Live: Trump Addresses the White House Correspondents Dinne

President Trump is scheduled to speak tonight at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner, nearly three months after the original event was cut short by a shooting.
This is his first time addressing the dinner as president. We’ll watch the speech live and break down what he actually says — no speculation, just the facts as they come.
Coverage starts at 9 PM ET.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:04

And over the past year, his reporting has revealed how decisions are made, who influences them, and how power is exercised at the highest level. Josh Dawsey went far beyond the deluge of breaking news to offer invaluable insights that can only result from deeply sourced.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Hey Ryan, I this is Sarah Keeling.

SPEAKER_11 1:09

Ryan Donald Trump Jr. Oh. Hey everybody's gotta check out a fellow marine podcast. My name is Ted Newton, and I got a call from my buddy Ryan F. Samuels, and he wants me to tell you that he's a working hard playing all-American son of a who is celebrating God family country.

SPEAKER_12 1:29

Welcome to the Ryan Family.com, one of the top political podcasts, where we have a L5 recovery media at the Ryan Samuel.com at the raw on filter at American Protect. Follow on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Rumble, and all podcasts platforms. Here is your host, Ryan Samuel.

SPEAKER_13 1:54

Good evening, America. Welcome to the Ryan Samuel show. Tonight the White House correspondence dinner is being conducted again because last time somebody tried to kill Donald Trump. Surprise, surprise. Turns out to be a leftist school teacher, obviously, and of course, this is what's happening in America today. Donald Trump is scheduled to speak in just a few minutes. Um, there's a lot of pop and circumstance. We'll probably do some highlights tomorrow or Monday when we get around to it. But that is the topic for tonight. Don't forget you can call into the show 561-786-2916. We are live Monday through Friday at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time every night, Monday through Friday. Don't forget to visit Ryanfsamuels.com. Check out the blog section. If you're listening on the podcast, please leave a review. Leave a review. Let us know what you think of it. I had some trolls go on a while ago and just drop like a hundred zero-star reviews, and it really killed my my star rating. If you if you like the show, if you think it's a good show, leave a good review. If you don't, then don't. The choice is yours. But that's the topic for tonight. Don't go anywhere. We got a great show. Hit the like, share, and subscribe button. Drop comments right now, and let's get this party rolling. We'll be right back. Donald Trump is getting ready to speak in just a few minutes here. Wolf Blitzer is speaking now. Maybe we'll scroll over in just a second. But it is a shame that we've had to do this twice. Because last time somebody tried to kill the president of the United States. It's a shame and it's a disgrace. It's disgraceful. The media is here. They're having a good time. Let's go over and kind of chime in now.

SPEAKER_07 4:58

Orientation and posture inadvertently echo the statue to his right, while the other half of the frame is defined by movement. A truly striking image of contrast, skillfully captured in a chaotic moment. Please join me in congratulating Getty Images photographer Andrew Harnick, who also represents still photographers on the WHCA board.

SPEAKER_13 5:23

I don't know how presidents sit through these things. Donald Trump hates them. This is one president who is definitely not in cahoots with the press.

SPEAKER_07 5:47

There are more. And now the Catherine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability, named for the legendary Washington Post publisher. And it comes with a prize of $10,000. This year's award goes to the Wall Street Journal.

SPEAKER_13 6:07

Donald Trump has a massive lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal right now.

SPEAKER_07 6:11

The journal's courageous reporting on President Trump's past relationship with financier Jeffrey Epstein triggered the release of the so-called Epstein files. Thousands of documents that might otherwise have remained hidden from the public. And despite the president's threat of a lawsuit, the journal published a story about a provocative letter to Epstein bearing President Trump's signature. Trump quickly filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the journal, revealing reporter Khadijah Softar's home address. Her family had to be relocated. The journal was kicked off of Air Force One. But the reporters continue to file revelatory stories. Please welcome the winners of the Catherine Graham Award from the Wall Street Journal.

SPEAKER_13 7:02

So that's why they gave them the reward. The award.

SPEAKER_07 7:05

Sadie German, Annie Linsky, Josh Dawcy again, Alex Leary, Rebecca Ballhouse, and Ryan Barber. Their colleague Joe Talazzolo could not attend tonight.

SPEAKER_13 7:28

Trump's got to put on the he's gonna get his though. So all of this has been going on for a couple hours. We only have time for a one-hour show here. But he's gonna get his when he gives his speech.

SPEAKER_07 8:26

That's a lot of money. This year's award goes to Care 11 in Minneapolis for its investigation, Housing Hustle. The investigation exposed a massive organized fraud scheme within Minnesota's housing stabilization services program, a Medicaid-funded safety net meant to help people with disabilities and those facing homelessness find and keep housing. Reporter A.J. Lego uncovered ethical and oversight breaches at the highest levels. The investigation drove sweeping state reforms and waves of federal probes and charges, said one collier juror. Carol Evans' rigorous and piercing investigation of Medicare fraud had undeniable impact, including the suspension of more than 130 companies from the ability to bill Medicaid, the state terminating the HSS program, the firing of the state official in charge, federal raids, subpoenas.

SPEAKER_13 9:29

I mean, did they give are they gonna give Nick Shirley an award?

SPEAKER_07 9:32

Indictments and convictions, an enhanced screening, oversight, and suspension powers for regulators. Here to accept the award from Care 11, our reporter AJ Lego, and producer Gary Knox.

SPEAKER_13 11:29

But seriously, are they gonna give Nick Shirley an award? Who busted the whole daycare center up in Minneapolis?

SPEAKER_07 11:49

The Center for Integrity and News Reporting Award honors the most fair, impartial, objective news honors the most fair, impartial, objective news reporting by a member of the WHCA that has the courage to not fear and the discipline to not favor. It's sponsored and administered by the Arkansas-based Center for Integrity and News Reporting and comes with a prize of $25,000. The award goes to Tyler Pager of the New York Times. The judges said that in his coverage of the first year of President Trump's second term, Pager demonstrates a disciplined, even-handed approach across a wide range of subjects, including supporters and donors, foreign policy, the Justice Department, and energy. The stories take readers inside consequential presidential decisions while presenting the facts. The work is deeply sourced and carefully verified, reflecting a clear dedication to getting it right without bias. Taken together, this body of work stands as a strong example of fair, impartial, and objective journalism, precisely the standard this award is intended to honor. Let's hear it one more time for this year's winners. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. But before we do that, let's give them another huge round of applause. And it's now my pleasure to introduce my good friend, longtime colleague, Jonathan Carl.

SPEAKER_13 13:56

Why can't the president ever speak on time?

SPEAKER_10 14:03

All right, the final award of the evening. It is a high honor to rep to present the award created to recognize the fierce and fair women who cover the White House every day.

SPEAKER_13 14:16

Oh my goodness. I thought we were all equal.

SPEAKER_10 14:21

But first, I I just want to give a big thank you to Ouija Zhang. Ouija, your leadership was steady when steadiness was in short supply. You refused to let an act of violence take this dinner away from us. And because of you, it has gone on. You insisted that be happening. Thank you. Awesome, courageous. And Mr. President, I want to say it matters that you came here tonight.

SPEAKER_13 14:58

Why wouldn't he be there?

SPEAKER_10 15:01

For more than a hundred years, presidents have chosen to sit in a room of reporters who ask tough and often uncomfortable questions and who report without fear or favor. It's important. Thank you for being here. And in that spirit, I am thrilled to present an award named after two women who didn't just cover history, they helped make it. In 1947, a woman joined the White House press corps and changed it forever. Her name was Alice Donnegan. She was the first African-American woman ever credentialed at the White House. And just a few years later, she was joined by Ethel Payne. And together, they looked the most powerful man in the world in the eye and demanded answers about civil rights for black Americans. President Eisenhower didn't always welcome those questions, but Alice and Ethel kept going and kept showing up and they kept asking. The WHCA Donnegan Payne Award for Lifetime Achievement exists to honor their legacy and to recognize journalists who followed in their footsteps by breaking barriers for future generations. So tonight, it is a privilege to present the award to two women who did exactly that. In a field long dominated by men, Melissa Young and Susan Walsh each built extraordinary careers as photojournalists, not by waiting for doors to be open, but by bursting through them again and again for decades. Melissa Young, this one I know very well, she worked at ABC News for 44 years. She began in local television in Miami and worked her way to Capitol Hill in the White House, where she was one of the first female photojournalists in the press corps. Melissa documented the presidencies from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. She covered campaigns, secretaries of state and defense. She reported in disaster zones, war zones, all around the world. I worked side by side with Melissa for about half of those years. And I traveled to more than a dozen countries with her. I'm not gonna mention the time I was briefly detained because that was on Capitol Hill, and she came to my rescue. That kind of person. True. She's tireless and professional and a lot of fun to be around. She did it all with persistence, resilience, and quiet determination, retiring just last year. Susan Walsh, her career was built on anything but Donald Trump to speak Hollywood.

