Donald Trump told guests at a Rose Garden dinner for outdoor enthusiasts and industry executives that he is so powerful as president that he could ban them from fishing.
Trump made the quip during the Thursday evening event at the White House, where he signed executive orders aimed at expanding hunting and fishing opportunities and reversing certain Biden-era restrictions.
One of the executives in attendance was Johnny Morris, the billionaire founder of Bass Pro Shops.
Trump told his audience that his executive orders would help expand the fishing season and help those industries participating in the activity.
“That means you can sell a lot of fishing rods, Johnny. You’re going to sell a lot of rods. I could have made it so you couldn’t sell. You couldn’t sell anything. I could have banned fishing,” Trump mused.
“I’ll tell you what. The power of this office is crazy. I could have banned fishing and driven Johnny right the hell out of business. Okay. I think I’m going to do that. Just maybe just a quick order, just for a day or two, till he calls me and he says, ‘Please, President, please, you’re putting me out of business, sir.’”
Trump told the audience that only one other president could rival the former New York City real estate developer for support from America’s hunters and fishermen: “America's outdoorsmen have not had a better friend in the Oval Office for many, many years. Probably the late great President Theodore Roosevelt was very good.”
In typical Trump fashion, the president also boasted to dinner guests about his latest renovation projects around Washington, D.C.
“We've done a lot of work on the White House,” Trump said in the Rose Garden, which he paved over to make way for a Mar-a-Lago style patio. “The exterior was in bad shape, very, very bad shape.”
Trump specifically mentioned his new black and white granite helipad designed to look like the presidential seal and constructed right on the South Lawn of the White House.
“What they've been able to do with stone, with granite, six inches thick, carved with a beautiful eagle. It's a helipad where the helicopters can land. Never had that before,” the president said.
“Frankly, the new helicopters that were purchased are so powerful that they ripped the grass out. I said, ‘What about trying to build a helipad,’ and it really came out good, very good.”
At an Oval Office event in July, Trump said that Sikorsky Aircraft, a subsidiary of the mega defense contactor Lockheed Martin, was paying for the helipad because they felt “a little guilty” for not warning about the power of the fleet of helicopters they completed in 2024 for use as the president’s Marine One.
“They are paying for the cost of it – it’s about $5 or $6 million,” Trump told reporters at the time.
