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CNN International: Soon: Carter Casket To Be Brought To U.S. Capitol; Carter's Body Being Moved To Washington, D.C.; President- Elect Trump Speaks At Mar-a-Lago. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired January 07, 2025 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:00]
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ERICA HILL, HOST, "CNN NEWSROOM": Welcome to our viewers from around the world. I'm Erica Hill in New York. This is CNN Newsroom.
And we are following two developing major stories at this hour. Any moment now, in Palm Beach, Florida, Donald Trump expected to speak. He'll be, of course, doing that at his resort, Mar-a-Lago. This coming on the heels of the certification of his election win on Monday. We're going to bring you those remarks, as they happen.
We are also closely following developments out of Atlanta at this hour, former President Jimmy Carter set to begin his final journey to the U.S. Capitol. The motorcade for the nation's 39th President will be leaving the Carter Center shortly, making its way to the Air Force Base, where his body will then be transported to Washington. He is set to lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda. President Biden will deliver the eulogy during Carter's funeral service on Thursday at the National Cathedral. President Biden also declaring Thursday a day of national mourning. Jimmy Carter, of course, passed last month at the age of 100, after becoming the oldest former President in U.S. history.
CNN's Eva McKend is at the Carter Center in Atlanta. Eva, it is a beautiful, somewhat cold day there in Atlanta, as we move along now with this week for so many across the country, first in Atlanta, now in Washington, D.C., to have the chance to pay their respects to the former President.
EVA MCKEND, CNN U.S. NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Erica. The celebrations of life are entering a new phase with Carter's remains moving from Atlanta to Washington, D.C. But, it has been incredible the last couple of days to meet people from all across the region, paying their respects to the late President and a through line. Something that I've been hearing time and time again from people is that one of the many reasons why they connected with him is because of his faith. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALICE DILBECK, MOURNER: He is a great inspiration, and I'm sorry, we don't have him in the world. I come from a faith background that he had, and a lot of people wear their religion on their sleeve, and -- so that they can put others down and be proud of themselves, and he wasn't that way. He took his religion for what it actually said and what he should actually do, and it's a good time in our country for us to remember somebody like that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MCKEND: And Erica, I had the opportunity to go inside the Carter Center myself and view the casket. I saw people wiping away tears and holding their hands on their heart. So, it's a tremendously emotional time for many Americans.
Right now, what is happening is the departure ceremony. So, this is here at the Carter Center. This is primarily Carter Center employees, many of whom the family has been connected to for several decades. What's going to happen is it's going to move -- the casket, it's going to move to Dobbins Air Reserve Base. From there they will arrive at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. And then from there they are going to the Navy Memorial. President Carter, of course, served in the United States Navy.
And Erica, what will happen after that is truly symbolic. What we're going to see is a horse-drawn casket go the very same route that President Carter did when he was President several decades ago, and make that very same journey that he did. He was among the first presidents to get out and walk in that inaugural route. We're going to see him take that journey today along with his family.
HILL: And let's listen in now, his casket is being moved out of the Carter Center for that final trip to Washington, D.C.
(VIDEO OF JIMMY CARTER'S CASKET BEING MOVED TO WASHINGTON, D.C.)
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(VIDEO OF JIMMY CARTER'S CASKET BEING MOVED TO WASHINGTON, D.C.)
HILL: As we see, the former President's casket being loaded there into the hearse, which will be making its way now to Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia.
I also want to bring in Barbara Perry, who is with us now. Barbara, some poignant moments here as we watch the former President's casket, of course, prepare to leave the Carter Center for the final time. "Amazing Grace" there. And prior to that, "Hail to the Chief", which some folks may remember, at one point, he initially banned when he moved into the White House as President, wanted to do away with some of the pomp and circumstance, stay true to his roots, as a man from southern Georgia, and that has really in many ways come back as we talk about his life and his legacy in this moment, Barbara.
VOICE OF BARBARA PERRY, DIRECTOR, PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA'S MILLER CENTER: Oh, it surely does, Erica. Thank you for having me with you today at this poignant time for our country, I have to say, it brings a little tear to my eye, just to hear the pomp and circumstance that, as you say, he decided to put aside, and it wasn't just to relate to his roots in planes and as a peanut farmer and as a servant of the people, as a Navy officer having gone to Annapolis, but rather to draw the connection, or at least the break from, let's say, from Watergate and from what was being called the imperial presidency.
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So, we think of Jimmy Carter sitting in his car to get a sweater in front of the fire, saying, yeah, let's turn down our thermostats, because we have an energy crisis. It turned out that those very populist roots and the fact that he was genuinely a man of the people ultimately worked against him in the presidency. So, in some ways, I think it's appropriate to see, not only now that he is given the due of Commander in Chief, the former Commander in Chief, now "Hail to the Chief", but also "Amazing Grace", because he was a grace-filled man, and he gave others grace.
