China has come down tremendously. Tremendously. China would have superseded us in two years as an economic power. Now theyre not even close. China got rid of their china 25 because i found it very insulting. I said that to them. I said, china 25 is very insulting because china 25 means in 2025 theyre going to take over economically the world. I said thats not happening. And weve gone way up and theyve gone down. I dont want them to go down. Well have a good meeting and well see what we can do but i have to say this, billions of dollars will soon be pour nothing our treasury from taxes that china is paying for us and if you speak to mr. Pillsbury who is probably the leading authority on china. He was on the other day saying he has never seen anything like it and you know who else hasnt, china hasnt. Mr. President well try to make a deal with
china because i want to have great relationships with president xi as i do and also with china. Youre talking about the economic how do you see your role as a moral leader . Please, please, go ahead. Theres so many people. Im sorry. As a moral leader, though. I think i am a great moral leader and i love our country. Go ahead, please. Thank you, sir. You said earlier at this Press Conference democrat has a choice you would not work with them on legislation if they were investigating you. Do you not have a choice in the matter as well . Dont you have responsibility no, no, i think its very inappropriate. We should get along and get deals done. Now, we can investigate. They look at us, we look at them. It goes on for two years then at the end of two years nothing is done. Now, whats bad for them is being in the majority, im just going to blame them. You understand. Im going to blame them. Theyre the majority. Honestly it makes it much simpler for me. They will be blamed but i think
nancy pelosi and you know i put that statement out on social media today about nancy pelosi that if shes short of votes because frankly i think she deserves and a lot of people thought i was being sarcastic or kidding, i wasnt. I think she deserves it. Shes been fighting long for this. I mean this. There was nothing sarcastic about it. It was really meant with very good intentions. I think she deserves it. Shes fought long and hard and a very capable person and you know you have other people shooting at her trying to take over the speakership and i said, if if its appropriate, i said if we can and if we will, if she has a problem, i think i would be able to very easily supply her the necessary votes. Thats not said in any way other than i really believe she deserves that position. I also believe that nancy pelosi and i can Work Together and get a lot of things done along with mitch and everybody else that we have to work with. I think well get a lot done. Mr. President , why cant you
do that while subpoenas are coming through . Excuse me . Why cant you do that while there are investigations in process . I think we will. Now that the election is over, the election is over. Now everybody is in love but then i see the hostility of questions and i come in as a nice person, wanting to answer questions and i have people jumping out of their seats screaming questions at me. No, the election is over and im very im extraordinarily happy. I really am. I would tell you if i wasnt. Look at what happened in florida. Look at what happened in georgia. Look at what happened in so many locations with governorships, nobody talks about the governorships. Look at the amount of work that was given to these other candidates against my candidate. And i mean im extraordinarily happy and if i wasnt id let you know. Theres nothing wrong. You look at midterms and you look at elections generally, you see its very rare that a party
who has the presidency does well. We did unbelievably well to win florida, both the senate and the governorship against two very talented people. Ill tell you what, we did incredibly to win georgia when you had some of the biggest stars in the world campaigning endlessly including president obama. You know, i tell you what, this was a great victory for us and, again, from a Dealmaking Standpoint we are all much better off the way it turned out because i really believe if the democrats want to, we can do a tremendous amount of great legislation, yes, please, go ahead. Mr. President should we keep this going for a little while gentleman. Yes. Yes, i think you should. When you get bored would you please tell me, seriously. Tell me youre never boring . Hopefully not. I dont want to overstay but please, go ahead. Hi, mr. President. Im with pbs news hour. On the Campaign Trail you called yourself a nationalist. Some called that as emboldening white nationalist. I dont know why you would say that. Some say the Republican Party is seen as supporting white nationalists. I dont believe it. What do you make of it. I just i dont know. Why do i have my highest poll numbers ever with africanamericans. Why do i have among the highest poll numbers with africanamericans. Why do i have my highest poll numbers. Thats such a racist question. Honestly, i know you have it written down, thats a racist question. Mr. President you know what the word is. I love our country. I do. You have nationalists. You have globalists. I also love the world and i dont mind helping the world but we have to straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems excuse me but to say that what you said is so insulting to me. Its a very terrible thing that you said. Mr. President , mr. President , people have you talked about excuse me. You talked about middle class tax cuts on the Campaign Trail. How will you get democrats to support that policy . You have to ask them. What is your excuse me. You know what my plan is . Ill ask them. And if they say yes im all for it. If they say no theres nothing you can do because you need their votes. Go ahead. Thank you. Francesca