President Trump swears in Paul Atkins as SEC Commissioner in the Oval Office and take questions from reporters.
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00:00So thank you very much, Sarah. Thank you very much.
00:03And I'll let Scott to come up and do the swearing-in. Thank you.
00:06Thank you, everybody.
00:08Thank you, everybody.
00:15I do solemnly swear, do solemnly swear, that I support and defend the Constitution of the
00:27United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and
00:38allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose
00:49of evasion, or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties
00:57of the office on which I'm about to enter, so help me God.
01:03So help me God.
01:04Congratulations.
01:06Well, thank you all very much, and especially thank you, Mr. President.
01:17I'm really honored by your trust and confidence that you've placed in me to head the SEC.
01:23But I really must say the Oval Office has never looked so bad at the point that really described
01:29it as glistening.
01:30I've heard stories about it as truths, the touch of a confident president leaning with optimism
01:35towards an American goal today.
01:37Thank you for that.
01:39And so to my wife, Sarah, and to our sons, Stuart, Peter, and Henry, thank you all for
01:46your steadfast love and support.
01:48I'm grateful for the sacrifices that each of you have made to enable me to serve America.
01:54And thanks to Secretary Dessert for administering the oath as well.
01:59But a note about my family real quickly.
02:00Today would have been my father's 114th birthday.
02:05Colonel Atkins was a veteran of World War II and Korea.
02:09And yesterday would have been my late mother's birthday.
02:12So it seems altogether fitting to honor them and the example that they've set so that their
02:19son could stand here speaking to you all today.
02:22So to my friends, my family, my colleagues who've worked with me throughout my career and
02:27helped make my appointment by President Trump even possible, thank you for your work and
02:32dedication.
02:33There are many who quietly serve the nation in mostly unsung roles, and I continue to be
02:38the beneficiary of your professionalism and good judgment.
02:43So at the helm of the SEC, I can confidently say it is a new day.
02:48It's time for the SEC to end its waywardness and return to its core mission that Congress
02:53has set for it, investor protection, fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and capital formation.
03:00I will work to protect investors from fraud, keep politics out of how our securities laws
03:05and regulations are applied, and advance clear rules of the road that encourage investment
03:10in our economy to the benefit of Americans.
03:14A top priority of my chairmanship will be to provide a firm regulatory foundation for digital
03:19assets through a rational, coherent, and principled approach.
03:24We will work to ensure that the United States is the best and most secure place in the world
03:30to invest and to do business.
03:31So, Mr. President, again, thank you very much for your graciousness in extending such a warm
03:36welcome to my family and me today in this storied room.
03:40I look forward to working with you, with colleagues in your administration, and with Congress to
03:46advance your agenda to bolster the economy and build on U.S. leadership of the global markets.
03:52So, thank you very much.
03:53Thank you very much.
03:55Thank you very much.
03:56Any questions, Nicole?
03:58Can you provide, I guess, what is your sense of how the CFTC and the SEC will differ when it
04:07comes to crypto regulation?
04:08I hope that we won't.
04:11Brian Contenz, whom the President has nominated, is a great guy.
04:14I've known him for years.
04:16And, you know, I intend to work closely with him, and I really look forward to his leadership
04:21there.
04:21I think there's no reason why the two agencies can't be looking cheek to jowl on these issues
04:28for the American investor and the American economy.
04:31And what?
04:31Do you have a view on changes in stock?
04:33Well, that's the subject of statutes, and Congress is active, and I mean, I look forward to diving
04:42into these issues.
04:45Mr. Atkins, do you have a sense, will the Democratic Commissioner continue in her role?
04:49Well, her term, I guess, goes through, well, the end of last year, and I guess she can hold
04:58over until the end of the year.
04:59So it's up to Mr. President and then Congress to deal with that.
05:05Mr. President, on China, your press secretary has suggested that some progress is being
05:12made.
05:12Are negotiations actively underway?
05:15And do you agree with Secretary Besant, who has suggested that the current standoff with
05:19China is not sustainable?
05:22We're doing fine with China.
05:24We're doing fine with every, I think, almost every country.
