But he called me up the other day, recently - let's say four weeks ago or so. He said, "I just want to tell you you're a great President and you're one of the smartest people I've ever met." That's what he said. Now, that's what he said. Will he admit it? No, I doubt it. (Laughter.) But that's what he said. "And you're doing a great job."
And then he did start talking about, in all fairness, additional money for the fire, which is - (laughter) - it's okay. That's okay. We have great talks. I mean, I like him. Gavin Newsom. I like him. Nice guy. But they say things - you know, politicians, they say things to your face, and then you see two days later they're giving a news conference - just like, where did that guy come from? Where did he come from?
But everyone in this great country, right now, because of our great new economy, is doing well - except, of course, for the Never Trumpers. But they are on mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. (Laughter and applause.) Mouth to mouth. Mouth to mouth. They're hanging in. A couple of them. I mean, these guys have gotten me wrong. Not only Never Trumpers. You have Never Trumpers; you have certain hardline.
They're basically dishonest people - because, look, let's face it: Whether you like me or not - if my name is Smith instead of Trump, and if you told him I put in over 100 federal judges - it'll soon be 145 federal judges and 2 Supreme Court judges. (Applause.) And 17 appellate division judges.
That we've got the best economy maybe in our history. That we've got the best employment numbers and unemployment numbers in our history. That we've cut more regulations in two years than any President has ever done, whether it's for eight or beyond. (Applause.) That we've taken care of our military with - (applause) - $1.7 billion. Think of that. Think of what we did. Think of what we did with our military. Think of the numbers that we have for our military. We have numbers - nobody has ever heard of these numbers before. And you know, part of the problem that we have - because I'm a cost cutter.
But - and you are all cost cutters. But we have to take care of our military. We have to. (Applause.)
Seven hundred billions dollars we spent. And that was the first year. And then the second year, $716 billion. Now, I have no choice. I'd like to spend much less. Obama was spending much less but our military was being depleted. He was fighting in endless wars; they'd never end.
And, by the way, as of probably today or tomorrow, we will actually have 100 percent of the caliphate in Syria. One hundred percent. (Applause.) One hundred percent. And we'll leave a small group of guys and gals. But we want to bring our people back home. We want to bring our people back home. It's time. Been in these wars. We were going to be in Syria for four months. We ended up five years. This fighting - they just like to fight.
We want to fix our country. We want to fix our bridges, our highways, our roads, our schools. We want to fix our country up. It's time. (Applause.) It's time.
But I was told by a general, who I had to fire - I said, "General, how long before we get 100 percent of the caliphate?" He said, "Sir, two years." I said, "I can't take it two years." And then I flew to Iraq; first time I left the White House - because I stayed in the White House for months and months because I wanted the Democrats to get back from their vacations from Hawaii and these other places. (Laughter.) And I figured it would look good if I stayed in the White House so that you people all love me and vote for me, okay? I figured it would look good. (Laughter and applause.) I figured it would look good.
So I stayed in the White House. And I'll tell you what: I was there - I told my wife, "Go to Florida. Enjoy your Christmas." I stayed for Thanksgiving. I said - I mean, I was in the White House for a long time. Months. Months. I had cabin fever in the White House. (Laughter.) But if you've got to have cabin fever, that's the place to do it, okay? (Laughter.) But I was there, I don't know, for a number of months, through Christmas. I spent my New Year's all by myself. (Laughter.)
AUDIENCE: Aww -
THE PRESIDENT: Don't cry. All - it was me and about 500 men and women outside with machine guns. (Laughter.) I never saw so many beautiful-looking machine guns. I'd look at that equipment and I'd say, "Man..." They sit in the trees. They sit on the lawn. I told people, "I'm in this mess" - you know, people don't know how big the White House. First of all, it's one of the most beautiful places in the world. It's really - I made a lot of money with luxury. (Applause.) This building is - 1799 - which, of course, when President Xi comes, I say "1799," like it's old. To him, that's like a brand-new house in China. (Laughter.) In China, they go back - they go back 8,000 years. So that's - that's like a new - that's like a new residence.