chamber, dailymail. Com. You said many times on the Campaign Trail that you didnt want nancy pelosi to be speaker, at least you suggested that and spent a lot of time talking about her i would have so let me answer. Would i have preferred winning by two or three or four . I would almost have to think about that. But certainly i like to win and if i win shes not going to be speaker. What did she say to you, though, yesterday that made we had a great conversation. She loves this country. And shes a very smart woman. Shes done a very good job. She was really i mean did she promise they wouldnt seek to impeach you. We didnt talk about impeaching. We didnt talk what do you do . Do you impeach somebody because he created the greatest economic success in the history of our country . Lets impeach him because the country is so successful. Lets impeach him. Has he done anything wrong . They asked somebody, has he done anything wrong . No, but lets impeach him anyway and said lets impeach justice kavanaugh. Lets impeach him and now have the second woman coming out, the first, the second and i hate to say this but it was public and after him were going to impeach the vice president. Were going to impeach mike pence. Mike pence doesnt get impeached for anything. So lets lets impeach the president and then well impeach the vice president. These people are sick and you know what, they have to get their bearing, really they have to get their baring. When you ask about division, theyre the ones that cause the
division. They cause tremendous division. Okay, regarding all the retirements in the house, regarding all the retimes in the house mr. President really quickly you suggested that who is retiring. You said many of the retirements that happened in the house made it difficult for you in this Election Cycle and that it was because they were chairman chairmanships were vacated. Jeff flake and paul ryan also retired the cycle. Why do you think that is . Why do you think in jeff flakes case its me. Pure and simple. I retired him. Im very proud of it. I did the country a great service. Go ahead. Give him that. Give him that. He is retired. Id like to call it another word but were going to treat him with great respect. Go ahead. Thank you, mr. President. Jeff flake, thats another beauty. Go ahead. Two questions, please. No, one, one. Too many people. All right. All right. You seem to enjoy this venue very much. Are you going to make the Standard Press conference a
staple of the remaining two years or no. Will you have more briefings with Sarah Sanders . When i dont do i think sarah is fantastic. Where is sarah . Where is sarah . Sarah is so great. Youve represented me so well and has been abused. Shes been horribly treated shes going to stay on. Its interesting because sarah we were talking about it the other day. I had a period where i figured, you know what ill do. I wont do any real interviews and then they started saying why Isnt He Doing all coming up with all then over the last couple of months i decided ill do a lot. Well stop with the helicopter and do a lot and then they say, why is he doing so many Press Conferences . What is wrong . What . So when i dont do them you say whats wrong . When i Do Not Disturb them you say whats wrong . And when i go in the middle you say whats wrong but in the you know that. Never complained about it. Most of them have not complained about access. You complained about access when i purposely just stay add
way from the press for awhile because i wanted to see how it worked and can i be honest with you . It didnt work well. Mr. President , i didnt sfsh the question. So sarah will stay on as Press Secretary . Okay. Please. Go ahead. No. Go ahead. Get the mike. First off i personally think its very good to have you here because free press and i do too. Actually its vital its called earned media. Its worth billions. I have two questions for you if thats all right. Its a rare opportunity. First just a point of clarification on the tax returns issue. You brought up the audit. That doesnt prevent you from releasing them. I know it. I didnt say it prevented me. I said lawyers will tell you not to do it. Whats your next question. Just on more exciting than that. Second one, Michael Cohen recently said you called black voters stew pit. Thats false. Omarosa accused you of using the n word and the rapper lil jon said you called him uncle
tom. I dont know who lil jon was he was on the apprentice. I dont use ratiist remarks and if i did you would have known bit. There are tapes. Number one, i never worried it because i never use. I never use i never used racist remarks. Okay one Point Of Fact you told her you have the highest its just 8 , sir. Single digits go when you talk about division its people like in that cause division. Great division, great no, Point Of Fact is that i never used a racist remark. Thats the Point Of Fact. Who are you from . Im from yahoo news. Good. I hope theyre doing well. So first question where are you from. Lebanon. Lebanon, good. Yes, thank you, mr. President. Were so happy to as well have this opportunity. President erdogan said he wont follow your sanctions and hes going to keep buying oil from who said that. President erdogan. Turkey. I know, i know. Youll meet him soon. Just cant understand his youll meet him soon. Youll have this talk and some countries are going to take the same step. Let me say about the oil. So we imposed just recently the strongest sanctions in the history of our country just about, well, i guess north korea is there too. But i gave some countries a break on the oil. I did it a little bit because they really asked for some help, but i really did it because i dont want to drive oil prices up to 100 a barrel or 100 a barrel because im driving them down. If you look at oil prices theyve come down very substantially over the last couple of months. Thats because of me. Because you have a monopoly called opec