Remarks by President Trump in Cabinet Meeting | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Q   Mm-hmm.

    THE PRESIDENT: We were sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Guatemala and Honduras. We're not going to send it anymore. We haven't been sending it for the last year because they weren't doing anything for us. They were forming caravans and they were sending them up. And in those caravans, you had some very bad actors. You had some people that were not people that we want in our country.

    So I realized that, when they - in the middle of their city or towns - when you form a caravan, if a government is at all a government, they don't have to allow that caravan to come up. So if they're not going to play ball, that's okay with me. We're not going to play ball with them. We don't give them any more money. They've been ripping us off for years. I'm not a fan.

    So until they shape up - now, all of the sudden, they came down, supposedly, with a Supreme Court ruling that they're not allowed to do a Safe Third Agreement with us. Well, I sort of wonder - did it come down because they wanted that ruling to come down?

    But we were giving them hundreds of millions of dollars, like fools, for years, and all they did is send us up - a lot of people caused a lot of problems, and a lot of the people in those caravans were criminals - hardened criminals, dangerous people.

    And why not? Why would Honduras or Guatemala or El Salvador, why would they keep their criminals when you can put them into the caravan, lose them in a caravan, and send them up to the United States. We take everybody because the Democrats don't allow immigration laws that mean anything. It's horrible. It's horrible.

    How they aren't - how they aren't taking care of just that one situation, which could be taken care of very easily - how they won't even give us a vote on that. We've had many interviews of the people in those caravans. Some of them are very bad players.

    You had interviews - one of the folks that was, perhaps, in this room - I think might be in this room - said, "What was your crime?" And the man said, "Murder." And the reporter looks at - "Murder?" That's a very famous clip. She said, "Well, what was your crime?" You know, they were interviewing to show how wonderful the people are in the caravan. "And you, sir, what was your crime?" "Murder." The young woman goes, "Whoa." I was surprised they didn't cut it. It must have been live, otherwise you would have cut it. It must have been a live shot. But a pretty famous shot. But you have a lot of that.

    And so, as far as those countries, we were supposed to have a safe third. We didn't. Now, Mexico - because of tariffs, but that doesn't matter because they've really been doing a job. They've only had one week in June, and June was down 28 percent. One week. Two thousand soldiers, they started with. Now they have 6,000 soldiers on their southern border.


    You know, they used to have like three soldiers; they had nobody. They wouldn't do it. For 45 years, 50 years, people have tried. In the State Department, one of Mike's people said - the woman that we respect, who's been in charge of Mexico for 20 years - she laughed when we said we were going to ask for these things. She said, "They've been trying to get" - she was there for 20 years. But they've been trying to get it for 45 or 50 years, the things that I asked for.

    And they all laughed. I got it done in one day. Because I said, "If you don't do it, we're going to put tariffs on." And every car that comes through, that used to be made in the United States, now Mexico has 30 percent of our car business. But that's not going to happen anymore. No more - no more companies are going to leave because we have reasons that they can't leave anymore. There's just no reason for them to leave anymore. In fact, just the opposite: They're all coming back.

    But now we have 21,000 soldiers - 6,000 on the Guatemala border, and - which is, you know - obviously, that makes the safe third, John, much less important. You understand. It's very hard to get from Guatemala to the United States. And we'll have about 16,000 or so - maybe more - on our southern border.

    And we're using the Mexican immigration laws, because that's Mexico. And those laws say you can actually tell a person, "I'm sorry. You can't come in. Get out." Or they can take them back to a point of origin.

    So we're doing very well, but we have no help whatsoever from the Democrats - just the opposite. They want open borders. They obviously don't mind crime and drugs and human trafficking, which is a tremendous problem. And it's human trafficking mostly in women. And, you know, Democrats, with their big, wonderful hearts - human trafficking with women - where three, four, five women are put in the back of a van or the back of a car, and they go through areas where there will soon be wall, but there's no wall right now. Because you can't, obviously, come through ports of entry.

    But we're really doing well on the border, considering we have absolutely no help from the Democrats. And not only no help; it's just the opposite.

    Now, we won a big lawsuit against Nancy Pelosi and Congress, having to do with the wall. You saw that two weeks ago. But we also have one that we're appealing to the Supreme Court. I think it was just put into the Supreme Court. And I hope we're going to be successful on that.

    But we're building a lot of wall right now. But it's being met with force. There's no question about it. The Democrats are fighting us on a wall so people can come through.

    But now, what's happening with Mexico - 21,000 soldiers - we're hearing that even the cartels are saying, "Wow. This is hard to get through." Because the cartels were bringing tremendous numbers of people into our country, through diversion and other tactics, and money.


    So we're doing well on the border, considering we have no help. I think we're doing well, even if we did have help. And I want to thank Mexico, because they really have gone above and beyond - I think beyond, Mike, what we thought. We didn't ever expect 21,000 soldiers. We expected a smaller number than that.

    And, at the same time, they're helping themselves a lot because they were having a lot of crime. And the border was really - the borders were run by the cartels. And Mexico is taking back its country. And I give the President a tremendous amount of credit for that because that's been going on for a long time.

    Thank you all very much. Thank you.

    Q   Update on China trade? China trade?

    THE PRESIDENT: We're doing well with China, but you will see whether or not we have a - we're talking to China about a deal. We'll see what happens. But we're doing very well economically because they're paying us billions and billions and billions of dollars.

    Q   Mr. Trump, would you be willing to not use the phrase, "Go back to your country" to citizens and women of color who are either citizens or have been born in this country? Would you be willing to not use that specific phrase?

    THE PRESIDENT: I think it's terrible when people speak so badly about our country, when people speak so horribly. I have a list of things here. I'm not going to bore you with it because you would be bored. You wouldn't write it anyway. But I have a list of things here said by the congresswomen that is so bad, so horrible, that I almost don't want to read it. It's so bad. I think what you do is you have the same list that I do. You should repeat some of that.

    When the Democrats didn't want to mention the name of the congresswoman, not so long ago - and what they did and the way they're treating Israel is a disgrace. But not only Israel; it's what they say about our country. It's my opinion they hate our country. And that's not good. It's not acceptable.

    Thank you very much everybody.

    Q   Mr. President, (inaudible) core values to be able to criticize this country, isn't that a core American value?

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you.

END  •  1:03 P.M. EDT


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