President Donald J. Trump signed two executive orders on June 22, 2026, positioning the United States to build the world’s first scientifically relevant quantum computer within five years and requiring all federal agencies to upgrade their digital security systems by 2031 — part of a sweeping bet on an emerging technology that experts say could transform medicine, materials science, and national security. The signing ceremony, attended by Nobel laureate physicist John Martinis, tech industry leaders including Google’s Ruth Porat and IBM’s Arvind Krishna, and top administration officials, quickly expanded beyond quantum computing as Trump offered an extended, wide-ranging commentary on the war with Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, Venezuela, the Colombian presidential election, the resignation of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, NATO burden-sharing, defense contractor manufacturing, and an alleged vandalism incident at the National Mall’s Reflecting Pool — making this one of the most topic-dense executive order signings in recent memory. Assistance from Claude AI.
Participants
Administration Officials
- President Donald J. Trump — President of the United States
- Michael Kratsios — Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (Science Advisor to the President)
- Sean Cairncross — National Cyber Director
- Chris Wright — Secretary of Energy
- Howard Lutnick — Secretary of Commerce (spoke at the ceremony; identified by first name in transcript)
- Russ Vought — Director, Office of Management and Budget
- Pete Hegseth — Secretary of Defense (present, responded to questions)
- Dr. Ethan Klein — Chief Technology Officer of the United States
- Dr. Brad Blakestad — Director, National Quantum Coordination Office
- Greg Barbaccia — Chief Information Officer of the Federal Government
Private Sector and Science
- John Martinis — Nobel Prize–winning quantum physicist (University of California, Santa Barbara); 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics co-laureate
- Ruth Porat — President, Google (Alphabet)
- Arvind Krishna — CEO, IBM
- Matthew Kinsella — CEO, Infleqtion
Context: The Transcript
The recording joined in progress. An unknown number of opening remarks were not captured.
Comprehensive Topic Breakdown
1. The Two Executive Orders: What They Actually Do
The core news from this event is a pair of executive orders that the White House framed as a second-generation push in quantum technology, building on Trump’s first-term National Quantum Initiative Act of 2018.
What is Quantum Computing? Traditional computers store information as “bits” — either a 0 or a 1. Quantum computers use “qubits,” which can exist in multiple states simultaneously (a property called superposition) and can be linked with each other in ways that multiply their power exponentially (a property called entanglement). This makes quantum computers theoretically capable of solving certain problems — molecular simulation, cryptographic analysis, optimization — that would take ordinary computers longer than the age of the universe to work through. The catch: qubits are extraordinarily fragile, and keeping them in their quantum state long enough to be useful has been an enormous engineering challenge.
Executive Order 1 — Quantum Computing: ✅ Accurate description given in remarks. The first order tasks the Department of Energy to develop a “scientifically relevant” quantum computer — meaning one capable of performing calculations that matter to science, not just benchmark demonstrations — within five years. Kratsios emphasized this would also direct agencies including the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to focus on quantum-enabled sensors and networking, not just computing. The goal is to create a government-built quantum system powerful enough to pave the way for even larger commercial systems from companies like IBM and Google. The White House fact sheet confirmed the order also tasks the establishment of National Quantum Workforce Development Institutes and expands registered apprenticeships in the field.
“Error-corrected quantum computing” — a phrase used by Energy Secretary Wright — refers to a specific technical milestone. Current quantum computers make many errors as qubits interact with their environment. Until those errors can be reliably corrected in real time, the machines can’t be trusted for scientific calculations. Achieving “error correction” is widely regarded as the key threshold separating today’s experimental quantum hardware from truly useful machines. Wright said bluntly: “We’re not there yet. We’re close.”
Executive Order 2 — Post-Quantum Cryptography: The second order directs federal agencies to transition to “post-quantum cryptography” for their computer systems by 2031.
