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President Donald Trump Speaks at World Economic Forum. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired January 21, 2026 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[09:30:00]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Save for a home. They have no idea they're paying 28 percent. They go out, they're a little late on their payment and they end up losing their house. It's terrible.

To unleash innovation and savings and financing, I'm also working to ensure America remains the crypto capital of the world. And to that end, last year I signed the landmark GENIUS Act into law. Now Congress is working very hard on crypto market structure, legislation, bitcoin, all of them, which I hope to sign very soon, unlocking new pathways for Americans to reach financial freedom.

And I did it for two reasons. Number one, I thought it was politically good. And it was. I got tremendous political report -- support. But more importantly, China wanted that market too. It's just like they want the A.I. And we've got that market, I think, pretty well locked up. If I didn't do it, you know, Biden was totally against it until before the election when they realized that, you know, there were millions of people voting against him over crypto. And all of a sudden they loved it very much. But it was too late. They blew it.

But it is politically popular. But it's -- much more importantly, we have to make it so that China doesn't get the hold of it. And once they have that hold, we're not going to be able to get it back. So, I'm honored to have done it.

Finally, I've instructed government backed institutions to purchase up to $200 billion in mortgage bonds to bring down interest rates. And I'll be announcing a new Fed chairman in the not too distant future. I think he'll do a very good job. See, I gave away some of it. He. I did give that away. So, we have something. Got something. But somebody that's very respected. They're all respected. They're all great. Everyone that I interviewed is great. Everyone could do, I think, a fantastic job.

The problem is they change once they get the job. They do. You know, they're saying everything I want to hear and then they get the job, they're locked in for six years. They get the job, and all of a sudden, let's raise rates a little bit. I call them up, sir, we'd rather not talk about this. It's amazing how people change once they have the job. It's too bad. Sort of disloyalty. But they got to do what they think is right. We have a terrible chairman right now, Jerome "too late" Powell. He's

always too late. And he's very late with interest rates. Except before the election. He was just fine for the other side.

So, we -- we're going to have somebody that's great. And we hope he does the right job.

Last week the average 30-year mortgage rate dropped below 6 percent for the first time in many years. Another major factor in driving up housing costs was the mass invasion of our borders. And I have to say one thing about housing, because nobody ever says this. I am very protective of people that already own a house, of which we have millions and millions and millions. And because we have had a -- such a good run, the house values have gone up tremendously. And these people have become wealthy. They weren't wealthy. They've become wealthy because of their house. And every time you make it more and more and more affordable for somebody to buy a house cheaply, you're actually hurting the value of those houses, obviously, because the one thing works in tandem with the other.

And I don't want to do anything that's going to hurt the value of people that own a house who, for the first time in their lives, are walking around the streets of whatever city they're in, very proud that their house is worth $500,000, $600,000, $700,000. Now, if I want to really crush the housing market, I could do that so fast and people could buy houses, but you would destroy a lot of people that already have houses. In some cases, they've mortgaged their house and the mortgage would be very low. And all of a sudden the mortgage, without any changes, becomes very high and they end up losing the house.

I'm not going to hurt -- and I speak with Scott, who's doing a fantastic job, and Howard, who's doing a fantastic job, and all of my people, and I always say, look, you know, I can crush the hell out of the market. We can drop interest rates to a level. And that's one thing we do want to do. That's natural. That's good for everybody. You know, the dropping of the interest rates, we should be paying a much lower interest rate than we are. We should -- we should be paying the lowest interest rate of any country in the world, because without the United States, you don't have a country.

I mean, I had a case with Switzerland. We happened to be in Switzerland. Maybe I'll give you a quick story. But they were paying nothing. They make beautiful watches, great watches, Rolex, all of them. They were paying nothing to the United States when they sent their product in. And we had a $41 billion deficit. $41 billion with this beautiful place. Flew over it. Isn't it nice?

[09:35:00]

So, I said, let's put a 30 percent tariff on them so that we get back some of it. Not all of it at all. We'd still have a deficit. A big deficit. We had 40, 41 million. That's a big deficit. And I said, let's put a tariff on. Different tariffs, different places. You're all party to them, in some cases victims to them, but in the end it's a fair thing. And most of you realize that. But we put a 30 percent tariff on Switzerland and all hell broke

loose. They were calling. I mean, like you wouldn't believe. And I know so many people from Switzerland. Incredible place. Incredible, brilliant place.