HILL: And so much of that is truly a part of him and who he was, of course, right after leaving Washington, went back there to his church, began teaching Sunday school again. I was struck by my colleague Eva McKend, who has been there at the Carter Center, speaking with a number of people who had come to pay their respects, said she was struck by the number of people who cited his connection to faith and how that allowed them to feel more connected to him. One woman, Eva just noting, had talked about how for him his religion was the religion that this woman felt she had grown up with it. It was not something that was worn on his sleeve. It was simply a part of who he was, and that was truly at the core of who Jimmy Carter was, Barbara.
VOICE OF PERRY: It was. And when we talk sometimes about authentic selves, be your authentic self or find your authentic self, he was always authentic. Now, some people didn't care for that, didn't like his authenticity, but there it was, and it's a big difference between, for example, John Kennedy, who felt that he had to make his Catholicism completely private so it wouldn't be used against him in 1960 when he was running for President. But, Jimmy Carter, again, as a contrast to the line and the deceitfulness and the scandals of Watergate, could say, I'm a born again Christian, and I live my faith, and therefore I will never lie to you, and that made it more genuine to the American people and why they voted him into office in 1976 and how he got the nomination in 1976 against a very strong field of Democratic hopefuls.
HILL: Absolutely. There is a moment -- we will be seeing a moment later after his body is moved to Washington, D.C. We will see it on horse-drawn -- with a horse-drawn carriage, right, that casket will be making its way down from the U.S. Naval Memorial to the Capitol. This will mirror, of course, that walk on his Inauguration Day, which we saw, when his family got out, walked and really started, in many ways, a tradition for presidents who followed.
You were there and you witnessed some of that moment. Can you take us back to that day and what it was like to be there and to see the President get out and walk in that moment?
VOICE OF PERRY: Oh, I remember it as if it were yesterday, and how appropriate, in some ways, that it is quite cold in Washington and snowy, because I had gone to Washington for the inauguration. It was so cold, the Potomac River froze over. So, I bundled up, and it was the last time that the inauguration was on the east side of the Capitol, facing the Supreme Court building. Reagan, in 1981, moved it to the other side of the Capitol, towards the mall. So, my friend and I, at the inauguration, had to run around the other side of the Capitol, and we just thought we would see the President and the new First Lady in a limousine, and we suddenly saw them get out and start walking hand in hand down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
And I can also remember hearing the recordings of Walter Cronkite saying, he is getting out of the car. Oh my goodness, he is getting out of the car. It was something different, and that too was a symbol that he was going to have a different presidency, and he was going to be a man of the people.
HILL: You talk about how some of that really did work against him, right, came into office at a time when it was, I think, in your words, a Watergate-weary nation, and yet, ultimately, a lot of what he did in office did work against him after he was out of office, however, just decades of a beautiful legacy as a humanitarian, as a public servant, a true commitment to democracy around the world, the importance of access to elections, fair elections, so much of that is now what we're talking about. But, what has really defined him in the years since leaving Washington?
VOICE OF PERRY: I think that his presidency does define him in the irony that he could say, completely honestly, I'm not of Washington. I was a state Senator in Atlanta. I was the governor of Georgia, but I am not of Washington.
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So, I won't be stuck in what Trump called the swamp. The irony was that when he got to Washington, people began to say, well, he doesn't seem to understand Washington. So, I think if you go back always to the beginning, the man of the people, the man who was filled with grace, the man from Plains, that he will always be remembered then for that list -- that litany that you just gave of all the things he contributed to the world in this 100 years of life, just imagine a century that he has lived. And so, I think that will be ultimately his legacy that he brought to the White House, but didn't quite work oftentimes in the White House, but it sure did in the post-presidency.
And by the way, as he leaves the Carter Center, Rosalynn Carter said some years ago, when they were trying to figure out what to do in their -- what would be a long post-presidency, she said, one night she woke up and the President just lifted himself out of bed and said, I know what we're going to do. We're going to help the world find peace. We're going to be a place where people can meet. And of course, they expanded that to eradicating disease, building homes through Habitat for Humanity, and as you say, monitoring elections. I think he monitored over 100 elections around the world in new and struggling democracies.
HILL: Which is remarkable, and I'm glad that you brought up the former First Lady, because their relationship as well was so important to what they did, to what each of them did, right, but to what they did together after leaving Washington, and even actually some of the time in Washington. I was listening to an interview a short time ago on CNN with an author who profiles the First Lady, who said at one point when she was interviewing the Carters that the former President felt that Rosalynn Carter didn't get enough due for her work, specifically with mental health, and that struck me.
VOICE OF PERRY: I think she didn't at the time, certainly --
HILL: Sure.
VOICE OF PERRY: -- when she passed about a year and a half ago, she did, and again, that will be her legacy. But, the fact that they were a genuine partnership from the beginning of their 77-year marriage, and that they not only worked hand in hand, sometimes literally walking hand in hand until the end in Washington, she sat in on his cabinet meetings. She didn't participate, as she pointed out, but she said he'd come back to the residence every night, and I'd say, Why did you make that decision, or why did you do that today? And he said, well, if you want to know how I make decisions and why I do the things I do, come to the cabinet meetings. So, she did. So, that's a kind of partnership that, maybe except for Eleanor Roosevelt and then ultimately Hillary Clinton, we hadn't really seen before in a First Lady.