Why does this matter? Most encryption today — the kind that secures your bank transactions, medical records, and government communications — relies on mathematical problems that are easy to do in one direction but extremely hard to reverse. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could reverse those problems quickly, breaking essentially all current encryption. “Post-quantum cryptography” refers to a new generation of encryption algorithms designed to be secure even against quantum computers. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has already published a set of these standards. The EO effectively sets a deadline for the federal government to adopt them.
National Cyber Director Cairncross framed this as pairing innovation with security: as quantum computing advances, it will eventually break public-key cryptography — the security layer underpinning financial transactions, critical infrastructure, and daily digital life. He credited an “unprecedented” collaboration with American tech companies in developing the transition.
2. The Historical Context: From Einstein to Martinis to Now
Energy Secretary Wright delivered the ceremony’s most substantive science commentary, attempting a sweeping timeline of quantum innovation — though it was interrupted when Trump, apparently impatient with the historical framing, interjected “Nobody cares” as Wright began citing Albert Einstein’s 1905 paper on the photoelectric effect. Wright, unfazed, moved on.
Wright’s argument was essentially a chain of innovation: Einstein recognized that light comes in discrete packets of energy (“quanta”) in 1905. About 40 years later, John Trump — the president’s uncle and an MIT physicist — helped apply quantum properties of electromagnetic radiation to develop radar technology at the MIT Radiation Lab, which Wright said was “critical in D-Day” and the Allied victory in World War II. ✅ John G. Trump was indeed a physicist at MIT who contributed to radar development during World War II, a fact the Trump family has cited publicly.
Then, Wright said, about 40 years after that, John Martinis — seated in the room — “pioneered taking quantum effects and building them into a device to capture that behavior.” Wright noted that Martinis was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics just last year.
✅ Accurate. Martinis shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Clarke and Michel H. Devoret “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.” Their foundational work was carried out in 1984–1985 — roughly 40 years before the Nobel was awarded — demonstrating that quantum mechanical behavior could exist in systems large enough to hold in your hand, a discovery that laid the groundwork for today’s superconducting quantum computers. (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2025.)
Trump noted Martinis’ work was done “about 40 years ago” — which Martinis confirmed referred to the underlying research, not the Nobel Prize itself.
Wright’s broader conclusion: the future of computing will rest on three legs — classical high-performance computing (continuing Moore’s Law), artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. The third leg, he said, would complete the stool. He committed that error-corrected, scientifically relevant quantum computing would be achieved “during this administration.”
3. Science Advisor Kratsios: Turbocharging Commercial Momentum
Michael Kratsios offered the most direct policy explanation. He credited Trump’s first administration with being “the first president in history to prioritize quantum as a scientific priority,” a characterization consistent with the 2018 National Quantum Initiative Act.
✅ Accurate. The National Quantum Initiative Act was signed into law by Trump on December 21, 2018, establishing the first whole-of-government strategy for quantum leadership in the United States. It authorized $1.2 billion for quantum research over five years and created the National Quantum Coordination Office. (quantum.gov)
Kratsios said the private sector, emboldened by that government commitment, has dramatically increased its own quantum investments — and “we’re now at the moment where a lot of that research is starting to pay off into commercial applications.” The executive order, he said, would “turbocharge that.”
4. Tech Industry Speaks: Google, IBM, and Commerce
Commerce Secretary Lutnick introduced the industry contingent and highlighted a recent $2 billion government investment in quantum made “a couple of weeks ago,” directed toward both companies and manufacturing facilities for quantum hardware. ℹ️ Unverifiable from available sources at press time. He cited government investment in fabrication facilities — “fabs” — in the United States to enable domestic quantum chip manufacturing.
Ruth Porat (Google) offered the most dramatic demonstration of why this matters. She noted that Google has been investing in quantum for more than a decade, and in 2019 became the first company to achieve “quantum supremacy.”
