White House: President Trump Gaggles with Press on Air Force One En Route Chippewa Falls, WI, Jun. 5, 2026

Hello, everybody. So we had incredible job numbers today. You saw that. And we have good everything. Good, good numbers.

But the job numbers just came out and they were fantastic. Far better than even anticipated. They anticipated pretty good, but they had no idea it was going to be that. And unfortunately, we're in a world where for the last 15 years or so, when you have good numbers, the market goes down. When you have bad numbers, the market goes up.

Market goes up because too much emphasis is placed on inflation. And you don't have to have inflation by having growth. Now, we have great growth, and that doesn't mean inflation. In fact, it could be anti-inflation growth. So I hope the market starts to learn that when you have good numbers, the market should go up, not down.

Question. Sorry. Go ahead. So given those job numbers, do you think the Fed should cut rates at its next meeting? And do you think new Chair Kevin Walsh can— Well, I'm going to let Kevin make that decision.

I'd like to see lower interest rates because each point—. Think of this—. Is $600 billion. Okay? So, you know.

You said yesterday, you know, you're interviewing some candidates for Director of National Intelligence. Who's under consideration? I have 5 interviews. And we'll have a very good person watching things, Bill Pulte. But I have 5 interviews.

So cutting rates— so just getting back to you.

You save hundreds of millions of dollars when you take 1 point off. Hundreds of millions of dollars. 2 Points, you save double hundreds of millions of dollars. And so I therefore, you know, from that standpoint. But someday we're going to have to go back to the old theory.

But we're doing so good. We have more auto plants being built than we've ever had. We have more plants being built than we've ever had. All these numbers are good. But when the numbers are good, We should be allowed to grow, not to stymie the growth.

And, you know, we had a Fed chair that didn't understand that. The financial markets are now pricing in a cut, actually, for the October meeting. Well, I would like to see that, but I leave that up— look, I have a very talented guy. I leave it up to Kevin. But I've always said, and I've said it for years, when you have a country that's doing well, the market should go up.

The market should— and the reason they go down is if it's doing well, people said, oh, we have to stop inflation. And it doesn't mean inflation. In fact, it could be just the opposite. So if they hike before the midterm elections, means that they want to hike? Remember, we save $600 billion every point.

Mr. President, why do you want Bill Clinton to cut the—. Say it. Mr., why do you want Bill Clinton to cut the Office of the Director of National Intelligence? And how long is he going to be in that role? Depends on how long it takes to get somebody approved.

He'll do a very good job. He'll watch it closely. But Bill Clinton Bolty is very good. He's very talented. Done a great job at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac.

The value there is close to $1 trillion. We built a value that's incredible. So he's done a very good job in that. He'll do a good job. He's watching for, you know, during this time period.

And you want to cut the number of people working there? I wouldn't mind. I've heard that's way too high for way too long. Yeah, I wouldn't mind. If he cut, I wouldn't mind that.

It's a very smart man. Artificial intelligence, are you considering the possibility of the U.S. government taking stakes in some AI companies?

Well, something I did it with Intel. So I made a deal on Intel. You know, we made— I made for the country $50 billion. We took a stake in Intel. It was given to us by our helping.

I said, look, we'll help you, but you have to give us 10% of the company. That was Intel just 9 months ago. And as I think you know, we made about $50 billion on that deal. Would you want to do it again? I did a very good job.

I should be a stockbroker.

Mr. President. Yes, sir. I'm going to change the subject, if you don't mind. Did you get a chance to watch Game 1 of the NBA Finals? What'd you think?

I did. Well, I'll be going to Game 3, I guess. It's Game 3 on Monday. I thought it was amazing. I think that— I think the Knicks have an amazing team.

The way they played—. Started off slow and it just got stronger and stronger. Wemby looks like he's going to be a great player, but they really played well. I thought—. Quick follow-up.

Did you see Wemby crossing his arms during the U.S. National anthem? Did you have any thoughts on that? On that? Uh, I did not see that.

Is that what he did? He did, yes. And what did he mean by that? Nobody asked him. Well, I guess you have to ask him.

Well, who's your favorite Knick? Well, Brunson's fantastic. Towns is fantastic. We just have a great team. What do you think that the game you're going to— the cheapest price for the Game 3 you're going to is $8,000?

Everyday Americans can't afford these sports. Well, I know, but they can watch it on television. It's sort of Am I free to watch it on television? But it's the way life goes. You have some.

And now the game wasn't a big— if the team wasn't a big success, you could go very easily. So, you know, you can, you can do that too. But that's the way life is, you know. And they've had great success. And don't forget, they've suffered also losses and they've suffered during the bad time.

Now they have a good time. They have a team that's amazing. I don't think they've lost a playoff game, right? Very unusual. Has that ever happened before?

Is that—. Has anyone ever had this kind of a run in a playoff game? I don't know. Highly unusual. Do you have any— On the new promenade you announced yesterday, Mr. President, where is the funding going to come from?