05:27Everybody wants to have involvement with the United States.
05:31As you know, we were losing $5 billion a day when, during the Biden administration, during
05:38that last year, it was a horror show, what they were doing on trade.
05:41$5 billion a day.
05:43And now we have it down to a very low number because we're getting 25 percent from the automobile
05:48industry, from autos.
05:50We're getting 25 percent for steel, 25 percent for aluminum, and we're getting the baseline
05:56of 10 percent.
05:57And think of it, we're losing almost $2 trillion on trade, and those days are gone.
06:04We're not going to do that again.
06:05We're not going to let that happen.
06:06We're being ripped off by almost, I don't say every, but very close to every country,
06:11everywhere, everywhere in the world, just being ripped off left and right.
06:16You had no leadership.
06:17You had people that didn't know what they were doing.
06:19And we're going to turn the country around.
06:21You know, we have a very nice phrase, make America great again.
06:24That's what we're going to do.
06:25And it's going to start with trade.
06:27We're doing really well.
06:29I see the stock market was up nicely.
06:31But this is a transition period, and it's going to be a little while.
06:37But we are doing well with every country.
06:40Ultimately, we have something they want.
06:42And you have to view it that way.
06:44We have something they want, and they want very badly.
06:46And, you know, it's going to be – they're coming in, they're taking treasure, they're
06:51taking jobs when they do that, and they have to pay.
06:55And they don't have to pay if they come in and create their own jobs.
06:58You know, if they do their product here, if they build their product or make their product
07:02in the United States, we have absolutely no tariffs, and we welcome people.
07:06But we're taking in a lot of money from tariffs, and our country is getting stronger all the
07:13time because the other was not sustainable.
07:16But having a right time started with China, are you going to play a hard ball with them?
07:20Are you going to mention COVID?
07:22Well, I'm not going to say – no, I'm not going to mention COVID.
07:25I'm not going to say, oh, I'm going to play a hard ball with China.
07:27I'm going to play a hard ball with you, President Xi.
07:30No, no.
07:31We're going to be very nice.
07:32They're going to be very nice.
07:34And we'll see what happens.
07:36But ultimately, they have to make a deal because otherwise they're not going to be able to
07:40deal in the United States.
07:42So we want them involved.
07:44But they have to, and other countries have to make a deal.
07:47And if they don't make a deal, we'll set the deal.
07:50Because we're the ones that set the deal.
07:53So Scott and Howard and myself and others, we're going to be setting the deal.
08:00And it'll be a fair deal for everybody.
08:02And it'll be – I think it's a process that's going to go pretty quickly.
08:06We've spoken to many, many countries.
08:08And we're getting their views on things.
08:11You know, there are a lot of things.
08:12They have VAT taxes.
08:13They have everything you can have.
08:16Don't forget, as an example, the European Union was set up to take advantage of the United States.
08:22That's why it was set.
08:23And they've done that.
08:25But they're not doing that anymore.
08:26Mr. President, will you allow – will you prevent Hamas from having any role in governing
08:32a post-war Gaza?
08:33And will Hamas have to be permanently eradicated for a ceasefire?
08:37Well, we're not going to let Hamas do that.
08:40And we're going to see what happens with Gaza.
08:42But we've made a lot of progress in the Middle East.
08:45Tremendous.
08:46Should have never happened.
08:47That date, that very special date, October 7th, should have never happened.
08:51It would have never happened if I were president.
08:54But we'll be stopping that whole situation.
08:56Yeah, please.
08:57Earlier today, Treasury Secretary Vessen suggested that the current rates as high as they are now
09:01is effectively an embargo of trading between the United States and China.
09:05Do you see it that way?
09:06I'm not sure.
09:06A hundred and forty-five percent is very high.
09:09And it won't be that high.
09:11It's not going to be that high.
09:12It got up to that.
09:14We were talking about fentanyl, where, you know, various elements built it up to a hundred
09:19and forty-five.
09:20No, it won't be anywhere near that high.
09:22And what level do you think it'll come down to if you have it?
09:24It'll come down substantially, but it won't be zero.
09:28It used to be zero.
