National Guard — and it was at my insistence that they did that. And as soon as I did that, everything stopped in Minneapolis — four days, five days later.
Q Is there a timeline that you’re thinking here — Seattle?
THE PRESIDENT: No, there is no timeline. We’re watching it very closely. These are violent people that are dealing violently. And I think what we’d — what I like to see before we do something, I’d like to see the press get in and cover it because they’re not — it’s not that they’re covering it badly. They’re hardly covering at all.
Think of this: A group — Antifa and others, radical lefts — they went into a major U.S. city, Seattle, and they took over a big percentage of that city. And the press doesn’t want to cover it. And we have a mayor who is scared stiff. She doesn’t know what’s happening. We have a governor that is one of the most overrated politicians in the country. He just ran for President. He got less than 1 percent. He actually, probably — I would’ve said less than zero, but I’m not sure that’s possible. He got nothing. He got no votes. Nothing. He — in the whole thing the guy was out there fighting. At the end, he got zero. Right? Zero.
So he failed. And now he goes back, and they take over a city, and he doesn’t say anything about it. Worse: He said he didn’t hear — a day later, he said, “I never — I didn’t hear anything about it.” They took over his city, Seattle, and he said, “I didn’t hear anything about it.”
So, look, the governor has to call out the troops, do what he has to do — has to call out the National Guard, has to do something. Because, you know, the problem with what happened in Seattle is it spreads. And all of a sudden, they’ll say, “Let’s do some other city, and let’s do another one.” And we’re not going to let it happen.
So, timing-wise — hey, we’re all set to go. We’re watching the process. But the most amazing thing about the process is how the fake news media doesn’t want to cover it. To me, that’s the most amazing thing.
Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Q (Inaudible) Saturday night, sir? About the rally?
THE PRESIDENT: Saturday night will be a big night. That’s a big night, and I hope you’re all going to be there. It’s going to be very big. Thank you.
END
3:48 P.M. EDT
Remarks by President Trump in Roundtable Discussion on Fighting for America’s Seniors
HEALTHCARE
Issued on: June 15, 2020
Cabinet Room
2:40 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Okay, thank you very much. Today is World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, and we’re here to discuss our ironclad commitment to protecting and caring for America’s seniors.
We’re joined by Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson — who, by the way, was fantastic over the weekend in various interviews you did, Ben. Really good job, I appreciate it. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie, Administrator Seema Verma, Chief Postal Inspector of the United States Postal Inspection Service Gary Barksdale. And Gary has done a great job, especially with spotting drugs coming into our country. He’s done a fantastic job.
My administration is working tirelessly to stop the depraved criminals who seek to defraud American seniors, of which there are many. But we are doing a very strong number on a lot of them, and nobody has ever done what we’ve done.
snip
Seema? Please.
ADMINISTRATOR VERMA: Thank you. Well, from day one, the President has made his commitment to the Medicare program absolutely clear. And like few Presidents before him, he’s always understood the pressing need to modernize the program and also make it more affordable for seniors.
{snip}
You also heard the President talk about the insulin program: $35 for insulin, going forward. I had an opportunity to travel with the Vice President last — last week, and we ran into a gentleman at Dave’s Diner in Pennsylvania, and he came up to us and he showed us his insulin and he said, “You know, I need this for my survival.” And because of the President’s leadership, he said, “I’m going to save $5,000 a year.” So he was really excited, and I think that shows how much the President has delivered to our seniors.
{snip}
So, thank you, Mr. President, for your leadership.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you, Seema, very much. Thank you. Great job.
Kellyanne? Please.
{snip}
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q Mr. President, the House Republicans today, they’re asking you to reverse your decision on terminating the relationship with the WHO. Would you consider that?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know. I have to see what they’re asking. I have no idea what they’re asking.
Q It was after an investigation. And they say that —
THE PRESIDENT: I have — I have no idea what they’re asking.
Q — the United States could change back their position as a member.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’ll take a look at it. The World Health Organization has been very disappointing. To the world, they’ve been disappointing. And we, as you know, paid $450 million and close to $500 million on some years. But for years and years, we paid far more than anybody else. And they’ve been a puppet of China.