But I then realized that we're -- they're only good because of us. And there are so many other examples. I mean, us, probably other places, but a majority of the money they make is because of us, because we never charged them anything. So, they come in, they sell their watches. No tariffs. No nothing. They walk away. They make $41 billion on just us.

So, I said, no, we can't do that. So, I'm going to bring it up. I still would have a deficit, pretty substantial. But I brought it up to 30 percent. And the -- I guess prime minister, I don't think president, I think prime minister called, a woman, and she was very repetitive. She said, no, no, no, you cannot do that, 30 percent. You cannot do that. We are a small, small country. I said, yes, but you have a big, big deficit. You may be small, but you have a bigger deficit than big countries. She said, no, no, no, please, you cannot do it. Kept saying the same thing over and over. We are a small country, I said, but you're a big country in terms of. And she just rubbed me the wrong way, I'll be honest with you.

And I said, all right, thank you, ma'am. Appreciate it. Do not do this. Thank you very much, ma'am. And I made it 39 percent. And then all hell really broke out. And I was paid visits by everybody. Rolex came to see me. They all came to see me. But I realized -- and I reduced it because I don't want to hurt people. I don't want to hurt them. And we brought it down to a, you know, lower level. Doesn't mean it's not going up. But we brought it down to a lower level. But they pay now, tariff.

But I realized that we have many places like that where they're making a fortune because of the United States. Without the United States, they wouldn't be making anything. Think of it, Switzerland made $41 billion on us. And as she said, it's a small place.

And I realized with that, I don't know, it was so -- because she was so aggressive. And I realized in that conversation that the United States is keeping the whole world afloat. Many places. I could give you six, seven places just in the people in this little area. I know every one of them. They're sort of -- they're looking down. They don't want to see me and they don't want to stare me in the eyes. But they're taking advantage of -- everybody took advantage of the United States.

But I've been very fair. And I gave them a tariff and it was fine. But I realized that without us it's, not Switzerland anymore. Without us it's not any of the countries that are represented here. And we want to work with the countries. We want to work with them. We're not looking to destroy them. I could have said 39, 40 percent. I could have -- I could have said, I want a 70 percent tariff. Then we make money with Switzerland. But Switzerland would have been probably destroyed, financially destroyed. I don't want to do that. But we should be paying the lowest interest rate of everybody. I hope Scott's listening to this because we should be paying the lowest interest rate of everybody. Without us, without us, most of the countries don't even work.

And then you have the protection factor. Without our military, which is the greatest in the world by far. Without our military, you have threats that you would never -- you wouldn't believe. You wouldn't believe. You don't have threats because of us. And that's because of NATO.

One other thing, and I have to say it so importantly, in the old days, and I'm -- I used to say I'm the youngest in the room. Now I'm among the older. I hate to say it. I don't feel old, but I'm among the older. But I remember not long ago, 20, 25 years ago, when good news came out about, let's say the United States, the United States had a great quarter. The United States had a great month. All the stocks went up. And that's the way it's supposed to be.

[09:40:03]

Now, when they say, the United States had a record quarter, it's unbelievable how well its doing, all the stocks crash because they say, oh, no, inflation, inflation, they're going to raise interest rates. And they do. These -- some of these stupid people, like Powell, they raise interest rates. And what they do is they stop you from being successful.

It used to be, when we had a great quarter, a great month, great earnings, great anything, any good news, the stock market went up. That's the way it's going to be. We got to do that again. Because that's the way it should be. Now when we have a great month, they want to kill it. Like we did over five percent. People were surprised. We should do 20 percent. We could do 25 percent. When we announce good numbers -- and the reason is they're so petrified of inflation. And growth doesn't mean inflation. We've had tremendous growth with very low inflation.

In fact, growth can fight inflation. Proper growth. So, we want to get back to the days when we announced great numbers, because we're going to be announcing phenomenal -- you know, all these factories that are being built at record -- thousands of businesses are being built right now. Remember, $18 trillion is invested. I think the second number is three. And that was China many years ago. Investments in the country from outside. Eighteen trillion. Never -- nobody's ever seen it. And that's money coming in and building things, factories. Thousands of businesses are being built. Thousands. Hundreds of big factories. Car plants are moving back to the United States. They're coming in from Canada. They're coming in from Mexico, from Japan. Japan's coming in and building plants here in order to avoid tariffs. They're coming in from China. They're coming in from all over the world.

