Remarks by President Trump in Thanksgiving Teleconference with Members of the Military | Eastern North Carolina Now

    THE PRESIDENT: Right. Pat, why is it that the Reagan is the only one that's permanently deployed of all the aircraft carriers? Why is that? Was it set up for that, or is - it just happens to be?

    CAPTAIN HANNIFIN: Yes, sir. We have worked a single aircraft carrier out in Japan for decades now. Reagan took that role back in about 2013. I'm sorry - that's not quite right. About 2016. But it switches out. So, different carriers out here for different periods of time. It was George Washington before us. And then a few of the conventional carriers, you know, going way back to Midway and Kitty Hawk and Independence.

    THE PRESIDENT: Right.

    CAPTAIN HANNIFIN: So we've been running that for a while. But - and it's just an infrastructure piece that takes quite a bit of infrastructure to make that work. But we get a lot of presence out of it for the region.

    THE PRESIDENT: And do you feel safe in the region? Do you see any hostility? Do you see any aggression? Because, you know, you're hearing a little bit about aggression from a couple of the players. What are you feeling?

    CAPTAIN HANNIFIN: Yes, sir. We have safe and independent operations out here throughout the theater. We do feel safe. There have been a couple of close calls, but in most cases, the vast majority, they are professional navies, and we have no doubt that we can bring that - we bring the U.S. interest to the theater and expect that to continue into the future.

    THE PRESIDENT: That's great, Pat. Well, I want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and say hello to everybody in the Navy.

    And just in closing, I want to wish everybody a really, really Happy Thanksgiving, and we'll see you when you're back and maybe I'll see you over there.

    But it's a great honor to talk to you. I know everything about what everyone is doing. And you're doing an incredible job and you're keeping us safe. And we all miss you back here. But we'll be seeing you soon.

    And on behalf of the whole country, I want to just thank you for what you're doing. Very, very special people. Men and women that are just incredible people. You're highly respected. And I'll tell you what: Our country has such respect - I don't think you hear it enough - but our country has such respect for you and the job you do.


    So, Happy Thanksgiving, and we will see you soon.

    CAPTAIN HANNIFIN: Happy Thanksgiving, Mr. President.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you all. Goodbye.

    Great people. They're great people. Okay?

    Q Mr. President, are you looking forward to going to Afghanistan or going to the Middle East for any of these?

    THE PRESIDENT: We're going to do some interesting things. At the appropriate time, we'll be doing some very interesting things.

    Q Do you have a sense of when yet, of when the trip might be?

    THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me?

    Q Do you have a sense of when the trip might be yet?

    THE PRESIDENT: I do, but I can't tell you. (Laughter.) You're the last people I can tell.

    How is everything in Florida doing? Okay? Weather is good, right? It's Florida. Welcome to the Southern White House.

    Q Does the CIA have a recording of MBS demanding Khashoggi's silence?

    THE PRESIDENT: I don't want to talk about it. You have you ask them.

    Q What about the border, Mr. President? We've seen some court -

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, the border is coming along very well. It's become very strong. We're getting some terrible decisions from the Ninth Circuit, as usual. I don't know if we've ever had a victory in the Ninth Circuit. We have to appeal it, appeal it. A vast number of their decisions get overturned, generally speaking, and it's a shame. It's a shame. It's a disgrace, frankly. And essentially, they're legislating. They're saying what to do. Some judge, sitting in some location very far away, is telling our incredible military and law enforcement what to do. And it's not right, and it's been going on like that for a long time. And we are doing really well, considering the laws are a disaster. And if we had the right laws, it would be a lot less expensive, and we'd do it a lot easier.


    But we don't have the right laws, and we have people interpreting the laws, and they always give us a bad interpretation.

    So, hopefully, we've shown some light on the Ninth Circuit. I know that Chief Justice Roberts - John Roberts - has been speaking a little bit about it. And I think we've - and I have a lot of respect for him. I like him and I respect him. But I think we have to use some common sense. The Ninth Circuit - everybody knows it - it's totally out of control. And what they're doing, what they're saying, the opinions are very unfair to law enforcement. They're very unfair to our military. And they're very unfair, most importantly, to the people of our country, because I'm keeping them safe.

    And you see how we've fortified things, and all of that - all of that vast amount of fighting that you see going on at the border, it's all taking place in Mexico.

    And Mexico cannot believe how tough these people are. The mayor of Tijuana and so many others had said, "Boy, these are tough people." They start fighting right away; they're tough people. You have many criminals in that caravan, and the big caravan hasn't arrived yet. And we're very well fortified. We have fencing and walls like very few people have. We've been able to do it rather quickly. Concertino wire - Concertina wire. And so many other things are there now that they didn't have. And they're not coming through. We're not letting criminals into our country. Got to come in legally. You have to come into a process.

    And we want people to come in, because I have many, many companies moving back into the United States. They're opening up car plants. They're opening up factories all over the country. The United States is booming. We have the lowest unemployment we've, essentially, in most groups, ever had.