SPEAKER_13 17:56

I'm gonna go ahead and just put that on standby. Now the last correspondence dinner was interrupted by an assassin or a would-be assassin, who turned out just to be another lunatic. I'm gonna see if we can find the video of that. But the White House Correspondence Dinner is done every year. It's been done for a very, very long time. And the Donald Trump has been to it even before he was president. He famously went while Obama Obama just basically roasted him and he said that he will never be president. It was unusually long. But but and then that's when Donald Trump made the decision that he was going to Why can't I find his video? That he was going to run for president and basically destroy the Democratic Party. I mean that's that's what m what I think that's what I saw. I think a lot of people feel that way too. But they gave out their stupid awards, like the one award for the Wall Street Journal. Like, oh they wrote the Epstein Link with Trump. It's all nonsense. It's all PS. Like none of that is true. That's not what happened. And but they're giving an award and he's gotta sit there and he's gotta take it's all pomp and circumstance. It's it's nonsense. It it's it's nonsense. Let's go back and let's watch these women, these women in politics, these women in reporting who deserve so much recognition because they're women.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

And that's when I had to be someone who I wasn't really sure I recognized all the time.

SPEAKER_05 20:01

Eight inaugurations, five Olympics, six Super Bowls, World Series, lots of sporting events, Apex summits, NATO summits.

SPEAKER_04 20:10

You traveled in a way you were n you would never do as a regular person. I remember being in the palace with uh Fidel Castro and Jesse Jackson, and I was just walking around, and you know, those likes sort of going, Whoa, you know, uh, here I am.

SPEAKER_05 20:25

One of the craziest, wildest ones that I'll always remember is when I was with President Trump at the DMZ. I swear there were times that I don't think my feet hit the ground as we were being moved, and it was such a chaotic, crazy thing.

SPEAKER_04 20:43

9-11 happened, and um that just completely changed my life. That's when different kinds of travel started for me when they asked me to go with President Bush to Iraq. There I was, and uh, some Iraqi journalist stood up in front of me, literally in front of me, and threw a shoe.

SPEAKER_13 21:05

I remember that.

SPEAKER_04 21:20

I think I started to see that what I did was really important.

SPEAKER_05 21:24

I was traveling overseas with Jill Biden, and we slowly went into Ukraine, get the picture of uh First Lady Biden meeting Mrs. Zelensky, and for all of the I love you guys, my writer friends, but for all you writer friends who didn't want to give me a spot in the van, my picture ended up on the front page everywhere, and your stories got bumped inside. Sorry.

SPEAKER_13 21:52

All you did was take a photo. I don't understand. How is that so impressive?

SPEAKER_05 21:58

Because it really is. You didn't break water gates such a compliment to be considered one of the boys or the guys, and now that I'm older and there's met when many more women doing this job, I'm like, you know what? We're gonna claim our space. You guys can be one of the girls. Because we got this.

SPEAKER_13 22:13

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_10 22:22

All right, please join me in welcoming Susan and Melissa to the stage.

SPEAKER_05 23:06

Can I say this is pretty awesome? I spent most of my career down in there, so I thank all the photographers and the photojournalists who had to cover this event. So it's really pretty cool to be up here and just kind of be a guest tonight. But they were gracious enough to give me an opportunity to say some things, so I'd like to say some things. First, we should be good, Jackie, and the entire correspondence board. I just want to thank you guys so much for selecting me this year, me and Melissa. I hope not to get emotional here. This this award means like the world to me. I'm such a sucker. Sorry. I got this. I got this. This award means so much, not because we named for two incredible trailblazing women, but because honestly, this I felt that this association didn't always, you know, value what we did as photographers. And, you know, there were many times that Melissa and I were the only two women in the White House travel pool. And I just have to say, things have changed, and I love it. So there's a whole lot more women out there. So yeah.

SPEAKER_13 24:17

Um we're gonna come back to this. Trump should be speaking. He should have been speaking 20 minutes ago. He was scheduled to speak at 9 p.m. This always happens, though. This this is what happens with White House correspondence dinners. But here is their surveillance video of the last White House correspondence dinner in April that they had to cancel because somebody came through. Here he is up here. If you look at the top left side of your screen, this is a Democrat school teacher who came in with a rifle. This officer at the bottom, you see him, and he's already pulling his gun out because he sees this guy with a gun come storming in. Looks like this is a Secret Service agent here who's kind of looking away. Now, one thing you should take notice is that against the wall here, there are three police officers. And here's this officer, this male officer, draws his weapon, points it directly at the shooter who raises his weapon at him. It appears this officer fires some shots. Now he's got to be very careful here because you gotta remember to be aware of your target and what lies beyond. So look at all of these people behind here. You got one guy who takes action, the second guy takes action, he's firing around here, and this guy's pulling his weapon, this guy's pulling his weapon, and the girl police officers all run away and hide. That's what happened at the last correspondence dinner, which is why they had to cancel it and redo it for tonight. So Donald Trump wanted it to go on, he wanted it to continue, but unfortunately, that's not what the Secret Service had wanted for the president. They deemed it unsafe. He listened to them. Probably always a good idea if you're the president to listen to the Secret Service. Hey, Michelle, how are you? Welcome on. Got a couple other people on here. Rudy, John, Frank, hey, how are you guys doing? Thanks for thanks for tuning in. Glad you're here. Melanie. Appreciate all of you guys. So don't forget to hit that like, share, and subscribe button. We're gonna go back over to the correspondence dinner in just a second. We're waiting for Donald Trump to speak. But there was an incident that happened in New York City today that I kind of wanted to cover. There was a stabbing on the upper west side of Manhattan. It appeared to be a st anti-Semitic. And with the rhetoric that Mayor Mamdani has been spewing, it has caused some controversy. Here's the Fox News report.

SPEAKER_08 27:23

And I think the thing is that he's not being proactive to make the Jewish community feel comfortable. These are people who are repeatedly saying they are uncomfortable walking the streets with a Yamaka or the Star of David on display. He needs to be proactive, bring these communities together, show the city, show the country that he's working with them, do more public events with them and press conferences condemning this type of activity. We don't see him doing that. And that is really a problem moving forward.

SPEAKER_11 27:50

Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_13 27:53

Well, because he's not friendly with the Jewish community. He's just, he's not. I mean, I'm sorry. He he's a staunch opposer of Israel. He has made some awful comments about the Israeli people, Jewish people. He's he's a he's very pro-Palestinian or even pro-Hamas. Here is a Jewish leader that gave a speech about the situation today. These were two Jewish people that got stabbed, and the suspect was yelling Allah Akbar as he was stabbing them on the upper east side of Manhattan.

SPEAKER_09 28:26

Today, every time the mayor speaks, we need the police to protect us. It was meant to be a day to commemorate the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people throughout our history. But when a member of our community was stabbed on his way out of the synagogue, the evil we gathered to remember stopped belonging to the past. Suddenly, it was right here in the present. You know, when I was growing up, the only time we saw security outside of my synagogue or outside of my Jewish day school was when the mayor came to speak. The police were there to protect him. Today, every time the mayor speaks, we need the police to protect us. Jewish life in America is starting to feel like Jewish life in Europe. Armed guards, bulletproof glass, and the constant fear that yesterday's rhetoric will turn into today's assault. So many people know Moshe, so many people care about him. He was just trying to pray at his synagogue. And now we're the ones praying for his recovery. To have been stabbed 200 feet from the Jewish center evoked all the worst images of the Jewish past. If a Jew can't feel safe walking on the shoot in broad daylight on a Thursday afternoon on the upperwest side of Manhattan, then something has gone profoundly wrong. Not only for the Jewish community, but for our city. I want to thank Jessica Tisch and the NYPD for their swift response. And I want to thank all the communal leaders who have come together today. We may not share the same religion, but we share the same faith. Faith in the dignity of every human being, and faith that together we can help rebuild this great city and make it safe for every New Yorker once again.

SPEAKER_13 30:51

But this is what you get when you elect this kind of speaker. I mean, this kind of leader. This is precisely what you get. Here is Mom Dani being asked a question about this terrible, awful hate crime that occurred on the Upper West Side. And let's let's watch his reaction. What do you have to say to critics who say you aren't doing enough to keep Jewish New Yorkers safe?