And — so, no, I’m not reconsidering, unless they get their act together, and I’m not sure they can at this point. But, maybe, certainly over the years, they might. But they have been a disaster. They were wrong on every call, including when I said we’re going to close up the United States to people coming in from China, where China was heavily infected at that time and possibly still is.
And I closed it, and that was a wise decision. There were a lot of people, even on the other side — the enemy; we’ll call them the enemy — they said that was an incredible decision. “I don’t know how Trump made that decision, but he made that decision,” and we saved thousands of lives — hundreds of thousands of lives.
Yeah, go ahead.
Q Mr. President, I —
Q Mr. President, just on a separate issue —
THE PRESIDENT: No, no, behind you, please.
Q I apologize.
Q Mr. President, can you say why you’re suing John Bolton to prevent publishing his book?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don’t know. I’d have to ask the Attorney General. But I will say, if he’s doing a book, I think it’s totally inappropriate that he does a book.
I think — the guy, I gave him a break. He couldn’t get Senate-confirmed. He was never Senate-confirmed the first time. I don’t think he’s supposed to even be calling himself an ambassador because he couldn’t get Senate-confirmed. He got in through a little trick, and he was there for a fairly short period of time.
I put him here because he couldn’t get Senate-confirmed. This was a non-Senate-confirmed position, as you know. He stayed for a short while, and I felt that it was not appropriate that he stay any longer. I wasn’t impressed.
And somebody said he went out and wrote a book. If he wrote a book — I can’t imagine that he can because that’s highly classified information. Even conversations with me, they’re highly classified. I told that to the Attorney General before. I will consider every conversation with me, as President, highly classified.
So that would mean that if he wrote a book and if the — the book gets out, he’s broken the law. And I would think that he would have criminal problems. I hope so. Otherwise — I mean, they put a sailor in jail because he sent a photograph of his bed and an engine of an old submarine. And this guy is writing — writing things about conversations or about anything, and maybe he’s not telling the truth. He’s been known not to tell the truth a lot.
So we’ll have to see what the book is all about. But, you know, a lot of people are upset with him for writing a book. A lot of people are very angry with him for writing a book. But it’s up to the Attorney General.
Bill, do you have anything to say about it?
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Well, people who come to work in the government and have access to sensitive information generally sign an agreement that says that, when they leave government, if they write something that has a — that draws on or might reflect some of the information they’ve had access to, they have to go through a clearance process before they can publish the book. And we don’t believe that Bolton went through that process — hasn’t completed the process — and therefore is in violation of that agreement.
Q So what is the DOJ doing, Mr. Attorney General?
THE PRESIDENT: And that’s criminal liability, by the way. you’re talking about. You’re not talking about, like, he’s got to return three dollars that he made on a book. That’s called criminal liability. That’s a big thing. You know, Hillary Clinton, she deleted 33,000 emails. And if we ever found out what those emails say, she would’ve had a liability. That’s what you have: You have liability.
Q Could the Attorney General tell us what the DOJ is doing, in terms of the Bolton book?
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Well, there are a number of things, but the — the thing that is front and center right now is trying to get him to complete the process — go through the process and make the necessary deletions of classified information.
Q But — But the book has been published.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: No, it hasn’t.
Q Yes, it’s been published. It’s just not released yet.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Well, it’s being printed. It’s being printed.
THE PRESIDENT: Hasn’t been released.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: According to sources, it’s being printed. It hasn’t been released.
Q So are you going to court to try and stop him?
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Well, I said what we were doing was to try and get him to complete the clearance process that’s required.
Q His — his lawyer says that he thought that they had completed the process for the changes after that first iteration.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: Yeah. He — he hasn’t completed the process.
THE PRESIDENT: He never completed the process. He knew that.
ATTORNEY GENERAL BARR: And this is unprecedented, really, becau- — I don’t know if any book that’s been published so quickly while, you know, the office holders are still in — in government and it’s about very current events and current leaders and current discussions and current policy issues, which — many of which are inherently classified.
