depression, roosevelt defeated herbert hoover in a landslide. in his inauguration speech, he said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. he called a special session of congress to tackle the economic crisis. it was franklin roosevelt who later coined the phrase "first 100 days." watch first 100 days saturday at 7 p.m. eastern on "american history tv" on c-span2. >> democracy, it isn't just an idea, it's a process. a process shaped five leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding his principles. where debates unfold, decisions are made and the nation's course is charted. this is your government at work. this is c-span, giving you your

democracy, unfiltered. >> next, president trump announces new executive orders related to expanding access to in vitro fertilization and oversight of government agencies. following the president's remarks, he fielded questions from reporters on elon musk, doge and talks on ending the russian-ukrainian war. the president spoke from mar-a-lago for 40 minutes. pres. trump: i want to thank the great people from the palm beach county sheriff's office. they are here to take photographs.

also the great firefighters. they are throughout the room and i want to thank you for being here. we will do some great photos, we have will do some great photos,e have plenty of time. policemen, policewomen and firemen and fire women are here and we appreciate them, you've done a fantastic job. i think it's very important to state incredible things are happening in our country. we've made more progress in three weeks than they've made in four years, especially with respect to the reputation of our country. people are respecting us again as a country and as a powerful country and maybe a smart country but maybe not so smart because when you look at some of the waste, fraud and abuse being uncovered by doge and the people there, these are often young but brilliant people, incredible computer scientists and other things, they are finding levels of fraud and waste and abuse

like nobody ever thought possible. before we do that, i just want to ask will to come over. i've just finished signing some executive orders and if we could start with that, you might want to come up here and explain what we did, thank you. >> good afternoon, a short while ago, president trump signed three items. the first is an executive order relating to the affordability and availability of in vitro fertilization and other fertility treatments. these treatments have become unaffordable for many americans or have been unaffordable for many americans and the executive order is a directive to the domestic policy council to examine ways to make ivf and treatments affordable to more americans. we also signed a presidential memorandum imposing radical transparency requirements on government department's and agencies, in keeping with the

administration's broader commitment to governmental transparency. what the memorandum would do is require as waste, fraud and abuse is uncovered and programs are canceled and ultimately as taxpayer dollars are saved, this memorandum would require departments and agencies to make all the details of that freely available to the public. lastly we have another executive order president trump signed relating to independent agencies. it would establish important oversight functions in the office of management and budget and its subsidiary office, supervising independent agencies and many actions and also reestablishes the long-standing norm that only the president or attorney general can speak for the united states when stating an opinion as to what the law is. >> thank you very much. that was the primary purpose of this conference, to explain they

are important in their own way. fertilization of been saying we would do what we have to do. i think the women and the families, husbands, are appreciative of it. but that was it. i've been contacted by some of the biggest companies in the world. because of what we are doing economically and through tariffs and taxes and incentives, they want to come back to the united states and we will be announcing very large cup news, the biggest, they will be coming back, having to do with chips and cars and other things. we will announce some very big, i think momentous decisions being made by companies around the world, the biggest and they want to come back into the u.s.. car plants being canceled and other locations because they want to build them here.

not that i want to mention names but you read about some big ones in mexico just got canceled because they will be building them in the united states and that's simply because of what we are doing with respect to taxes, tariffs and incentives. i think it's a very important thing and you will be seeing this over the next probably two years to be honest but you will see a lot of it over the next couple of weeks, a lot of ones will be announcing. while we are here i guess we can take some quick questions. please. >> have you decided specifically what the auto tariff rate should be? >> i probably will tell you that april 2 but it will be in the neighborhood of 25%. >> semiconductors and pharmaceuticals? >> 25% and higher and it will grow substantially higher over the course of a year but we want to give them time to come in. and they come into the united states and they have their plant or factory here, there is no tariff.