It's not a lot of money, and it's going to be beautiful. You know, it's always been—. The Lincoln Memorial has always been very tied to the Potomac River, but they built two roadways behind it unexpectedly at the time, many years ago, but after the memorial was built. It used to have a tie to the river, and then the highways cut it off. And we have a really beautiful plan where it goes over beautiful, beautiful series of platforms that bring you right down to the river.

It's beautiful. It's a promenade. It's a beautiful promenade. Probably, well, it could come from a lot of, we have a lot of sources of funding. We won't have to go back to Congress or anything.

We have a lot of sources of funding. And a lot of people have asked me to stay involved with the Kennedy Center. We had a judge who's totally conflicted, but that's all right. A totally conflicted judge, should be ashamed of himself. But they've asked me in the strongest of language to stay involved with the Kennedy Center.

We want to see— because the building— well, I mean, it's a very—. It's very dangerous, number one. Number two, it was losing for years tremendous amounts of money. So I'm considering that. But a lot of people have asked me to get it fixed.

We have to fix the Kennedy Center, both physically and from the standpoint of attendance. Mr. President, on oil and gas prices, I know you're saying that oil prices and gas prices will fall after the conflict ends. Would you limit exports of gasoline if prices in the short term—. I can do a lot of things. We have a lot of alternatives.

But the beautiful thing from our standpoint is we have more oil and gas and coal and everything else than any other country on the planet. And then when you add Venezuela to it, we have probably 64% of that type of energy. That's unbelievable. Venezuela is working out very well. We're getting along.

Incredibly, the country is happy. The people love the USA. And we have a lot of, you know, the big oil companies are moving in there now as we speak. And we're going to be taking out millions of barrels of oil. Are US oil majors doing enough to boost output in the US?

Are you asking them to do more? Yeah, sure. Well, we have everything we need. The world doesn't. But I will say, people thought it was going to be a lot worse.

You know, today I looked at $96 a barrel. People thought that was going to be $300 a barrel. And in the meantime, We're having great success with Iran. We— they're not going to have a nuclear weapon and they're in no position to have a nuclear weapon. Senator Tillis said he won't support Todd Blanche's confirmation unless Todd Blanche condemns January 6th.

Do you have a reaction to that? Senator Tillis is a loser. That's why he didn't run. He didn't run because I wouldn't support him. And he's just an angry man because he's not going to be a senator any longer.

He wasn't respected in the Senate. He fought a lot of people. He fought Pete Hegseth. Meet him. Next, that turned out to be a gem.

Now, Senator Tillis is a loser, so-called, and he's an angry man because I basically— he was forced to leave the Senate because I wouldn't support him, and he quit. So now he's trying to make trouble by opposing anybody. Todd Blanche is a brilliant guy who everybody likes and everybody respects. And Tillis is always like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. He should have done it before when he was a senator.

He would have gotten wiped out in a race. But he needed my support, and I said, I can't give you my support. He's not qualified. He's not good for the position of senator. I didn't hear about what he did with Todd Blanchard.

Blanchard is fantastic. Sir, on the AI companies potentially taking these equity stakes, have you spoken to Sam Altman or any of the—. No, there's a concept out there. There's so much money, and it's so big that there are concepts where pieces could be given to the American public, where the American public essentially becomes a part partner with the companies. And I will tell you, yeah, I have spoken to all of them.

There's something very interesting about it where it almost becomes a partnership with the American public. And we'll look into that. We are looking— I actually have a meeting scheduled in the very short, very near future with— did you know that? With all of the companies. And we're talking about it where the American people can benefit from the success of AI.

And by doing that, they're going to like it better because we're leading China. We're leading everybody in the world with AI. And we want to keep it that way. It's probably the biggest industry, maybe, that we've ever seen. Which companies in the meeting?

All of them. All the big ones. Yeah, all the big ones. They're all coming to the White House probably next week. The idea that that would be dividends for the American people?

I don't know. We're going to see. I mean, we're going to see. Sort of, it's like you make them a partnership in this revolution. Would be a beautiful thing.

And Senator Bernie? It would make them rich. Senator Bernie Sanders proposed this 50% managed public-private partnership. Well, I've been talking about it for the last year. But is it odd to be kind of on the same page with Senator Sanders?

No, actually, when Bernie Sanders was taken advantage of with Hillary Clinton and he lost in the primaries—. Because a lot of people think he didn't lose. I mean, he had two of them, right? He lost then and he lost a second time with Biden. But when Bernie Sanders lost, you I know that I got many of his people.

They voted for me. Because we are, on an economic plan, as far as economics is concerned, we have certain things that aren't that far apart. People are surprised. But many of—. If you'll take a look, many of the people that voted for Bernie Sanders, when he was no longer there to vote for, they went to me.

I picked up a lot of his— a tremendous amount of his voters. On the oil surges, sir, how many— how much oil have you gotten through the strait with the help of Naval towards it? Are you asking, are you directing U.S. forces to guide those ships through the strait? More tankers through the strait? A lot.

I don't want to say how many, but a lot. A lot of oil is coming into our country. A lot of oil is coming into the world that people don't even know about. And that's why it's at $97 a barrel instead of $300 a barrel. And when that whole thing is straightened out, it shouldn't take long.

