🎉🇺🇸 Dive into history as President Trump delivers his FULL REMARKS following the historic swearing-in of US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff! In this riveting speech, Trump outlines bold new strategies for strengthening US relations in the region and addresses vital issues like peace negotiations, economic partnerships, and regional security. 🌍✨ Witness firsthand the President's perspectives on global diplomacy and the critical role Witkoff will play in shaping the future of American-Middle East relations. Don't miss this exclusive insight into the administration’s foreign policy vision! Hit that LIKE button and subscribe for more breaking news updates! 🔔✈️ #Trump #MiddleEast #Politics #SteveWitkoff
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00:00And he's been with me more or less one way or the other, every step of the way, Steve.
00:04And he has my absolute confidence and support and trust.
00:08And you see how well we're doing with the things we're working on.
00:10We're coming down to the final strokes.
00:12I think we have a real good chance of landing all of them or a lot of them.
00:18So I want to thank Steve for taking on this immense responsibility.
00:21And congratulations on everything that you've already received and all of the success that you've had.
00:28And we're pleased to be joined by Steve's mother, Lois.
00:31Where's Lois? Lois?
00:32You look like a young woman. I can't believe it.
00:35His son, Zach, and Alex, my friends also, by the way.
00:39Zach, Alex, thank you, fellas.
00:41His girlfriend, Lauren, who's a great golfer, I have to tell you.
00:46Top of the line.
00:48And her daughter. Hi, Finley. How are you?
00:50Finley, her daughter.
00:52And his brother, Robert.
00:55Robert, you're much better looking than Steve.
00:58And his sisters, Amy and Susie.
01:01Thank you. Thank you both.
01:03His daughter-in-law, Sophie.
01:06Hi, Sophie.
01:08His brother-in-law, Gary.
01:12Oh, there he is. Oh, hello, Gary.
01:16And his sister-in-law, Elaine.
01:18And also many others.
01:20Thank you all very much.
01:22I also want to thank our great Vice President, J.D. Vance, Secretary Marco Rubio.
01:28And, Marco, we're having a big day.
01:30I think, Marco, we'll find out.
01:33We're having a big period of time.
01:36I think that this is potentially a great time for our country in solving a lot of problems that we inherited, that we should have never had, frankly.
01:44Attorney General Pam Bondi, who's incredible.
01:47And Senator Lindsey Graham.
01:49Oh, Senator Graham.
01:50Where are you?
01:51Where is Senator Graham?
01:53Hello, Lindsey.
01:55Steve is a graduate of some great schools, including Hofstra University, where he studied political science and law.
02:02After graduating, he entered the real estate business, co-founding the Stellar Management Company in 1985 and launching a legendary career.
02:11You know, he started off in a law office.
02:13In fact, he was one of my young lawyers.
02:16And they said, that guy's smart, but he just started.
02:18It was a very smart firm, Dreyer and Traub.
02:22Killers.
02:22They were total killers.
02:23They said, he's worse than all of them.
02:25But people don't know that.
02:26They think he's a nice guy, Pam.
02:28Not that nice, actually.
02:30But he is something.
02:31Steve quickly established himself as one of the toughest, smartest, and best negotiators in the business.
02:36In 1997, he founded the Whitcoff Group, which now owns dozens of the most beautiful and iconic properties in the entire world.
02:44He's owned some incredible properties.
02:47As a businessman, he's admired and respected by all.
02:51And now Steve is putting his talents to work for America as special envoy to the United States and making a lot of progress.
02:57Our country is blessed to have a negotiator of such skill and experience who really selflessly steps up to the plate, puts himself forward all the time.
03:07Over the past few months, Steve has already helped negotiate the return of dozens of hostages from Gaza.
03:13And they come in and see me, many of them.
03:15And they are so thankful to Steve.
03:18And also hostages from other parts of the globe.
03:21He's met with President Putin, Prime Minister Netanyahu, representatives Iran, and many other places.