we want to give them a little bit of a chance. >> the eu representative is going to be here in washington next week -- sorry, tomorrow. he will be meeting with tesla and greer. what can the eu do to avoid the reciprocal tariffs you've talked about. you talked a lot about you expect them to reduce that. >> isaiah understand they reduce the car tariff down to what we have and a lot of that will take place and some won't do it and some will. the eu had a 10% tax on cars and now they have a 2.5% tax, the same as us. already we saved a tremendous amount -- it would be great if everybody would do that but we might not be on the same playing field. they charge us and we charge them the same amount. it's called reciprocal actually.

whatever they charge us we charge them and the eu, i appreciate they did this. the eu has been very unfair to us. we have a deficit of $350 billion, they don't take our cars, they don't take our farm products, they don't take almost anything, they take very little. we have to straighten that out and we will, i have no doubt. go ahead. >> can you tell us more about the russia talks, your impression of how they went today if you are more or less confident? >> much more confident, they were very good. russia wants to do something, they want to stop the savage barbarian-ism. what is going on is soldiers are being killed by the thousands on a weekly basis, it's ridiculous. they are not american soldiers, their russian soldiers and ukrainian soldiers largely, although a lot of koreans have been killed as you know.

quite a bit of them have been killed, they came over to fight and a large portion have been wiped out. we want to end it, it's a senseless war, it should never have happened, would never have happened if i was president and it's a shame to see it. i've seen pictures you don't see, i see pictures of fields that look horrible, it looks like the old pictures of gettysburg, soldiers lying all over the field, audie parts, they are all dead. -- body parts, they are all dead. this is a daily basis, it's a horrible thing. russia and ukraine are using thousands and thousands of soldiers and a lot of people have been killed. that's one of the things you will see historically and you will see later on as it goes along people will be surprised at how many people, not only soldiers, have been killed in ukraine. a lot more than you think. >> as part of the peace deal with put in would you be willing to consider removing all

american troops from europe? >> nobody's asking to do that so i don't think we would have to do that, i wouldn't want to do that. that question has never come up. >> do you support stationing european peacekeeping troops in ukraine as part of this piece deal? >> if they want to do that i'm all for it. i think that would be fine. i know france and others have mentioned it. the u.k. has mentioned at but yeah. if we have a piece deal, i think having troops over there from the standpoint of europe, we won't have to put any over there . we are very far away. having troops over there would be fine, i would not object to it at all. we are talking about peace. either a cease fire or piece itself. we are looking to do both. we start with a cease fire if

they want to do that. i know france was willing to do that and i thought it was a beautiful gesture. >> you have any message for ukrainians who after three years of fighting might feel betrayed or disappointed at not having a seat at these initial talks in saudi arabia? >> i'm really disappointed in what's happened, i've been watching this three years it's a war that would have never happened if i was president and i've been watching these people being killed at levels you have rarely seen -- not even close, since the second world war. very disappointed. there is upset about not having a seat, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that. this could have been settled easily. a half-baked negotiator could have settled this years ago. i think without the loss of much land, very little land, without the loss of any lives and without the loss of cities

laying on their sides, you have the magnificent golden domes that are shattered and will never be replaced, you can't replace them. 1000-year-old domes that are so beautiful, you can't replace that. a whole civilization has changed. they are worried about not being seated? some buddy that should've made a deal a long time ago. you could have made a deal. there was no talk of this during the trump administration, putin would have never done it and we wouldn't have had october 7, you know that. we wouldn't have had october 7 in israel and we wouldn't have had that mess going on over there. we are putting out fires all over the world. that wouldn't have happened. you know what else wouldn't have happened? inflation, it was the cost of energy going through the roof from bad energy policies and also their terrible spending,

wasteful spending on the green new scam, it's a whole scam. >> i want to ask about closer to home, what would it take for you to reconsider the restrictions on the associated press? secondly, some of your advisers are concerned about the associated press style guide, using linkage and giving guidance to not use words like illegal immigrant or phrases like gender affirming care. they are concerned about that being encroaching on the liberalism in the press. >> i think some of the phrases they want to use a ridiculous and i think frankly they've become obsolete, especially in the last three weeks, because many things have happened in the last three weeks. i didn't know about that but i would say if they want to use certain phrases like that -- and i guess some are ok but many aren't. the associated press refuses to go with what the law is and what

