Q Sir, are you concerned that they - the leadership there lied to you, or other members of the administration, when they denied -
THE PRESIDENT: No, I don't think so at all. Because they weren't out front with me in terms of, you know, what happened. This is really a - we just got this report from them. And you got it, along with a lot of other people. No. I think that we'll be talking to them. We'll see what happens. We may have some questions. We do have some questions.
And as I told you, I'll be working on this with Congress. Congress is very interested in this one, and we'll be working with Congress. But I would prefer, if there is going to be some form of sanctions, or what we may determine to do, if anything - because this was a lot of people they're talking about, and people pretty high up. But I would prefer that we don't use, as retribution, cancelling $110 billion worth of work, which means 600,000 jobs.
I know it sounds easy and it sounds good, and a lot people have said, "Oh, let's just not sell them a $110-billion order." I guess you take it a step further, "Let's not sell them $450 billion," which is the largest order in the history of our country. I went there to get that order. Saudi Arabia was my first stop. And everyone thought that was unusual. But I said, I want to order - "I want you to order a tremendous amount of stuff." Right? Everything. Your stuff and everybody's stuff. And Wilbur was there. They ordered $450 billion. There's never been anything like it, or close.
The last thing I want to do is say we're not going to supply you with that, and therefore we're going to cut - I guess, if you add the whole thing up, because just for the military was 600,000 jobs. So now if you're talking about - that was $110 billion - you know, you're talking about over a million jobs. You know, I'd rather keep the million jobs, and I'd rather find another solution.
But this was a good first step today. Okay?
Anything? Yeah.
Q Mr. President, Lindsay Graham said he's very skeptical of the Saudi narrative. Are you - do you share some of that skepticism, too? And do you intend to speak with the Crown Prince or the King in the next day or two to get their side of the story?
THE PRESIDENT: I will - yeah. Before I start making those statements, I'm going to speak to the Crown Prince. And I've spoken to the King. I want to speak with the Crown Prince.
And, you know, I think we're getting close to solving a very big problem. And again, remembering the people around this table know it better than anyone - Martha McSally knows it better than anyone - they've been a great ally in the Middle East. We need them as a counter-balance to Iran. And so it's not the simplest solution. It's not the simplest situation to be in.
But I think we're doing very well, and I think we've come a long way in a short period of time. And it'll get solved. It'll get solved. Okay?
Yeah, please.
Q Sir, do you trust the Saudis to carry out an impartial investigation given that the Crown Prince is kind of in charge of it? Or do you think a third party should be involved?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have third parties involved. We're involved. You know, we're involved. Turkey is involved. And I wouldn't say they're exactly friends. I would think that Turkey and Saudi Arabia - they're not too friendly. And Turkey is involved, and others are involved, frankly.
I mean, it's - people are not happy about what happened. But this is a very big turnover when you look at the number of people that they say were involved. That was a very big - that was a very important thing that they did. And they did it soon. They did it - you know, we thought it was going to be the end of next week. They did it soon, which I think is very smart.
But, no, I would have to say they have been our ally. We've had great relationships with them. This is a horrible event. It has not gone unnoticed. Okay?
Q Mr. President, can you speak to the family separations policy, where you're at on that? Arizona has been one of the places where this has been going on.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, we have - Mexico has really stepped up to the plate, which is very nice. I've said to them, "Look, you know..." We've been very nice to Mexico. We have the worst immigration laws in the history of the world. They're incompetent. And, in fact, we have a great Democrat here; maybe we could negotiate some immigration laws while you're here?
REPRESENTATIVE O'HALLERAN: I'd love to negotiate that. (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: You, I would like to do it with, because you know what you are doing.
REPRESENTATIVE O'HALLERAN: Comprehensive -
THE PRESIDENT: That's - we have just a horrible situation with the laws. The laws don't allow us to do anything. And then we have the judges that are, let's say, that are giving us decisions that are horrendous. And, hopefully, they'll be overturned in the Supreme Court, or sooner.
But I don't know if you know what's happening. And probably a lot of the people at the table don't know what's happening because this just happened. But people are coming over from Honduras; they have like 5,000 people. Honduras and Guatemala, El Salvador. And some of these people are hard criminals. Hardened criminals. Not good people. And they broke through in Guatemala. I said, "Look, we give you hundreds of millions of dollars, Guatemala. And you're going to stop those people from coming."
And they tried, and they broke right through, and they broke through the fences. And Mexico is now really fighting. A very tough situation. Mexican soldiers have been hurt - badly hurt, in a couple of cases. But I very much respect the fact that Mexico is willing to do this.
But these are some bad people coming through. These aren't babies. These aren't little angels coming into our country, and going to - you know, go to work for Boeing, and go to work for Raytheon, and for Lockheed, and do a great job. These are some hardened criminals coming in. And we're not letting them in. We've got enough things right now. We're just not letting it happen.
So, Mexico, on their southern border, is fighting them right now. Literally, fighting them. And these people are fighting, and they put all the women and children up front to show you how brave they are. They put all the women and children up front. And it's a terrible situation.
And if we had laws, I could sit down, and you give me a group from the Democrats - I could sit down and in one hour, we would solve catch and release, by getting rid of it. You know what catch and release is, Dennis? They walk over; if they put one foot on our land, we catch them. We then take the information, because we have - it's impossible to bring them to a court. We have to bring them to a court. So we bring them to a court, but the court is never there because you don't have enough judges. There aren't enough judges in the world. If you've got every judge in the world, you don't have enough judges. So you catch them and you release them. And they go into our society, because you're not allowed to release them back into theirs. And that's one of the better ones, okay? It's just a horrible situation.
We have the visa lottery, where we take people by lottery from countries. Now, just - you know, from a business standpoint, do you think they're giving us their finest? We get some real beauties out of the lottery. These countries - I mean, they're not stupid. They give us people that they don't want. And we have to take them.
So I could sit down with Democrats and work this thing out in one hour. And we need a wall. We have to have a wall. We're building a wall now, but we should build it very fast. We should built it - frankly, we should build it even higher, because these people - incredible. They can scale them; they can do things you wouldn't believe.
But we have a wall, it's going up. But we should be able to build that in one year. And we could do it in one year. So we'll see what happens. I think this is going to be a real wake-up call for the Democrats and for the public. And for the public. People are very angry about it. Very, very angry. Okay.
Any other questions? Yeah.
Q Mr. President, what evidence do you have that these are hardened criminals trying to come into the United States?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, please. Please. Don't be a baby. Okay? Take a look. Okay? Just take a look. Look at what's happening. Look at the Mexican soldiers that are laying on the ground. Take a look. These are hardened - I didn't say in all cases - but in many cases, these are hardened criminals. These are tough, tough people. And I don't want them in our country, and neither does our country want them in our country. Okay?
Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.