✅ Accurate. In October 2019, Google’s team — led by John Martinis — used a 53-qubit processor called Sycamore to complete a specific computation in 200 seconds that they estimated would take the best classical supercomputer approximately 10,000 years. (Nature, 2019.) IBM disputed the comparison, but Google’s claim of demonstrating a “quantum advantage” for that specific task is widely accepted.
Porat then described the Willow chip, unveiled about a year and a half ago, which she said completed a computation in less than five minutes that would have taken the best supercomputer 10 septillion years (that’s a 10 followed by 24 zeros — a number that dwarfs the age of the universe by many orders of magnitude).
✅ Accurate, with context. Google announced the Willow chip in December 2024, and the claim about 10 septillion years is based on Google’s own published benchmark. However, independent researchers note that the test used — “random circuit sampling” — is a benchmark designed specifically to be hard for classical computers and does not yet correspond to a practically useful calculation. IBM and others have challenged the framing. The chip nonetheless represents a genuine milestone in quantum error correction. (Google Blog, December 2024; HPCwire, 2025.)
She cited the real-world implications as medical breakthroughs, nuclear fusion, and materials science, and confirmed Google is also actively deploying post-quantum cryptography across its products.
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna was more restrained but made a significant commitment: IBM would invest to get “these systems out during your current term” — meaning within the current Trump administration — and thanked Commerce for the fab investment that would allow quantum chips to be manufactured in America.
OMB Director Russ Vought, invited by Trump to speak, briefly pivoted to the administration’s budget record: “More savings than ever before in history… We’ll save in places, but we’re going to do what’s necessary to invest in the future and industries of the future.”
ℹ️ Unverifiable. The claim of “more savings than ever before in history” cannot be confirmed or denied without audited fiscal year data. The administration has made broad claims about DOGE-driven savings that have been contested by independent budget analysts.
5. Iran and the Strait of Hormuz: What Trump Said vs. What the Data Shows
Before opening the floor to questions, and again during Q&A, Trump made several assertions about the Strait of Hormuz and the ongoing Iran situation that diverged significantly from available reporting.
Context for readers: The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that serves as the world’s most critical oil transit point. Before the 2026 US-Iran conflict, roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day — about one-fifth of global consumption — passed through it. In early 2026, Iran declared the strait closed to US-allied shipping, triggering a global oil price crisis. The US eventually signed the Islamabad Memorandum with Iran on June 17, 2026 at Versailles, and the US naval blockade of Iranian ports was lifted on June 18 — just four days before this press conference.
Trump said: “We took in more oil yesterday than we’ve ever — than has ever gone through the strait. You probably see that. We have an oil gusher. The strait is totally opened.”
❌ False. Oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz are recovering but remain far from record levels. According to energy analytics firm Kpler, cited by CNBC on June 18, 2026, flows were estimated at approximately 5.1 million barrels per day in June — up significantly from the crisis low of 2.2 million barrels per day in March, but still only about 25% of pre-war levels of roughly 20 million barrels per day. A single-day record would require nearly four times the current flow rate. The strait is not “totally opened” — it is partially reopened and recovering.
Energy Secretary Wright provided a more carefully worded, but still questionable, version: “Despite Iran’s efforts or pushback, we are flowing oil through the Strait of Hormuz and natural gas at pre-crisis levels.”
⚠️ Misleading. Available data indicates flows remain well below pre-war baselines. If Wright means “pre-crisis” to refer to a level just before the most recent escalation (rather than the years-long pre-war average of 20 million bpd), the framing is ambiguous and potentially designed to create a more favorable impression.
Trump also said: “We have two things — we have an open strait and we have a country that will never have a nuclear weapon.”
The question of Iran’s nuclear ambitions is addressed below.