SPEAKER_06 31:19

You know, first and foremost, I want to make clear that this is a city where we have no tolerance for hatred of any kind. Be hatred of someone on the basis of their faith, on their background, national identity, this is a city that not only has no tolerance for it, but would also hold anyone who is found to be perpetrating it fully accountable. And I'll also just take a moment to address yesterday's horrific stabbings on the Upper West Side of an Asian male and a Jewish male. I am so relieved to hear that both of these victims are in stable condition, and I wish them a full and speedy recovery. And my heart breaks for them and their families, what they have had to experience. I also want to thank the NYPD officers for their swift response and their apprehension of a suspect by the name of Raul Morales, who they believe to have perpetrated both of these two stabbings. At this point, the early NYPD investigations indicate that mental health may have been a role, they're also evaluating whether both of these constitute hate crap. And I'll continue to follow up and share with New Yorkers any updates for that. Thank you both very much.

SPEAKER_13 32:18

Yeah. We'll see if they constitute hate hate craps. He's like, oh he stabbed an Asian male too. Are are are there no Jewish Asians in front of a synagogue? Are there no Jewish Asians in front of a synagogue? That's a serious and legitimate question. But you know, he he wouldn't have been so pronouncing of his name if his name was Mohammed Akhed Malad. It would be like, oh yeah, we're investigating it, but this guy's got a last name of Gonzalez because Gonzalez people can't be anti-Semitic. They can't be anti-Semitic. They can't be racist. And there was an Asian person there. We don't know if they were Jewish or not, but they were Asian. So therefore, we're gonna look and see if it was a hate crime. Let's head back over to the correspondence dinner and let's see what we got.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Born in China and raised in Appalachian coal country, make her way to the Oval Office to ask questions of the President of the United States. Because when this is your home, you inherit something remarkable. The protections in the First Amendment, free religion, free speech, free press, free assembly, free petition. This fundamental right belongs to everyone. And that's exactly who the founders were thinking about when they protected a free press. Everyone, all Americans. They were not thinking about reporters. A free press is not a favor to journalists because we're special. We are not special. But America is. No matter who you are, the freedom to criticize without fear of being destroyed, that's not a bug in our democracy. It's supposed to be the feature. In 1786, writing from Paris, Thomas Jefferson told his friend back in Virginia, our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. Five years later, that thought was enshrined in the Constitution after Jefferson urged James Madison to include a Bill of Rights. Many founders couldn't stand the press. Some things never change. But they understood if our access is restricted, it's really the people's access to information that is limited. If the media faces government pressure or censorship, it's the people who end up knowing less. That was true then, and it's true now. But having press freedom comes with a tremendous responsibility. We can't demand accountability without practicing it. Criticism of the media can be unfair. It can also be legitimate. We get a lot right, but sometimes we get things wrong. We mistake proximity to power for understanding it. And at times we get trapped in our own bubbles. There is a difference though, an existential difference between criticizing the press and trying to undermine it. One is healthy and it makes all of us better. The other is exactly what the founders hoped to prevent. Around the world, press freedom is not guaranteed. In many countries, reporters who criticize the government are detained without trial, their stories erased. In the worst cases, they never make it home. Tonight we think about all of them and we think about the protections that set us apart as a nation. Just 20 days ago, America turned 250 years old. The First Amendment is a big part of how she made it this far. And it falls on all of us to make sure it carries her through to the next 250 and beyond. President Trump, I've covered you for a long time, and so have many reporters in this room. When we ask questions, you push back, you give us answers, and we push back.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

And maybe that's a question you should ask China.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Well, that's the deal. And the First Amendment is a done deal. And that's what we toast tonight, the freedoms that brought us back together even after they were threatened. So let's raise a glass to what makes ours a beautiful country.

SPEAKER_13 36:55

The First Amendment is an individual right.

SPEAKER_00 36:57

Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming the 45th and 47th president of the United States. There we go.

SPEAKER_13 37:15

Now he gets to roast them.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Those awards on those awards. And I'm very proud of it because I built it for $2.9 billion less than the Federal Reserve Building, which is a lot smaller, by the way. Figure that one out. But I am delighted to be here at the White House Correspondence Dinner. Amazing people. A lot of people that I like. Some I don't like it all. But I respect most of them. I must say that you do a great job. Amazing job, and it's an honor. As I said three months ago, the show must go on. We were back, we were backstage, and we both wanted to just have it go on, whether it was two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning, it didn't matter. But in the end, it made more sense to do it the way we're doing it. And we had a great news conference at the White House at a very important room. And you did very well. I think we all did very well. It was a hell of an evening, I can tell you that. Won't soon be forgotten. And I think a lot was learned from that evening. A tremendous amount was learned about security and about other things, the dangers of what we all do. But just like my presidency, the second time is always better. It's always better. And the third time will be better yet.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

I'm only kidding. From the earliest moments after the attack on our dinner last April, I knew we had to reschedule this event as soon as possible. We had to do it very quickly, and we met very quickly, and we figured something out. But the attempted mass murder at the Washington Hilton, that's what it could have been, was an assault on our democracy itself. Very serious situation. Many of you were there with me, and some showed extreme bravery, like Pete Hagsett, Steve Miller, Tom Holman. Really? They were standing on tables, and most of you were under the tables, okay? But they did. They showed, I saw every one of them that was standing up in those tables. I didn't know if they were brave, if they were smart, if they were stupid as hell. But they were on those tables in some cases, and there were a lot of different feelings going on in the room at that moment. But after hearing the gunshots, many people yelled, get down, get down, which caused Nikki Minaj to start twerking. You want him? Get down. She's the only one that really understood what that meant. It's quite an evening. But tonight we come back together to answer that heinous attack with unwavering resolve. And every one of us here this evening to show that in America we do not yield to political violence. We don't, we can't do that. Can't do it. So in this country, we believe in freedom of speech. We settle our differences not with bullets, but with open and vigorous debate. And no deranged loser with a gun will ever change that. We can't let that ever happen. A lot of very dangerous people out there. We can't let it happen. I want to begin by expressing our gratitude to the incredible men and women who put their lives on the line every day to protect my family and myself, all presidents, and lots of others. That's the United States Secret Service. So I appreciate it very much. And Sean and the whole group, amazing job. Amazing job. In recent months, they've repeatedly responded to threats with speed and professionalism and extraordinary courage. And there is no better example of that than Officer Victor Gonzalez, who we just met. It was amazing. What he did was amazing. When the would-be assassin charged the checkpoint at speed, he was fast. You know, when you looked at that, you had to look at it about ten times before you really saw what was going on. He was quick. Nasty. The gun made him nasty, actually. But Officer Gonzalez engaged the attacker without hesitation and took a bullet to the chest after his ballistic vest fortunately was on, saved his life. And Victor did not even want to go to the hospital for a checkup. We insisted really, we wanted him to do it. We insisted, but he didn't want to go. So to Officer Gonzalez, Secret Service, Metropolitan Police, Law Enforcement Generally, and even all of the militaries around us in the room tonight, we salute you and we thank you with all of our hearts. Thank you very much. Great job. So this evening we're picking up right where we left off. So let's have a little bit of fun, you know. I said, what do we do here? Is this supposed to be fun? Am I supposed to be serious? Am I supposed to be a comedian? So I guess there's maybe a little bit of everything. I know one thing I could never have done the speech that I had ready, just a short while. Oh, that was gonna be a doozy. I was so psyched. I was gonna rip people. And I don't know, just something changed. And it's really for the better, but I just wouldn't want to do that. But we'll do a little ripping if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_13 44:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