HILL: What struck you most about the remembrances that we have seen and heard that have been written over the last several days since Jimmy Carter's passing?
PERRY: I think that, first of all, I was pleased for him that when he went into hospice almost two years ago, and I hope that he was mentally sharp so that he could see all of the accolades that came to him, because so often people don't know about those because they don't happen until they pass away. And so, I've been struck by the fact that, in addition to saying he is the best ex-President we ever had, and moreover, he created the model of the modern post-presidency through the Carter Center, but that people have gone back in the light of history. They've been able to find the positives of his presidency, and there were many.
HILL: Yeah, absolutely. Barbara Perry, really appreciate your insight and your expertise. Thank you for joining us.
PERRY: Thank you.
HILL: Be sure to stay with CNN. We will have full coverage as Washington prepares to pay tribute to former President Jimmy Carter. That special coverage today will begin at 02:00 p.m. Eastern, 07:00 p.m. in London. Stay tuned.
Newsroom continues after this short break.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HILL: Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump is preparing for his
inauguration. That, of course, now less than two weeks away, and we are, as I mentioned at the top of the hour here, still waiting to hear from Mr. Trump. He is expected to address reporters there from Mar-a- Lago. This, of course, coming a day after his win was certified by Congress. And Congress, meantime, ushering in a new era of Republican control of both chambers. Mr. Trump wants to put much of his agenda into a single, massive bill. That's a move that's expected to face some stiff headwinds on Capitol Hill.
Joining me now with more is CNN's Daniel Strauss, who is live in Washington. So, that idea, right, of let's just throw it all in one big, beautiful bill, as the President-elect likes to say, Speaker Johnson this morning said he thinks it can happen. He thinks that this can happen along party lines, ultimately, in the Senate. What is the feeling among the rest of Washington in terms of this agenda?
DANIEL STRAUSS, CNN REPORTER: I mean, skepticism, and it's especially surprising, because this is someone proposing this idea who has been President before and knows how difficult it is to move large pieces of legislation through Congress and through one with a very narrow majority in one chamber in particular. Like, let's remember, during the time when President Obama was in office, moving Obamacare and signing that into law was a gargantuan task. And here, look, even though the President has broad support, arguably stronger support among Republicans than we've seen in the last few Republican presidents, there are still Republicans in swing districts who are very concerned about their re-election prospects and will be hesitant about some of the aspects of a large package like he is proposing.
So, it's unusual that there is this much disagreement between the incoming administration and rank and file Republicans in Washington on this idea.
HILL: Well, even specifically Senator John Thune, of course, he said that he thinks separate could be better.
STRAUSS: Yeah.
HILL: So, it'll be interesting to see how that works out. Coming in, though, there is a lot that he wants to get done, because there is, understandably, as you noted, sort of a narrow window of time before the midterm elections.
STRAUSS: Yeah. And look, the incoming Trump administration is not at all overly unrealistic about their prospects. They see their window to really execute their agenda as a two-year increment. This is not something they expect to have a large amount of leeway on through all four years of the upcoming President's time in office. So, they really are cognizant of that in the next few weeks and months, as they finally get into office and try and move the President's agenda,
HILL: We will see how it all works out. Daniel, appreciate it. Thank you.
STRAUSS: Thanks. HILL: Also with me this hour is Tia Mitchell, who is the Washington Bureau Chief for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Tia, always good to see you. Sort of picking up where we left off there with Daniel, I was also struck by the fact that Donald Trump was putting out there that this transition has been terrible, thanks to Joe Biden, that it has been the -- he has made it, in his words, in Trump's words, Biden is making everything -- doing everything possible to make the transition as difficult as possible. That, of course, coming on the heels of comments from Susie Wiles who said, hey, it's actually been going pretty smoothly. Things are great. Jeff Zients is very helpful.
Is in some of that, perhaps, laying the groundwork for, oh, the transition was tough, so therefore we couldn't get things done in Congress that we wanted to?
TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: Yeah. I think what Donald Trump is aware of is that very soon he will not be able to blame all the ills of America on the Biden administration, and now, I think what he is setting up is that he is going to blame a lot of the ills of America on the Biden administration trying to slow down or stymie the start of his administration. We'll see if the American public buys it, because we know that when the President is in office, people look to the President.
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Whether things are good or bad, they say it's the President who is in charge, and the President who is responsible after January 20th, that will be Donald Trump.
HILL: It'll be interesting to see too, as we're waiting to hear from the President here, how much of that is addressed in these remarks this morning, Tia.
MITCHELL: Yeah. I think it'll be interesting to see how much it's addressed. I think it'll also be interesting to see how he characterizes the counting of electoral votes yesterday. Of course, it went smoothly. A lot of Republicans had praised Vice President Harris, for example, for presiding over basically her own defeat with a lot of grace and class. We'll see if President-elect Trump decides to be -- have that same posture towards Vice President Harris, or if he kind of still holds grudges against a former rival. I think he has something to say about January 6, but we'll see what that is.