6. Iran’s Military: Trump’s Claims vs. US Intelligence
During Q&A, a reporter asked whether Iran’s ability to disrupt the Strait gave it “leverage” over the president. Trump responded with an extended dismissal of any remaining Iranian military capability:
Trump said: “Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their leaders are all dead. Their whole country is a mess. Their economy is shut… Four months ago, they had a navy, 159 ships to be exact. It’s gone. Their 250 airplanes, all gone… Their manufacturing capacity for drones and missiles is gone. About 87% gone.”
❌ False / Significantly Overstated. The Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) issued an assessment contradicting these claims. NBC News reported in April 2026 that “the regime maintains significant military capability, including thousands of missiles and one-way attack drones” — directly at odds with Trump’s and Hegseth’s public statements that the Iranian Air Force was “wiped out” and the Navy is “at the bottom of the sea.” The DIA assessment said U.S. intelligence was “at odds with public declarations” by Trump and Hegseth. Iran’s domestic missile and drone production capability — its most strategically consequential strength — relies on an extensive indigenous defense industrial base that was not fully eliminated. While Operation Epic Fury (Feb. 28 – April 8, 2026) struck over 10,000 targets including IRGC facilities and naval assets, the suggestion that Iran has been essentially disarmed is not supported by US intelligence agencies’ own reporting. (NBC News, April 2026; MilitarySpend.org, 2026.)
Trump also said the New York Times had falsely claimed Iran was “about the same as it was four months ago” — his dismissal of critical coverage dovetailed with a broader complaint about negative media coverage.
7. Iran Nuclear Claim: “Two Weeks Away”
When asked about ongoing Iran negotiations and the risk of renewed strikes, Trump revisited his central justification for the US military campaign:
Trump said (in reference to Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear sites): “They were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. If we wouldn’t have done that, they would have had a nuclear weapon.”
⚠️ Disputed and likely misleading. This claim — that Iran was literally two weeks from having a nuclear weapon before the June 2025 strikes — has been contested at the highest levels of the US government. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi stated on March 3, 2026 that his agency had “no evidence of Iran building a nuclear bomb.” More significantly, DNI Tulsi Gabbard’s congressional testimony — representing the intelligence community’s formal assessment — appeared to directly contradict the “two weeks away” claim when she was pressed on whether the IC had determined Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat. Gabbard answered that only the president, not the intelligence community, can determine what constitutes an “imminent threat.” The DIA initially assessed that Operation Midnight Hammer set Iran’s nuclear program back by months, not permanently. Iran was enriching uranium to 60% purity before the strikes — far above civilian power needs but still short of the 90% weapons-grade threshold, and weaponization would have required additional steps. (Time, March 2026; Congressional Research Service, 2025.)
8. Operation Midnight Hammer: One Year Later
A reporter noted it was the one-year anniversary of Operation Midnight Hammer — the June 22, 2025 US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — and asked Trump if he would do anything differently.
Trump: “No… It’s the most successful attack that anyone’s ever seen with a bomber, that totally wiped out their nuclear potential.”
Hegseth then elaborated: the operation involved seven B-2 stealth bombers departing Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, flying to Iran and back — “37 hours back and forth.”
✅ Roughly accurate. The B-2 bombers flew approximately 18 hours one-way from Missouri to Iran, requiring multiple mid-air refueling operations. A round-trip operation would therefore last approximately 36–37 hours — consistent with Hegseth’s figure. The operation also included Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from a submarine. Seven B-2s, supported by over 125 aircraft total, dropped 14 GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator “bunker buster” bombs on Fordow and Natanz, while the submarine-launched Tomahawks hit Isfahan. (Pentagon briefing, June 2025; War Zone, June 2025.)
Hegseth said: “Iran never saw it. And every munition, precision munition that only we make, hit exactly where we wanted it to.” He credited the strikes with creating the conditions for Iran to agree to negotiations: “The overwhelming military victory that has been had over Iran is what has set the conditions for them to be at the table.”