One way or the other, it's going to get done. And when it's all straightened out, you're going to have oil prices drop down to maybe even lower than they were. I would— and you've heard me say this. I was in Iowa. And for a gallon of gasoline, it was at $1.85.

That was 3.5 months ago. Last year, the FBI reopened its investigation into the cocaine found in the White House during the Biden administration. Have you been briefed on where that investigation stands? No, but I might ask about it. I might ask.

You mean in the shelves where they found the cocaine, actually? I might ask about it. Arms sales to Taiwan that package, the $14 billion? We're looking at that. Yeah.

Are you still planning to talk to Taiwan's president about it? I'll always talk to him, but we're looking at it. What was your reaction to John Bolton agreeing to plead guilty in the classified documents? Well, I was never much of a fan of John Bolton. I never thought he was a smart person, and he was a radical right in terms of war, not in terms of other things.

He wanted to go to war with anybody that opened their mouth, anybody that talked.

And I used him for a purpose. You know, he was involved with Bush and he created a lot of problems, but he always wanted to kill people in war. And that was okay for me as long as I didn't listen to him, which I never did. He's a bad guy, John Bolton. He's a dirty guy.

And we caught him. You know, we caught him. And, you know, he wrote a book. You look at all the information he took. I mean, if you look at that case, it's a It's a great honor to have helped from the standpoint of encouraging.

I looked at John Bolton as somebody that was a very dishonest guy and not a smart guy. And I guess he's paying the price for certainly being dishonest. You mentioned the Kennedy Center. Sir, how do you want to be involved moving forward? Well, the same way it is.

I'm the chairman, so we'll just keep it going. Somebody has to do it. It loses a lot of money. It has for years. It's lost hundreds of millions of dollars for years, and yet it's It's something you have to keep going.

You know, it's the arts. They all lose money. Carnegie Hall. You take a look at all of that kind of thing. Loses.

So they really—. Everybody, they want me to stay very badly. So we're going to take a look at it. The judge really hurt the Kennedy Center because he slowed down. We were going to— you know, we're going to spend a lot of money on fixing it and making it and bringing it back to health.

And the judge really made it very hard to do that. But we're going to—. I'm going to look at his ruling on that. But we have to bring it back.

Physically, we have to bring it back and we have to bring it back in other ways. So we'll take a good look at it. You mentioned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Yeah. With Pulte's MoveOver is now acting D&I, is an IPO off the table?

No, it's not. We're thinking about an IPO for that. It's not a rush, but we've created a tremendous— you know, I could have sold that for literally less than 10% in my first term. I was offered— a lot of people were offering me money to me, meaning the country, to buy Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, as you know. And it suffered tremendous hardship.

And then we built it back. And I could have sold it in my first term for 1/10 of what it's worth now. And I didn't want to do it. Now, I think we, you know, we would consider an IPO. And he would stay at—.

He would touch this—. No, he'd be there. No, he's staying there. So then who are the people you're talking to for the—. I'm looking at 5 different people, all very good, all people people that you know very well, all people that do that kind of thing, and they're very respected people.

Mr. President, what do you think about Major League Baseball owners pushing for a salary cap? Do you think it's time for baseball to have a salary cap? Don't they sort of have one? Don't they? No, it's a luxury tax threshold, but the teams that have the money are willing to spend it.

Well, if you don't have a salary cap, you don't have a sport because they can't help themselves. You know, in sports, they can't help themselves. Football has a salary cap. Every major professional league except Major League baseball in America? They should have done it a long time ago.

I know, I know so much about sports. They should have done it a long time ago. We're trying to help save college sports because they got some rulings that really essentially destroyed college sports. And we're working with Randy Levine and Nick Saban and some great people on trying to save it because it's so horrible. What do you think could happen if this NIL just gets completely out of control and nobody checks it?

Well, I think what's going to happen if you don't have what they're trying to do now, that's a cap in a certain way. If you don't have that, you really have a problem. And not only college sports, colleges where you see where Penn State lost $500 million, where a certain school that I like very much in Florida, they lose $400 or $500 million. You can't have that. Nobody can afford that because they go crazy.

That's why when you say Major League Baseball, Major League Baseball, it's shocking, frankly, that they didn't put a cap on many years ago. They had a chance. They managed to do a cap and they blew it. Ukraine, now that Zelensky has proposed a face-to-face meeting with Zelensky, do you still want them to go first before the US gets involved in talking? Well, I don't mind.

I mean, let them deal. I'm the one that got them to this position. And I think that's going to get worked out. I think we're getting close to where Russia, Ukraine should have— it's a war that should have never happened, would have never happened if I was president. But I think that's going to get worked out.

Will Secretary Rubio take a more active role? He'll be involved. I'll be involved. Keep everybody. We'll all be involved.

We want to see it done. You know, we're not spending money. They're buying things from us, actually, at full price. With Biden, he gave them everything. He just gave them hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons and everything else.

But it's a war that should have never happened. And it's a war that has to be— last week, 25,000 people over the course of the month, 25,000 people were killed. Russia, Ukraine, 25,000. It's not acceptable.

Not acceptable. Thank you very much. Have a good time, sir.