Donald Trump: Xi Jinping “Respects the U.S. Military Tremendously”

And I was with, as you know, President Xi of China two days ago. We had a tremendous meeting, very successful meeting. And he agrees our military is phenomenal. I don't want to go beyond that, but I will tell you he respects our military tremendously. Our military is respected. We have, as I said, the greatest military anywhere in the world, and we're going to keep it that way. We have a budget this year of $1.5 trillion. That's the biggest budget we've ever had. That includes the Coast Guard. Don't worry about it. Look, they're getting a little bit concerned. Don't worry. It includes you. You're going to have so many Coast Guard cutters, you're not going to know what to do with them. You'll have a cutter that's two years old. You say, Captain, I want the new one. Didn't used to be that way. But you got to. We have a lot of money coming your way. You know that because of these people and people like them, they made a great case for it. And I'm a big fan. So, yeah, we take care of it while I'm here because we're going to take care of the Coast Guard like you wouldn't believe. And they're flawless. Thank you. And in a flawless operation last January, supported by the Coast Guard, America's Armed Forces captured the outlaw Nicolas Maduro and brought him back to American justice. He's awaiting trial from Venezuela, an attack that took less than one day. And it was an amazing — I think it's one that's going to be studied for a long time. Great, great, smart country. Very tough military country. But it all took — it really took 48 minutes and 13 seconds, to be exact. But let's give it one day. And he's now awaiting trial. And now we have a great joint venture with Venezuela. We have millions of barrels of oil coming into Houston and coming into parts of Texas and Louisiana and Alaska. And it's been an amazing thing. You know, Venezuela used to be a really great country 20 years ago. Then it went — it went the wrong way. It went the way they'd like to take this country. Some lunatics would like to take this country way, way left and destroy it. But we're not going to let that happen. We're not letting that happen. This service has also been at the absolute — at really the center of the battle to restore sovereign borders for the United States and keep drugs and criminals out of our country. And we're keeping them out. Since I took office, the Coast Guard has seized over 206 million lethal doses of illicit narcotics, the most in the history of our country — enough to kill a country, a large country, many, many times over. And you've seized it, and you seize it constantly, and you don't play games. Last August, the Coast Guard cutter Hamilton interdicted 76,000 pounds of illegal drugs. The largest Coast Guard drug bust of all time. Largest ever. And I'm telling you, the Coast Guard has always been good. But you've stepped it up even beyond that. Five cadets graduating today were part of that historic action. And I'll mention their name. Elliot Coles — stand up, Elliot — Jenna Lewandowski, Piper Stevens, Hannah Warnerkay, and J.J. Brown.