[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2019] >> watch live thursday morning at 10:00 eastern on c-span3. online at c-span.org, or listen live on the free c-span radio app. >> today, president trump hosted italy's president at the white house. here are their remarks during the meeting. president trump: thank you very much. it's a great honor to have the president of italy with us. he is a man of great distinction. he's highly respected in this country. nice to have you at the white house. thank you very much. mr. president.

interrupter -- interpreter: [speaking foreign language] president trump: we have had a great relationship with italy for a long time. i don't think it's ever been closer than it is now. we have won a $7.5 billion award from, as you know, i guess it's been pretty big news, i know that this is against the european union and world trade. good old world trade. long time they have been taking advantage of the united states and turkey will talk to us about their share of it because they feel they shouldn't have to pay so much. if you look at what's going on, italy is complaining about it. turkey. everybody's complaining about it. turkey's complaining about a lot of things. we are handling turkey very nicely. we have many countries complaining about the different awards that we have been winning lately from the courts. the reason we are winning is we are properly represented.

we are winning in the case of the european union $7.5 billion and italy has a percentage of that to pay. and other cases we have won and we have a lot of money coming into the united states for the first time ever. tremendous amounts of money, many different forms, including tariffs. our farmers now have been taken care of well. china has already started their purchases. there was some misreporting which does not, frankly, i'm not at all surprised, but there's been some misreporting that china will start purchasing when the deal is signed. the deal is being papered right now. bob lighthizer is with us. mike pompeo is with us. they're going to be joining us for the discussion. there have been some reports that china is not buying until the deal is signed. china started buying already from the farmers. it will be anywhere from $40 billion to $50 billion far more than anyone thought or expected. it's a great deal for the farmers. i think the farmers will come

out, along with many other industries in the united states, will come out as one of the big beneficiaries of the trade deal with china. but they have already started purchasing. in fact they started purchasing three weeks ago. you can see the numbers for yourself. it's great for our country. it's great for -- i think it's great for china, too. but it's something that's already taken effect even though the deal won't be signed probably until i meet with president xi in chile where we have a summit. the world trade we won $7.5 billion and that is being distributed among various countries in the european union. italy is one of those countries. i know that the president of italy wants to discuss that. and the other thing of course is trade. and numerous elements of the military and terrorism and security. we'll be discussing verything.

interpreter: fosh foreign -- [speaking foreign language] interpreter: [speaking foreign language]

president trump: i'm pleased to

report in syria, somebody reported 50. it was actually down to 28. they were removed a while ago. all american soldiers are away from the site. syria and turkey may fight. syria is struggling with the kurds. the kurds are very well protected. plus they know how to fight. by the way, they are no angels. they were with us. they were no angels, but they re fighting. we are largely out of that area where very well set. we have quite a contingent nearby of soldiers of the finest equipment in the world. i don't think we'll have to use t.

so syria is negotiating with or talking to turkey. we are also talking to turkey. we put massive sanctions on turkey. sanctions work, frankly, better than fighting. when you are down to 28 people. we are not going to be fighting. we don't want to fight. i don't think there is any reason to from the united states standpoint. syria wanting to take back their land, that's a whole different story. if syria wants to fight for their land, that's up to turkey and syria as it has been for hundreds of years they have been fighting. and the kurds have been fighting for hundreds of years. that whole mess it's been going on for a long time. syria may have some help with russia. and that's fine. it's a lot of sand. they have a lot of sand over there. there's a lot of sand they can play with. we are supposed to be there for 30 days. we stayed for 10 years. it's time for to us come home. we are not a policing agent. it's time for us to come home. but we are working with turkey. we are working with -- talking to everybody in the area. whatever we can do to keep it stable or stabilize it as much as possible. knowing that it's possibly never going to be very stable. i think we are in a very good position in the middle east. i think we are very, very strong in the middle east. iran is going to hell.