Q Have you read the book, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: I have not read it. No. I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen it, but he —
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: — he knows and he was advised not to write it. And he was advised very strongly not to write it until it’s cleared. And he couldn’t wait, and we’ll see what happens.
But I think he’s got — personally, I would imagine he has cr- — like a — when you do classified, that, to me, is a very strong criminal problem. And he knows he’s got classified information. Any conversation with me is classified. Then it becomes even worse if he lies about the conversation, which I understand he might have, in some cases. So we’ll see what happens. They’re in court or they’ll soon be in court. But he understands he did not complete a process or anywhere near complete a process.
Q On a separate foreign policy issue, sir: You’ve faced a little bit of criticism from congressional Republicans, including Representative Cheney, about your decision to withdraw troops from Germany. Are you reconsidering that at all?
THE PRESIDENT: So we have 52,000 soldiers in Germany. That’s a tremendous amount of soldiers. It’s a tremendous cost to the United States. And Germany, as you know, is very delinquent in their payments to NATO. And they’re paying 1 percent, and they’re supposed to be at 2 percent. And the 2 percent is very low; it should be much more than that. So they’re delinquent of billions of dollars, and this is for years. Delinquent. So we’re removing a number down to — we’re putting the number down to 25,000 soldiers. We’ll see what happens. But Germany has not been making payment.
In addition to that, I was the one that brought it up. Everybody talks about “Trump with Russia” — well, I brought this up a long time ago: Why is Germany paying Russia billions of dollars for energy, and then we’re supposed to protect Germany from Russia? How does that work? It doesn’t work.
So Germany is delinquent. They’ve been delinquent for years, and they owe NATO billions of dollars. And they have to pay it. So we’re protecting Germany and they’re delinquent. That doesn’t make sense. So I said, “We’re going to bring down the soldier count to 25,000 soldiers.” It varies. It’s around 52,000 now, but it varies. But it’s a lot and, as you know, those are well-paid soldiers. They live in Germany. They spend vast amounts of money in Germany. Everywhere around those bases is very prosperous for Germany. So Germany takes, and then, on top it, they treat us very badly on trade.
We have trade with the EU — and Germany being the biggest member. Very, very badly on trade. And we’re negotiating with them on that, but right now I’m not satisfied with the deal they want to make. They’ve cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars over the years on trade, so we — we get hurt on trade and we get hurt on NATO.
Now, with NATO, I’ve raised other countries $140 billion; they’re paying $140 billion more because I interceded. I said, “Look, you know, we’re protecting you. You have to pay your bills.” Because it was going like this until I got here. Now it’s gone like a rocket ship. But one of the only countries that hasn’t agreed to pay what they’re supposed to pay is Germany. So I said, “Until they pay, we’re removing our soldiers — a number of our soldiers by about half.” And then, when we get down to 25,000, we’ll see where we’re going.
But Germany has been delinquent. And why should we be doing what we’re doing if they don’t pay? And they’re supposed to pay. And the number they’re supposed to pay, actually, at 2 percent — the 2 percent should be higher. And we’re also talking about for many years. This isn’t a new phenomenon. This has going on for many years, where they’ve taken advantage of the United States.
But everybody has — under Biden and under Obama. What they’ve done to this country is unbelievable. And I’m not only talking about Germany, by the way; I’m talking about plenty of other countries.
But NATO now is paying $140 billion more. If you look at Secretary — the Secretary General, who’s terrific — Stoltenberg — he’s been terrific. He’s probably my biggest fan. He said, “Nobody else could’ve done what Trump did,” because I raised the other countries by $140 billion. Because we end up paying the difference; the United States pays the difference to protect Europe.
So we protect them and then they take advantage of us on trade for many, many years. We’re not talking about now. Less so now. For many years. So we’re working on a deal with them, but it’s — it’s very unfair. And I would say, by far, the worst abuser is Germany.
Q Mr. President, you said last week, on Seattle, that if the Mayor of Seattle or the Governor of Washington didn’t take steps to end the occupation of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, you would step in and you would do something. They —
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. One hundred percent.