is taking place. it's called the gulf of america now, not the gulf of mexico any longer. just like we have the right to do mount mckinley, nobody is challenging that. essentially it's primarily the associated press and know what they are doing but we will keep them out until such time as they agree it is the gulf of america. we are proud of this country and we wanted to be the gulf of america. the associated press has been very wrong on the election, on trump, and the treatment of trump and other things having to do with trump and republicans and conservatives. they are doing us no favors and i guess am not doing them any favors, that's the way life works. thank you for the question. who are you with? very good question, thank you. >> we are hearing russia wants to force ukraine to hold elections in order to sign a

peace deal, is that something the u.s. whatever support? >> we have a situation where we haven't had elections in ukraine, we have martial law, essentially martial law in ukraine. where the leader in ukraine -- i hate to say it, he's down to a 4% approval rating and the country has been blown to smithereens most of the cities are laying on their sides, the buildings have collapsed, it looks like a massive demolition site. so many of the cities. they haven't done it in kyiv because i guess they don't want to shoot too many rockets, they've done a 20% but not 100%, if they wanted 100% it would probably happen quickly cities are absolutely decimated. i would say when you want a seat at the table, wouldn't the people of ukraine have to say it's been a long time since we've had an election? that's not a russia thing,

that's coming from me and many other countries also. ukraine is being wiped out. look at what is happening to the cities, not even a building standing, you talk about gaza, literally these cities look like gaza. many have percentagewise more buildings knocked down than gaza. people are tired of it, people want to see some thing happen. the other thing that's been bothering me a long time because i solve the problem with nato, they paid hundreds of millions of dollars into the funds of nato, i said you have to pay because the united states was paying for european countries and then they take advantage of us on trade. but i've seen it. they have to pay, they have to find out, where's the money going to? i believe president zelenskyy

said last week he doesn't know where half the money is we gave them. it's a lot. we have to equalize with europe because europe has given a much smaller percentage, i think europe has given $100 million and given 300 plus and it's more important for them than for us. we have an ocean in between and they don't. where is all the money going? i've never seen any accounting of it. we give hundreds of billions of dollars -- i don't see any accounting. i want to see -- look, you know what i want -- i don't want all these people killed anymore. i'm looking at people that are being killed. they are russian and ukrainian people but they are people, it doesn't matter where they are from on the whole planet. i think i have the power to end this war.

it's going very well but i heard today we were invited. you should never have started it, you should've made a deal, i could've made a deal for ukraine that would have given them almost all of the land, everything, almost all of the land, and no people would have been killed and no city would've been demolished and not one dome would've been knocked down. they chose not to do it that way and president biden in all fairness, he doesn't have a clue, he was so bad for this, it was so bad, so pathetic musso but with all of that being said -- look, it is what it is. when i left, there was no chance this could've happened. but it happened because we had incompetent leadership at many different levels. but when you see what's taking place in ukraine with millions of people killed, including the soldiers, millions of people killed, a big percentage of their cities knocked down to the ground. i don't know how anybody even lives there, you know, when they say they took a poll. and zelenskyy is at 4%. who's living there, you know, i

mean, people are, it's hard to believe that people live there. their cities are being knocked down. and this is something that would have never happened. and by the way, for 4 years it didn't happen. it was never going to happen. go ahead. reporter: how would you counter the perception -- because russia's pushing for this, obviously they don't really hold true elections, that that would be a capitulation of some sort. how would you guard against potentially russia installing a puppet government and then finally, how would that new election have an impact on getting zelenskyy to sign their rare earth minerals deal? pres. trump: look, you have leadership and i like him personally. he's fine, but i don't care about personally. i care about getting the job done. you have leadership now that's allowed a war to go on that should have never even happened, even without the united states. look, we had a president who was grossly incompetent. he had no idea what he was doing. he said some very stupid things like going in for portions and all the things. he made a lot of bad statements, but he's grossly incompetent, and i think everyone knew that