⚠️ Disputed context. The claim that Midnight Hammer “totally wiped out their nuclear potential” is contradicted by the fact that the US launched another major military campaign — Operation Epic Fury — against Iran starting on February 28, 2026, partly because the administration’s own posture shifted to acknowledge Iran was rebuilding nuclear-related activities. Wikipedia’s entry on the 2025 US strikes notes the Trump administration “contradicted its prior claims” about Iran’s nuclear program being “obliterated” when it justified the 2026 war partly on Iran’s renewed nuclear activities. (Wikipedia, 2025 United States strikes on Iranian nuclear sites; The New Republic, 2026.)
9. Venezuela: Oil and the Cost of War
Trump described US-Venezuela relations as a remarkable success story, claiming the US was extracting “tremendous amounts of oil, far, far more than that particular war costs, many, many times” from Venezuela and that this was benefiting both countries.
Trump: “When did you ever hear of getting the money back from the war by 42 times over?”
ℹ️ Unverifiable. The specific “42 times” figure cannot be confirmed from publicly available data at the time of publication. Trump has made similar claims about Venezuela’s oil revenues covering the costs of US military operations, but an independent accounting has not been publicly verified.
Trump also claimed Venezuela “is doing better than it’s done in maybe ever,” a sweeping historical assertion about a country with a deeply complex economic situation.
ℹ️ Unverifiable. While Venezuela’s economic conditions have varied considerably over recent years, the claim that Venezuela is doing “better than ever” in its history is an extraordinary assertion that would require extensive independent economic data to assess.
10. Iran Deal: Unfrozen Funds and American Farmers
When a reporter asked about Treasury lifting sanctions on Iranian oil, Trump explained his understanding of how the money flow would work:
Trump said: “If the sanctions go out, money is going to be put into this country. All that money is coming back in the form of purchases of food, which they desperately need… They have 91 million people. They can’t feed them. So the money that we lift is going to go to our farmers.”
He added that money being “unfrozen” under the deal would be used to purchase corn, soybeans, and other American agricultural products.
When a reporter asked whether he could assure that Iran wouldn’t use oil profits to rebuild its military, Trump replied: “They’re not supposed to be doing that… they’re supposed to use money to buy food for their people.”
ℹ️ Unverifiable. The specific terms of the Islamabad Memorandum regarding how sanctions relief proceeds would be earmarked or monitored were not publicly detailed in this transcript. The claim that all funds would flow exclusively to food purchases from US farmers represents Trump’s description of the deal’s intent, but enforcement mechanisms are unknown.
11. Israeli Forces in Lebanon
A reporter raised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement — made publicly in Israel that same day — that Israeli forces were not leaving Lebanon, which the reporter described as “a sticking point in these conversations.”
Trump: “We’ll take a look at it… I don’t know what I’m going to do, but it gets solved. I’m a problem solver. I get problems solved real fast, including with Bibi.”
The exchange was brief and non-committal, with Trump neither challenging Netanyahu’s position nor offering a strategy.
12. Vice President Vance, Secretary Rubio, and Diplomacy
A reporter asked about Vice President J.D. Vance’s negotiations and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s upcoming Middle East travel.
Trump praised both: “I think they’re doing a fantastic job. Our secretary is fantastic. I think he’s maybe going to go down as the best ever. And I thought J.D. Vance this morning was fantastic. I watched his news conference from Switzerland.”
Trump then pivoted to criticize Democratic members of Congress who also traveled to Switzerland, singling out Rep. Ilhan Omar:
Trump said: “This is one of their potential leaders, Ilhan Omar, who married her brother to get into the country, by the way, illegally.”
❌ False. This is a long-running allegation that has been repeatedly investigated and debunked by multiple fact-checking organizations and news outlets, including Reuters, PolitiFact, Snopes, and the Associated Press. Omar became a US citizen in 2000 — years before any of her marriages — making the “married her brother to get into the country” claim factually impossible on its timeline, independent of whether the underlying marriage allegation is true. On the marriage claim itself: no credible documentary evidence has emerged proving that her 2009 legal husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, was her biological brother. Omar has called the allegation “absolutely false and ridiculous.” (AP, 2018; Snopes; PolitiFact; Reuters.)
13. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Resignation
A reporter noted that Trump had been critical of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and that Starmer had now resigned. Trump was asked for his thoughts and whether he had a preferred successor.
✅ Accurate underlying fact. Starmer announced his resignation on the morning of June 22, 2026 — the same day as this press conference — outside 10 Downing Street, stating: “The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election. I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace.” His resignation followed months of Labour Party pressure after dismal local election results in May 2026 and the rise of the far-right Reform UK party. Former Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, who won a parliamentary by-election on June 18, is widely considered the frontrunner to succeed him. (CNN, Al Jazeera, NBC News, June 22, 2026.)
Trump said he liked Starmer personally but had been critical of his energy policy — specifically his refusal to allow North Sea oil drilling: “You have the North Sea oil and they won’t let anybody drill. It’s one of the great fields in the world.” He also said Starmer was “not good to us with NATO” — referencing what appeared to be a dispute over the use of a British military facility (likely related to the Diego Garcia/Chagos Islands negotiations) during the Iran operation.
Trump did not name a preferred successor.
14. Defense Contractors and Weapons Manufacturing
When asked about an upcoming meeting with defense contractors, Trump described a policy under which major defense companies are:
- No longer allowed to conduct stock buybacks. Trump said contractors had been spending “$51 billion” on buybacks instead of manufacturing. Under the new rules, that capital must go toward building plants and producing weapons systems.
- Being tasked with converting automotive capacity to defense production. Trump mentioned General Motors as being “all excited about building weapons,” with some auto plants switching over to produce missiles, including the Patriot and Tomahawk systems.
“If they have any excess capacity, they’re making a deal to build missiles and the Patriot in particular,” Trump said.
ℹ️ Unverifiable specifics. The broader policy direction — redirecting defense contractor investment from buybacks to manufacturing — has been a stated administration goal, but the specific details of the Ford and GM agreements and the scope of production commitments could not be independently verified at press time.
15. NATO: The Mark Rutte Meeting
A reporter raised Trump’s upcoming meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and noted that Secretary Hegseth had been reviewing US troop presence in NATO countries.
Trump delivered a pointed critique of NATO allies during the Iran military campaign, saying he had asked allies to assist and they “weren’t there for us.” He specifically called out the UK (“Starmer said no”), Italy, and Germany as having failed to support US operations.
Trump said: “We spend $600 billion a year… to protect them from Russia mostly.”
⚠️ Misleading. The US defense budget in 2025 was approximately $850–980 billion — not $600 billion. The $600 billion figure significantly understates actual US defense spending. Moreover, US defense spending is not entirely or even primarily dedicated to NATO — it covers global commitments including the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and domestic readiness. The US does account for approximately 60% of NATO allies’ combined defense spending, which totaled about $1.4 trillion in 2025. But framing $600 billion as what the US “spends on NATO” misrepresents both the figure and how defense budgets work. (FlightGlobal citing NATO Annual Report, March 2026; Full Fact, January 2026.)
Trump hinted that the US might tell European NATO allies “no” in return if they continued to decline to help on non-Article 5 operations: “We might.”
16. Colombia: Abelardo de la Espriella’s Election Victory
A Colombian reporter — who identified herself as being from Cartagena — asked about Trump’s phone call with Abelardo de la Espriella, the far-right presidential candidate who appeared to have won Colombia’s June 21 runoff.
✅ Accurate on the result. De la Espriella, known as “El Tigre” (“The Tiger”), won the preliminary count in Colombia’s presidential runoff on June 21, 2026, with approximately 49.65% of the vote against left-wing Senator Iván Cepeda’s 47.81%, a margin of roughly 250,000 votes. Trump had endorsed de la Espriella, who is a first-time candidate, millionaire lawyer, and businessman. (CNN, Al Jazeera, NPR, June 21–22, 2026.)
