stay July 24th he will address the Veterans of Foreign Wars 119th annual
convention President Trump is committed to our veterans and his work to reform
the VA inter ensure veterans are given the care and support they deserve the
president looks forward to being with the more than 4,000 veterans in
attendance yesterday the US Senate confirmed
Randy Quarles as the vice chair for supervision at the Federal Reserve but
it is unfortunate that his nomination was continually delayed there are still
three more nominees to the Fed who have yet to receive a vote it is inexcusable
that Senate Democrats have delayed confirming the president's nominees an
even worse example of a necessary delay is the nomination of Don stump to be a
commissioner on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission there is no
opposition to her but yet she has been waiting for 400 days for a vote we urged
Senate Democrats to stop these unnecessary delays and confirm these
qualified nominees lastly on behalf of the president in the White House we
offer prayers for United States Secret Service Special Agent Noll Edward Roman
and his family including his wife and two young children
The Secret Service announced this morning that agent R Omega n-- suffered
a stroke while on duty in Scotland last week and has tragically passed away he
was a five-year veteran of the United States Marines and spent 19 years with
the Secret Service the President and the First Lady are deeply grateful for his
lifetime of devotion to his country and the men and women of the Secret Service
make enormous sacrifices for our safety and security and we are forever in their
debt and with that I will take your questions major earlier she asked the
president is Russia still targeting the u.s.
said no is that what the president actually believes do you understand the
question and his his petit position that no Russia is not doing anything to
interfere or medal of the 2018 election a chance to speak with the president
after his comments and the president was said thank you very much and was saying
no to answering questions the president and his administration are working very
hard to make sure that right Russia is unable to meddle in our elections as
they have done in the past as if we have stated well since there's currently not
an election today not specifically but we certainly believe that we are taking
steps to make sure they can't do it again
unlike previous administrations this president is actually taking bold action
and reform to make sure it doesn't happen again
but he does believe that they would target certainly US elections again the
president and the DNI coach who said the red lights are blinking that's why we're
taking steps to ensure that these things don't happen again we wouldn't actually
spend as much time and effort as we are if we didn't believe that they were
still looking at us from the beginning of his administration president Trump
has actually taken action to defend our election system from meddling and
interference I'm going to read through a few of the things that we're doing in
May of 2017 president Trump signed an executive order to strengthen and review
the cyber security of our nation and it's critical infrastructure the
Department of Homeland Security has taken the lead in working with all 50
states local governments and private companies to improve election security
DHS has increased coordination among all election partners 34 states 52 county
and local governments and five election companies receive cyber security scans
regularly from DHS DHS plans to provide on-site risk and vulnerability
assessments to all states that requested so far 18 states have requested this
assessment a new pilot program was launched to increase Rapid Response
capabilities on election day and in 2017 on-site cyber security support was
provided in March of 2018 Congress provided the election assistance
Commission with 380 million dollars in funding for
election assistance grants to States these are steps that we've taken to
prevent it from happening these are steps that we've taken because we see
that there's a threat there cecilia clarifying what you just said dan coates
at Point Lake the threat is still ongoing from Russia does this White
House believe that currently this threat is still ongoing certainly like I just
said we believe that their threat still exists which is why are we are taking
steps to prevent it again you wouldn't go through that lengthy process if you
weren't the president 5 is comments from history does the president stand by all
of his other public comments on the trip including using a consummate interview
criticizing Teresa mace handling of the brett's
negotiations is a comments that Russia other than Russia controlled Germany
over pipeline and and other comments in that press conference Monday where he
continued to doubt was throw to cast doubt on the intelligence community
assessment of Russian bailing the 2016 elections he stand by all of those again
the president saw need to clarify the position he saw how his comments were
being interpreted he looked at the transcript and clarified those comments
has had any response to the arrest and indictment
Russian national was who's accused of traditional trade American civil
organizations clearly right into China influenced American politics certainly
we're looking at that but just to clarify I know that there was a massive
media hysteria yesterday over a confusion between that individual and a
White House staffer which I think shows frankly the outrageousness and the just
desire to find the negative and everything that this president does just
because somebody was simply redheaded they were accused of being some sort of
spy for Russia I think that this has gotten totally out of control you guys
need to take a little bit of a step back slow down and quit going after the Trump
administration on every single thing that you have no responsibility ever I
said we're looking at it but this is a lengthy process we're going through it
however I do have a response to the fact that simply because somebody had the
same hair color they were accused of being a Russian spy by a large number of
people frankly in this room Roberta's the president today and Secretary of
State and both spoke about progress intox trade talks with Mexico and I'm
wondering whether trilateral talks with Mexico in Canada and also the bilateral
talks with Canada are effectively off the table for now is the administration
choosing to go with Mexico where they see there's progress and forget about
the trial at fort we're continuing both of those tracks we see a lot of progress