09:29We were just destroyed.
09:31China was taking us for a ride and just not going to have it's not going to happen.
09:37We're going to be very good to China.
09:39I have a great relationship with President Xi, but they would make billions and billions
09:45and billions of dollars a year, and they would build their military out of the United
09:51States and what they made.
09:52So that won't happen.
09:53But they're going to do very well, and I think they're going to be happy, and I think
09:57we're going to live together very happily and ideally work together.
10:01So I think it's going to work out very well.
10:03But no, it's at a hundred and forty-five percent.
10:05There will not be anywhere near that number.
10:07Mr. President, on the work that your team is doing on the border, are you happy with
10:14the rate of deportations right now?
10:17Oh, it's amazing what they've done on the border.
10:19Thank you for the question, because honestly, it's one of the great successes.
10:22We have virtually nobody coming in illegally.
10:25We do have people coming in legally because we want people to come in, but we have nobody
10:30coming in through the border virtually, that we were having hundreds of thousands of people
10:36a month come in under Biden.
10:38And they came in from prisons.
10:39They came in from mental institutions.
10:41They came in from gangs in Venezuela and other countries all over the world, not just South
10:46America.
10:48They were emptying their prisons into the United States.
10:51Venezuela emptied its prisons out.
10:53But many countries emptied their prisons into the Congo, as an example, in Africa,
10:59emptied their prisons into the United States.
11:01And we're getting them out.
11:03And I hope we get cooperation from the courts because, you know, we have thousands of people
11:08that are ready to go out.
11:10And you can't have a trial for all of these people.
11:14It wasn't meant.
11:15The system wasn't meant.
11:16And we don't think there's anything that says that, look, we are getting some very bad
11:22people, killers, murderers, drug dealers, really bad people, the mentally ill, the mentally
11:28insane.
11:29They emptied out insane asylums into our country.
11:32We're getting them out.
11:33And a judge can't say, no, you have to have a trial.
11:37The trial is going to take two years.
11:40And we're going to have a very dangerous country if we're not allowed to do what we're entitled
11:46to do.
11:48And I won an election based on the fact that we get them out.
11:50And we've done an amazing job.
11:52Look, we've stopped.
11:53Everybody admits, even the radical left, we have got the strongest border we've ever
11:58had, even stronger than what I had for four years.
12:01We had a great border.
12:03We solved the problem.
12:04But it's actually, it's a tad stronger, which is, I don't know if that's disappointing
12:09or not to me.
12:10I beat my own record.
12:12But I appreciate the question.
12:14Well, thank you, Daniel.
12:22The question is about prices.
12:37The prices are going down, not going up.
12:39One of the big things is energy is going down.
12:42And I see that we had a couple of states where gasoline was at $1.98 a gallon.
12:48Nobody thought they'd see that for years, maybe.
12:52And that's a big thing.
12:54And we opened up our wells.
12:56We opened up our drilling.
12:57We have more product now for sale.
13:00And we're also going to be selling outside of the country to a large extent.
13:04It's going to bring down our deficits, largely going to bring down our deficits.
13:07But if you remember my first week, I was standing here, Paul, and they were screaming about eggs.
13:13The cost of eggs have gone through the roof.
13:15They were up like 500, crazy, like four or five times.
13:20And we won't have eggs for Easter, they were saying.
13:22Be no eggs.
13:23You can't order eggs.
13:24They wanted to sort of plastic in the shape of eggs.
13:27Well, yesterday, we had 48,000 people at the Easter hunt.
13:33They call it the Easter roll at the White House.
13:37And we had all eggs.
13:38And as you know, the cost of eggs has come down like 93, 94 percent since we took office.
13:45And they're pretty much normally priced now.
13:48Great job.
13:49Our secretary of agriculture, Brooke Rollins, did a very good job.
13:52But groceries have come down.
13:54It's all coming down.
13:55The only thing that hasn't come down but hasn't gone up much are interest rates.
14:00And we think the Fed should lower the rate.
14:02We think that it's a perfect time to lower the rate.
14:06And we'd like to see our chairman be early or on time as opposed to late.
