LIVE: President Trump participates in Thanksgiving call with Military Servicemembers

President Trump: I want to express the anguish and the horror of our entire nation at the terrorist attack yesterday in our nation's capital, in which a savage monster gunned down two servicemenbers in the West Virginia National Guard who were deployed as part of the D.C. Task Force.

President Trump: As you may know, DHS has confirmed that the suspect is an Afghan national, flown here by the previous administration who; was such a bad administration…this heinous atrocity reminds us that we have no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have full control over the people that enter and remain in our country. For the most part, we don't want 'em.

President Trump: I must unfortunately tell you that just seconds before I went on, right now, I heard that Sarah Beckstrom of West Virginia, one of the Guardsmen that we're talking about, highly respected, young, magnificent person, started service in June of 2023, outstanding in every way, she's just passed away.

President Trump: Over the next couple of years I think we'll substantially be cutting; and maybe cutting out completely, but we'll be cutting income tax. Could be almost completely cutting it, because the money we're taking in [tariffs] is going to be so large.

Question: What is the most memorable obstacle or hardship that you've encountered in your life, and how did this shape you to be the leader that you are today?

President Trump: The weaponization of government by the previous administration. That was probably the biggest obstacle. I ran, I won by a lot. I ran a second time, I won by a lot. And I ran a third time, and it was too big too rig. But the biggest was that. They went after a lot of great Americans, I was one of them, and I would say weaponization by my opponent was a disgrace to our nation, and was the most difficult time. And we won. Now; today I'm in Florida, but generally I'm in the White House, I'm in the Oval Office, so I look around and say, 'Oh well, couldn't have been that bad.' But it was. It was a disgrace to our nation, and it should never be allowed to happen again. And it's being looked at very strongly…it was the weaponization, and illegal weaponization that they used, where our government attacked the president, and the former president of the United States of America.

President Trump: They came in unvetted [Afghans]. And we have a lot of others in this country, we're gonna get 'em out. But they go coo-coo. Something happens to them.

President Trump: If you look at Somalia; they're taking over Minnesota, and they are; we got a lot of problems with the gangs, with all of the things taking place in Minnesota. We have an incompetent governor. A dope. We have a dope governor…if you talk about the Afghans, you know, there's a problem because so many bad ones came in on the planes. They just walked in.

President Trump: We have Ilhan Omar, who does nothing but complain about our country and our Constitution, and she comes from a country with practically; it's practically no country. It's devastated, it's crime-ridden, it's a mess, it's a disgrace, and we took their people at tremendous; we're not taking their people anymore. We're not talking their people, and we're getting a lot of their people out because they're nothing but trouble.

President Trump: When it comes to asylum,when they're flown in, it's very hard to get 'em out. No matter how you want to do it, it's very hard to get 'em out. But we're going to be getting 'em all out now.