this is something that should have never happened, would have never happened, and i used to discuss it with putin. president putin and i would talk about ukraine. it was the apple of his eye, i will tell you that, but he never, there was never a chance of him going in, and i told him, you better not go in. don't go in. don't go in. and he understood that and he understood it fully. but i'm only interested. i want to see if i can save maybe millions of lives. this could even end up in a world war ii. i mean, to be honest with you, you've been hearing now europe is saying, well, i think we're going to go in and we're going -- all of a sudden you're gonna end up in world war iii, over something that should have never happened and you know it's it's a very sad situation. reporter: in a court filing, the white house said that elon musk is not a doge employee and has no authority to make decisions. can you clarify for us to do that? pres. trump: while, elon is to

me, a patriot. you could call him an employee, a consultant, whatever you want. he is a patriot. just in case that question got asked. which i'm surprised it took so long actually, but you know what? ukraine's a bigger deal because people are dying by the thousands a week, thousands. but look at this, from ages 90 to 99, social security, 6,054,000 people. well, that's ok. maybe that's possible, you know, 90 to 99, maybe it's possible. it's still a lot of people though with that, but people that live to 100 to 109, 4,734,000. wow, that's a lot. that means over 100 years old. there are 4 million people. i don't know. i don't know too many. i know people that are doing great in their nineties, but not too many people over 100. but over 120, from 120 years

old, people that are 120 years old up to 129, 3,472,000 people. wow. you know that can't possibly be because the record is i think one woman that looked to 127. but they have 3472. people from 130 years old to 139 years old. 3,542,000. that is what we are checking right now. the april to 149 years old, 3,542,000. 140 years old. and beyond. now we are really going, because we are looking to break the record by 25 years. people from 150 years old to 159 years old -- 1,345,000.

by the way, these are in the computer files. this is what they do well. i asked elon, "who are these doge people?" he said, "they're super brilliant computer people, and they love the country." it's simple. wait a minute. people from 160 years old to 169 years -- 121,000. so, 160 -- year -- old people. 170 to 179 years -- 6,087. but now, let's go into the real numbers. from 200 to 209 years old -- 879 people. from 210 years old -- i haven't met any of them. and if i did, i would bless them. i would -- i would worship the ground they walk on. 210 to 219-year-olds -- 866. from 220 years old to 229 years old -- 1,039.

and then you have two people from 240 years old to 249 years old. one person. and there's one person that's 360 years old. [sighs] just that. and then where's the money being spent, right? let's go into that for just a second. $520 million for a consultant on the environment. it's called environmental social and governance investments in africa. and mobilize private sector resources $520 million. , somebody got $520 million for an environmental -- sounds like an environmental study. i've always been one that paid a lot of money for my environmental studies, but they -- you know, i paid like $50,000. not $520 million.

$520 million for esg. $25 million to promote biodiversity, conservation and promote licit livelihoods by developing socially responsible behavior in the country of colombia. well, it's nice. for something that nobody ever heard of. $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. $40 million. $42 million for johns hopkins -- great place -- to research and drive social and behavior change in uganda. $42 million. what about us? what about social change in our country? $70 million for a center at purdue to research university -- sourced, evidence -- based solutions to developmental challenges. i mean, these are massive numbers on things that nobody ever heard about.

$10 million for mozambique -- voluntary medical male circumcisions. $10 million for circumcisions in another country. $9.7 million for uc berkeley to develop a cohort of cambodian youth with enterprise-driven skills. in other words, let's teach them something about enterprise. what about our people? can we teach them about enterprise? 2.3 million dollars for strengthening independent voices in cambodia. 32 million dollars to a civil society center in prague, which is a very liberal group of people. i wonder how much of that money came back to the people that approved it. $14 million for improving public procurement in serbia. $486 million to the consortium for elections and political process strengthening, including $22 million for an inclusive and participatory political process in moldova.

and $21 million for voter turnout in india. well, why are we giving $21 million to india? they've got a lot of money. they're one of the highest taxing countries in the world in terms of us. we can hardly get in there because their tariffs are so high. i have a lot of respect for india. i have a lot of respect for the prime minister. he just left, as you know, two days ago. but we're giving $21 million for voter turnout? it's voter turnout in india. what about, like, voter turnout here? oh, we've done that. i guess we did $500 million, didn't we? to the lockboxes. $20 million for fiscal federalism in nepal. listen to these numbers. this is all fraud. $19 million for biodiversity conservation in nepal. $1.5 million for voter confidence. we want to give them confidence in liberia. $14 million for social cohesion in mali.