We have more plants being built now, car plants, than we've ever had built, even in the heyday from the 1940s and '50s. And they're bigger. They don't use renovations anymore where they take an old plant. They rip it down, they build a brand new plant, super modern plant. But it's happening at levels that nobody's ever seen.

In 2024, the U.S. built less than 2 million new homes, but Biden admitted more than eight million new migrants. And those days are over. In 2025, for the first time in 50 years, the United States had reverse migration. Boy, that was nice. And these were criminals that were being taken out of our country because they allowed people to come into our country from jails, from gangs, drug dealers, murderers. And 11,888 murderers. We've gotten most of them out. And then ICE gets beat up by stupid people from leadership in Minnesota.

We actually are helping Minnesota so much, but they don't appreciate it. Most places do. You know, Washington, D.C., is the safest place now in the United States. It was a very dangerous place to walk, and now you can walk with your wife, your kids, right through the middle of the city. Right now Washington, D.C., is as safe as it gets. It was one of the most unsafe, I had to admit. We sent in the military, the National Guard. Within two months it was great. Within three months it's like -- it's like a really great place and a safe place and a beautiful place. It's even been cleaned up. The graffiti's gone. The fences are gone. We don't have to worry about fences anymore. All of the places, the grasses are cut and replaced with new grass in many cases. It's all going to happen in the spring.

But Washington, D.C., is beautiful again and it's safe. New restaurants are opening up. They were all closing. Now you can't get into a restaurant. Restaurants in Washington, D.C., are all opening.

Memphis also. Memphis, Tennessee. New Orleans, Louisiana. We were there for three weeks. It's cut -- we've cut the crime down to -- by 64 percent. Within another month we'll have virtually no crime there. We can do that all over.

We're going to help the people in California. We want to have no crime. I know Gavin was here. I used to get along so great with Gavin when I was president. Gavin's a good guy. And we're going to, if he needed it, I would do it in a heartbeat. I'd love to see -- we did help them a lot in Los Angeles, a lot with the early -- early in my term when they had some problems. But we would love to do it.

I will say this, if I were a Democrat governor or whatever, I would call up Trump. I'd say, come on in, make us look good. Because we're cutting crime down to nothing. And we're taking people out, career criminals who are only going to do bad things, and we're bringing them back to their countries. But where we've done it, it's been amazing. And we have a capacity to do it at much greater levels.

We're cutting illegal aliens off welfare and other government benefits.

[09:45:02]

And I have directed that, starting immediately, there will be no more payments to sanctuary cities because they are really just sanctuaries for criminals. They're really protecting criminals. And those are the ones we have to get out of the country. Murderers, drug dealers, the mentally insane. They emptied their mental institutions into the United States. And despite that, we have the lowest crime numbers that we've ever had in the history of the country. Just came out.

But equally importantly, we're cracking down on more than $19 billion in fraud that was stolen by Somalian bandits. Can you believe that, Somalia, they turned out to be higher IQ than we thought. I always say, these are low IQ people. How did they go into Minnesota and steal all that money? And we have, you know, they're pirates. They're good pirates, right?

But we shoot them out of the water just like we shoot the drug boats out. They're not pirating too many boats lately, do you notice? When they go out into those boats, they want to take over a billion-and-a- half dollar tanker loaded up with oil, and they say, we're going to blow up your boat. They have powerful weapons. You hit the side of the boat, you blow the whole thing up. The insurance companies are petrified. So, they say, just give them the boat, we'll give them money instead. And I don't do that. We blow them right the hell out of the water. We see them going out. We blow them out of the water. We don't have any pirates so much anymore. If we do, they won't be there long.

We've cut down with the hitting of the boats that are loaded up with drugs, including submarines. Can you believe they actually buy small -- they're called mini subs. Very fast. They're meant for drugs. We've knocked out two of them. The Democrats say, they were fishing. You have ruined somebody's fishing weekend. I would say, a submarine is not a fishing boat. You don't fish.

But we've knocked down drugs by water, the oceans, the sea, by 97.2 percent. Think of that. And I actually say, who the hell are the three percent, because I would not want to be piloting one of those boats. We knocked them down and now we're going to start on land. We're going to knock it all out. The land is the easy part. The -- what we did on sea is incredible. And that's our great military.

The situation in Minnesota reminds us that the west cannot mass import foreign cultures, which have failed to ever build a successful society of their own. I mean, we're taking people from Somalia and Somalia is a failed -- it's not a nation, got no government, got no police, got no military, got no nothing. And then we have this fake Congress person who they just reported is worth $30 million. You believe this. Ilhan Omar talking about the Constitution provides me. She comes from a country that's not a country. And she's telling us how to run America. Not going to get away with it much longer, let me tell you.

