Donald Trump hails Elon Musk's contributions

India Today

Donald Trump praised Elon Musk's contributions as a special government employee, claiming Musk helped identify billions in government waste.

Transcript

00:00Very charming. I think you've had a charm, but I think what I'll do, if you don't mind,

00:10numbers have just come out, which are rather extraordinary, and I thought I'd play a tape

00:14of one of the people who I've respected over the years, from Joe Kiernan and Rick Santelli.

00:22This just came out, and we'll just play that for a second.

00:24Personal income is up eight-tenths, up eight-tenths of a percent. That is almost triple the expectations.

00:33I'll tell you, the income, the income numbers, really, for the first four months of the year,

00:38they're stellar. They're really stellar. I mean, I could go back and look at the first four months

00:42of many different years, really very strong numbers, and you're right. This administration

00:47is criticized for just about everything under the sun. I've never ever in my lifetime had glimpses

00:54into the politics of an administration in the form of transparency like this one. Why don't we

01:00give credit where credit is due? Income really shooting up.

01:05Rick, I also thought everybody was going to get one last order of imports that were going to be

01:13tariffed, and they were loading up on things. How the hell did they already fix the trade?

01:17Or not fix it, but to cut it in half, that's crazy. So there wasn't a lot of front-loading of things

01:25that they needed before the tariffs hit?

01:28Yeah, I'll tell you what. It really does call into question some of the conventional wisdoms,

01:32and it's going to be interesting to see what happens next month when we get this number,

01:37or we see some of the other numbers like current accounts, see how they fared.

01:42Because, I don't know, I've been watching these numbers a long time. I don't think I've ever seen

01:47the trade deficit cut in half in one month.

01:50Not bad. Right? Not bad.

01:53Come on, guys.

01:59I see Howard and Scott are here, so it's great. If you guys want to stand over here, you might as well.

02:04You're the ones that help reduce those numbers, and it'll only get better. The tariffs are so important,

02:09and that's why we were so happy with the decision yesterday, where the tariffs continue,

02:17because without the tariffs, our nation would be imperiled. We would really be imperiled.

02:21I think I can say that with great charity, Scott and Howard. And so we were very happy to get that

02:26decision, that big decision, yesterday. And today, it's about a man named Elon,

02:34and he's one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced.

02:39He stepped forward to put his very great talents into the service of our nation, and we appreciate

02:45it. And I just want to say that Elon has worked tirelessly helping lead the most sweeping and

02:51consequential government reform program in generations. And you know the kinds of things

02:57that he's found and his people have found. He's brought a group of very smart people in,

03:02and they found things that are pretty unbelievable. I have to say that the numbers that we're talking

03:09about are substantial, but they're going to be very much more substantial with time,

03:14because many of the things that we're working on right now, we're going to have to remember Elon

03:18as we find them. But the numbers could double and triple, because many, many things,

03:24we don't want to go out with them until we're sure. But we've found things that are unbelievably stupid

03:30and unbelievably bad with the Department of Government Efficiency. Elon's delivered

03:35a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington. Doge has installed geniuses

03:42with an engineering mindset and unbelievably talented people and computers. I actually asked Elon one

03:48time, what's their primary thing? And they have a lot of primary things all having to do with being

03:53smart. But he said the thing that they're really the best at is working with computers so that they

03:58can't be outsmarted by somebody that's not so honest that happens to also be good with computers,

04:05but not as good as these people. But the mindset and the senior ranks of every federal department,

04:09it's really changed. And with Elon's guidance, they're helping to detect fraud slash waste and

04:17modernize broken and outdated systems. So as you know, we're talking about various systems and

04:22changing systems. And, you know, sadly, it takes a long time to do that. You'll change,

04:28let's say, a system at IRS and computerize it properly where the job can be done in one

04:34tenth of time. But it takes, it takes sometimes years to rebuild those systems. But we've started

04:40in many cases, we've started, I will say that this has less to do with Elon, but the air traffic