03:27He is meeting with people that he never really thought he'd ever meet just a few months ago.
03:35And he's figuring it out.
03:36It takes him about an hour to figure it out.
03:38After that, he's brutal.
03:39He does a great job.
03:41He's working tirelessly to end the bloody and destructive conflicts.
03:44And one in particular with Russia and Ukraine, where you're losing 5,000 young people a week on average, Ukrainian soldiers, Russian soldiers, and people in towns and villages that are being killed.
04:01We want to bring it to an end.
04:02And we're working.
04:03Steve is in the Middle East, where I think we're having some very good success.
04:07And you'll be hearing about it as we go.
04:10We had tremendous success over the last month.
04:13And, you know, we're taking the word of the Houthis.
04:17But they didn't want any more.
04:19And I understand that.
04:21And they have decided that they don't want to do this anymore.
04:27So I'm proud to have him as a friend.
04:29Steve is a very fantastic guy.
04:30I picked him out of a lot of people.
04:32I had a lot of choices.
04:33But I said we need somebody with two things.
04:35He's a great personality and somebody that could negotiate.
04:38And he's got both of them in spades.
04:40He's also really smart.
04:42So I want to thank everybody for being here.
04:45And I want to very, very importantly, I want to say to Marco Rubio that you're swearing in a very important person.
04:53And Steve reports to Marco.
04:54I said, Steve, you better do a good job of Marco.
04:57He will fire you so violently you have no idea.
05:01But Marco, if you could administer the oath.
05:04But thank you very much, Marco.
05:06Thank you, Steve.
05:13I, Steve, I, Steve, we thought you solemnly swear, you solemnly swear, that I will support and defend,
05:23that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the United States,
05:28against all enemies, against all enemies, foreign and domestic, foreign and domestic,
05:33that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely,
05:43without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully
05:54discharge the duties of the office, on which I am about to enter, on which I am about to enter.
06:01So help me God.
06:02So help me God.
06:03Congratulations.
06:13Do you have any? Good job. Thank you, Martha. Any questions for Steve?
06:19No, it's a shame. We just heard about it, just as we were walking in the doors of the Oval.
06:29Just heard about it. I guess people knew something was going to happen, based on a little bit of the past.
06:35They've been fighting for a long time. They've been fighting for many, many decades, and centuries, actually,
06:43if you really think about it. No, I just hope it ends very quickly.
06:46Well, the plan we haven't talked about, but we're not planning on stopping in Israel,
07:04but we will be doing it at some point, but not for this trip.
07:07Mr. President, there is a report that the UK is offering various trade concessions.
07:11What's your response to that?
07:12Who? What?
07:13The United Kingdom. And can you also say if you were discussing tariffs with Mr. Arnold?
07:18And what about the United Kingdom?
07:20They're offering various trade concessions, apparently, cars, steel, digital services.
07:24They're offering us concessions?
07:26I hope so.
07:28Mr. President, you're saying that...
07:29They do want to make a deal very badly.
07:31Can you say that you're a guest here, are you discussing tariffs or business?
07:34No, I think that the United Kingdom, like every other country, they want to go shopping in the United States of America.
07:42China very much wants to make a deal.
07:44They all do.
07:45But, yeah, I would say that every country wants to make a deal and not the ones they had in the past where we were like, look, we were being ripped off by every country practically without exception in the entire world.
08:01And those days are over.
08:03Those days are over.
08:04And, you know, I said before in our meeting with the new and very talented Prime Minister of Canada that we have some very big announcement to make.
08:13It's not about trade.
08:14It's about something else.
08:15But it's going to be a truly earth-shattering and positive development for this country and for the people of this country.
08:23And that will take place sometime within the next few days.
08:26I think a lot because I think Russia wanted to take all of Ukraine and they've stopped.
08:50That's a lot of progress, you know, small, it's a portion of Ukraine.