HILL: January 6, which we know he wants to put and for some time, right, has wanted to put behind him. Actually, I'm going to stop topping now, because he is walking out. Tia, thank you. Let's listen in now to Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL- ELECT: Thank you very much. It's an honor to be with you. Many things are happening that are exciting, very exciting for our country, and we're honored to welcome one of the most respected business leaders in the Middle East, indeed, the world. He is a Founder and Chairman of DAMAC Properties, Hussain Sajwani, very respected gentleman, and I'm thrilled to announce today that DAMAC will be investing at least $20 billion over a very short period of time into the United States, and they may go double, or even somewhat more than double that amount of money. It's a great thing, and I believe he will say that he is doing it because of the fact that he was very inspired by the election. They wouldn't do it without that election. I can tell you, a lot of people wouldn't.
You saw last week where we have somebody who is going to go from $100 billion to $200 billion, and we have many other people, and we'll be bringing some of them out. Some of them like to do it somewhat more quietly, and some don't, and they feel so strongly about the country that they want to let people know about it. But, it's an honor to have such a great investor investing in our country. The investment will support massive new data centers across the Midwest, the Sun Belt area, and also to keep America on the cutting edge of technology and artificial intelligence. He is very big into the data centers, and that's going to be a very hot item in the coming years, as you know, with AI in particular. The first phase of the project will be in Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Indiana, those places.
And Hussain, I'd love you to come up and say a few words. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.
HUSSAIN SAJWANI, FOUNDER, DAMAC PROPERTIES: Thank you, Mr. President. It's been amazing news for me and my family when he was elected November. We've been waiting four years to increase our investments in U.S. to very large amount of money. We are a company operating in more than 20 countries around the world. We have delivered more than 45,000 luxury units and another 45,000 in the pipeline. In data center, we are in 10 countries around the world, in Asia, Europe and Middle East, and we're very, very excited now with his leadership and his open strategy and policy to encourage businesses to come to U.S.
For the last four years, we've been waiting for this moment, and we're planning to invest $20 billion and even more than that, if the opportunity in the market allow us. But, at the moment, we're planning $20 billion in data center catering for the AI and cloud business for the hyperscalers.
TRUMP: Fantastic.
SAJWANI: Thank you, Mr. President.
TRUMP: It's a great honor.
SAJWANI: Thank you.
TRUMP: Thank you very much. So nice. And that man knows what he is doing. He knows.
So, Hussain, we're going to work with you and make sure everything goes smoothly. We have powers that haven't really been used in terms of environmental. If you invest over a billion dollars in the United States, we're going to give expedited reviews to everybody, because everyone is afraid they're going to come in and get caught in the quagmire, which is very prevalent in the United States, unfortunately, the quagmire of environmental and various other regulations and rules. And I made it a point of telling people, if you invest a billion dollars or more, and we'll do this for people with far less too, but we guarantee it, we're going to move them quickly through the environmental process.
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Sometimes people held up 12, 13, 14, 15 years. I saw it with plants in Louisiana, where I got it approved in literally a week. They were through the review, and one week, after spending 14 and a half years trying to get it, and they were going nowhere, was a terrible thing. So, I've been a victim of that myself over the years, and I think I know all the games and all the tricks that are played, and much of it is just done to stop progress. So, we're going to be helping you and everybody else that comes to the United States and wants to invest their money that you don't get tied up for the rest of your life and you can't do anything.
This commitment further underscores that many of the greatest business leaders on Earth are seeing a very bright economic future for America. Since the election, as you know, Larry, a lot of positive things have happened. We are inheriting a difficult situation from the outgoing administration, and they're trying everything they can to make it more difficult. Inflation is continuing to rage, and interest rates are far too high, and I've been disappointed to see the Biden administration's attempt to block the reforms of the American people and that they voted for.
They just -- we had a landslide election. We won every swing state. We won the popular vote by millions and millions of people. Nobody even knows how many people, millions, and they're still counting in some areas. They're still counting the vote in some areas. Can you believe this? What a place? What a horrible place. One of the things we're going to do is we've got to fix the election so that we get honest counts and they get done by 10 o'clock in the evening or something, thereabouts. They have places where they're still counting votes.
President Biden's actions yesterday on offshore drilling, banning offshore drilling will not stand. I will reverse it immediately. It will be done immediately, and we will drill, baby, drill. We're going to be drilling in a lot of other locations, and the energy costs are going to come way down. They'll be brought down to a very low level, and that's going to bring everything else down. That's what caused it to go up, along with the ridiculous spending on the green new scam, all this money, trillions of dollars. It's like throwing it right out of the window what they're doing.
And they're trying to spend so much now. They've just taking money and giving it to anybody that wants it for any project at all, if it's certified under the green new scam, and they don't work and it's too expensive. And they told me that we're going to do everything possible to make this transition to the new administration very smooth. It's not smooth because they're doing that. They're playing with the courts. As you know, they've been playing with the courts for four years. It probably got me more votes, because I got the highest number of votes ever gotten by a Republican by far, actually by a lot. And we had a great election. So, I guess it didn't work.
