THE PRESIDENT: Good job. Sonny?
SECRETARY PERDUE: Mr. President, I've told you before, but your deregulatory agenda, as well as your trade agenda for American agriculture, has been tremendous. The farmers, ranchers, and foresters of America appreciate what you've done and understand that your heart for rural America is greater than they've seen. They understand that you've got a heart for the working men and women who produce our food and fiber out here.
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Sonny. Thank you. Would you like to say -
ADMINISTRATOR RAO: Sure. I think, Mr. President, one thing that we could highlight is that regulatory reform is in part about furthering individual liberty and the rule of law. And Americans are hardworking and productive, and when government gets out of the way, we can see that jobs are created, businesses grow, and innovation flourishes, which benefits, really, all Americans. So thank you for that.
THE PRESIDENT: Well stated. Thank you very much.
Well, thank you all very much. We'll talk for a little while. And we appreciate it. Thank you all very much.
Congratulations on 2 million miles. Two millions miles - that's a lot of miles.
Q Mr. President, you talk about unnecessary regulations, but earlier this week, your administration proposed a new regulation on the drug industry, in terms of the price of drugs being disclosed in their television advertisements. So, for you, sir, what's your criteria to make a determination between unnecessary and necessary -
THE PRESIDENT: It's a very simple criteria: We want to get drug prices down. And we're going to have advertising - subject to final approval, we're going to have advertising of drug prices so that people can see how much drugs are, and they can price them.
Right now, you're not allowed. In fact, pharmacies aren't even allowed to talk about prices. They're not allowed to talk about competitors. They're not allowed to say that, "Well, this drug is this much, and this drug is that much." You know that. It's against the law.
We're opening it up so that these people have to be more competitive. And it's going to have a huge positive impact on drug prices, we think.
And so, essentially, even when they advertise on television, they're going to talk about the pricing. So when people are sitting at home, they can say, "Wow, that drug is X dollars, and this drug is the same drug by a different company, and it's here." I think it's going to have a huge competitive advantage. We're bringing drug prices down.
Not only did Pfizer and Novartis and others cut the price after I called them, and cut it very substantially - and I thank them for that; they made a big price increase, and then they cut - but we are now going to cut the price of drugs very, very substantially.
So I actually like that question. I'm very proud of that.
Q Well, I'll ask another one then, sir. (Laughter.) Republicans generally have -
THE PRESIDENT: This is going to be a beauty, right? (Laughter.) Go ahead.
Q Republicans generally have suggested that they don't want to pick winners and losers in the economy -
THE PRESIDENT: Right.
Q - by putting their finger on certain industries to succeed and certain to fail. But you've taken a different approach. You've picked winners and losers in terms of steel and aluminum, coal, and -
THE PRESIDENT: No, not losers. No. I want to only pick winners. I want winners in our economy. Steel was - we weren't going to have a steel industry. Steel is a very important, you know, category. It's not like - let's say, even making that, or making a piece of wood that nobody knows where it's going.
We need steel. We need steel for defense. We need steel for many things. But maybe more importantly than anything, we need steel for defense and potential defense. We can't be buying our steel from China and from other places that maybe someday you have conflict with. Hopefully not.
We have reinvigorated our steel industry, and it's a tremendous thing. We've reinvigorated aluminum. Aluminum was a disaster. We have reinvigorated - and others.
No, I want every business to thrive. Our miners now are thriving. Our miners now are absolutely thriving. And clean coal is a great thing. And it's another source. It has to compete against natural gas. It has to compete against a lot of different things, including solar and including wind and including all of those things.
Now, they're much, much more expensive, as you know. They're much, much more expensive. In fact, they need subsidy. And if you don't give them subsidy - I don't like energy that needs subsidy. But if you don't give them subsidy, they don't work - solar, wind, et cetera. They need massive subsidy.