04:46control systems, we're bidding out to the best companies in the world, those systems right now,

04:51they were horrible. The previous administration was horrible what they did. They spent billions

04:57and billions of dollars. And in the end, it didn't even come close to working. They tried to hook up

05:04wire to copper, and it can't be done. And they just spent billions of dollars and just wasted money,

05:10actually made the system much worse. So we're going to get a brand new modern system. Congress is

05:15working with us on that. And we're going to get it done as quickly as we can. But it's,

05:19it's in the works. And once it's done, it'll be good for 30 years. But we have a system that's 48

05:25years old, and would have a modern computer hooked into a very outdated computer. And you, they don't

05:32hook up. I mean, they didn't hook up. So after spending billions of dollars, they turned on the

05:36system. And it, in never any cases, from local to countrywide, they never worked. More than 75,000,

05:45bureaucrats have voluntarily left their taxpayer-funded jobs to come out and really do the, do the

05:53job. Countless wasteful and unnecessary contracts have been terminated. And you know that we have

05:59terminated many, many contracts. And many contracts, Elon, are right now being looked at.

06:05And it may be six months. It may be almost a year in some cases. We're going through procedures. We're

06:11going through courts. And we'll remember you as we announce billions of dollars of extra waste, fraud,

06:19and abuse. Just as an example, Doge canceled $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of

06:27Education, $101 million. And that was just a small section of the Department of Education, $59 million.

06:34for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City. And the landlord never made the kind of money that

06:42he made in the last short period of time. $59 million to a hotel in New York City. $45 million

06:48for diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma. In Burma. Does anyone know about Burma?

06:55$42 million for social and behavioral change in Uganda. $40 million to improve the social and

07:04economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. I can say it's $2 billion to Stacey Abrams and her

07:12environmental movement. There was $100 in the account. And all of a sudden, they found $2 billion in the

07:19account. And I assume that's being looked at. I don't know. I'm not sure. But I assume that's being

07:24looked at. Think of that. $2 billion. And then Lee will tell you there's another one over there for

07:30$20 billion being spent on another environmental question. $20 billion. Not $20 million a lot.

07:38Not $200,000, which is a lot. So think of it in her case. You have $100. And now all of a sudden,

07:46she gets hit with an infusion of $2 billion just before I take office. $20 million for Arab Sesame

07:54Street in the Middle East. Nobody knows what that's all about. Nobody's been able to find it. $8

08:00million for making mice transgender. So they spend $8 million on making mice transgender. And those are

08:09better than many of the others. I could sit here all day and read things just like that. But we have

08:15other things to do. So it's much, much more than just that. We're totally committed to making the

08:20doge cuts permanent and stopping much more of the waste in the months that come. We want to get

08:25our great, big, beautiful bill finished and done. After that, we're going to be... We put some of this

08:30into the bill. But most of it's going to come later. We're going to have it

08:35categorized by Congress, affirmed by Congress. In some cases, we'll make cuts. In some cases,

08:43we'll just use it in a different layer to save the money. But it's hundreds of billions of dollars.

08:49Doge has also fully modernized the federal retirement process and continues to work very

08:54hard on the IRS modernization. But we're taking that over with Doge. Many of the Doge people,

09:01Elon, are staying behind, too. So they're not leaving. And Elon's really not leaving. He's going

09:06to be back and forth, I think. I have a feeling. It's his baby. And I think he's going to be doing

09:12a lot of things. But Elon's service to America has been without comparison in modern history. He's

09:17already running one of the most innovative car companies in the world. You look at his factories

09:22and compare them with some of the old factories we have. And it's a big difference. And the most

09:27successful space company, and I guess in history, you would have to say, the largest free speech

09:32platform on the internet, etc. Yet, Elon willingly, with all of the success, he willingly accepted

09:40the outrageous abuse and slander and lies and attacks because he does love our country. I know