But it is true. I said, how do we handle it? This is gonna be a different kind of an evening, and it is. And in many ways, it's a more beautiful evening, actually. Everyone's looking really good tonight, and I know it was not easy finding shoes to go along with your bulletproof vests, which many people didn't want to wear because they'd rather die than look 20 pounds heavier. You know that, right? We have that a lot. They put a they put one on me. I said, Are you sure I'm not wearing this? No, you gain, you look exactly 20. They say, sir, it's about 21 pounds. They said, not good. But I want to thank the outgoing president of the White House Correspondent Center Association. Now she won't admit it, and she should not admit it, but we sort of became friendly. You know, in times of stress, on occasion you become friendly. I have a lot of respect for Ouija. And I tell you, we uh turned out pretty good. It turned out pretty good because of a lot of good people. They they stopped the tragedy. So I want to thank you very much. Fantastic. And Ouija worked extremely hard to ensure this dinner was uh rescheduled. And we run just thank her family. I just met her parents, her children, her husband. What a perfect family. So it's uh really great. Thank you very much, all, for putting up with us. For putting up with us, right? But let me also thank the incoming president of the Correspondence Association, Jackie Heinrich. She could be very tough as a reporter, I will tell you. She can be nasty. She looks so beautiful, but she could be so nasty. How could that happen? But she just got married to a very successful congressman, very good congressman. I'd like to have a couple of more votes for him, but that's okay. On occasion. He chose a little independence. We don't like that. But now he's a very professional guy and he's a very he loves our country. But that's a big thing. I just see what takes place. We're talking about what takes place to be in the position that you're leaving and that Jackie's coming into. And it's a lot of work, a lot of friendships, a lot of talent. And so, Jackie, congratulations. And congratulations are also in order for our favorite White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, who just had her second child. You and your husband. She's done a fantastic job. We all love her. She's done a fantastic job. She gives another one. She can be nasty. But sometimes she has no choice, right? But Caroline may have one of the hardest jobs in the White House. She has to deal with all of you all of the time. And you could be very difficult. You can be very, very difficult people. But I'm probably being a little bit oversensitive. Sometimes I really do think that some of you don't like me. In fact, I read a report, I get 93% negative publicity. 93%. So how the hell did I win the election by so much? Think of it, I don't think that's true. I can't believe it's 93. In the 80s, maybe, but not 93. But this place is the really the largest group of Trump derangement syndrome people ever put together at one time, I suspect. Some of you are lucky that our last dinner was cut short because I had brought with me what would possibly have been, I'm telling you, I had I had something. I was gonna go after you. I was gonna, I feel so badly doing this. It's gotta be such a letdown. Oh, yay, yay. But your lives were really in danger the last time for an opposite reason. But on the plus side, your careers were saved, and we have a uh, we really do. We have a complete and total, you know. I love the words, complete and total. They say, but it means almost the same thing. I said, it doesn't matter when you say it. It's called emphasis. It's called emphasis. But everyone is now really warming up. The new White House military center, drone port, highly protected ballroom. It's we have our ballroom, the windows are this thick. I said to the people, well, if a bullet hits, what happens? Nothing. Nothing. It bounces right off, sir. This is the greatest bulletproof glass. I said, 8K-47. That's supposed to be a big one. I don't know so much about the guns. My sons know a lot. It's not that big, but it's but I said, I know it's big. What would happen? They go up, meaning it can take more. I said, so if I'm making a speech and I hear that pinging sound at a window, what would I do? Sir, leave the room right away, but but you're gonna be safe. We're building something that's gonna be amazing. And in light of what we went through, I think people understand it, it's gonna be amazing. A phenomenal, one of the biggest drone ports anywhere in the world, right on the roof, right protecting the White House. Not only the ballroom, and what's underneath, you know, is supposed to be a top military secret, what's underneath, but then you get sued as usual, and you have to reveal that you're building this unbelievable situation downstairs with room after room of very complex stuff. It was the military's dream to have it built. I wanted to have a ballroom because for 150 years they wanted it. And then the generals came to see me and they said, Sir, you're building something. This gives us an opportunity to do something that will be so unbelievable, it will never happen again. Because there's very little built under the White House, very hard to build under a very fragile building like that. It's very fragile, it's old, and a little different construction standards, frankly. And this is an opportunity for us to build something very powerful. I said, let's keep it secret. They said, no, no, we're telling you, sir, let's keep it secret. And then we get sued and we revealed every room, every. We told the people that did the suit, they're not good people. We told them, we said, you know, you're being very unpatriotic when you bring a suit like this, but it is what it is, but it's gonna be, it's really going, it's moving fast. We're ahead of schedule, we're right on budget, and it's gonna be something like I think no country has. I just visited China. They have this magnificent room, the great room. They call it the great room, it's a great room, but what we have is gonna blow. There won't be anything like it's gonna be fantastic, with all of the things that are going along with it for safety and security of future presidents. You know, I'm only gonna be using it for about six months. Assuming we finish it right on time. I get to use it. Somebody said, he's building it for himself. I'm building it for the future. I'm not building it. I use it. Now, had I not gone down six or seven stories, then in that case, I would have been able to get a couple of years out of it. But that was far more complex what we did downstairs than what we do upstairs. So we're very proud of it, though. It's gonna be amazing. And I think I was just telling the whole group sitting at the table we were talking about, and I said, I think, you know, it's White House correspondence, so I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be able to use that. It's gonna be very large and very beautiful and very safe, and that's what you need. So I was thrilled to see that after witnessing the attack, even Democrat Senator John Fetterman told his fellow Democrats to drop the Trump derangement syndrome and build the White House ballroom. But it's much more than that. It's something that you're gonna use. I predict that you're gonna end up using it, and a lot of people are gonna end up using it. They're gonna be as safe as you can possibly be. But despite everything that happened at the previous dinner and all of the dangers involved, I'm told that this is still the hottest ticket in town. This ticket to get in tonight, because it's a smaller room, it's a beautiful room, it's a luxury room. See those beautiful chandeliers. I can tell you everything about them if you'd like to know. See that beautiful capital above? See the beautiful capital, see the everything, the brass. Those chandeliers are great. I'm looking at them, I'm saying, I wonder if I could, you know, I sold this building and they're doing a nice job, but they're nice people. But I'll tell you, I'm looking at it, I'm saying, I wonder if I could walk out with those chandeliers because you can't buy them. They're very special. I won't tell you the fact. I won't mention that they're Czech crystal, because I'd like to say everything's made here, but they are Czech crystal. And they are beautiful. And the Waldorf people are doing a really nice job. We're proud of them, actually. Because, you know, when I left town, I was in Agri. I was a little bit angry. I was offered a nice price, and I said, I'm getting out of that place. And then I said, let's make a comeback. And but I was very proud of this building. This building was hot. Remember the lobby floor? 82,000 feet. For those in the real estate business, 82,000 feet. That's a major, that's a major floor. That thing was packed every single night. It was packed mostly Republicans, I would say, but it was packed every single night. It almost brings back memories. But I left town and I have just had nothing but good experience, and this might be the best experience of all, having all of these incredible people in this room. It's a great, it's a great feeling, frankly. It's a great feeling. But tonight's event, thank you. But tonight's event is even crazier than the last time. In fact, it's so successful that I've been informed by CBS News' David Ellison, who's gonna do a fandom job. He's the owner. He's the owner. He bought it, spent a lot of money, and he's gonna make, I think, fantastic changes and keep some of the great stuff going. But that next year they're going to call it the Trump White House Correspondence Center. He told me that. And I like that very much. We're gonna change the name of it, okay? Oh, it's gonna be so hot, just like our country is hot. We are hot, by the way. But to be honest, it's just about the only way that they're gonna ever get me back here. You're gonna have to change the name of the dinner. But how's that one going? Not too good. I hope that everyone finally got to enjoy their entire very delicious beef tenderloins, very special beef. And I want you all to know that Bobby Kennedy, who's right here, personally ran over the cow in his car. And he cut it up and he brought it here for you to eat tonight, so it's very fresh. And Bobby also suggested an appetizer featuring his favorite cut of Mill Raccoon Roadkill. But we drew the line at that, Cheryl. We said, no, we're not gonna do that. We're not doing that. We love Bobby. I'll tell you, he's a piece of work. You think it's it is fun, but he is a very different kind of a person, I will tell you. But he has what it takes, and he's smart, and he loves the country, and he wants people to be made to feel good. Do you agree with that, Bobby? He wants people to feel good. And he's doing a fantastic job. Thank you, Bobby. Thank you. We can joke all we want, but thank you. A lot's happened since the last time we were all together. Last month we hosted one of the most incredible sporting events in world history at the White House, the UFC Freedom 250 fight, the UFC fight. When I announced that we're gonna build a boxing ring right outside of the front door of the White House, that took a lot of heat. But it turned out that was, they say, about the most viewed fight in history. It was incre it was beautiful. So many things happened. It was supposed to rain. We're gonna do it the week before, and the weather was beautiful. And the weather came and it went, and now we came up to Wednesdays. They said, sir, this was on a Sunday night, replacing 60 minutes, which is nice. Unusual, because usually it's Saturday night. And they said, sir, it's this was from Wednesday on. Tell me about weather, right? Sir, it's gonna rain. I think you're gonna have to, it's gonna be one of the worst storms that we've seen in a long time. It's coming up the coast, it's gonna hit you on Sunday night. It's gonna be a disaster. I'm saying, can you believe it? And you saw the ring we built, Dana White, the great Dana White, and everything. We had the best fighters in the world. Turned out we had the best fights that we that most people have ever seen, including me. It was just a miracle. But what happened is we're waiting for this rain to come all day long, and it's coming, and it's horrible. And it's eight o'clock, and we say, I think we're gonna shoot it, hasn't rained yet. I said, Maybe we should postpone it an hour. Maybe you should we should make it the next day. We didn't know what to do. And finally we just said, let's just have it. And it never rained. It was perfect. In fact, the week before it was 92 degrees, it was nice, but it was this was like 72 degrees, and the rain was coming, and it came right over the White House, and it was like, Thank you very much. It went like this, and other areas were drenched a few miles away. We didn't have a drop of rain, and it was absolutely one of the most incredible things anybody's ever said. People said it's uh one of the most incredible nights of their lives. So just remember before I came along, if you wanted to see someone lose consciousness on the south lawn of the White House, all you had to do is ask Joe Biden a question. Remember that? Oh, you think I'm kidding. But the big fight was such an amazing success that tonight I'm pleased to announce that we're going to host an even bigger one right in front of the White House every Friday night, every Saturday night. We're gonna have fights in front of the White House. Oh, but we do have something coming that's, and I'm only kidding. You know, the one thing about the press that I learned, don't be sarcastic. When, because I'm a very sarcastic person, and I get sarcastic, and most people know that, but you have some bad people that will write it exactly like I say it. And I said I was only kidding. But we are gonna have Indy 500, Roger Penske's coming in mid-August, and they're gonna have it all throughout Washington, the greatest cars, the greatest drivers in the world. And that's gonna be something already. There have over 350,000 people signed up going down Pennsylvania Avenue, around the Capitol, and Roger, who's incredible, he won the Indianapolis 500 20 times. Think of it Germany, Japan, all these countries, they spend billions and billions of dollars trying to win the Indy 500. And Roger wins it. He literally won it 20 times. On the 18th time, I said, you know, that's amazing. I'm gonna give him the presidential medal of freedom. And I had him up. And then he won it two times after that. The guy's amazing. And he lost the last one by about six inches, if anybody watched it. So they're coming here, and it's gonna be something really exciting. We have unbelievable events. It's an unbelievable country. And on July 4th, we were over at the mall, and it was raining. It was supposed to be really bad again. And we had 450,000 people show up, and that's a light number. And I was told, sir, we're gonna have to cancel the event. This was not good. And it was drizzling a little bit, not raining very hard. And people are calling me, friends of mine were calling me, and I got a call from Brett Bear. Brett Bear said, It's not raining. I said, Where are you? I'm standing at the mall and I'm waiting to go in the White House. Then others called up, they said the same thing. And I said, You know, this is terrible. But there was lightning, not big lightning, but you don't have to have big lightning. Just have to take just a little bit to do some big damage. So they said, Everybody must leave. Everybody 450,000 people were forced to go.