You take a look at the money that was spent on these windmills that are killing all birds and lots of other problems, and destroying values. And I'm okay with - I don't like giving subsidy to that, though. Especially when you have energy that's so abundant for 500 years. That's so abundant that, frankly, is in many cases one-tenth and even better than that - the cost.
So - but I'm for all industries. There's nothing that I don't like. I want it all working. That's why we're doing so well.
Q Mr. President, there's been concern you might have been giving cover to the Saudis.
THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. No. I just want to find out what's happening. In fact, Secretary of State Pompeo is going to be back probably late tonight or early tomorrow morning. He went to Turkey; he went all over. But he spent a lot of time with the Crown Prince, and he's going to have a full report. I'm not giving cover at all.
With that being said, Saudi Arabia has been a very important ally of ours in the Middle East. We are stopping Iran. We're not trying to stop - we're stopping Iran. We went a big step when we took away that ridiculous deal that was made by the previous administration - the Iran deal - which was $150 billion and $1.8 billion in cash. What was that all about?
And they are an ally. We have other very good allies in the Middle East. But if you look at Saudi Arabia, they're an ally and they're a tremendous purchaser of not only military equipment, but other things.
When I went there, they committed to purchase $450 billion worth of things, and $110 billion worth of military. Those are the biggest orders in the history of this country - probably the history of the world. I don't think there's ever been any order for $450 billion. And you remember that day in Saudi Arabia where that commitment was made.
So they're an important ally, but I want to find out what happened, where is the fault, and we will probably know that by the end of the week. But Mike Pompeo is coming back; we're going to have a long talk.
Q Why not send the FBI over? We're talking about a man who lived across the river in Virginia. Why not send the FBI in to figure all this out?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, he wasn't a citizen of this country, for one thing. And we're going to determine that. And you don't know whether or not we have, do you?
Q Well, I -
THE PRESIDENT: No, but do you know whether or not we've sent the FBI?
Q Have you sent the FBI?
THE PRESIDENT: I'm not going to tell you. (Laughter.)
Q Well, then I don't know. Why won't you tell us?
THE PRESIDENT: Why would I tell you? Go ahead.
Q Have you asked for this audio, video, intelligence that the Turks (inaudible)?
THE PRESIDENT: We have asked for it, if it exists. We have asked for it.
Q You have asked? But you haven't gotten it?
THE PRESIDENT: We've asked for it, if it exists.
Q Are you surprised that they haven't turned it over?
THE PRESIDENT: No. I'm not sure yet that it exists. Probably does. Possibly does. I'll have a full report on that from Mike when he comes back.
Q Thank you, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: That's one of the things I very - that's going to be the first question I ask him.
Q Mr. President, there's been some talk after the midterms about spending being reined in up on the Hill. I'm curious, is there any programs that you'd like to see kind of reined -
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I will tell you that I'm having a Cabinet meeting in a little while, and we're going to ask every Secretary to cut 5 percent for next year.
And last year - first year - I had to do something with the military. The military was falling apart. It was depleted. It was in very bad shape. And that's why we went for two years - $700 billion and $716 billion. And that took place over a period of two years. We have repurchased and purchased jets, missiles, rockets, all forms of military equipment - ships, submarines.
We've rebuilt and are in the process of rebuilding our military to a level that it's never been before. I had to do that. In order to get the $700 [billion] and the $716 billion - those numbers have never been heard of before - I had to give the Democrats - I call it "waste money." Things that I would never have approved. But we had to do that in order to get the votes, because we don't have enough Republican votes to do this without them.
So when you look at the border - how bad it is - that's because the Democrats want it to be bad because they don't give us the votes. That's why I hope we do very well in the midterm.
But we're going to be asking for a 5 percent cut from every Secretary today.
Okay, we're going to see you at the Cabinet meeting because you're coming in for a couple of minutes so we can discuss at length. And I just want to talk to these great folks and wish them best wishes. They've done a fantastic job and we really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Great job.
Thank you very much. We'll see you in a couple of minutes.