But I sat in the White House for months and months, except I took a day off. I flew to a lovely place called Iraq, and I flew at night and I got there at night. And I said to myself, this is interesting, because they say, "Sir, all of the lights in the plane, sir, are going off." I say, "Why?" (Laughter.) "Because we're getting ready to land." We're an hour out. I said, "What about the shades?" "Well, we want it better than that. May be like (inaudible). So we turned the lights off, put the shades down. This is a big seven forty - Air Force One.
And we're landing, and I go up and I look. And I've landed; I like to sit with pilots. I respect people that know what they're doing, and these are the best in the world. I really do. (Applause.) These are the best in the world.
And the pilot says, "Sir, we're landing in approximately one and a half minutes." I say, "But there's no runway." "No, sir, the runway is right up there, sir." I say, "I don't see it." I have pretty good vision. (Laughter.) At least for my age I have good vision. (Laughter.) I guess for my age I have great vision. But I don't have vision like a 35-year-old captain.
He said, "No, it's right up there." I said, "I'm sorry, Captain, how about this: Should we lift off and try it again? Captain, there's no runway." Anyway - he sits right up there and we land. There's practically not lights. These are little pin spots. And I said, think of this: We spent $7 trillion in the Middle East and we can't land with the lights on - (laughter) - 20 years later. How bad is it? No, seriously, how bad is it? (Applause.) How bad is it? Seven trillion dollars and we have to fly in with no lights.
But I met some incredible people. I met some incredible people - generals. One of them came from Syria - the operation in Syria. And I was upset with my generals because they weren't getting it finished. I want the job done. I want to bring our people back home. (Applause.) It's not fair. And this is why I flew.
So I met generals I didn't know. General one, general two, general three. I mean, these generals - there's no person in Hollywood that could play the role. These guys are like perfect people. I said, "What's your name? "Sir, my name is Raisin." What the hell kind of a name? (Laughter.) I said, "Raisin, like the fruit?" He goes, "Yes, sir, Raisin." "What's your last name?" "Caine. Raisin Caine." (Laughter.) I said, "You got to be kidding me." (Applause.) It's true. Raisin Caine.
I just made him a big star. (Laughter.) Just like I did with Mattis when I said, "We're going to give you a new nickname, because 'Chaos' is not a good nickname." So we changed his name. Called him "Mad Dog." But it wasn't working too well. Mad Dog wasn't working too well.
So what happened is I flew to Iraq. I wanted to meet the people on the site, because I learn more sometimes from soldiers, what's going on, than I do from generals. I do. I hate to say it. And I tell that to the generals all the time. (Applause.)
But I didn't have to go there. I didn't have to go there. Because I meet - and I land in this airport, the most incredible thing. We must have spent $3 billion building it. It's one of the reasons I don't want to leave Iraq so fast. I said, "Well, how do we leave this thing?"
So I have Raisin Caine and three other generals, colonels, sergeants. And I said, "Bring the cameras. I'm going to make a movie. This is the most incredible thing." (Laughter.) And I said to the generals, "Listen, we got to get out. I want to know why is it going to take two years to knock off 2 or 3 or 4 percent, which is what we had left." "It won't, sir." And I said, "Tell me why it won't." "It won't, sir. If we attack them in a different manner, we can do it much faster." "Okay, General Raisin Caine, how fast can" - "Sir, we can have it totally finished in one week." I said, "One week? I was told two years." (Laughter.) One week? "That's right, sir. We're only hitting them from a temporary base in Syria. But if you gave us permission, we could hit them from the back, from the side, from all over - from the base that you're right on, right now, sir. They won't know what the hell hit them." (Applause.) "They won't know what the hell hit them, sir."