their economy's in deep trouble. their g.d.p. went down 20% which nobody ever heard of before. robably 25%. we'll be talking to iran also. they want very much to talk. the sanctions with iran, the things we have done, including some tariffs, different things having to do with countries that are dealing with them, we put on all of the economic sanctions are working very well. so iran will be an interesting case. we'll see. they want to talk. we'll see whether or not they talk f they talk good. if they don't talk that's ok, too. i think we are doing a very good job in the sense of strategically we have syria talking about their land. turkey has gone into syria. if turkey goes into syria that's between turkey and syria. it's not between turkey and the united states, like a lot of stupid people would like you to believe. i watched last night a couple of people understood, a couple of the democrats, i won't say which

ones, but a couple of the more confident democrats actually understood what i was doing and what the plan is. but the plan is to get out of endless wars. to bring our soldiers back home. to not be policing agents all over the world. if you look at other countries, russia, china, they don't have countries to take care of. we are close to 90 countries in one form or another, 90 countries all over the world policing. frankly, many of those countries they don't respect what we are doing. they don't like what we are doing and don't like us. we are looking all over the world. tremendous amounts of money, manpower, lives that we save by doing it much differently. if people aren't respecting what we are going to be doing, that's too bad. you read where we are sending some troops to saudi arabia, that's true. we want to help saudi arabia. they have been a very good ally. they have agreed to pay for the cost of those troops. they have agreed to pay fully for the cost of everything we are doing over there. that's something you never heard

before i think as long as you have been standing out there. i think the media has never heard that before. but saudi arabia has graciously agreed to pay for the full cost of everything we are doing for them. we are sending some tremendous missiles over. we are sending some great power over to saudi arabia. saudi arabia's paying for 100% of the cost including the cost of our soldiers. that negotiation took a short time. maybe about 35 seconds. i would like now to introduce the president of italy to say a few words. i'm sure you can have many questions for him. thank you. interpreter: [speaking foreign language]

president mattarella: [speaking foreign language]

through translator: mr. president, thank you very much for your kind invitation and warm welcome to the white house. thank you for the very interesting remarks you just made. i'm sure we'll be discussing all these issues during our talks later on. in a full spirit of loyalty and cooperation, which is what friend and allies have to do. itsity and the u.s. share a set of values, set of cultures. our bond has been fostered by our human relations. i'm very pleased to be here in this moment in time as we celebrate the italian american eritage month.

president mattarella: [speaking foreign language] translator: again, i'm very happy to be here to meet with you, mr. president. it's a pleasure to see you again after we met at the g-20 summit in sicily. our meeting again is proof of the friendship between our countries. as also testified our common belonging to the atlantic alliance and by the human bonds that our countries share and by the long friendship and alliance we have. president mattarella: [speaking foreign language]

translator: as you may remember, mr. president, when we me at the summit, the weather was wonderful. it was also beautiful here yesterday as well. and the fact we meet in different places around the world testifies to how solid our bonds are. president trump: i think the bonds between italy and the united states have in her been more solid. i have so many italian friends. i can't tell you how many italian friends. we have a lot also in your government, we have a lot of great friends in your government. i think the w.t.o. award has been testament to a lot of good work by the trump dministration. we never won with the w.t.o., essentially never won. very seldom. now we are winning a lot. we are winning a lot because they know if we are not treated fairly we are leaving because we were a piggy bank that every other country was robbing.

china became rich because of the w.t.o. that's what china went up, that's when they made their great rise. they were flat lining and all of a sudden around the year 2000, 2001 when they got involved with the w.t.o. it became a whole different story. and china was taking $500 billion a year out of the united states, plus intellectual property theft and many other things. i give china a lot of credit. i give the people that ran our o credit no credit. i geve them discredit for what they allowed to a but the w.t.o., it's a world trade organization, has been very unfair to the united states. they know i feel that way. i think since they know i feel that way all of a sudden we are starting to win very big award. the $7.5 billion we won is going to be discussed. the percentage of that is to be paid by italy. italy thinks we are charging them too much. we'll take that under consideration and discuss that today. we are also discussing some very big trade deals.

italy is a very mainly trade partner with us. we do a lot of trade together. they make incredible product. we buy and they buy. we have a very good relationship. sometimes stymied by the european union, which is frankly very tough to deal with and very tough negotiators. very unfair negotiators. they know i feel that way. we'll see what happens ultimately with the european union. they have been very unfair to the united states. italy, on the other hand, they have been a great partner. translator: [speaking foreign anguage]

reporter: are you ok with erdogan saying he won't do a ceasefire? president trump: he didn't say that at all. he's meeting today with some of our representatives. mike pence is leaving today, as you know. eeded to take an extra day for security reasons. mike is leaving. mike pompeo will be meeting also, who is here right now with us. he'll be joining the meeting. we have a lot of great people over there, we'll see. in the meantime our soldiers are not in harm's way, as they shouldn't be. as two countries fight over land. that has nothing to do with us. the kurds are much safer right now. but the kurds know how to fight. as i said they are not angels. they are not angels. take a look. you have to go back and take a look, but they fought with us. we paid a lot of money for them to fight with us. that's ok. they did well when they fought with us. they didn't do so well when they didn't fight with us. i refuse to allow the americans a year and a half ago to fight

