Remarks by President Trump on the National Security and Humanitarian Crisis on our Southern Border | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Plus, if you think, I've gotten $700 billion for the military in year one, and then last year, $716 billion. And we're rebuilding our military, but we have a lot. And under the previous administration, our military was depleted - badly depleted. And they weren't spending - I mean, they had a much less - they had a much smaller amount of money.

    So when I got $700 billion, and then $716 billion - and this year, it's going to be pretty big too, because there's few things more important than our military. You know, I'm a big deficit believer and all of that, but before we really start focusing on certain things, we have to build up our military. It was very badly depleted. And we're buying all new jetfighters, all new missiles, all new defensive equipment. We have - we'll soon have a military like we've never had before.

    But when you think about the kind of numbers you're talking about - so you have $700 billion, $716 billion - when I need $2 billion, $3 billion of out that for a wall - which is a very important instrument, very important for the military because of the drugs that pour in. And as you know, we have specific rules and regulations where they have drugs, and what you can do in order to stop drugs. And that's part of it, too.

    We're taking a lot of money from that realm also. But when you have that kind of money going into the military, this is a very, very small amount that we're asking for.

    Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. ABC. Not NBC. I like ABC a little bit more - not much. Come on, ABC. Not much. Pretty close.

    Q Mr. President, what do you say to those, including some of your Republican allies, who say that you are violating the Constitution with this move and setting a bad precedent that will be abused by possibly Democratic Presidents in the future? Marco Rubio has made this point.

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, not too many people. Yeah. Not too many people have said that. But the courts will determine that.

    Look, I expect to be sued. I shouldn't be sued. Very rarely do you get sued when you do national emergency. And then other people say, "Oh, if you use it for this, now what are we using it for?" We got to get rid of drugs and gangs and people. It's an invasion. We have an invasion of drugs and criminals coming into our country that we stop, but it's very hard to stop. With a wall, it would be very easy.


    So I think that we will be very successful in court. I think it's clear. And the people that say we create precedent - well, what do you have? Fifty-six? There are a lot of times - well, that's creating precedent. And many of those are far less important than having a border. If you don't have a border, you don't have a country.

    You know, we fight - before I got here - we fight all over the world to create borders for countries, but we don't create a border for our own country.

    So I think what will happen is, sadly, we'll be sued, and sadly, it'll go through a process. And, happily, we'll win - I think.

    Go ahead. Let's go. Let's hear it, NBC. Come on.

    Q Thank you, Mr. President. I just want to say, in the past, when President Obama tried to use executive action as it related to immigration, you said, "The whole concept of executive order, it's not the way the country is supposed to be run." You said, "You're supposed to go through Congress and make a deal." Will you concede that you were unable to make the deal that you had promised in the past, and that the deal you're ending up with now from Congress is less than what you could have had before a 35-day shutdown?

    THE PRESIDENT: No. Look, I went through Congress. I made a deal. I got almost $1.4 billion when I wasn't supposed to get one dollar - not one dollar. "He's not going to get one dollar." Well, I got $1.4 billion. But I'm not happy with it. I also got billions and billions of dollars for other things - port of entries, lots of different things. The purchase of drug equipment. More than we were even requesting.

    In fact, the primary fight was on the wall. Everything else, we have so much, as I said, I don't know what to do with it we have so much money. But on the wall, they skimped.

    So I did - I was successful, in that sense, but I want to do it faster. I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn't need to do this. But I'd rather do it much faster. And I don't have to do it for the election. I've already done a lot of wall, for the election - 2020. And the only reason we're up here talking about this is because of the election, because they want to try and win an election, which it looks like they're not going to be able to do. And this is one of the ways they think they can possibly win, is by obstruction and a lot of other nonsense.

    And I think that I just want to get it done faster, that's all.

    Okay. Yes, ma'am, go ahead.

    Q Thank you, Mr. President.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

    Q Roberta Rampton from Reuters. I wanted to ask about China. Do you feel that enough progress has been made in the talks to head off the increase in tariffs scheduled for March 1?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know, you're talking to the wrong person, because I happen to like tariffs, okay? I mean, we're taking in billions and billions of dollars in tariffs from China. And our steel industry now, as an example, we tax dumped steel - much of it comes from China - at 25 percent. Our steel industry is so vibrant now again, they're building plants all over the United States. It's a beautiful thing. And from a defensive standpoint, and from any standpoint, you need steel.

    You know, you can do without certain industries. Our country cannot do without steel.

    So, I love tariffs, but I also love them to negotiate. And right now, China is paying us billions of dollars a year in tariffs. And I haven't even started.

    Now, here's the thing: If we make a deal, they won't have to pay. You know, it'll be a whole different story. They won't be paying that, but we'll have a fair deal. There won't be intellectual property theft. There won't be so many other things that have gone on. And no other President has done this. No other - you know, we didn't have a deal with China. You had the WTO, one of the worst trade deals ever made - probably even worse than NAFTA, if that's believable, which, you know, hard to believe, because I think NAFTA was just a disaster. It was a total disaster for our country.

