Lotte New York Palace Hotel

New York, New York

3:16 P.M. EDT

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much, everybody. It’s a great honor to be with President Macron of France, who’s had one of the great election victories of all time, I will tell you. That was an exciting evening. (Laughter.) And I must say that I watched every moment of it. It was a very, very exciting time.

He’s doing a terrific job in France. He’s doing what has to be done. He’s respected by the French people, and I can tell you he’s respected by the people of the United States.

So we have a lot of things to talk about. We’ll be discussing many different elements. I’m not sure we should discuss all of it with the media — (laughter) — but they’ll probably know before we know.

So I just want to thank you all for being here. I want to thank your representatives for being here, many of whom I know already. And we will have very productive meetings. France is a great country, it’s a beautiful country. I won’t soon forget our dinner on top of the Eiffel Tower where we really got to know each other and our families. And thank you very much.

PRESIDENT MACRON: Thank you, Donald. Thank you, everybody. I will say a few words. I totally concur with Donald on what did you state, so I will just say a few words in French for the French people here.

(President Macron speaks French.) (No English interpretation provided.)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you very much, Emmanuel. And I do want to say that I was your guest at Bastille Day, and it was one of the greatest parades I’ve ever seen. It was two hours on the button, and it was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France.

And people don’t know what great warriors they are in France, but when you see that and you see all the victories, it was a tremendous thing. And to a large extent, because of what I witnessed, we may do something like that on July 4th in Washington, down Pennsylvania Avenue. (Laughter.) I don’t know. We’re going to have to try and top it. But we had a lot of planes going over and we had a lot of military might, and it was really a beautiful thing to see. They had representatives from different wars and different uniforms. It was really so well done.

But I came back, and one of my early calls were, I think we’re going to have to start looking at that ourselves. So we’re actually thinking about 4th of July, Pennsylvania Avenue, having a really great parade to show our military strength.

You know, we’re spending this year $700 billion — more than we’ve ever spent on the military — which is a good thing for you because we’re friends. Okay? And I think we’re looking forward to doing that. I’m speaking with General Kelly and with all of the people involved, and we’ll see if we can do it this year. But we certainly will be beginning to do that.

So I appreciate it. And again, most importantly, I appreciate you being here. Thank you, Emmanuel.

PRESIDENT MACRON: Thank you. And I have to say just for the American people, that our people in France were very proud to have you and your wife, Melania, in Paris the 14th of July, for Bastille Day. And people were very proud to have you in front of them and participating to this ceremony and this parade.

Thanks very much for your presence.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I was proud to be there. And also, when Emmanuel called me, he said, it’s the 100th year in terms of timing of the first world war. One hundred years. And I said, well, that’s a very important period. So we went and really — I was very proud to say that we’re very, very, very good friends with France. That was a beautiful day. And thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody.

END

3:21 P.M. EDT