with the kurds against iraq. i said wait a minute. this country stupidly just spent a fortune on fighting wars around iraq. nobody knows how they spent it. they spent actually -- in the middle east now for $8 trillion if you can believe that stupidity. in iraq we are in for probably $5.5 trillion. we just spent $5.5 trillion fighting in iraq and with iraq. and now we are supposed to spend money to fight with the kurds against iraq. i said no thank you. what happens is what i said we are not going to fight with the kurds, the kurds left. they didn't want to fight against iraq. which right now isn't the greatest fighting force in the world. that happened twice. the kurds actually are pulling back substantially from turkey. and syria's pulling in. syria probably will have a partner of russia, whoever they may have. i wish them all a lot of luck. russia was involved in afghanistan.

used to be called the soviet union. now it's called russia for a reason. they lost so much money in afghanistan that they had to downsize. very big downsizing. if russia wants to get involved with the -- with syria, that's up to them. they have a problem with turkey, they have a problem at the border. it's not our border. we shouldn't be losing lives over it. but again we only had 28 soldiers, 26, 28, got all different numbers, ends up being 28. between the 26, 28. two people. and they are fully accounted for. so that's the story. it's very simple. and we are watching and we are negotiating and we are trying to get turkey to do the right thing because we'd like to stop wars regardless, whether americans are in or whether they are not in. we want to see wars stopped. it's very important. on a humanitarian basis we want to see that happen. reporter: how confident are you that mike pence will be able to

arrange a cease-fire? president trump: why don't you go translator: [speaking foreign president trump: i view

the situation on the turkish border with syria for the united states strategically brilliant. our sold remembers out of there. they are safe. they have to work it out. maybe they can do it without fighting. syria's protecting the kurds. that's good. we are -- by the way every player hates isis. everybody we are talking about. syria more than us. russia more than us. they have done a big number on russia. we are over there fighting isis, but they are over there fighting isis, too. they can handle it and should handle it. we can fight our own battles on our own territories. but you have a lot of countries over there that hate isis as much as we do. in some cases probably more. so they can take care of isis. we have them captured. the united states captured them. some were released for effect to make us look a little bit like we have to get right back in there. you have a lot of countries over there that have power and that

hate isis very much. as much as we do. i think we are in a very strategically good position. we have removed all of our as we said 50 soldiers, but much less than 50 soldiers. hey are now in a very safe location. heading into an even safer location. nd we will help negotiate. we have tremendously powerful sanctions. our country has become economically much more powerful than frankly it ever was. we picked up trillions and trillions of dollars in work. market was up big yesterday. it's going to be up big today it looks like. the trade deal with china just having to do with what we have done with the financial services, with banks, with the farmers has been incredible. far greater than anyone ever thought. i agree it hasn't been papered yet, but it's being papered. in the meantime as you know and we have said many times, china's

already started buying. they want to buy. they want to make a deal. they have to make a deal. their economy's been hurt very adly by what we have done. and by the tariffs we have charged. we have taken in tremendous amounts of tariffs. a small portion of them we have given to the farmers, which has more than made up for what they have lost. go ahead. translator: [speaking foreign anguage]

president trump: because of the newfound economic power of the united states, because of the fact that we have made so many trillions, many, many trillions of dollars in work of the united states, i call it the newfound economic power. if my opponent would have won, china would be the most powerful nation economically in the world. right now they are not even close. if we are smart they never will get close. depends on who sits in this chair. the united states has tremendous economic power. far more power than playing around with having a few soldiers shooting each other at the border. i mean, you have a few soldiers back and forth killing each other at the border. the power we have with sanctions nd tariffs is far greater than what we are talking about. with that being said our

military is completely rebuilt. much of the equipment has already delivered. we spent $2.5 trillion rebuilding it. our military power's at the highest, and economic power's at the highest level. i'd rather use economic power before i use military power because people are getting killed with economic power. reporter: how do you expect that meeting? president mattarella: [speaking a foreign language]