The explosion of prosperity and conclusion and progress that built the west did not come from our tax codes. It ultimately came from our very special culture. This is the precious inheritance that America and Europe have in common. We share it. We share it. But we have to keep it strong. We have to become stronger, more successful and more prosperous than ever. We have to defend that culture and rediscover the spirit that lifted the west from the depths of the dark ages to the pinnacle of human achievement.

We live in a incredible changing period. It's an unbelievable time, but we have to take advantage of the time that we're in. In our hands are technologies that our ancestors could scarcely have -- I mean they couldn't have even dreamt some of the things that we see today. And so rapidly they're produced. I mean, A.I., two years ago nobody ever heard of the term, and now everybody's talking about it. And it can have some very good purpose. It could also have some dangerous purpose. And for that we have to watch out. But some tremendous things are happening because of it. And we're leading by so much. We're doing so well.

But opportunities that are bigger and grander than ever before in human history are right before us. It is the pioneers in this room. Many of you in this room are true pioneers. You're true -- truly brilliant, brilliant people. Just your ability to get a ticket is brilliant because you have about 50 people for every seat. I don't know what -- that's Larry. Everything Larry touches turns to gold. He made this very successful. But you're in this room. And some of you are the greatest leaders anywhere in the world. You're the greatest brains anywhere in the world. And the future is unlimited. And to a large part because of you.

[09:50:00]

And we have to protect you. And we have to cherish you. I always say, we have to cherish our brilliant people because there aren't many of them.

So, together with confidence, boldness and persistence, let us lift up our people, grow our economies, defend our shared destiny, and build a future for our citizens that is more ambitious, more exciting, more inspiring, and greater than the world has ever seen. We're in a position to do things that nobody else has ever even thought of before. And many of the people in this room are the ones that are doing it. And I want to congratulate you. And I'm with you all the way. You can do things that nobody else can even think about.

So, I congratulate you on your tremendous success. And the United States is back bigger, stronger, better than ever before. And I'll see you around. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump finishing up an hour and 12 minute speech to leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos. This was a discursive speech, all over the place, which we'll get to in due time. But there was a headline, which we need to get to first, which is the president said, I will not take Greenland by force. I will not use force to take Greenland. What he wants --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was supposed to be a nice fire chat, Mr. President, since --

BERMAN: He does say he wants ownership and title of Greenland.

Let's listen to questions.

TRUMP: I did know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You made the job for the moderator really easy. Thank you, Mr. President, for your speech.

I do have a few follow-up questions if it's OK.

I don't think I should start with Greenland, maybe. I'll start with the economy.

The U.S. economy is doing really, really well. But how to sustain this growth moving forward? Because there's always a recession looming around the corner.

TRUMP: Well, you know, the one thing about economies and recessions is, sometimes you get hit unexpectedly and there's nothing you can do about it. They're all brilliant people, but there's nothing.

One example was Covid. We had an economy going at levels like nobody had ever seen my first two and a half, three years. And then I heard the word "pandemic," not Covid. They came up with that name over a period of time. We won't get into that. But I heard the word "pandemic." And I had a poll come out that was so strong just prior to that, and I was with the two best pollsters, McLaughlin, Fabrizio. They said, sir, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, if they came back and ran as president and vice president, they couldn't beat you.

And then what happened is the following day I was told to stay tuned because there's something really bad happening in China. There are bodies laying all over Wuhan right around that certain building that we talk about. I always said it came from Wuhan. It did come from Wuhan. And they were body bags. We saw it by satellite. And they said, there are strange things happening in China. And so it began.

And we ended up with the covid, and the whole world suffered. We did a phenomenal job. I don't think we got the credit we deserved. We did something that Operation Warp Speed, which some people say was one of the greatest military feats ever. We did a great job. We used our military. We used a lot of people.

But sometimes you get hit with things. Nothing you can do. You get hit with things like that unexpectedly. And we got through it. And when I left, the stock market was higher than it was previous to the Covid coming up. And that was, I called it a great achievement.

But things happen. Bad things happen. The things that we can stop are wars if we're smart. That we can stop. Those are a matter of being intelligent and having intelligent people on the other side. Because wars are the worst of all. Wars are worse than anything. But we can stop wars because that's sort of up to us.