$2.5 million for inclusive it$2.5 million for inclusive democracies in south africa. $47 million for improving learning outcomes in asia. asia is doing very well. they're doing a lot better than we do in the schools, aren't they? $2 million to develop sustainable recycling models to increase socioeconomic cohesion among marginalized communities in kosovo and ashkhali. and in egypt. we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. i could -- by the way, i could read this all day long. i could go on all day long, and you'll see. hundreds of billions of dollars. and we're doing it. but when i saw the social security numbers, i said, "well, that's really something." let's just go above 100 years old. we have millions and millions of people over 100 years old. everybody knows that's not so. we have a very corrupt country. a very corrupt country.

and it's a sad thing to say. but we're figuring it out now. the good thing about social security, and what i read, is if you take all of those numbers off -- because they're obviously fraudulent or incompetent -- but if you take all of those millions of people off social security, all of a sudden, we have a very powerful social security with people that are 80 and 70 and 90. but not 200 years old, you know? so it's a very positive thing. how about over here? please. reporter: [indiscernible] pres. trump: who resigned? that's reporter: the head of social security? pres. trump: i don't know. i mean, resigned or got fired? i think -- got fired. you know, when you fire somebody, they always resign, and then they say, "we resigned." but when you have numbers like that, i think really, it's "got fired." they have to get fired. who would -- who would keep them? how could you have numbers like

this? now, the big thing is -- how many of these people got paid? were they getting paid? how many of them were getting paid social security? because that's -- if that's the case, it's a massive fraud. we'll have to call those great palm beach police into the situation, right? you guys would figure that out very quickly. but how many of them are being paid? i mean, maybe millions of them. but it's a total fraud. also, a lot of illegal immigrants are in social security that shouldn't be there. yeah, please. go ahead. reporter: there was a big wave of probationary federal workers who were fired over the weekend. some of these workers focused on nuclear weapons security and were immediately rehired. do you have any concerns about how these terminations -- ? pres. trump: no, not at all. i think we have to just do what we have to do. it's -- you know, you're going to -- it's amazing what's been found right now. it's amazing. in some cases, they'll fire people and then they'll put some people back. not all of them, because a lot of people were let go. don't forget -- i got elected on the basis of making our government stronger and smaller.

because we have millions of people that shouldn't be paid. and that has also to do with workers. please. no, go ahead. actually, yes. new york times. lean mr. president south given your concerns about corruption, you said that if there were any conflicts of interest with elon musk, you wouldn't let him anywhere near it. pres. trump: that's right. reporter: doge and spacex employees are now working directly at the federal aviation administration and the defense department agencies that have billions of dollars in contracts with musk's companies, or that directly regulate his companies. how is that not a conflict of interest? pres. trump: well, i am just hearing about it. he told me, that i told him obviously, i will not let there be any conflict of interest. he's done an amazing job. they've revealed -- in fact, he's going to be on tonight -- a big show called sean hannity at

9:00. he is on and i am on and we will talk about a lot of different things. any conflicts -- i told elon "any conflicts, you can't have , anything to do with that." so, anything to do with possibly even space -- we won't let elon partake in that. yeah, please. reporter: on immigration, sir, you said you would be sending the worst of the worst to guantanamo bay. what we're finding out is that there are a lot of low-risk migrants who don't have a criminal background who are also being sent. are you thinking about this differently now? pres. trump: no, they are going to be brought back to their countries. and with some persuasion -- every one of those countries, every one -- as you know, every country is taking the people back. so, some of them are going to be brought back. any of them that are low risk, as you say -- are going to be brought back to their countries. go ahead, please. reporter: can you give us a bit of an update on where you stand with venezuela? there's basically a monthly