Trump said de la Espriella “was in 10th place” when Trump endorsed him, and won “handily.”
⚠️ Partially misleading. De la Espriella was not well-known before Trump’s endorsement, but the characterization of a “10th place” ranking is unverified. More importantly, the election result was not a decisive or “handy” victory — it was an extremely narrow preliminary count, with the result close enough that Cepeda and outgoing President Petro called for a full official count before conceding. Trump’s description of the margin as significant overstates what was actually a razor-thin outcome.
Trump described a late-night phone call: “He called me at 8:30 in the evening just to thank me very much.”
17. Washington DC Reflecting Pool: A Disputed Account
A reporter asked about contractors and vandalism at the National Mall Reflecting Pool. Trump offered an extended account of alleged sabotage:
Trump said: “We have a, I think, 290, 300-foot slit right through it. Probably, a box cutter or a knife of some kind… They went in there with a knife. I was just told by the people over at Parks, they have five people arrested and five people under investigation right now.”
He said “8647” was written in letters on the new grass surrounding the pool — numbers he characterized as a message from what he called a “dirty cop.”
A reporter challenged Trump directly: “Reporters have been down there today looking for that slit that you mentioned and there’s no evidence of it.”
Trump: “All you’d have to do is see the Parks Department. They’ll show it to you. See the secretary. But I saw it.”
When asked to release photos, Trump said: “At the right time, you’ll see it, and you’ll see it in court.”
Trump also returned to his earlier Reflecting Pool renovation, contrasting it with the Obama/Biden administrations:
Trump said: “Barack Hussein Obama… spent two years and over $100 million on trying to fix it. You know what happened to it? It never even opened. Him and Biden together spent $147 million.”
ℹ️ Not independently verified at publication time. The Obama-era Reflecting Pool project did involve a major renovation — completed around 2012 — that replaced the deteriorating concrete pool with a more sustainable design. Whether that project “never opened” or cost $147 million in total with Biden-era work combined could not be independently confirmed with available sources at press time. Trump’s claims about the current vandalism are also disputed by press corps members present at the scene.
Trump also cited crime reduction statistics during this segment: “Memphis, Tennessee, crime is down 78 percent in a matter of months. New Orleans, crime is down 79 percent.”
ℹ️ Unverifiable. These specific percentage figures could not be confirmed from publicly available crime statistics at press time.
18. A Notable Exchange: Trump’s Self-Awareness Moment
One of the ceremony’s lighter moments came when Energy Secretary Wright began: “So a hundred — 120 — 141 years ago, Albert Einstein — 121 years ago, Albert Einstein published a paper…”
Trump: “Nobody cares.”
Wright, laughing, agreed: “Good point! Good point.”
Trump explained: “I never go back there. I just — and usually they won’t catch you, but go ahead.”
The exchange was characteristic of Trump’s communication style — and, perhaps unintentionally, an apt description of his own rhetorical approach to history throughout the press conference.
19. Closing Moments: The Signature
Trump closed the ceremony by signing the executive orders on camera, noting with satisfaction: “Nice signature. Biden can’t do that. Oh, look, I’m on camera… Biden can’t do that. He used an autopen. I say, no thanks.”
Source Citation
“President Donald J. Trump Signs Executive Orders.” Political Transcript Wire, 22 June 2026. ProQuest U.S. Newsstream Collection, ProQuest document ID 3354901803. VIQ Media Transcription, Inc. Accessed 22 June 2026.
All fact-check verdicts reflect available information as of June 22, 2026. Verdicts are based on independent web searches, government sources, and published fact-checking organizations. Claims marked ℹ️ Unverifiable were searched but could not be confirmed or denied from available public sources.
Verdict key: ✅ Accurate — ⚠️ Misleading — ❌ False — ℹ️ Unverifiable