But, even to this day, they're playing with the courts, their friendly judges that like to try and make everybody happy on the Democrats' side. It's called lawfare. It's called weaponization of justice, and it's happened at a level nobody has ever seen before. So many -- I defeated -- deranged Jack Smith. He is a deranged individual. I guess he is on his way back to The Hague. And we won those cases. Those were the biggest ones, and the press made such a big deal out of them, but we did nothing wrong. We did nothing wrong on anything, and the people saw that.
When they vote to -- when a Republican, it's not easy for a Republican, when the Republican wins the popular vote by millions and wins all seven of the swing states, people said, well, he could win four. We won all seven, and we won them by a lot. That tells you we won. That tells -- and they've been watching this injustice. I call it the Injustice Department. What they've done is so bad. The whole world has watched that. And it took work, but it got me a lot of votes, because when explained, we have a judge in New York who is a very crooked judge. I'm under a gag order. I can't even talk about aspects of the case that are the most vital aspects. I'm under a gag.
Do you know that? I'm the President-elect of the United States of America. I'm a former very successful President. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. We had borders that were sealed and beautiful. We had -- everything was good. We had no wars. We defeated ISIS. We had no wars. Now I'm going into a world that's burning with Russia and Ukraine, with Israel.
[11:35:00]
You took a look at that attack on October 7th, the attack on Israel, with the horrible way they got out, not the fact that they got out, I would have been out before them, but we would have been out of Afghanistan with dignity and strength, as opposed to looking like a bunch of fools with 13 dead and many, many badly, horrifically injured. Nobody ever talks about them. No arms. No legs. Nobody ever talks about them. The way they got out was just outrageous, leaving billions of dollars of brand new military equipment that I bought, in the hands of the Afghans, and specifically the Taliban. It's the group. And we were doing very well. We would have been out. We would have been respected.
I think it's one of the reasons it was so badly handled, that withdrawal, where people are jumping onto airplanes, falling off the sides of airplanes, when they're 3,000 feet in the air, and nobody has ever seen anything like that, the worst. And because of that, I think Russia went and attacked Ukraine. When they saw that, they said, these guys are incompetent. They don't know what they're doing, but we know what we're doing now, and that's going to all end. We have a great military. I defeated ISIS. As you know, we were in no wars. I just finished a couple, and we got also our soldiers guarding Syria and Turkey. We were in the middle. We had 5,000 soldiers that would have been gobbled up with two armies. We had one army, 300,000, we had another one, 500,000 or 600,000, looking -- getting ready. We had 5,000 people in the middle. I said to a general, how do 5,000 people do in that case? And the general just looked at me, said, not well, sir, not well. And I took them out.
And you know what happened? Nothing. I got criticized. I saved 5,000 lives, actually, and we did a great job, and we're going to do an even better job, because now we have a tremendous amount of experience. We have people that I can rely on. But, the 625 million acres, people can't realize. It's like the whole ocean. Take an acre, an acre. You have a house on a half an acre, on a quarter of an acre, or an acre, if you have an acre, you have a big deal. Now you multiply that by 625 million acres. It's like -- it feels like the whole ocean. And that's our strength.
People can say we manufacture. We don't manufacture. A thing we have, we have oil and gas more than anybody in the world, and we're going to have more of it too. But, they took away 625 million acres of offshore drilling. Nobody else does that, and they think they have it, but we'll put it back. I'm going to put it back on day one. I'm going to have it revoked on day one. We'll go immediately, if we need to. I don't think we should have to go to the courts, but if we do have to go to go to the courts, they try to be sneaky. They go in and they sign.
Remember, this is a man that said he wants the transition to be smooth. Well, you don't do the kind of things. You don't have a judge working real hard to try and embarrass you, because I did nothing wrong. By the way, I did nothing -- absolutely nothing wrong. If I did something wrong, I wouldn't be standing here right now because I've won all these cases. Nobody has ever won so many cases as I have against the Justice Department. I mean, Jack Smith had cases all over the place. People were being subpoenaed. Lives were being ruined. They were spending everything. They had money. We were helping them out. We had to. They were being -- they were subpoenaing people from -- that had no idea what they were even talking about.
That's a sick group of people, and it was all to influence the election. It was all a fight against a political opponent. We've never had that in this country. We have had that in certain countries. We've had that in third-tier countries. We've had that in banana republics, but we've never had that in a place like the United States. I don't even know if it's been on a small level. I'm sure it has been on a small level, but this was the largest level ever. They brought this moron out of The Hague. He is a mean guy. He is a mean, nasty guy. His picture was perfect, because you look at his picture, you say that's a bad guy with his robe, his purple robe, and he executes people. He shouldn't be allowed to execute people, because he'll execute everybody. He is a nut job.
