President Trump [cabinet meeting]: One of the most important initiatives is DOGE, and we have cut billions, and billions, and billions of dollars. We're looking to get it, maybe to a trillion dollars. If we can do that, we're gonna start getting to be at a point where we can think in terms of balancing budgets, believe it or not…whether it's this year or next year, I think we'll be very close to balancing budgets.

Musk [cabinet meeting]: I'm confident at this point, that we can actually find a trillion dollars in savings. That would be a roughly fifteen percent of the seven trillion dollar budget.

President Trump: I spoke with Lee Zeldin, and he thinks he's going to be cutting sixty-five or so percent of the people from Environmental [Environmental Protection Agency]…a lot of people that weren't doing their job. They were just obstructionists, and a lot of people that didn't exist. We found a lot of empty spots; the people weren't there. They didn't exist

Secretary Lutnick: If we sell; just remember, two hundred thousand; there's a line for EB-5 [Immigrant Investor Program] of two hundred and fifty thousand right now. Two hundred thousand of these Gold Green Cards, is one trillion dollars to pay down our debt, and that is why the president is doing it, because we are going to balance this budget, and we are going to pay off the debt under President Trump.

President Trump: Just so you understand, if we sell a million, that's five trillion dollars…if we sell ten million, which is possible…that's fifty trillion dollars. That means our debt is totally paid off, and we have fifteen trillion dollars above that.

Reporter: Have all the generals or command staff that were involved with the withdrawal [Afghanistan] been fired or relieved of duty?

President Trump: That's a great idea. I'm not going to tell this man what to do [Secretary Hegseth], but I will say that if I had his place, I'd fire every sing one of them, Pete.

Secretary Hegseth: We're doing a complete review of every single aspect of what happened with the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan, and plan to have full accountability.

President Trump: I think they're going to be largely gone.

President Trump: The European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. That's the purpose of it, and they've done a good job of it, but now I'm president.

Reporter: Will he have to make concessions; President Putin?

President Trump: Yeah, he will. He's gonna have to.

Reporter: If Mr. Putin gets to keep the land that was claimed by force, if the Russians get to keep the territory that they claim by force, doesn't that send a dangerous message, let's say, to China about Taiwan?

President Trump: Oh, okay. You try and take it away, right? We're gonna do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides. But for Ukraine, we're gonna try very hard to make a good deal so that they can get as much back as possible.