And I said, "Why didn't my other generals tell me that? Why didn't they tell me that?" I said, "Did you tell them that?" "Not our place to say it, sir. They come in from Washington, sir. We have to take orders. You're the first one to ask us our opinion." (Applause.) It's true. It's true. True. True.
So I went back and I said, "I'm going to get back to you soon, Raisin. I think you're great." (Laughter.) "I like you, Raisin Caine." But I did say - I said, "Well, hey, listen, we're in Iraq. Isn't that very far away from..." "I was here in a very short time, sir. I flew right in." Of course, he's taking a plane that goes 2,000 miles an hour, you know.
But incredible. What you learn from being on the site - my father was a builder. He always used to say, "Nobody ever got rich by sitting behind their desk." (Applause.) It's true. It's true. He'd say, "You got to be on this site. You got to be with the contractors. You got to see if they're ripping you off. You've got to collect every nail that's dropped, every piece of wood. You can sell it. You got to be on the site. You got to see while they're building, while they're under construction, is that wall straight or if it's crooked. And you have to fix it before they build it, not after they build it, when you rip everything down." (Applause.) True.
You don't get rich by sitting behind a desk. So I didn't want to do that.
And I'm in the White House and I was lonely. I said, "Let's go to Iraq." (Laughter.) And I had a hell of a meeting in Iraq.
And I'll tell you, those generals - not just Raisin Caine, General Caine. Those generals were great. They were great. They knew their stuff. They were gung-ho.
And it is true - I mean, you talk central casting. These guys - you couldn't - I mean, it's incredible. They had a master sergeant. I could take him right now, bring him to Hollywood, make a military movie, and he's the star of the movie. That happened once before, you know. That did happen once before. Remember? They brought a man in - a sergeant, a drill sergeant - to teach some actor how to be a drill sergeant. The drill sergeant was so incredible that he ended up starring in the movie, and he should have gotten the Academy Award, by the way, but he didn't. That's because Hollywood discriminates against our people. (Applause.) You know the movie I'm talking about, right? What was that movie? You know the movie.
But while we're making great strides, and our country is doing as well - and maybe, in many ways, better than it's ever done before - Democrat lawmakers are now embracing socialism. They want to replace individual rights with total government domination.
AUDIENCE: Booo -
THE PRESIDENT: Just this week, more than 100 Democrats in Congress signed up for a socialist takeover of American healthcare. Their radical government-run plan - if you call it that - would lead to colossal tax increases - increases like you've never seen before - and take away private coverage from over 180 million Americans.
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: And we have some great private coverage, and we've initiated some incredible plans, like the new cooperative plan, where you get better insurance than Obamacare for a fraction of the cost.
But perhaps nothing is more extreme than the Democrats' plan to completely takeover American energy and completely destroy America's economy through their new $100 trillion Green New Deal.
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AUDIENCE: Booo -
THE PRESIDENT: Under the Green New Deal - which somebody described as a high school term paper written by a poor student - (laughter and applause) - it's true. It's true. Who would believe it? It so - it's so bad. But I don't - I'll be honest with you, folks. I said - you know, it's Saturday morning, and I said, "Matt, should we do a little more, like, spend time?" He said, "Yeah, would you do that?"
By the way, everybody okay? (Applause.) I haven't seen anybody leaving. I haven't seen anybody. I know one thing: If Mark Levin gets up and leaves, I'll finish very quickly, because then I know. (Laughter.) But I haven't seen anyone leaving. Nobody has left. I watch those doors. Because a lot of times - a lot of times - well, one time, the press said people left. Yeah, you know where they went? To the bathroom. And then they came back. (Laughter.) Two people. (Applause.) They showed two empty seats in a stadium of 19,000. They showed two empty seats. The people left right in front of me, and I said, "Oh, man, maybe this isn't a good job I'm doing." Then they came back. They went to the bathroom. (Laughter.)
And a certain fake news deal showed a picture on the front page of these two empty seats. They said Trump had empty seats. We never have empty seats.