SPEAKER_13 1:00:31

Look at them all on their phones.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

And then I said to myself, I said, let me call up and find out what the hell's going on. And I called up and I spoke to a brilliant young man. He said, Don't worry about it, sir. We can do it in a couple of weeks. I said, You can't do it in a couple of weeks. This is the 250th birthday. In two weeks, what are we gonna do? Say, let's go, we're gonna have a redo? No. I said, I'll speak if I have to speak at three o'clock in the morning, two o'clock, one o'clock, I don't care. Call them all back. They're all gone. 450,000. And most of them were in cars or heading back to Texas, and it was sad. And we said, the show must go on. Very much like here, we said the same term, right? The show, it's a great term. It's true in life. The show has to go on, the show must go on. And I said, the show must go on. I put it out on truth. The show must go on. And we had probably, Peter, 150,000 people come back, come back up higher. Maybe. Thank you. That's that's stand up, Peter. Tell them. More, right? It might have been more, but it was amazing. It was, it was just an amazing crowd. And actually worked out better, a little like this. It worked out better than if it we had done it at the normal 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock time. It was incredible. We started speaking at 11 o'clock in the evening, but tremendous numbers of people, tens, I mean thousands and thousands came roaring back, and it was a great evening. And it was a celebration. And we didn't do it the following day, and we didn't do it two weeks later. We did it when we were supposed to do it. It was a fantastic celebration. But I can exclusively reveal to you this evening that for the heaviest of the heavyweights, we will have sloppy Chris Christie, one of the sloppiest human beings you'll ever meet. Fighting, I would say, I could mention the governor of Chicago, but I'm going to mention instead Jerry Nadler. And they're fighting for a big piece of cheesecake, big fat piece of cheesecake. Who the hell wrote that line? But it is true. And then you have a congresswoman, Alexandria, Ocasio, Cortez, AOC plus three. That's her three friends, right? AOC plus three, and I watched her give that answer when she was over in Europe. It was not a good answer. If I ever gave that answer, I would be out of politics. Remember? You cannot have a 19-second wait time to answer a second, really a very quite simple question. But we'll then have a rematch against an extreme simple question on a foreign policy from Munich Security Conference. There was a big security conference, and this was our first time up in terms of that. And we had sort of little preview, and then Anderson Cooper is going to fight Lawrence O'Donnell. I'm not a fan of Lawrence O'Donnell. I like Anderson actually because he's covered me well for many years. Then he went bad as soon as I went for politics. But but for years he loved interviewing. I did so many interviews with him, and he was great. But, you know, he's got a little different persuasion than me in many ways, actually. And Lawrence O'Donnell never liked him, never thought he had any talent. But he's still making a living, so I can't knock it. But we had a contest for who had the lowest ratings and the lowest IQ on television. And that was actually Don Lemon, I think. You know, when I said that, he's the dumbest man on television. I said, you know, when you say some things, you never make a comeback. It's not like, oh, gee, hey Don, let's have dinner some night. But I know what I'm saying. And then you have Bet Mittler and Jane Fonda actually held a concert to protest the first UFC fight. They didn't want to see the fight. And very few people want. They had a they held an event. Like three people showed up. And given the choice between seeing some of the really beat-up faces of the UFC, almost everyone chose the people in the UFC. It was between the two of them of the UFC. And what about Bruce Springsteen? What the hell happened to that guy? He looks like hell. I don't care what anyone says. I'm not supposed to say, I'm sure he doesn't like the way I look, but I don't look so bad. But at a recent conch, Bruce, all he did was talk politics. He ought to run for office. That'd be interesting. But all he talked about, he made four political speeches in his three-hour show. The tour has been renamed Board in the USA. And his new song was so bad that Chris Christie, who's like a fan, you know, he goes out and tells everybody how he hates Chris Christie. Keep that guy out of my. And I see Chris Christie there again, high-fiving Bruce Springsteen in the aisle. And Bruce Springsteen saw him and didn't even lift his hand up. And I just want to, because I used to be friendly with Chris. Chris, when somebody doesn't like you, write them off, forget it. You got billions of people in the world. You don't have to make a jerk out of yourself. But usually a comedian hosts this dinner. And I think we sort of changed it. And now we're going to have somebody who I think is really spectacular, but I've watched comedians get up for the dinner because I have been here actually quite a few times. People don't realize. And there's one time in particular when Barack Hussein Obama hosted it. Do you know who that is? And he hit me hard, but actually he hit me with respect. I was sitting with Milani at a table, and you had Brooklyn Decker, supermodel, at a table right next to her. And she, I I really always will like her. She's married to a great tennis player, Andy. And she was at the table, not at my table. And I have watched this clip thousands of times. They keep playing it because they think that was evening I decided to run for president. It was not. In fact, I loved the evening. I looked at my wife, I said, Can you believe it? All these people, that's all they're doing is talking about me. I love this dinner. It's true. And Obama was nice. He, you know, it's amazing how things work out. He actually showed a picture of the White House with a big Trump on top. Like I put a sign, and you know, I'm sort of doing that when you think about it, right? I mean, he wasn't really wrong, but no, he was respectful. He was good, and and it had, but it had nothing to do. It had nothing to do. I just decided that I wanted to make America great again. This had nothing to do with that dinner. I've gotten so many, yeah, I've gotten so many calls, and for years they've been saying, was that the moment you decided to run? Really? No. I left that night and the press was there. A lot of the same people that I see. They said, Did you have a good time? Unbelievable. And some thought I didn't have, but I did have. And I really, I always remember though, Brooklyn. She was so angry. She was much angrier than me. She was angry. She thought they were mocking me. And they really weren't. It was just one of those things. And I had a great time. But I left and I sort of thought I was there three or four times before that, but I sort of thought, Wow, that dinner is really something special. And then I ran, I got elected. I thought the press treated me very, very unfairly. And I don't know. I think I made the right decision because you hate to go where maybe you're not wanted, but they did want me. They wanted me for ratings and they wanted me for other reasons, but not for love. And I said, you know, I'm not gonna go. First time that ever happened, I think. Was that the first time? Just about. Presidents always came. And I didn't go for four years because I got treated terribly by the press. In, you know, in my opinion, unfairly. I know unfairly because I know the facts, but I got treated unfairly. I didn't go. And this year I was called by your president and your chairman and all of the people, and they said, we'd like to do it. And I say, you know what? With time, time goes by, time passes, and you sort of look at life a little bit differently. I said, let's do it. And I didn't know it was going to turn out the way it did. It turned out to be the biggest event in the history of your day. That was by far the biggest, right? For all the wrong reasons. But as I said before, a lot was learned from that evening. So much having to do with so many different things, including security. But it's an honor to do it. This is my first. I mean, I've been to it numerous times, but as president, I haven't been here. And I'm glad. And I said, they said, Would you do it next year? I said, I will be back next year. Now, if you get really, really nasty, maybe not. I don't know. But we're going to be back next year. And what Janke would pick me very badly. But this year the association decided not to have a comedian, so they considered using Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon. These guys, they're terrible. They're terrible. Stephen Colbert, these are people without talent. They get a lot, they have talent. You know who has talent? They're agents getting them the amount, the money they get. They have no talent. But they are not comedians. They're not funny people. They're angry people. They're sick people. But the association really put on a big show and they have somebody very special. I look forward to seeing them. And so they thought about going with a professional clown for entertainment, but Adam Shifty Shift was not available. You know, he's known. I called him I I hate some people, you know. I shouldn't say that. I'm supposed to love everybody, but he's a terrible person. He's a liar. And uh I called him watermelon head because he is the largest head I've ever seen with the smallest heck, pencil neck. How does that big, fat, ugly head stand on a on a little pencil, pencil, pencil neck? And then I'm told that even Rosie O'Donnell reached out from Ireland. She really wanted to be here in order to honor me. She loves me very much, and she was desperate to come back to the United States and pay her respect to Donald J. Trump. But that didn't work out, unfortunately, because nobody wanted her to come back. She actually, but she's one of the greatest sufferers of Trump derangements. She's a sick young woman, sick older woman, I guess now I have to say. So instead, we're honored to have for entertainment the very talented mentalist, Oz Perlman, Oes Perlman. And everything, everybody, they said, Are you gonna stay? I said, Yeah, I'll stay. I mean, I think I'll say, What the hell else am I gonna do? I've got Iran, I've got this, I've got that, which is all going extremely well. Don't believe the fake news. You know, it's the only thing I've ever, we were talking before, I said, so we've hit Iran very hard. Their Navy is gone, their off Air Force is gone, 250 jets no longer, 159 boats, good boats. In fact, I said, why the hell didn't we keep them? We could have used them, but 159 boats, all at the bottom of the sea. They have no radar, they have very few drones left, despite what you see, and every once in a while they're gonna set some things up, but they don't have much left. And by the way, they are talking to us right now. They'd love to make a deal. I don't think they're ready to. I don't think it's time yet, but I'm willing to listen. But they cannot have a nuclear weapon. We don't want to see Washington, D.C., or any of our cities or Israel or frankly the Middle East destroyed with a nuclear weapon because I know the power of nuclear weapons. I see it. I get to see it. We're not gonna let that happen. So this is all about we will not let them have a nuclear weapon. And they would use it. They would use it if they had it. But Oz, I do have one question about what happened that time because he was there. How the hell did you not see that coming? He sees everything. He sees everything. He's telling me about uh your grandmother and your this. Why the hell didn't you? We gotta ask him that question when he gets up here. Why didn't he see that coming? But of course, this evening it's really all about the fake news media and your handling of prizes and writing and producing and performing made-up stories like the Academy Awards. You know, Academy Awards used to be the epitome of ratings. Outside of the Super Bowl, it got the second most ratings. Now it's down in the dumps. Nobody wants to watch it anymore because they took on Trump. They hit me all night long, they hit me. The