    So we have a lot of good things happening. We need workers, but they have to come in legally. We want them to come in, but they have to be people that want to work and want to do a great job for our country. They come in through a merit system. They have to come in.

    Right now, under the Democrats, they don't have a merit system. They want open borders, and people can just flow in. You have tremendously dangerous people in those caravans. And we do not want them coming into the United States, and we're not going to let them.

    We're throwing out MS-13 and so many others. We're throwing them out of our country by the thousands that got in here over the years, and we're throwing them out by the thousands. And we're bringing back towns, we're making towns safe, and we're doing an excellent job.

    But we're getting hurt by the Ninth Circuit, very, very badly. Everybody files in the Ninth Circuit. I haven't seen anybody file anyplace else. They automatically go to the Ninth Circuit. They could go anyplace in the country. And I think we're going to have to stop that somehow.

    The judges are going to have to get together, our Congress is going to have to get together and stop it. Because they're taking advantage of our country by filing consistently and always - just about, that I see - in the Ninth Circuit. Even our legislation that we did have passed, it failed in the Ninth Circuit; it failed in the Ninth Circuit appeal. It then won in the Supreme Court.

    And it's just a shame, because it's really hurting people. It's hurting our law enforcement tremendously. And now that the military is on the border, it's really hurting our military. And frankly, when they hear these decisions, these are professional. The military, the law enforcement, first responders, they can't believe the decisions that are being made by these judges.

    This is what they do; they do law enforcement, law and order. And they get these decisions now, and they say, "Who makes these decisions?" They're not into the - you know, lawyer things. They say, "Who makes these decisions? Who are the people that are giving these decisions that are going to make it unsafe for us," meaning law enforcement and military, "and making it unsafe for the United States?"

    So, despite that, we have a very powerful border, and a lot of good things are happening.

    Q Mr. President, are you concerned that by not punishing Saudi Arabia more, it could send a message to other world leaders that they can do as they please, and America could be weak in their eyes?

    THE PRESIDENT: No, not at all. Saudi Arabia has been a long-time strategic partner. They're investing hundreds of billions of dollars in our country. I mean, hundreds of billions. They're keeping the oil prices low. I see that yesterday, one of the papers, I was blamed for causing traffic jams because I have the oil prices so low. Well, I have the oil prices low because I'm jawboning them and others all the time to keep them low. Nobody ever did that. No President ever did that. And gasoline is now at a very low number. But I actually got even beat up for that, where they said, "The President has the gasoline so low that he's causing traffic jams." Can you believe this one? I said, "That's one nobody ever thought of." So, anyway, no - but I'll always - let's have some traffic jams.

    We want low oil prices. And Saudi Arabia has really done a good job in that respect. They pumped out a lot more oil than was going to be pumped out, when I called them about four weeks ago. And if you look at oil four weeks ago, it was at 82, 83, and was going up to a 100 a barrel. That would have doubled your prices and even tripled your prices at the car, for gasoline. And instead, you have very low gas prices all over the country. That's because of what I did, and Saudi Arabia helped us.


    But very importantly, they're investing billions of dollars. They're buying their equipment from us. And remember this: They don't have to buy it from us. They can buy it from Russia and they can buy it from China. They make very good equipment. They don't make as good equipment as we make; nobody does. Nobody even close. But they make very good equipment.

    So they can spend their money in Russia and China and other places, and that is not acceptable.

    Q But the CIA, Mr. President, concluded with confidence that MBS was responsible.

    THE PRESIDENT: They didn't conclude. No, no, Josh, they didn't conclude. I'm sorry.

    Q Do you think they did not?

    THE PRESIDENT: Josh. No, they didn't conclude. They did not come to a conclusion. They have feelings certain ways, but they didn't have the report. And you can ask Mike; they have not concluded. Nobody has concluded. I don't know if anybody is going to be able to conclude that the Crown Prince did it.

    But I will say this -

    Q Do you think he did it?

    THE PRESIDENT: I don't know. I don't know. But whether he did or whether he didn't, he denies it vehemently. His father denies it - the King - vehemently.

    The CIA doesn't say they did it. They do point out certain things. And in pointing out those things, you can conclude that maybe he did or maybe he didn't. But there's no - that was another part of the false reporting, because a lot of you said yesterday that they said he did it. Well, they didn't say that. They said he might have done it. That's a big difference.

    But they're vehemently denying it. And we have hundreds of thousands of jobs. Do people really want me to give up hundreds of thousands of jobs? And frankly, if we went by this standard, we wouldn't be able to have anybody as an ally. Because look at what happens all over the world. But then you can also take a look at Iran, take a look at Syria, where, you know, millions of people have been just slaughtered horribly, horribly. You take a look at what's going on in Iran and the vicious - the vicious situation that's taking place there, and the number of people that are being killed and slaughtered. You take a look all over the world. We're not going to be able to deal with - let's not deal with anybody.