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Trump Gaggles with Press Upon Departure from Shannon, Ireland, Sep. 13, 2026

September 13, 2026 · The White House · 0:09:47

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump took questions from reporters on departing Shannon, Ireland, on September 13, 2026, closing out the Ireland visit, in a gaggle carried on the White House channel. He praised the Irish Open at Doonbeg — “The tournament was record setting. The attendance was number one” — and its Irish winner Shane Lowry, and said, “We did a lot of business. I met with [the] Taoiseach, met with various other leaders.”

The hardest news line was trade: asked whether he would actually cut off trade with a nation running a trade deficit with the U.S. unless the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates, he answered, “Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’m going to do that with some nations. I’ll have no choice. We don’t want to have deficits with nations. We want to have surpluses or at least break evens.” Challenged on polling showing low approval in Ireland, he said, “I think the polls are fake. My approval rating in Ireland is good. My approval rating in the US is great.”

He also said he would look at the 9/11 families’ request to release more records on Saudi Arabia when he got back, called it “terrible” and “inappropriate” that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Mayor Mamdani were seen laughing at the 9/11 ceremony in New York, said Ken Paxton “was a great attorney general and… continues to be,” and declined to intervene in the Lindsey Clancy case, calling it “actually a state situation, not a federal” one.

Why it matters

The departure gaggle ties the President’s two loudest economic levers together in one sentence — trade cutoffs for deficit nations, conditioned on the Fed — and it is the closing record of the Ireland trip this collection pages across September 12–13.

Scoreboard watch

This gaggle carries a candidate commitment for the scoreboard: the President’s stated intention to cut off trade with some deficit-running nations, phased “over a period of time,” tied to Federal Reserve rate policy.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Gaggles with Press Upon Departure from Shannon, Ireland, Sep. 13, 2026” (official upload, embedded above; the upload’s description places the gaggle at Shannon, Ireland). All figures and characterizations as stated by the President at the gaggle.