and i dont like wait. And i dont like that monopoly. I dont like it. And oil prices are coming down. So, rather than deciding to be as tough as i am on most of the sanctions, what ive done is i said were not going to do it that way, well let some of the oil go out to these countries that really do need it because i dont want to drive the oil prices up to 100 or 150 a barrel which could happen very easily. Its a very fragile market. I know it very well and its the absolute right decision. And theyll get tough ever as time goes by, maybe, but i dont want to have any effect on the oil prices worldwide where i drive them up because i consider that to be a tax and i dont like taxes. In palestine, the Peace Process is over who . Congratulations to jon tester. Congratulations. Im sure youre very unhappy about that. Go ahead. Mr. President , can you address the i will take a couple more then well go. Can you address concerns and places like georgia where people waited in line to vote for hours where Voting Machines werent working in certain districts and you think thats the reason the candidate lost. There are concerns being raised that i wasnt involved in georgia other than i love the state. Yes, but as president of the United States, are you concerned about the access that people are having to voting. I heard it was very efficient in georgia. I heard it was very efficient but, again, youd have to ask the state governments because just one of those things youll have to ask them. Yeah, go ahead, please. Please, go ahead. Thank you, mr. President. You expressed some concerns about social Media Companies unfairly censuring conservatives during the election. Do you anticipate working with democrats to regulate these companies or are you satisfied i would do that, yes. I would look at that its think its a serious problem. At the same time you start getting into speech, thats a
very dangerous problem. That could be the beginning, so its very dangerous, believe it or not im one that really likes free speech. A lot of people dont understand that but i am a big believer. When you start regulating a lot of bad things can happen, but i would certainly talk to the democrats if they want to do that and i think they do want to do that. Yes, sir, go ahead. Former president barack obama famously said he had a pen and a phone to use Executive Power on issues like immigration. Do you see yourself using Executive Power to get some of your Immigration Agenda done . I do. I do. I think that some of it i can use Executive Power on some. Not all. But i mean he certainly used it. He used it on daca and when he did it, he said something to the effect that im not allowed to do this, itll never hold up but im doing it anyway and he did it and they found judges that approve i had. We also found judges that didnt
approve it so its obviously going to be determined in the Supreme Court. And if the if the court rules in favor of what president obama thinks they should rule which is what he said, then i will probably have a deal with the democrats in a very short period of time. We were very close to having a deal until we got that very strange ruling. You also made promises about immigration during the campaign and i want to know if youll follow through with them. Are which one . Birthright citizenship. Were looking at it yes or no . I believe we have the absolute right. But thats another case that will be determined by the Supreme Court of the United States. Will you send 15,000 troops to the border. Youve been reading the same documents as i have. You know exactly what im doing. You know exactly what im doing. So go ahead. Whats your next question . Also on the khashoggi matter, more than a month very sad thing. Do you think saudi arabia is
guilty of having him murdered and if so im working very closely with congress. Were working together, some very talented people and were working with congress. Were working with turkey and were working with saudi arabia and im forming a very strong opinion. Go ahead. Go ahead, john. Mr. President , just a quick followup. You said something about nancy pelosi. You said that nancy pelosi, she loves our country. Do you regret some of the things you said during the campaign . No. At various times you said democrats want to put a Wrecking Ball to our future and destroy our country. I believe that with their current policy theyre using a Wrecking Ball on our country. I believe that 100 this. Would be a Wrecking Ball, but i think theres a compromise somewhere and i think that can be really good for our country. Okay, how about one more. Do you regret the ad that you did that was branded as a racist ad even fox news wouldnt air it, nbc wouldnt air it. Do i regret it . Yes. Im surprised you ask me that
question. I do not. No . Go ahead. Mr. President thank you, sir. Wed all love 0 have more of these if youre willing. In 2017 shortly after you took office, your Homeland Security department shuttered a program to encounter homegrown right wing extremism, White Supremacism and related Terrorist Groups, domestic Terrorist Groups and redirected that funding towards fighting islamic terrorism. Do you believe that white supremacist terrorists, right wing terrorists, these homegrown terrorists on that side of the spectrum are a problem, sir . Yeah. What is your administration doing about it. I believe all hate is a problem. But i do believe that is a problem. What are you going to do. Its a problem we want to solve. How, sir . What are you going to do about it, sir . What are you going to do about it . Cut off the funding. Mr. President we are giving funding for that, a lot of funding. Its a problem that dont like even a little bit. Go ahead. Im with hearst television. You said pretend im on the ballot. Many local districts rejected your midterm message particularly suburban women. How do you bridge that divide. I thought my message was very well received. Just look