08:56But, no, I think a lot.
08:57I think if we weren't here, they would be right now fighting to take the whole country and they're not doing that.
09:04So I think that's a lot of progress.
09:06Mr. President, please.
09:07I don't like anything about that war.
09:22It's a war.
09:23I don't like anything about it.
09:24And I'm not happy with that.
09:25No, not at all.
09:26Not even a little bit.
09:27Yeah.
09:28Mr. President, he said the Houthis are backing down.
09:31We're seeing conflicting reports that they plan on continuing to attack Israel in support of Gaza.
09:35Does that change the equation?
09:38No, I don't know about that, frankly.
09:40But I know one thing, they want nothing to do with us.
09:43And they've let that be known through all of their surrogates and very strongly.
09:48Mr. President, we're going to go.
09:49And Mr. President.
09:51You said that LL was going to do with the rest of Gaza.
09:54They weren't released.
09:55Is there a hostage deal that's imminent?
09:57And are you talking to Netanyahu right now about their plan to level the rest of Gaza?
10:02We're talking to him about a lot of things right now.
10:04This is really crunch time.
10:07I would tell you for Iran and for their country, this is a very important time for Iran.
10:14This is the most important time in the history of Iran for Iran.
10:18And I hope they do what's right.
10:20I'd love to see a peace deal, a strong peace deal.
10:22They cannot have a nuclear weapon.
10:24But I would say that this is the single most important period in the history of Iran, which is a long history.
10:32And we want it to be a great country.
10:34Let it be a tremendously successful, rich country.
10:37They have everything you need.
10:38The people are incredible.
10:39They have vast amounts of oil and assets.
10:43We want it to be a successful country.
10:44We don't want to do anything that's going to get in the way of that.
10:48But they can't have a nuclear weapon.
10:49And if they choose to go a different route, it's going to be a very sad thing.
10:53And it's something we don't want to have to do.
10:55But we have no choice.
10:56They're not going to have a nuclear weapon.
10:57They're not going to have a nuclear weapon.
10:59Do you understand that?
11:00We just informed them a little while ago, and all action is stopping.
11:19Some people probably haven't heard yet.
11:21You know, there are various people in various rather strategic locations.
11:26But by this moment, they should just about all know, Marco, I think, that the attacks are
11:31going to stop both ways.
11:34And that's pretty much it.
11:36But we've just informed everybody just a little while ago.
11:39And the follow-up to the Houthis question, if they continue to attack Israel, which you said
11:43he didn't know about, but if they continue to attack Israel, just not attack Israel.
11:46Well, I'll discuss that if something happens, okay, if something happens with Israel and the
11:52Houthis.
11:52Yeah.
11:52Well, I can announce all of them now.
11:59I could announce 50 to 100 deals right now because, you know, I'm the shopkeeper and I
12:05keep the store.
12:06And, you know, I know what countries are looking for and I know what we're looking for.
12:11And I can just set those terms and they can go shopping or they don't have to go shopping
12:15because everybody wants to shop here.
12:17This is like a beautiful store.
12:19This is like one of Bernard Arnault.
12:23Maybe I should say Alex, even more importantly, young, the future.
12:27But Bernard said, honor to have you have a meeting after this.
12:31But he has the greatest stores in the world and they want to shop.
12:35Our country is the greatest store in the world of that kind.
12:37And everybody wants a piece of it.
12:40And they took advantage of us for years because we allowed presidents, our presidents allowed
12:45it to happen.
12:45You know, I don't blame China and I don't blame Vietnam.
12:49And I could name every single country all the way up and down the line.
12:53South Korea, every single country took advantage of us without exception.
12:58Japan, these are friends of mine, but they took advantage of this country.
13:02They ripped off our country, selling us millions and millions of cars a year.
13:07And we sold them none.
13:08We weren't allowed to sell them a car.
13:10They took advantage of us.
13:12I don't blame them.