winner is so-and-so. I want to talk about Donald Trump. I hate this man. Nobody wants to hear this stuff, right, Peter? Nobody wants to hear it. You ever see the ratings? They used to have 48 million people, now they have two people watching, but they'll learn their lesson. But I want to personally congratulate CNN's Caitlin Collins on receiving her award. It was all about me. It's a fake, she shouldn't get the award. It was a fake, but I didn't mind. I said, Caitlin, congratulations. But it was fake, there's no question about it. But she's a young, attractive woman. She never smiles. I said, Caitlin, do you ever smile? Smile. You have a nice position, you're at CNN fake news, you should be a happy person. So smile, Caitlin, just smile. But we attack, and I thought Caitlin had really made it big with a major new sponsorship. But then I informed her that it wasn't her on the Bud Light can, it was Dylan Mulvaney. And Dylan Mulvaney cost Bud Light $35 billion in market cap. That was the worst commercial ever made, by the way. For those few people that want to hear that, most people don't care, but I would. I wouldn't want to hire Dylan anytime soon. Think of it, they hired Dylan Mulvaney, and their market cap has gone down by $35 billion. Who wrote that commercial? And then you have writer Josh Dorsey. He also received, he's been killing me for years. No, he's been and yet tonight he shakes my hand, he hugs me, everything nice. He kills me. Josh is amazing. He writes more stories than any human being. There's nobody that writes more than Josh. He'll write four stories about me a day, all different subjects. I mean, I had the other day three stories, and one on the he was upset about this. One was on page seven, three were in page one. They were all written by Josh, but he's hit the big time, and he's a workhorse. And yet he's almost unhirable. You know, you hired, he's just one of these guys. Wall Street Journal's lucky to have him, but you really, it's a it's unbelievable. He's almost unhirable. CNN is also here and very disappointed they didn't bring fake tapper because he's had a rough couple of years, fake has. You know, he calls me up every once in a while. If I pick it up, you know, I pick up my phone. I used to go to this young lady, I'd say, any calls from the press? No, sir. I said, Oh, now I'm the president of the United States, right? I'd say to Stephen Chung, is Stephen here someplace with Stephen? He's one of the toughest human beings I've ever met. Don't ever wrestle, Stephen, you'll be in big trouble. But I say, Stephen, let me ask you, did the press call? No, sir. You know, when I was a developer, I'd get a call every half an hour. For whatever reason, I always got disproportionate press. So I said, Steven, nobody called? No, sir. Two hours later, I say, Hi Steve, how are we doing? Everything good? Anybody call? No, sir, no press calls. I said, I'm present. Nope, they never called. So this went on for about a week. I'd say, Caroline did the press call. No, sir, no calls. I said, nothing. It's over a week. I haven't received a call. So I said, you know what I'll do? I'm gonna give the press my phone number. That was the stupidest thing I ever did. I'm getting a call every 3.7 minutes. Stephen, I don't know where the hell you've been. But the press calls, I'm getting calls. Ring, ring. I was with somebody today. They said, I've never heard a phone ring as much as it's fresh. Now I look at the thing and usually just delete, delete, delete. Every once in a while, it'll be one of the people in this room that I like, and I'll pick it up. Like this one right here calls me on occasion, right? She'll call me, she says, Hello, sir, how are you? Uh we want to talk about some horrible subject, like a horrible depressing subject. And say, Jackie, I don't want to talk about it. Congratulations, however, on your new marriage. But I don't want to talk about it. But it's true. And people call me now, and and so for weeks I go, no calls. And I learned then that both of them, they feel that I'm doing a great job, and they feel I'm above it all, and that no person, hundreds of people call no person, is good enough to talk to Trump. And so we don't even bother telling you. That's not the way it works, Caroline. You have to let me know because sometimes I do want, I do like to speak to the press, but now I have the best system I've ever had. It rings, and just so you understand, you're much better putting your name. Because if there's no name, I just I just can't do that. You know, I pick up every once in a while. Hello, I'm from Reno, Nevada. We're a startup paper. We're calling us the Reno Express. I said, Do you believe I'm the president of the United States? Mr. President, could I have your views through on Iran? And I just hang up. No, I get the craziest calls. I mean, some of my wife said, I can't believe you do this. This is a hell of a way to live. But sometimes they get calls from very important. Sometimes I can straighten out stories that are going to be fake, and I can make them from a fake story to a good story. I always find that when you don't speak to the press, you always get a bad story. When you do speak to the press, you have a shot at getting a good story. Oh, look. No, because look, if I were a reporter, and let's say I'm a big reporter, I work for the failing New York Times, or I work for one, well, I don't know, do they ever come to these dinners? Didn't they cancel out a long time ago? Big mistake. They should be here. But I get a call. I've always found that, you know, speaking to them, you just do better. You do better when you can, when you have the time. You speak to the reporter, you treat the reporter with respect. Sometimes now there are reporters where it doesn't matter. You can be so nice to them it doesn't matter. You get treated unfairly. But you have a lot of great reporters where when you speak to them, you can get your point across, and that's a that's a good thing. But some people say that Jake Tapper is a great investigative reporter in D.C., and that's why after moderating our debate, it only took him one year to break the story that Joe Biden might possibly have suffered from cognitive decline. Took him one year. He wrote a book about how great he was mentally not too good. And I don't like Biden because Biden was very unfair to a lot of people. But Joe Biden insists that Joe would have beaten me in 2024, even though he was way down. She said he was way behind in the polls because he was seriously ahead. She felt he was going to win because he was seriously ahead on deceased voters. He was leading in the deceased crowd, and there were a lot of them. You're finding out there's a lot of them. Look at the numbers that just came out yesterday. And it's traditional that at least one or two potential presidential hopefuls attend the correspondence dinner, but many of them seem to have really chickened out. I was disappointed that Gavin Newscomb didn't show up. He didn't show up, he should be here. But I heard that he recently said that we will lose our country if we don't fight fire with fire. And to be fair, there's only one thing we know about Gavin, and that's that he definitely doesn't want to fight fire with water. He's got a lot of water news. What a disaster. That should have never happened. But Gavin Newscomb recently did a career-threatening, one of the worst interviews I've ever seen, where he said that he can't read a speech. He's incapable of reading a speech. He's a low IQ person. He's smarter, however, than all of the people in the room. And then he gets sued for being a racist, okay, when he said that. But he basically said he has various mental incapacities. He has difficulty and various other ailments mentally. And I'm looking at him saying, this is the worst interview. I'm watching this interview. I said, this is the worst interview I've ever seen given by a professional politician. I've been watching politicians for a long time, mostly on the previous side, because I haven't been doing this too long. How am I doing? Not bad for the number of for the number of minutes spent. Not bad, but with Gavin, so he said that all these things, and I said, anybody running against him, all they have to do is take that one interview and you can't lose. I actually put out a statement that Gavin News has come out and said he will not be running for president because nobody can say what he said about himself and survive. Newsom was in big trouble when he openly admitted that Kamala was smarter than him. She said, Kamala is smarter. If Kamala is smarter than someone, you don't want that person to be president of the United States of America. Between California's policies of enabling wildfires, paying drug addicts to be homeless, giving free sex changes to illegals, and telling rich people they're going to take away. All of your money is going to be taken away. People are fleeing, and they're fleeing in droves. We can't have that in this country. It's becoming such a horrible and dangerous location that Elon Omar, one of my favorites, and her brother are thinking about moving together very much in love. A video has surfaced recently of Elon giving a speech referring to World War II as World War XI. And they asked her about that. She still thought she thought she got it right. But I'm not surprised because she's a low IQ person and she's also a very dishonest person. And she ought to get the hell out of our country. She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't be in our country. She also calls her brother husband number one. Omar is reportedly being investigated for fraud. She revised her net worth. I was shocked to see that she was worth much more than $30 million. And then when the press got on her, she revised it slightly downward to less than 18,000. So she went from much more than 30 million to 18,000. And I know Democrats, and the word Democrat is something that's come into fashion. I changed the E with the U. And most people don't know that dumb has a B, so we don't have to worry about that. It's very quiet. I thought it was quite good, but I haven't gotten much credit for that. Fake news, good. Pocahontas good. I won't say Lion Ted because he's on my side. I don't talk about past conquests. We have a lot of them. I won't talk about. I got a whole table full of Republicans there. They're saying, no, don't mention my frickin' name, will you please? But we've had a lot of good names. But the Democrats are there to destroy wealth. And honestly, they've gone absolutely crazy. Gavin Newscombe's not only a man who really wants to run for president, he's doing a bad job running a state. You can't have somebody like a J.B. Pritzker, who I understand is not president, sadly. But, you know, some people say never use the fat word. And I don't. I would never call anybody fat. I have my own problems, you know? It's not like I'm perfect. Sir, in the back, don't call him a fat pig, okay? That's I'm sticking up for him. Don't call him you. You can't do that, sir. You can't call J.B. Pritzker a fat pig. Please. All right? Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Everyone's trying to figure out who is that guy? Does he exist? But the nice part is when you do that, the press can't get you. Because I'm defending a man who obviously has a problem. Actually, he's lost a lot of weight. I saw him recently. He lost quite a bit of weight. I don't know what the hell. He's got no chance, believe me. Anything he does, a family threw him out of the business. A number of other potential Democrat contenders sadly refused to show up tonight. We invited Elizabeth Pocahontas Warren. She's referred to Pocahontas because, in fact, I had to apologize. People came up and they said, we want you to apologize to Elizabeth Warren for calling her Pocahontas. And I ended up apologizing to the real Pocahontas. But Elizabeth Warren was supposedly of Indian heritage. And then she took the test and she only had 1,024th Native American. And I said, you know what? I have, I think I'm more of an Indian than she is. So this is what we have to deal with. But Senator Warren did not accept our invitation to debate. I wanted to debate her on various and sundry things, and she decided not to do it. And I decided to bury the hatchet. It doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_13 1:26:16