Q They still haven’t ended it. They’re negotiating. Are you considering taking action?
THE PRESIDENT: They’re not negotiating. You know what they’re negotiating? Garbage removal. They’re nego- — these people have taken over a vast part, a major part, a very good part of a place called Seattle. Seattle is big stuff. That’s a major city. And we have a governor who’s a stiff, and we have a mayor who said, “Oh, this going to be a lovefest.”
And, by the way, these are violent people that took it over. These are not people that are nice people. I saw on your network today, John — I saw what went on with the hitting and the punching and the beating and all the other things going on in Seattle.
And you have a governor that doesn’t do a damn thing about it. And you have a mayor that doesn’t know she’s alive. She’s talking about, “It’s going to be a lovefest this summer.” No, if they don’t do the job, I’ll do the job, and I’ve already spoken to the Attorney General about it.
But if they don’t do the job, we will do the job.
Q What can you do?
THE PRESIDENT: About 10 different things. Eith- — any one of which will solve the problem quickly.
Q Could we go through a whole list or a partial list?
THE PRESIDENT: We don’t have to go through any list. We can do a lot of things.
Q Mr. President —
THE PRESIDENT: I think it’s incredible also that the radical-left press doesn’t cover it. They’re acting like nothing happened. You turn on the news, you look at the news, you look — you don’t even see stories about them. If the right ever took over a city, conservative Republicans took over a city, it would be the biggest story in history. You can’t even find stories about Seattle. It’s incredible.
Q How much longer will you wait?
THE PRESIDENT: They’ve taken over — we’ll see. They ta- — I’ll tell you what: The American public is very angered by that. Seattle is a major, important city. And the Democrats — I guess you can say “radical left,” but it’s not even radical left; it’s just Democrat. Where we have a problem are Democrat-run cities.
If you look at Minneapolis, if you look at other cities that have had trouble, they’re Democrat in virtually every case that I can think of. I can’t think of one other case. These are Democrat-run cities. Minneapolis where the police are told to run — “Run. Run for your lives. Don’t do anything.” And if I didn’t get involved and send in the National Guard — and it was at my insistence that they did that. And as soon as I did that, everything stopped in Minneapolis — four days, five days later.
Q Is there a timeline that you’re thinking here — Seattle?
THE PRESIDENT: No, there is no timeline. We’re watching it very closely. These are violent people that are dealing violently. And I think what we’d — what I like to see before we do something, I’d like to see the press get in and cover it because they’re not — it’s not that they’re covering it badly. They’re hardly covering at all.
Think of this: A group — Antifa and others, radical lefts — they went into a major U.S. city, Seattle, and they took over a big percentage of that city. And the press doesn’t want to cover it. And we have a mayor who is scared stiff. She doesn’t know what’s happening. We have a governor that is one of the most overrated politicians in the country. He just ran for President. He got less than 1 percent. He actually, probably — I would’ve said less than zero, but I’m not sure that’s possible. He got nothing. He got no votes. Nothing. He — in the whole thing the guy was out there fighting. At the end, he got zero. Right? Zero.
So he failed. And now he goes back, and they take over a city, and he doesn’t say anything about it. Worse: He said he didn’t hear — a day later, he said, “I never — I didn’t hear anything about it.” They took over his city, Seattle, and he said, “I didn’t hear anything about it.”
So, look, the governor has to call out the troops, do what he has to do — has to call out the National Guard, has to do something. Because, you know, the problem with what happened in Seattle is it spreads. And all of a sudden, they’ll say, “Let’s do some other city, and let’s do another one.” And we’re not going to let it happen.
So, timing-wise — hey, we’re all set to go. We’re watching the process. But the most amazing thing about the process is how the fake news media doesn’t want to cover it. To me, that’s the most amazing thing.
Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Q (Inaudible) Saturday night, sir? About the rally?
THE PRESIDENT: Saturday night will be a big night. That’s a big night, and I hope you’re all going to be there. It’s going to be very big. Thank you.
END
3:48 P.M. EDT
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