>> before the members of the

press introduced topics this morning, president trump was talking about the possible implementation of terrorists on european -- implementation of tariffs. that is a topic we will be discussing this morning and i hope we can come up with a cooperative basis and a frank discussion so we can avoid retaliation between the two parties. italy and i myself personally know it is better to find a common solution and some sort of understanding for one another's stances. the alternative to that would be tariffs and retaliation followed by further terrorists. -- tariffs. we are awaiting a solution of the boeing affairs as well. within the spirit of the friendship we have always had, i feel it would be best to discuss

these things and understand one another. pres. trump: it can't be retaliation because it was an award we got, because the european union took advantage of past presidents. it was an award given by the european union so there should be no retaliation. this was getting us even because $7.5 billion worth of things happened, bad things happened, unfair things happened to the united states by the european union. so this was just getting us back to even. and nobody else but me would have gotten that set of half -- $7.5 million back for the taxpayers of the united states. >> [speaking foreign language]

>> mr. president, i'm sure you saw a reports that john bolton said rudy giuliani was like a hand grenade the way he was acting. are you concerned that bolton could be called to testify in your impeachment inquiry? pres. trump: john bolton i get , along well with him. some people didn't. i actually got along with him pretty well. just didn't work out. i don't know that he got along with rudy giuliani. rudy giuliani was seeking out corruption and what happens mostly in the 2016 election, because there was tremendous corruption in the 2016 election. i think even you would admit that. the election was, it was disgraceful what happened, what happened to me and what happened to the republicans. and that continues with nancy pelosi and with schiff, adam schiff got caught making up statements he said i didn't say. which is fraud. purely fraudulent. so it continues.

so rudy was a great prosecutor. he was the best man in the city of new york as far as i can see. i think he has acknowledged what he did was a crime and everything else. when he saw what was going on of our election of 2016, the election i won, the election that was absolutely corrupted by things that took place in government. now we'll see what happens. the i.g. report will come out soon. we'll see what happens. i think people -- i know nothing about it in terms of the report. likewaiting for the report everyone else, but i think you will see things we have not predicted, whether it is comey, whether it is so many other people, mccain, whether it is president obama himself. we will see whether or not -- let's see whether or not. so rudy saw that and i can tell you rudy giuliani because he was very incensed at the horrible

things that he saw, as are many other people, many other republicans and the republicans have been treated unfairly by the democrats. paul ryan -- i don't think he would do it. he had too much respect for our country. nancy pelosi hands them out like cookies. i don't even know these people. these people testifying, i have never even heard of some of them, most of them but i have all of these people testifying. they don't say the good parts. they only say the bad parts. we are not allowed representation, not allowed to have anything. the democrats have treated the republicans very, very badly. fortunately we have some strong , but they never dealt with the way the republicans -- the republicans won't forget it because what they are doing, the democrats are doing to this nation is a disgrace. the disrespect i have shown to

the presidency, and it will happen to them because if the republicans have the house, which i think they will, because of impeachment, because of the nonsense impeachment, it is based on a perfect phone conversation, and absolutely perfect phone conversation. a friend of mine said this is perfect. did you know this was going to happen? -- when i many people speak to a leader like the president of italy or anybody, iere are many intelligence -- know with my understanding and knowledge. i don't know who but i assume there are many. they had transcribers, people that do this are living on the line because we have an exact copy of the report, the call. so i started hearing about the whistleblower.

the whistleblower's report was totally wrong. the whistleblower did not know what he was talking about or was given false information or was even worse than that. now, all of a sudden, schiff doesn't want to talk to the whistleblower. now, all of a sudden, quid pro quo, does it matter, because now they see in the call there was no quid pro quo? when rudy rudy was seeking out , corruption. i see no problem with seeking out corruption. lobbyists -- pres. trump: that you have to ask -- excuse me, no. you have to ask rudy those questions. don't ask me. but rudy was one of many people who was incensed at the corruption that took place during that election. pure corruption. for instance, i still ask the fbi, where is the server? how come the fbi never got the server from the dnc? where is the server? i want to see the server. let's see what's on the server. so the server, they say, is held by a company whose primary

ownership individual is from ukraine. i'd like to see the server. i think it's very important for this country to see the server. nobody wants to see it. the media never wants to see it. but i will tell you, republicans want to see it. so republicans aren't treated well. here's the problem. i think we're going to take the house based on what is happening with the impeachment stuff. and the republicans can do the same thing in reverse if they is going an -- i hope to be a long time because nobody has done a better job with the economy rebuilt the military. , our economy is the best it's ever been. we have numbers that just came out where, not including taxes, the median household income for the average american has increased $5,000 a very short time since the time i have been president. nobody has ever heard of numbers like that. people want to find out why was it so corrupt during that election, and i want to find

out more than anybody else. >> what is exposed by this turkey situation is as many as 50 weapons at the airbase in turkey. how confident are you of those weapons' safety? pres. trump: we're confident. that airbase alone can take any place. it's a large, powerful airbase. and you know turkey, just so people remember, turkey is a nato member. we are supposed to get along with our nato members, and turkey is a nato member. she's created a phony witch-hunt. another first one failed. one. they're all failing.