But, we won all of those cases with him. And -- I mean, I don't know the judge in Florida, but we had a brilliant judge in Florida that saw right through it, and we won the case. She was brilliant judge with great courage. The left, as we call them, the radical left, they have a way. They play the ref, and they play it very hard. They play the ref. They go and say horrible things about judges and prosecutors. And some judges and prosecutors say, look, the only way I'm going to get these people off my back is to give victory to them.
[11:40:00] They're playing the ref. I think it's illegal what they do. It's almost like talking. It's worse than talking to a judge. But, the judge in Florida, Judge Cannon, was brilliant and tough, and she didn't stand for it, and I don't know her, and never met her until the case, and I don't believe I said even one word to her, but she was very, very strong and very, very brilliant, and her opinion was so brilliant that they dropped their appeal. They couldn't beat the appeal. So, that's what we're up against.
So, they say we're going to have a smooth transition. All they do is talk. It's all talk. Everything they do is talk. We're going to have a smooth transition, and then they take 625 million acres, and they essentially land market so you can't ever drill there again. Well, we're going to be drilling soon. We're going to be opening up ANWR. We're going to be doing all sorts of things that nobody ever thought was even possible.
But, remember, when -- and just to get off the subject, because I couldn't believe it when I heard it yesterday, couldn't believe the size of it. I mean, you put down a map and put this up, it's just massive. And remember that that's worth probably -- I mean, I've had estimates $40 trillion to $50 trillion. That's more than our national debt. Essentially, he has thrown it away. He has thrown it away. He has taken $50 trillion-- so, if we owe $35 trillion, he has taken $50 trillion of value and thrown it right out of the window. We can't do that. Nobody can do that.
One other thing he did yesterday, which was in many ways worse, it's hard to believe it can be worse, he wants all gas heaters out of your homes and apartments. He wants them to be replaced by essentially electric heaters. I don't know what it is with electric. This guy loves electric. We're going to be ending the electric car mandate quickly, by the way. This guy loves electric, and he -- we don't have enough electricity, and then we have AI where we need more, and he wants to get -- he wants everybody to have an electric heater instead of a gas heater.
Gas heater is much less expensive. The heat is much better. It's a much better heat. As the expression goes, you don't itch. Does anybody have a heater where you go and you scratch in and say, that's what they want you to have? They don't want you to have gas where you don't have the problems of the electric, and the source is plentiful. They're much cheaper to operate. They're much better. They work much better. They look much better. 60 percent of homes and apartments have gas heaters. He wants them all removed quickly.
These people are crazy. There is something wrong with them. There is something wrong with them. They also want to go back, and they have already started that too, when you buy a faucet, no water comes out, because they want to preserve. Even in areas that have so much water, you don't know what to do. It's called rain. It comes down from heaven, and they want to do -- no water comes out of the shower. It goes drip, drip, drip. So, what happens? You're in the shower 10 times as long. No water comes out of the faucet. You want to wash your hands, your head. They want to go back to even stronger than what they have right now. I, as you know, I ended that policy. I get -- you can have all the
water you want. Makes no difference. It becomes weird. Especially in certain areas, we have so much water, we don't know what to do with it. But, these are all things they want, very, very little water to go into your dishwasher, almost none. And you know what people do? They just keep pressing, pressing, pressing, keep it going. They end up using more water. Likewise, washing machines, they want in your washing machine to have very little water coming out of the washing machine. So, when you wash your clothing, you have to wash it four times instead of once. You end up using more water.
We're a party of common sense and things that I'm telling you now is really all about common sense. On January 20th, we'll turn the economy around very quickly, because right now, we are -- when I think of our economy, I think about inflation. That's what we have. We have inflation, I believe, at a level that we never had before. There has never been anything like it. And over the next four years, the United States is going to take off like a rocket ship. But, really, it's already doing it.
If you take a look, just last month, SoftBank announced the $200 billion. I think it'll be $200 billion. He said, between $100 billion, and I said, how about making it $200 billion? And he sort of said, yes. But, let's say it's $100 billion, but it might be $200 billion, right, Brian, dollars. United States creating more than 100,000 jobs. Hussain just announced a tremendous investment that he is going to make, and that -- that's money that's in the bank. He is going to come and do it, and he'll do a great job, and he'll build the best centers in the country, I guarantee, because I know the way he builds.
[11:45:00]
Since my election, the stock market has set records. The S&P 500 index has broken above 6,000 points for the first time, ever, never even close. In a single month, small business optimism soared 41 points. It's not a 41. It went up 41 points, and that's the largest in the 39- year history of the group that does it. According to Gallup, the American people's confidence in the economy has just surged to the highest level in history. That's why I have a news conference like that. I take the greatest business leaders in the world. I say, hey, do you want to say you're going to invest the money? They're not looking for news conferences. They're saying, what am I doing here? They go in and they invest money. But, it's good to know where the smartest business people in the world are investing, and they're investing in the United States.