13:13I blame the people that sat behind that desk that allowed it to happen.
13:16But I don't allow it to happen.
13:19I didn't in the first term, but this is a much stronger position because we did.
13:24We're the greatest economy in history in our first term.
13:27Stock market was up 88 percent.
13:29We had numbers much better than that.
13:31But this is going to be, I think, a much better term.
13:34And I think the tariffs are coming in, starting to come in.
13:38We're we were losing five billion dollars plus a day on trade.
13:45Now we're not losing that kind of money and we'll soon be making a lot of money a day and
13:50a year and a month.
13:52You and perhaps the attorney general, the Justice Department recently received a criminal referral
13:59against New York attorney general, Tish James, for fraud.
14:02We haven't heard much about it.
14:04You or the attorney general, give us an update as to what's going on with that investigation.
14:08Well, I don't want to get involved in something that Pamela is involved with.
14:12If you'd like to say something, Pam.
14:18I can say unrelated to that.
14:20She's a disaster for New York.
14:22She's a horrible, horrible human being.
14:24And I think she's a total crook.
14:26There's no question about it.
14:27But that's just my opinion.
14:28Pam's going to have to do what she wants.
14:29She's a very bad person.
14:31She's a very, very, very bad person who campaigned solely on I'm going to get Donald Trump over
14:37and over again.
14:38She's a sick person.
14:39But that has nothing to do with what Pam does.
14:43Pam is going to do what's right.
14:45She always does.
14:46I've known her a long time.
14:49Go ahead.
14:50Behind you.
14:51On Gaza, you said there's been progress and progress in the Middle East.
14:54At the moment, as a colleague said, Israel Netanyahu is saying he now wants to conquer
15:00Gaza.
15:00Is there any prospect of any movement on that?
15:03Are you happy with what Netanyahu is doing?
15:04Well, we've gone very slowly because we want to try and get as many hostages saved as possible.
15:10And we've done a good job in that regard.
15:13Two weeks ago, I had 10 hostages come in and they thanked me profusely.
15:16And I said, you have nothing to thank me about.
15:19What they went through is incredible.
15:21They lived in a pipe, you know, they keep hearing about caves.
15:24It was a pipe three and a half feet high.
15:27And they didn't know if they were going to breathe.
15:29They didn't know if they were going to live to the next day.
15:30They lived like hell.
15:31I couldn't believe the stories I was hearing.
15:33And they weren't grandstanding.
15:35These were people that were seriously mistreated.
15:37One was in for 512 days.
15:40One was in for 361, I guess, days.
15:45And one was in for a shorter period of time.
15:47The stories were unbelievable.
15:49I said, how many people are left?
15:51How many are left?
15:52They said 59.
15:54I said, oh, wow.
15:56That's more than I thought.
15:57They said, well, only 24 are living.
15:59But now it's 21.
16:01That was a week ago.
16:02Now it's 21 are living.
16:03And these are young people.
16:04These young people don't die.
16:07Old people die.
16:08Young people don't die under these conditions.
16:10So of the 59 people, and they said 59.
16:14And I said, really?
16:16But they said only 24 are living.
16:20And I now correct.
16:22I say 21.
16:23Because as of today, it's 21.
16:25Three have died.
16:26So this is a terrible situation.
16:30We're trying to get the hostages out.
16:31We've gotten a lot of them out.
16:34As the expression goes, there's 21 plus a lot of dead bodies.
16:37You know, parents came up to me on numerous occasions, but a couple in particular, they
16:42came up to me two weeks ago, and they said, please, sir, my son is dead.
16:47Please get us back his body.
16:49They wanted his body.
16:51He's dead.
16:51They know he's dead.
16:52They wanted his body as much as you would want the boy if he was alive.
16:57It's a very sad thing.
16:59Thank you very much, everybody.
17:00Thank you, guys.
17:01Thank you, guys.
17:02Thank you, guys.
17:02Thank you, guys.