license that could soon -- pres. trump: well, you know, we had venezuela on the run. and it looked like that was going to be very good. and when biden came in, as he always does, he screws it up. they started buying millions and millions and millions of dollars of oil. billions of dollars, actually, of oil. and it gave them a new life -- a new, really, lease on life. but we'll see. we had some pretty good discussions with a lot of people within our government, in the united states government, that are involved in that. and venezuela's a little bit early. but, you know, we were not buying from venezuela. when biden came in, for whatever reason, instead of just taking the beautiful -- as i call it -- liquid gold, we have more than anybody. they started paying a fortune to venezuela. and we're looking at that, actually. why did they do that? why were they doing that? why would they go to the enemy

and give them billions and billions of dollars? now, with that being said, as you know, venezuela has said very strongly they will not take any -- any illegal immigrant, any of the people that they sent over to us. they sent their gangs -- probably the worst gang anywhere in the world, as bad as ms-13, maybe worse. and they came out of the jails of venezuela. they said, "we'll never take them back." well, they took them back. and they're taking them back. and they are taking them back rapidly. they were sending a lot of people to venezuela. they said they wouldn't take them back, and they are taking them back. but we're looking at venezuela very seriously. and we're going to be able to -- don't forget, i've only been here for three weeks. reporter: just a little clarity on -- are you inclined to continue to allow venezuela, through, i think, chevron and other oil companies, to export those petroleum products? or are you maybe not -- ? pres. trump: maybe not. we are looking at that now. i just got here. when i left, they weren't doing anything. they were ready to go, "we give up."

and then biden came along, and he gave them literally billions of dollars. i couldn't believe it, actually. and we have so much under our feet -- liquid gold. we have so much. and it was pretty amazing. so, we're looking at the whole situation -- why he did it. all right, how about one more? yeah, please. what can you tell us about the cia drone flights over mexico? is this the next step in the war against the cartels? pres. trump: we are going to see. mexico's allowed a tremendous number of people to go through their country into ours, and even people coming from mexico. totally illegal. they've allowed people to empty jails into mexico and then let them come through with this totally ridiculous open border policy of the biden administration. millions of the come in and hundreds of thousands and actually millions are criminals,

they came in from jails all over the world. he released into mexico and connect our country. they also came in from canada by the way,'s large numbers. in fact, when we closed up the one border, they came in through the other border. so, canada was -- is not an uninterested party. but i will say this, we are dealing with mexico. i have a very good relationship with mexico. but i think mexico is largely run by the cartels. and that's a sad thing to say. and if they wanted help with that, we'd give them help. but mexico -- if you look at what's gone on with mexico for years now, but now especially -- it's run by the cartels. and they've allowed millions of people to come into our country from jails and prisons of other countries. from all over the world. not just south america -- africa, asia, all over. a lot from the congo in africa. they opened their jails. they came in through mexico. and we have some of the worst criminals coming in from the congo and other places. so, it's not just south america.

and it's not just venezuela. but they open their jails. and, you know, the crime rates in venezuela and other places all over the world have gone way down. you know why? because they've given us their prisoners. they've given us their drug lords and their gang members. and it's hard to believe that we accepted this. it's hard to believe that we allowed open borders. and we're taking in, you know, hundreds of thousands and millions of people coming in from all over the world that are absolute stone-cold criminals. in fact, 11,088 murderers. and many of those people have murdered more than one person. why are they giving us these people? and why are we taking these people under biden? you know, you had a border czar that never went to the border. happened to be a vice president. never went to the border. never called the border people. i've called them all the time. i speak to them all the time. but here is the good news. we have the most secure border we have ever had right now.

as secure and even more secure than i had it four years ago. and the border patrol is doing incredible. i.c.e. is doing incredible. tom homan's unbelievable. and kristi noem has been just working very, very hard. very, very hard. and we have the best numbers we've ever had. and we're going to keep it that way. and we're going to find out how a thing like this could have happened to our country. because who would allow this to happen? what they've done to our country is so sad. thank you very much. >> [reporters asking questions] [captioning performed by the national captioning instit