So, we've done this all in two months of not being there. We haven't been there. And it's pretty amazing. And we think we're going to do some really great things, really great things. We're being respected, again, all over the world. The Panama Canal is a disgrace, what took place at the Panama Canal. Jimmy Carter gave it to them for $1 and they were supposed to treat us well. I thought it was a terrible thing to do. It was the most expensive structure ever built in the history of our country, relatively. It would be the equivalent of over a -- substantially over a trillion dollars today. We lost 38,000 people. Think of it. 38,000 people, they died from
malaria -- mosquitoes. They were unable to stop the mosquitoes. They paid people five times more to take the job. Many of those people died. We gave it away for $1. But, the deal was that they have to treat us fairly. They don't treat us fairly. They charge more for our ships than they charge for ships of other countries. They charge more for our navy than they charge for navies of other countries. They laugh at us because they think we're stupid, but we're not stupid anymore.
So, the Panama Canal is under discussion with them right now. They violated every aspect of the agreement, and it's -- they morally violated it also, and they want our help because it's leaking and not in good repair, and they want us to give $3 billion to help fix it. I said, well, why don't you get the money from China? Because China is basically taking it over. China is at both ends of the Panama Canal. China is running the Panama Canal, and they come to see this Biden, this guy who should never have been allowed even to run for President. Of course, Xi shouldn't have either, because that never happened.
I had to beat two people, not one, but they want $3 billion to fix the Panama Canal that's run by China and makes a lot of money, China, one of the most profitable structures ever built, because you have ships lined up back to Florida, frankly, and they just keep going through. And the numbers are staggering, half a million to a million dollars a ship, and they took it away from us, meaning we gave it to them for $1, but not going to be -- not going to happen. What they've done to us, they've charged us -- they've overcharged our ships, overcharged our navy, and then when they need repair money, they come to the United States to put it up. We get nothing. Those days are over.
Working with the Republican majorities in Congress will cut taxes, slash regulations, raise wages, and boost incomes at a pace the world has not seen before, and certainly not from our country. We had a big chunk of it for the first three years of prior to COVID coming in. In my administration, we had the greatest economy in history. We had -- we cut the most regulations in the history of our country, and I did that all in four years, by four times more than any other President cut. We did that in four years, and we were just getting started.
We'll impose new tariffs so that the products on our stores will once again be stamped with those beautiful words "Made in the USA", and we are not treated well, as you know, by Canada. Canada is subsidized to the tune of about $200 billion a year, plus other things. They don't essentially have a military. They have a very small military. They rely on our military. It's all fine, but they got to pay for that. It's very unfair. I have so many great friends. One of them is the great one, Wayne Gretzky. I said, run for Prime Minister. You'll win, and it'll take two seconds. But, he said, well, am I going to run for Prime Minister or governor? You tell me. I said, I don't know.
[11:50:00]
Let's make it governor. I like it better. But, no, something is going to have to be done. Same thing with Mexico. We have a massive deficit with Mexico, and we
help Mexico a lot. They're essentially run by the cartels, and can't let that happen. Mexico is really in trouble, a lot of trouble, very dangerous place. And we're going to be announcing at a future date, pretty soon, we're going to change because we do most of the work there, and it's ours. We're going to be changing, sort of the opposite of Biden, where he is closing everything up, essentially getting rid of $50 trillion to $60 trillion worth of assets. We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring. That covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name. And it's appropriate. It's appropriate.
And Mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country. They can stop them. And we're going to put very serious tariffs on Mexico and Canada, because Canada, they come through Canada too, and the drugs that are coming through are at record numbers, record numbers. So, we're going to make up for that by putting tariffs on Mexico and Canada, substantial tariffs.
Then we want to get along with everybody. But, they have to -- it's got -- it takes two to tango. We're approaching the dawn of America's golden age. It's going to be a golden age for America. We have things that nobody else has. We have more natural resources. We have -- number one, nobody knew that until I came along. I made us number one. We're number three. I made us number one in a very short period of time in drilling. And you can talk about windmills. They litter our country. They're littered all over our country, like dropping paper, like dropping garbage in a field, and that's what happens to them, because in a period of time, they turn to garbage, most expensive energy ever.
They only work if you get subsidy. The only people that want them are the people they're getting rich off, windmills getting massive subsidies from the U.S. government, and it's the most expensive energy there is. It's many, many times more expensive than clean natural gas. So, we're going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built. Off the coast of New Jersey, they want to build, like, 200 windmills that people are going crazy. Nobody wants them, and they're very expensive. They don't work without subsidy. You don't want energy that needs subsidy.
Energy is a good business. You don't need subsidy. But, when you build these massive towers, and they're 25 stories tall, 40 stories, they have 170 stories tall, the blades, they take three ships to ship them. It's crazy. They're dangerous. You see what's happening up in the Massachusetts area with the whales, where they had two whales washed ashore, and I think a 17-year period, and now they had 14 this season. The windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously. And they had actually over, I think 125 or something, over a number of years, and we don't want that to happen.