But things like dust flying in the air, wherever Covid comes from, or whatever comes, sometimes you have to be a little bit lucky But we are -- we are poised to have an economy like no other, not only in this country, but anywhere. And, you know, when you hear the kind of numbers that -- I can tell you that Scott Bessent was with me the other day, and he's looking at numbers. He said, I can't -- and that's all he's done his whole life. Pretty much your whole life, Scott. You weren't going to be a football player, I don't think. Scott was not that great at football. But he was always good at numbers, right? And he was -- he was looking at numbers. He said, I've never seen anything like this. We're poised to do things that no other country has ever done.

And, you know, luck -- I hate to say it, but we need a little luck.

[09:55:01]

We don't want to get hit by something that nobody could have thought. Who ever thought we were going to get hit by a pandemic. You know, I -- when I heard the word "pandemic," I said, oh, that's an ancient problem. World War I, they lost 100 million people. It actually ended World War I. A lot of people don't know. The Spanish Flu in World War I ended the war because all the soldiers were sick. The soldiers were so sick on both sides. And that war was raging and they were all dying from the Spanish Flu. They were sick as dogs. They couldn't fight.

So, you know, you don't know how that would have turned out. But -- so, we do -- I mean subject to that, and I always have to put a caveat in for it, but we're poised to have the greatest growth of any large country, I think any country that there's been, when you look at what's happening in the United States. It's really amazing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

One thing that maybe keeps you up at night, I know you don't sleep that much anyway, Mr. President, is the debt. The U.S. debt is high. Is now the biggest expenditure on your budget. How to get out of that impasse (ph)?

TRUMP: Well, the big thing is growth. I mean, growth is the way. If we grow like this, we go from having a 37, 36, $37 trillion. We go from having high debt to low debt. But we also are cutting expenses, you know, the old fashioned way. And we have extraordinary growth. I think we're going to be growing our way out. I think we're going to be paying off debt. We're taking in tremendous money from tariffs, fairly. And again, I'm using them judiciously. You know, Switzerland's a case study. I could have gotten much more -- I could have asked for much more. But we're using them judiciously.

But I think growth, most importantly. And then cutting costs. Now, if you take a look at Minnesota, $19 billion in fraud and other things. People going to airports. They came into the country. They don't have ten cents and they're leaving with hundreds of thousands of cash in their bags. When we get to that, and our DOJ, Pam and Todd and all the people that work over there, and all of the people that work in here, I can tell you, Scott Bessent is working on that. It's a priority, right? You have your whole team. We're in there looking for where this money is coming from, how much it is. It could be more than $19 billion. Can you believe that? That's just one state.

If we were able to cut out 50 percent of the fraud, 50 percent, though we should be able to do better than that, we would have a balanced budget without having to talk about even growth.

So, we have a lot of options, but we're working very hard on that. That's a big deal. Not just -- it's not just that the protests, the fake protests, done by agitators and, you know, professional insurrectionists. That's what they are, they're professional troublemakers. But we are -- we are looking very strong at the money, too, in Minnesota and other places.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think, Mr. President, also, the 500 billion U.S. dollars invested in artificial intelligence and the frontier technologies last year also were driving growth exponentially in the U.S.

TRUMP: Well, A.I. has been a big factor. A.I. is massive. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg showed me a plant where he put it over a map of Manhattan, and it was basically the size of Manhattan. This is not -- I said, you got to be kidding. It's a plant that was miles long, miles wide, very high. I don't think it was high like the Empire State Building, but it was high, and it literally covered most of the island of Manhattan. That's called a big plant.

And, you know, when I heard they're going to spend $50 billion building it, I said, why don't -- you know, if you spend $50 million, you can build a nice little shopping center. If you spent $500 million, you can build a good shopping center. But how do you spend $50 billion? When I looked at this thing, I said, you think you'll be able to do it for that? It's amazing when, you know, some of the plants that I see. And I see them all. And again, so big as we're letting them build their own electric generation. This way we have no problem. And otherwise they'd be complaining. There'd be nobody able to be -- you know, we have an old grid system. And not only that, they're going to sell at a very cheap price the excess electricity that they create back into our grid. So, that will solve some problems for certain states that don't have enough electricity.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We also know that on the A.I. there is fierce competition between the U.S. as the largest economy in the world, 27 percent of the global GDP and five percent of the global population not doing that badly, and China. And we know that that competition is very tough on A.I. I know you're heading to a state visit to China in April.

[10:00:01]

How do you see the U.S./China relationship moving forward? Are you able to combine this tough