this one is just absolutely crazy. all you have to do is read the transcript of the call. read the transcript. this is an open and shut, simple case. they're desperate because they know they're going to lose the election. they're desperate to do so. -- do something, because they know they'll lose the election. this administration has created the strongest economy in the history of our country. we have the greatest stock market. we had over 100 times we broke the record for stock market. people's -- if you look at people's stocks, their 401-k's, if you look at anything you want to look at, they are far better off than they probably have ever have been in this country. record stock market. not just stock markets, not just for rich people. it's all people. because all people own in the stock market. new york stock exchange, all of them. they are at record highs. nobody's ever done what we've done. so they're playing games. they figure they can't win the

election. so maybe we can find some ground. we'll get somebody that trump never met, and maybe they'll say something bad about trump, and if they do really bad, maybe can stick a little bit, i don't think it's going to work. i have treated the republican party with great disrespect. ok, thank you very much. >> [speaking simultaneously] pres. trump: my meeting with the family was beautiful in a certain way. they did not want to meet with the person in question. but we had a very good meeting. they're very nice people. and we met with a full group. it was four people, actually. you know how it's all broken up. and the meeting took place right here at about 6:00 last night. and it was very sad, to be honest. we lost -- and they lost their son. i believe it was going down the wrong way because that happens in europe. you go to europe and the roads are opposite.

it's very tough if you're from the united states. you do make that decision to make a right turn where you're supposed to make a left turn. the roads are opposite. and she said that's what happened. that happens to a lot of people, by the way. but she said that's what happened. she was in the room right out there. we met right here in these -- this area. and i offered to bring the person in question in, and they weren't ready for it. but i did offer. i spoke with boris. he asked if i would do it. and i did it. unfortunately they wanted to meet with her. and unfortunately when we had everybody together, they decided not to meet. perhaps they have lawyers involved by that time, i don't know exactly. i know the people were lovely. they were very nice, and they were you know desperately sad. >> [indiscernible] the family indicated at one point they were interested in meeting with them? pres. trump: i thought they were based on what i saw.

now they will only meet if they are in the u.k. it's up to them. i did meet the family and i expressed condolences on behalf of our country. thank you very much, everyone. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] pres. trump: wait, wait. there is a great question i am being asked. this is maybe the greatest question i have been asked. put the mics over there. you are growing the biggest economy in the world. are you willing to give italy a break on terrorists? -- break on tariffs? iss. trump: the $7.5 million to be divided the way we say. we divided it up. italy has a problem with the way we divided it up because they said they had much less to do with it. and germany had more to do with it. and france had more to do it as an example. we will look at it very strongly. ambassador lighthizer is here. we are going to look at it very strongly. i love that question.

thank you all very much. thank you. >> thank you, guys. >> thanks, everybody. >> thank you. announcer 1: president trump holds a campaign rally in dallas. watch live at 8:00 on c-span, online at c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. announcer 2: our c-span campaign 2020 bus team is traveling across the country visiting key battleground states in the 2020 presidential race asking voters what issues they want presidential candidates to address during the campaign. >> i want them to focus on

funding for stem programs at public universities and in recent years they have not had as much attention given to them as they should regarding funding for music programs, reading, for some of the v.a. programs so i would like to see how we could increase funding for those. it is an important issue for me being a student currently. >> i want candidates to tell me and the electorate how they are going to fix this country is issues in order to ensure we can have the money to fund programs for a generation instead of just leaving a mess for future generations to issues in order to ensure we can haveinherit and ht down the line. >> i want them to focus on gun control, climate change, abortion, women's reproductive and other epidemic -- opioid epidemic.

>> the student loan crisis and how it is crippling my generation. the current career i am in and interested in, it is not my passion. it is for job security and the hope that one day maybe i can have a house. and i don't think the powers that be are looking at how much this is going to cripple our generation. athink it is going to be major -- it will be affected by that i still have to pay off my student loans. voices from the campaign trail, part of the battleground states tour. at a senate foreign relations committee on iran policy, senator lindsey graham criticizes president trump's decision to pull troops out of syria, getting into a heated exchange with the prent