on the conversations with Mexico and if we could make a bilateral deal with them
we're certainly very happy to do that but again we're continuing both
conversations both tracks Maggie thank you Sara Russian authorities yesterday
named several Americans and they want a question and they claim were involved in
ill Browder's quote-unquote crimes and in their terms including former
ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul this president Trump's support that idea is
the open to having US officials questions that the president is gonna
meet with his team and we'll let you know when we have an announcement on
that so second is that a topic that came up in their conversation
and raise this with the president drum uh there was some conversation about it
but there wasn't a commitment made on behalf of the United States and the
president will work with his team and we'll let you know if there's an
announcement on that front like the president earlier today said that there
could be quote tremendous retribution for the European Union if there's not a
deal struck on auto imports in the past he has talked about potentially putting
a tariff okay 20 percent is that what he meant today by tremendous retribution or
is it possible he goes even beyond that certainly it's an option on the table
that the president is considering but we are in the investigation process right
now and we'll let you know we have an announcement it makes you brought up the
fed the the beige book just came out which is anecdotes from across the
country of what's happening with the economy here's some of the headlines
manufacturers are concerned about terrace they're dealing with higher
prices because of trade tariffs are increasing metal prices and AG prices
have fallen because of Chinese tariffs it's not necessarily a rosy picture with
the tariff situation your response to those headlines would be why the
president has focused on long-term economic principles we have one of the
strongest economies that we've had in decades he continues to look for ways to
help to protect American workers and he's going to continue to do that on a
number of different fronts in a number of different ways again this is
short-term and the president hopes to open up a number of different markets
and to create a more plain trade field across the globe you make two questions
the first one in Finland President Trump I'm gonna talk about the stances of the
US intelligence community and Russia he said both both part I have competence in
both parties after a young woman was killed in Charlottesville not in Choctaw
Virginia after protesting neo-nazis he said I think there's blame on both sides
some people see the president continuously making false equivalencies
and equivalences what do you say to that criticism I would not compare the two
situations the president I think said exactly what he thought yesterday in his
remarks and I would refer you back to those jobs and also does the presidency
that interference in the 2016 election in possibly in the midterms as an attack
on democracy American democracy us the the secretary for homeland security said
that it was an attack on American democracy but the president said that
the Democrats were weak that Republicans basically had better systems and he
didn't see it as an issue of American democracy or just his opponents being
attacked again the president thinks that we have to focus on securing our
election integrity in our election systems which is why he has spent so
much time with his administration making sure that this doesn't happen again
let's not forget that this didn't happen under president Trump's watch this
happened under the Obama administration we're taking steps we're making bold
reforms to try to fix this and make sure it never happens again
because we take it seriously and because we recognize that our election system
are incredibly important and there's certainly a cornerstone of our democracy
Josh the president spent two hours of ten minutes with my 13 deal we made on
Syria was this deal made on anything can you give us any sense of what came out
of that meeting certainly as the president said a number of issues were
raised including Syrian humanitarian aid Iran's nuclear ambition Israeli security
North Korea and denuclearization Ukraine and the occupation of Crimea reducing
Russian and US nuclear arsenals and of course your favorite topic
Russia's interference in our elections all of these issues were talked about
this is the beginning of the dialogue with
Russia and our administration and there's and we're gonna continue working
through those things but those were all of the topics and certainly probably
others that were covered on a number of issues from the indexing of Crimea to
election meddling the president seems to spent more time criticizing his
predecessor Barack Obama for letting it happen under his telling ban Vladimir
Putin do you have any sense why the president has not been more critical of
Putin for some of these events that the entire world stages has really gone
after about look I think the president as he has said many times before has
been tougher on Russia than anybody I think you can see that in all of the
actions that he's taken whether it was a plant that was closed due to aluminum
and steel tariffs that were put in place by this president the Treasury
Department has issued new sanctions on numerous individuals and entities in
Russia the president's continued sanctions on Russia's malicious cyber
activity in response to election hacking we've expelled 60 Russian operatives
from the United States and closed two consulates President Trump
issued four statements condemning Russia's poisoning of UK citizens on UK
soil authorized the sale of lethal aid to Ukraine authorized military strikes
against the Assad regime in Syria and has repeatedly called out Russia's
actions exporting energy to our allies in Eastern Europe look the president has
been extremely tough on Russia and to say anything different just not true by
name former Ottoman Putin I want he criticized Putin by that I think he has
I think he has called them out for interfering our election he's been tough
on Russia repeatedly and he's taken action against Russia on a number of
fronts that I just listed off why wasn't he critical of approved actions what
they had a number of conversations the president discussed some of these things
directly face-to-face with Vladimir Putin he addressed him again yesterday
the president also sees this as an opportunity as he said many times to be
able to work with Russia he recognizes the fact that 90 percent of the world's
nuclear weapons are under the direction of the United States and Russia