And what an opportunity to say bury the tomahawk. And you didn't say it.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:21

Do you want to hear this one? How bad? She wasn't high up on her totem pole. Who the hell wrote that? No, she's bad news. I wanted to make sure the Jack Smith, deranged Jack Smith. Remember, he went after me for about two years. How did he do? Not too good. I'm in the White House and he's not doing as well. I was going to say he's in a different kind of a house. But he's a deranged human being. He's a bad prosecutor. You know, prosecutors are very important. A great prosecutor, a fair prosecutor, but that's the great prosecutors, the ones that are fair. They're very important to a country. But this guy was a deranged lunatic. Saw his invitation tonight. He was invited because, you know. But I put it in a private text to Chuck Grassley. And Chuck saw him and he did a certain thing. And then you one man that we had who should be here, he turned Palestinian. This was a man who was 100% for Israel. 100%. Chuck Schirmer, trying Chuck. Remember, he cried at the airport over illegal immigrants. They were the fakest tears. There were people throwing water in his face. But now he's a proud, very proud Palestinian. In fact, I'm going to send him a beautiful Palestinian outfit tomorrow so he can greet Bibi Netanyahu, who, when he comes to town next week, along with the mayor, who I'm sure would love to meet Bibi. They're not treating Bibi too well, but Chuck wanted to join us tonight, but he didn't want to be violating many parts of the Palestinian rules, regulations, and certainly he didn't want to violate Sharia law, his new, his new founding. And all joking aside, I do think we need term limits in Congress. I think term limits are very important because I see what's happening. I see what's happening. The other day, a senator I knew got a text, a great guy, from his wife. And she said, When you get home, I want to have you immediately come up the stairs and make love to me. And he said, I can't do both. You know what that, you know. In other words, can't go up the stairs and make love. Does anybody get that way? I thought that was actually pretty good. That was actually the only thing I thought was good in this whole freaking stupid speech that they wrote. That was the only good one. And that went down with not exactly great laughter. So we're looking for term limits. Does anybody understand this stuff? But I really do wonder whether the Democrats are trying to lose the midterms. In Maine, they nominated a guy with a Nazi tattoo. But don't worry, Democrats. Word is that Plattner's replacement, he throws bottles at women. This guy throws bottles. This guy's another lunatic, by the way. Although I think Plattner might have done surprisingly well because we're in the age of Trump. Call it what you want. People can do well today. Plattner, I don't know. But you know, people don't have the guts to stick it out. But it looked like he was guilty of a lot of stuff. He certainly didn't defend himself very well. Well, in Texas, the Democrats are running a candidate. Named James Telefrico, who hates guns, hates oil, hates sex, hates women, and who said he is, quote, a Christian who hates Christianity. Other than that, his I think his platform is quite good. And that means that he's not going to do very well against Ken Paxson, who hopefully in Texas is going to win. But Telefrico, he's Alfred. You know what it looks like to me? Alfred E. Newman. You remember Alfred E. Newman, Mad Magazine? I said, that guy is Alfred E. Newman. Can't imagine he'd win. Well, I have all of the press here in one place. I have to say that we're having an amazing load of accomplishments that the media never talks about. For example, under my administration, a once feared and powerful regime that relentlessly attacked America has finally been toppled. Their former leaders have been removed, and they're now being run by a gay dictator facing internal divisions. But I, for one, wish Barry Weiss all the best at CBS News. She's a wonderful woman. Most of the press lives here in Washington, D.C., and you should be thankful for me for what my administration and I have done to make our nation's capital, which was one of the most dangerous and unsafe cities anywhere in the world. One of the safest cities in the United States. Crime is down 88%, and our capital is shining again with 62 monument statues, water fountains looking more beautiful, the graffiti's all gone, the tents are all moved out of the parks, the fences are all done. Our capital looks like it's really in good shape. And people coming here, people in the White House, they work in the White House. They all say young women, young guys walk up, they say, Thank you, sir. Two years ago, we lived in a dangerous city. We lived in a city where 150 people were killed a year. And now we are, we have almost a crime-free city. Our National Guard has done an incredible job, and we've removed over 5,000 career criminals. You know, we removed as one stat, I think it's a great stat. It's it's to me, it's fantastic. 2% of the people create 91% of the crime. That's something you can fix, and we fix it. We moved out over 5,000 career criminals out of Washington, D.C. And we have the greatest capital in the world. Again, it's beautiful, it's thriving, the restaurants are thriving. You couldn't get into a restaurant because they didn't have all the restaurants were closing. And if you even got in, you felt unsafe. People were getting into Ubers and they were being attacked when they were in an Uber. Not happening anymore. We have tough, smart people, and they have done a fantastic job. Washington, D.C. is safe again. You can't get into a restaurant. The restaurants are opening up. They're opening up all over the city. They can't get, it's the exact opposite. They can't get space. But mostly I've given up on you and the media so that now I just gave up on you, and I'm number one on TikTok. Did you see that I'm number one, Stephen? Is that true? I'm number one on TikTok. So how can they be so bad? 525. Think of this. 425 billion views. Can you believe that, Peter? I mean, let's go, Peter. I gave up on you people. I gave up on traditional press. And it obviously worked because we did win in a landslide. I mean, somebody's got to be saying something good about me. But TikTok, good old TikTok, and I was able to get it sold to a group of very wealthy people, mostly Americans. I were told President Xi, who's a man that I get along with very well. He was a hard no for the sale of TikTok. They all said he's a hard no. I said, Well, let's call, put your group together. They put it together, billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. I called up President Xi as their president. Look, these are American people. They're wonderful people. In fact, one of them happens to own CBS, actually. I mentioned his name. I said, these are wonderful people. And it'll be a good thing. Doesn't mean anything, President. It's nothing. It's nothing. They love your country. We'd love to see you approve the deal. And he goes, That was it. It was done. And we sold TikTok. And he's a friend of mine. And he's not contributing to problems like other people contribute to problems. So we get along. But we made the deal. But number one on TikTok is Trump, and that's probably why we won. But for all of the trouble that you give me, you give me a lot of trouble, a lot of heartache. I hope all of you know that I believe in the free press more than anyone in this room does. Maybe not quite. But that's why I'm proud to be the most open and transparent president in history. They called me that. You know who calls me that? Caroline. That's about it, so for would anybody else call me that? I think Peter would call me that. Am I the most transparent? Biden never used to answer your questions. He'd ask Biden 20 questions, he'd never get an answer. Who's the most transparent president, Peter? Who? Who? I look at him. It's the first time he's he's tongue-tied. I cannot believe it. Oh, he's not gonna be happy tomorrow. But you people have no idea how lucky you are when I'm gone. You're all gonna be broke. Your business model is gonna be finished. No, it's true. When I'm not around, you're gonna be broke. There's not gonna be anybody to report on. Nobody gives a damn about anybody else. The New York Times the other day had five stories about me. You know, before I got into politics in my whole life, I had seven front page stories. This is years of success. I think six were good, one was bad. I had five stories, seven, five good. Yeah, I had a total of seven stories on the front page of the New York Times. Isn't that bad? Now I average about three or four a day. All different topics, all bad, everything bad. But here we are. I mean, here we are. In fact, when I'm finished, I'm going right back to the Oval Office, so I have to be doing okay. But we are all doing good together. That's why tonight to show just how much I care about the press and I want to save your ratings. I'm pleased to announce my intention to, and this is somewhat of a scoop, my intention to run for a fourth term as president of the United States. I will be doing that. I will be having an official, in fact, I think I have. I won three times, now I'm gonna do it again. Thank you.