It's a disaster from -- it's amazing the way a true environmentalist would say, Oh, we love wind. It sounds good, but that's about where it ends. After 10 years, you have to redo them. And what happens is, they don't do that. They let them stand and they rust, and they say, because of the environment, I'm not a believer in this, but they say you can, because it's a certain fiberglass, that the blades cannot be buried in earth, that that's an environment. So, what do you do with them? What do you do with them?
And I don't know if you've ever gone to Palm Springs, California, or any of these places where you have long-term windmills standing. They're a disaster. They're rusting, rotting, closed, falling down. This is as you enter Palm Springs, and they put new ones next to them because nobody wants to take them down. Because why should they take them down? It's very expensive to take them down, and you can't do anything with them because the blades, you can't bury them because of the environmental protection. We'll look at that. It doesn't make sense, but that's what they say.
So, we are at the beginning of a great, beautiful, golden age of business, and I think we're also at a golden age of common sense, because everything I'm saying to you from a simple water faucet that doesn't allow water to come out appropriately to all of the other elements of what we do and what we're going to do to take $50 trillion to $60 trillion off our country's balance sheet, because some man that has no idea what he doing. He has no idea. You know it. I know it. The Democrats know it. What they did is a crime by allowing that to happen.
[11:55:00]
And I'll bet you, if you asked him today, how much acreage did you submit, essentially, did you destroy? You destroyed the economic viability of drilling in the ocean. And with AI coming along and all, a lot of people don't realize that AI is going to be a big thing, but you'll need double the electricity at least that we have right now. So, right now, we produce electricity for many, many different things. AI is a very big deal in terms of the future. China is already building electric facilities, big, bold electric facilities.
And you know how they're being fired up? With coal. They're being fired up with coal, and we're going to build bigger and better ones, people like Hussain that are doing the same thing, as he is. I'll bet they don't do it as well, because I know how he does it, but they're doing a lot of things. The problem is they can't get their permits, because I say, build the plant with the building. So, with the structure, build the plant, because if you've going to grid, the grids are old. So, they said, that's a great idea. In other words, build your electric facility alongside of your plant, and you could have extra output if you want, because once you build it, you can make it larger, pretty inexpensively. You could have extra output, which you'll sell to the public, but build it with the plant, and people are loving that idea.
So, we're going to have a lot of fun making America great again, and it's going to happen, I think, very, very quickly. It's already happened. So, I would say this, and this has been pretty openly reported by the news, there has never been anything like what's happened in the list. Since we won the election, a couple of months since we won the election, the whole perception of the whole world is different. People from other countries have called me. They said, thank you. Thank you. The perception of the whole world is different.
We're going to have to settle some big problems that are going on right now. We're going to have to settle up with Russia, Ukraine. That's a disaster. I look at numbers every week, the number of people being killed in that war. People don't know, mostly soldiers now, but the towns have been obliterated. This was a Biden fiasco that he got us. He could -- that should have never happened. If we had a real President, if we had a President that knew what he was doing, Russia would have never, ever gone in, but they did go in, and we have a mess. The cities are all blown up. The people have largely left, and the soldiers are killing each other at levels that haven't been seen since the Second World War.
So, we'll have to get that one straightened out too. That's a tough one, much tougher than it would have been before it started. I can tell you that. A deal could have been made just by an average deal maker. A deal could have been made on that.
So, thank you all for coming. We'll take a couple of questions. Yeah. Go ahead, please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you. I wanted to touch on the world is on fire that you mentioned, but let's start, if we could, with your references to Greenland and --
TRUMP: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- the Panama Canal. So, can you assure the world that, as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion?
TRUMP: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is? Are you going to negotiate a new treaty? Are you going to ask the Canadians to hold the vote? What is the strategy?
TRUMP: Yeah. I can't assure you. You're talking about Panama and Greenland. No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But, I can say this, we need them for economic security. The Panama Canal was built for our military. I'm not going to commit to that now. It might be that you'll have to do something.
Look, the Panama Canal is vital to our country. It's being operated by China, China, and we gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn't give it to China, and they've abused it. They've abused that gift. It should have never been made, by the way. Giving the Panama Canal is why Jimmy Carter lost the election, in my opinion, more so maybe than the hostages. The hostages were a big deal.
But, if you remember, nobody wants to talk about the Panama Canal now, because it's inappropriate, I guess, but because it's a bad part of the Carter legacy. But, he was a good man. Look, he was a good man. I knew him a little bit, and he was a very fine person, but that was a big mistake. Giving the Panama Canal to Panama was a very big mistake. We lost 38,000 people. It cost us the equivalent of a trillion dollars, maybe more than that, probably the most expensive. They say it was the most expensive structure, if we call it a structure, which I guess you can, ever built, and giving that away was a horrible thing, and I believe that's why Jimmy Carter lost the election, even more so than the hostages, those two things.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible) on Ukraine and Iran, the two negotiations you'll be heading into. On Ukraine, you said just before, it's a lot more complicated now.
TRUMP: Much more complicated.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you believe --
TRUMP: -- because it would have never started.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right. But, it has started. It's -- you --
TRUMP: Well, not only started --