09:46that very much. He loves our country. He comes from another country, a country that's going through

09:52trials and tribulations, I would say. But he's all about the USA. And Americans owe him a great

10:00debt of gratitude. So I just want to thank Elon for his time as a special government employee. Can

10:07you imagine? They call him an employee. But it's a special government employee for coming

10:13and helping us. And he really has changed the mindset of a lot of people. A lot of people

10:17thought, you know, maybe we'll cut 1 percent or 2 percent or 3 percent. Then they said, wow,

10:23we can cut a lot more than that. And we're going to do it very surgically. We're going to continue

10:28on the march. We're making America great again. When I was in Saudi Arabia, we were in, as you

10:35know, three really great countries, predominantly the three. Qatar was great. UAE was great. Saudi

10:45Arabia, incredible. What is like such an incredible experience to be in those three countries. But

10:51the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and I must tell you, the leaders, the great leaders of

10:57the other two that we just mentioned, they all said the same thing, that the United States

11:02is the hottest country right now anywhere in the world. And six months ago, we thought

11:06it was dead. It was like a dead country. And it would have been a dead country if we didn't

11:10have the right result on November 5th. It would have been a horrible, horrible situation was

11:15going on with the borders, with transgender for everyone, men playing in women's sports

11:23and so much more. But they were saying the hottest country anywhere in the world. And then I played

11:28that little clip because that was one person who's respected, but there were two people

11:33because Joe was in that one too. Joe's a good man. But that was one group of people saying

11:39something about the success of what we've done over the last four months. They cannot believe

11:44it. In the one case, they said they've never seen anything like it as long as they've been

11:48doing what they've been doing. They've been doing it for a long time. So I just, I want

11:53to thank Elon for helping. And again, you know, the United States right now is the hottest country

11:59anywhere in the world. There's no country as hot. And we're doing really well where we came.

12:05When I left, we had no wars. We had no problems. We defeated ISIS. We rebuilt our military

12:10military. And we had no inflation. And when I came back, we had a lot of inflation. We

12:17had wars all over the place. We had the embarrassment in Afghanistan where we gave up billions and

12:24billions of dollars of military equipment. The most embarrassing moment in the history

12:28of our country, I believe. I believe that strongly. We have Russia with Ukraine. We had the attack

12:34in Israel in October, the horrible attack, October 7th. Horrible, horrible attack. Nobody's ever seen

12:43anything like it. And now we have something where we're really healing a lot of that. We stopped

12:50India and Pakistan from fighting. I believe that could have turned out into a nuclear disaster.

12:58And I want to thank the leaders of India, the leaders of Pakistan. And I want to thank my people

13:03also. We talked trade. And we said, we can't trade with people that are shooting at each other and

13:10potentially using nuclear weapons. And they were great leaders in those countries. And they understood

13:17and they agreed. And that all stopped. And we're stopping others from fighting also. Because ultimately,

13:25we can fight better than anybody. We have the greatest military in the world. We have the greatest

13:29leaders in the world. We put one of them in charge of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as you know, General

13:35Raisin Cain. And we wiped out ISIS, completely wiped out ISIS in three weeks. They said it would take five

13:42years. And we did it in three weeks. And that's the way it is. But we don't want to have to use our military.

13:48We want to be peace through strength when we can. And that's the way we're going to have it. So I just want to thank

13:55Elon and all of his people. Most of those people are staying. Almost all of them are staying. And

13:59they're going to be with us. And you're going to see the results coming long into the future. Even a

14:04year and two years later, you're going to see a lot of the results. And those hundreds of billions of

14:09dollars are going to be adding up. And they're going to continue to add. It'll be interesting. It's

14:12really interesting to see what the final number is going to be. But again, Elon gave an incredible

14:19service. Nobody liked him. And he had to go through the slings and the arrows, which is a shame because

14:27he's an incredible patriot. The good news is that 90 percent of the country knows that. And they

14:33appreciate it. And they really appreciate what he did.

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