SPEAKER_13 1:36:32

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:34

Should be easy. I'm getting very good at running for president. No, I won three times, did very well the second time, by the way. It's a rigged election, but we don't have to talk about it. You know, it's interesting when you come back and you do a good job like we did, and you don't care about it so much, but we do have to tighten up these elections because they really are in seriously bad shape. But on a serious note, I want to say once again, I just want to thank you all. It's been an interesting evening. I didn't really know what to expect, and uh it's far worse than I actually thought. But if you want to know that but I didn't know exactly what to expect, and I made a lot of friends tonight. I've made a lot of good friends tonight, probably made some enemies also, but it's been an experience that is something that we've all shared together because we're all in this room tonight, because most of us went through a period of trauma from just a short while ago. And you know, some people said they wanted to come, but they were afraid to come, and you people weren't afraid to come. There were a lot of people that said, Jackie, they don't really, you know, they didn't have the courage to come. And we don't want that to happen. And I'm sure it's not going to happen. We're gonna do things again. I want to thank our law enforcement, keeps us safe. All law enforcement. It's uh we have the greatest people on earth. You know, we had uh two years ago, we had the worst record of recruitment in, as an example, the military, army, navy, air force, marines, the Coast Guard, Space Force. I love Space Force. Look at all that shooting we're able to do from space. That was my baby. But all of the branches of you couldn't get people to join. This was two years ago. And last week, you probably saw some of you wrote the story. We have the single best recruiting of people into our armed forces that we have ever had in the history of our country. We have, they are brimming over with great people, and that's a big statement. And that also goes for the police departments where they were having a tremendous problem recruiting. You can't get into a police department now. If you're looking for a job, it's very tough. And that also includes our great fire departments because people forget about them, they're unbelievable, the job they do. So I just want to thank you. Look, we're on the cusp of something big. And I call it, and this I'm being very serious when I say this, that this is the golden age of America. We have $19.2 trillion being spent in our country. A record was China. I think it was 10 years ago, three trillion. Trillion is a lot. Four years they went less than one trillion under Biden. And we have 19.2 trillion. And this is a period of actually 13 months, not even current, because we're here a little bit longer than that, but that was as of reporting dates. $19.2 trillion is being spent. Factories are coming. Toyota just announced they're going to be building the biggest car plant in the world. They're leaving Mexico, they're coming here. Tariffs did that. Tariffs did that. And maybe November 5th did that too, the election. But our country is doing things that nobody's ever seen before. And it is true. We were, and you've heard me say this, we were a dead country two years ago. Other leaders would see me and they'd say it's a miracle. President Xi told me that a few weeks ago in China, and he's coming here on September, I think, 24th, coming in September, the end of September. Going to be exciting. But he said the same thing. The king of Saudi Arabia said it, everyone said almost the same words. We thought you were a dead country. We never thought you had a chance, you were never going to make it back. And in a period of a year, period of one year, you made it the hottest country anywhere in the world. We all did that together. It's not me. We all did it together. And we do. We have the hottest country anywhere in the world, and we're going to keep it going. And I just want to say it is a room I have tremendous respect for the people in this room. Sometimes I don't feel you treat me fair, or maybe you do. I don't know. I don't feel that, but sometimes you treat me very fairly. And I have a lot of respect for your profession. Your profession's amazing. And I just want to thank you for having me. And it's been fun, and I've met a lot of great people. And uh, you know, I use an expression, I've used it right from the beginning. I did this for one reason to make America great again. And that's what's happening right before your very eyes. We have made America great again. It's going to get a lot greater. So thank you all very much. It's an honor to be with you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_13 1:41:09

All right.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:32

Thank you, President Trump. People asked me for several months how long is he gonna speak? And I said, You're White House correspondence. So you should know. And thank you, President Trump.

SPEAKER_13 1:41:48

About an hour he spoke. About an hour. He was a little late to get up there and speak, about 30 minutes. It wasn't what I expected. Put it in the comments. Let me know if that would that that's what you expected. I expected him to basically roast everybody in the room. I guess he was going to do that back in April. But since the White House correspondent dinner was under attack and people were shot at, and there was a suspect who tried to kill Donald Trump, he humbled himself and said he wasn't going to do that, that they all experienced trauma as he called it. He first originally said he wasn't running for 2028, that he was just joking, but then he put on his 2028 hat at the end, saying that he was officially announcing his run for 2028. That's not something I d I anticipate he's going to do. I think he's just joking dramatically to get the the liberal media up in arms and to just kind of mess with their head. It was good. Typical Trump speech, he if he stays on the teleprompter, he's fine. He rambles, he goes off, he speaks, he rambles for for as long as he can. He spoke for over an hour. The guy at 80 years old has tremendous stamina and ability. And he looks like he's like in his 60s or maybe 70, not 80. So but let me know what you think. Don't forget to hit that like, share, and subscribe button. Go to RyanFsamuels.com. Sign up, subscribe for the newsletter. It's free. It doesn't cost you anything. You get emails, and the best part about it is the next time Facebook bans me or takes my channel down, or YouTube bans me or takes my channel down, you'll be able to stay on top of what's going on. Don't forget, Monday through Friday, we are live, 9 p.m. Eastern Standard. Thank you for tuning in. God bless you. God bless your families. My family thanks you for your support. I thank you for tuning in night after night and listening to the show. God bless. We will be back on Monday.