14:11Late's not good.
14:14I don't want to talk about that because I have no intention of firing.
14:17Mr. President, there are reports that you're considering doing something for moms across the country,
14:23giving them some type of bonus for them to have a child.
14:26Are you considering that?
14:27Sounds like a good idea to me.
14:30Yeah, please.
14:30Mr. President, you have no intention of firing Ron Powell.
14:33Because here, President Biden has said, a few days ago, he said that you and people in lives are studying this idea of possibly going to force a term at hand.
14:41Do you have any plans on doing this?
14:42Not whatsoever.
14:44Never did.
14:45The press runs away with things.
14:47No, I have no intention of firing him.
14:49I would like to see him be a little more active in terms of his idea to lower interest rates.
14:57This is a perfect time to lower interest rates.
15:00If he doesn't, is it the end?
15:02No, it's not.
15:03But it would be good timing.
15:04It would be it.
15:05She could have taken place earlier.
15:07But no, I have no intention to fire him.
15:11I don't want to comment on that.
15:13That doesn't matter.
15:13Mr. President, you said when can you say we have seen documents released for the rest of them?
15:19Which documents?
15:20We have seen files.
15:21I don't know.
15:22I'll speak to the Attorney General about that.
15:24I really don't know.
15:25I know that we've done the RFK.
15:29The Kennedy, Martin Luther King is out there very shortly.
15:33So we'll find out.
15:34And we've really, really announced we're doing them in full transparency.
15:42You know, when we did JFK, people were saying, oh, maybe it wasn't all.
15:47It was all.
15:49And people actually went up to the office and they looked at some things that were, you know, not really easily available.
15:55And they were amazed that we gave it all.
15:58And I don't know if it solved any problems for people.
16:02People still have questions one way or the other.
16:04But that I'm not.
16:05But 100 percent of all of these documents are being delivered.
16:09Yeah, please.
16:09Mr. President, you said you're ultimately going to make a deal with China.
16:13But where do things stand right now?
16:14Have you talked to him?
16:16I think my relationship with the presidency is great.
16:20It was it's been great for a long time.
16:23We've had a very good relationship.
16:25And I think we'll make a deal with China.
16:28If we don't make a deal, we'll set it.
16:30We'll just set the number.
16:31And, you know, I think they'll want to be a part of the United States.
16:34We're doing great.
16:35We're going to this is the golden age, as Paul said.
16:37We're talking about the golden age.
16:39It will never be a time like this, in my opinion.
16:42And China wants to be a part of that, too.
16:45Mr. President, are you meeting for an investigation firm, the Mueller investigation?
16:49Are you getting an apology of the three things?
16:51Or do you think a lot of the world will happen?
16:53I have.
16:55I'll keep that to myself.
16:56It's very personal.
16:58I think that everyone's going to do well in this country because of tariffs.
17:08We have $7 trillion of investment already.
17:13You can go back many years.
17:15And for a whole year, they haven't had anywhere near that.
17:17Mostly they would they'd be well under a trillion dollars of investment.
17:21And we've got $7 trillion.
17:23We really started five weeks ago.
17:25And in just a few weeks, literally, we have $7 trillion, which is a record for a year.
17:31There's never been a year with that much.
17:32And that's coming in, I think, for two reasons.
17:34It's coming because of an election that people liked.
17:37And it's coming in because of tariffs.
17:39And if you look at Apple, Apple's going to start building here.
17:44Right now, they're in China, mostly.
17:47$500 billion.
17:48We have the computer, all of the computer chip companies, they're coming in at levels that nobody's ever seen before, as you know.
17:56Jensen came in for $500 billion.
17:59You saw that.
18:00Great guy.
18:01Highly respected.
18:02Mr. Way coming in for $250 billion.
18:07Nobody's ever seen anything.
18:08And the auto companies are coming in.
18:10We can, I can name eight right now already, auto plants that are either starting or about ready to start construction.
18:18There's never been any United Auto Workers and the non-union workers in the automobile industry.
18:24They love Trump.
18:26And I love them.
18:27Thank you all very much.
18:29Congratulations, Paul.