    And now we made the USMCA, which is going to be a terrific - a great deal. And, by the way, the USMCA, from Mexico - that's United States, Mexico, Canada - that's where the money is coming from, not directly but indirectly, for the wall. And nobody wants to talk about that. Because we're saving billions and billions of dollars a year, if Congress approves that deal.

    Now, they might now want to approve a deal just because they'll say - one of the things I'm thinking of doing - this has never been done before: No matter how good a deal I make with China, if they sell me Beijing for one dollar, if they give me 50 percent of their land and every ship that they've built over the last two years - which is a lot - and they give them to me free, the Democrats will say, "What a lousy deal; that's a terrible deal."

    Like, ZTE, I got a billion - more than a billion-dollar penalty in a short period of time. And the Democrats said, "Oh, should've gotten more." When I made that deal, I said, "This is incredible." I just got - I got over a billion-dollar penalty, plus they had to change their board of directors. They had to change their top management. But they had to pay over a billion dollars. I said, "What a deal." It took like a week. And the Democrats didn't even know there was a problem with ZTE.

    I'm the one that find them. I'm the one that settled it. Over a billion dollars. And President Xi called me and he said it would be important to him if they could get a deal. And we made a deal - paid - like, in a short period of time.


    The Democrats went out and said, "Oh, they should've done better." So what I'm thinking of doing is getting Chuck Schumer, getting Nancy Pelosi, having them bring two or three of their brilliant representatives. And we'll all go down together, and what we'll do is we'll negotiate. I'll put them in the room and let them speak up. Because any deal I make with China, if it's the great - it's going to be better than any deal that anybody ever dreamt possible, or I'm not going to have a deal. It's a very simple.

    But any deal I make with China, Schumer is going to stand up and say, "Oh, it should've been better. It should've been better." And you know what? That's not acceptable to me. So I'm thinking about doing something very different. I don't think it's ever been - I just don't want to be second-guessed. But that's not even second-guess; that's called politics. Sadly, I'd probably do the same thing to them, okay?

    But any deal I make toward the end, I'm going to bring Schumer - at least offer him - and Pelosi. I'm going to say, "Please join me on the deal."

    And, by the way, I just see our new Attorney General is sitting in the front row. Please stand up, Bill. (Applause.) Such an easy job he's got. He's got the easiest job in government. Thank you and congratulations. That was a great vote yesterday. Thank you very much.

    Q Mr. President -

    THE PRESIDENT: Yes, go ahead. Go ahead.

    Q In your remarks, sir, you said that you were too new to politics, earlier in your administration, when you would've preferred that this be done. Is that an admission of how you might be changing on the job? And -

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm learning. I mean, I am learning. Don't forget, it's not like I've done this for - a senator came into my office and said, "Sir, I've been running for office for 30 years. I've won seven out of seven. I did lose a couple when I was younger." I said, "Well, I've won one out of one. But, you know, I never did politics before. Now I do politics." I will tell you, I'm very disappointed at certain people, a particular one, for not having pushed this faster.

    Q Are you referring to Speaker Ryan, sir?

    THE PRESIDENT: But I've learned - who?

    Q Speaker Ryan.

    THE PRESIDENT: Let's not talk about it.

    Q Okay.

    THE PRESIDENT: What difference does it make? But they should have pushed it faster. They should have pushed it harder. And they didn't. They didn't.

    If they would have, it would have been a little bit better. In the meantime, I've built a lot of wall. I have a lot of money, and I've built a lot of wall. But it would've been nice to have gotten done. And I would like to see major immigration reform, and maybe that's something we can all work on, Bill, where we all get together and do major immigration reform - not just for a wall, for a barrier; for port of entry, for other things.

    We have a real problem. We have catch-and-release. You catch a criminal and you have to release them. We have so many other things. You have chain migration, where a bad person comes in, brings 22 or 23 or 35 of his family members - because he has his mother, his grandmother, his sister, his cousin, his uncle - they're all in.

    You know what happened on the West Side Highway. That young wise guy drove over and killed eight people and horribly injured - nobody talks about that - horribly - like, loss of legs and arms - going 60 miles an hour, he made a right turn into a park on the West Side Highway, along the Hudson River in New York. He had many people brought in because he was in the United States. It's called chain migration.

    And then you have the lottery. It's a horror show, because when countries put people into the lottery, they're not putting you in; they're putting some very bad people in the lottery. It's common sense. If I ran a country, and if I have a lottery system of people going to the United States, I'm not going to put in my stars; I'm going to put in people I don't want. The lottery system is a disaster. I'm stuck with it.

    Q Mr. President, could you tell us -

    THE PRESIDENT: It should have - wait. It should have never happened. Okay.


    Q Mr. President, could you tell us to what degree some of the outside conservative voices helped to shape your views on this national emergency?