he thinks it's a good thing to get along with the other person that controls that
much of the nuclear arsenal across the globe he wants to create a more stable
world a more peaceful world and we can't do that if we can't get along with
Russia in some capacity and so certainly we've called him out we've been tough
we've approached this in a totally different fashion than has been
previously done because what's been done in the past hasn't worked so we're
trying a new approach but to act like he hasn't been tough on Russia that he
hasn't called them out is simply not true and it simply completely changes
everything that this administration has done in regards to that country Josh I'm
gonna keep going Justin I'm gonna go you describe the negative impacts of the
conflict in China a short term but that's only true if we're able to strike
a better deal and from the outside since the tariffs went on what two weeks ago
it seems like those negotiations have broken down so I'm wondering it to be
tell us about the status of them are why the Treasury secretary isn't meeting
one-on-one with China when it's in Argentina for the g20 and what it would
take from the Chinese or from the US to restart those times look I'm not gonna
negotiate with you guys I'm gonna leave that to secretary minuchin an ambassador
Lida Heiser we're continuing to have conversations with China we're
continuing to look for ways that we can have a better trade deal with them all
up on Maggie's question because she asked about the idea that Putin offered
essentially allowing robert muller and his investigators to go to russia to
oversee or witness the interrogations of the russian military intelligence
officers if the US would reciprocate and have Russian investigators come here to
watch American citizens face questions about the crimes that they allegedly
committed the president called it an interesting
idea he said it was an incredible offer why would he say that he said it was an
interesting idea he didn't commit to anything he wants to work with his team
and determine if there's any validity that would be helpful to the process but
again we've committed to nothing and it was an idea that they threw out Sarah
some Democrats on Capitol Hill now are saying that they want to drag the
translator who was in the room with the president and Vladimir Putin before
congressional committees to find out exactly what was said in their private
meeting is that something that the White House would ever support that's
something that would go through the State Department Mike yeah the list of
subjects you went through is hard for that one-on-one meeting unless I missed
it worse sanctions disgust at all if to the president bring an apple or
different bring it up to the president Trump I'm
not aware I'd have to ask to be sure calyx just one quick one yesterday the
president's revision it was kind of seen widely that he was meeting himself a
little bit of room when he said there could have been others to move metal was
he referring to any specific intelligence on that or is that his
instinct certainly the president receives a number of briefings and has
talked about this subject pretty extensively were aware the others that
have made attempts but I can't get into any of that here at this point a few
questions for you and I want to just clarify some he talked about the
beginning the briefing so despite the video that shows the president looking
at Cecilia and answering no to this question about whether Russia is still
targeting the US and despite multiple people in the room understanding that
the president was responding to that question and despite the president
having never before said the word no no repeatedly to us no reporters out of the
room yes you're saying you're saying it to reverse you're saying it the
presidency this is the first thing that the president said after the question
was asked was thank you very much and he said no I'm not answering any more
questions and even further I think even Cecilia didn't realize what the answer
was because she asked for clarification and he didn't answer the follow-up she
wasn't sure I talked to the president he wasn't answering that question he was
saying no he's not taking questions and I've stated what our position is which
is the president this is the second time in three days that the president of the
White House has come out and reversed what the president has said actually
what I'm interpreting what the president said I'm not reversing it while I was in
the residence well and I didn't take it the way you did but why should this
president have any credibility to Americans in what he says if in fact 24
hours later or in this case three hours later the White House comes out and says
just kidding first of all that's not what I said I was interpreting what the
president is intention was and stating the administration's policy it's not
exactly what you just explained we never said just kidding and I think and I
think that you can take the fact that the president has credibility because he
saw that he had misspoken and he wanted to clarify that yesterday
which he did so when he sees that he's misspoken he comes out and he says
Jordan Jordan will just to follow up on my second question Sarah's right I'm
going to have you told Josh the president has been once again Ali I'm
moving on to Jordan Jordan go ahead I
don't think any of us remember at least I don't remember a time when the
president has publicly called up Vladimir Putin I think by stating the
fact that the president said that Russia interfered with our election that's a
pretty bold call out of another world leader Jordan go ahead senators Rubio
event honda introduced legislation that would impose new sanctions on Russia if
the intelligence agencies find the medal in the 2010 midterms or in the future
with the president Trump support proposal like that they're not gonna get
into a hypothetical situation until we until we see you know a final piece of
legislation and also a determination if there's election meddling again our goal
is to stop that from happening which is why we've spent such a significant
amount of time in the first year and a half of our administration focusing on
protecting the election integrity
Cesare's voter suppression included with that please if we could go on pattern
new question did you choose not to call on me it's photo suppression part of
that election process that the president is trying to look for oh you're not
going to answer that though exposing all the county issues
that our community in America asked about you got the answer John go ahead
that's all right fine thank you Sarah I wanted to ask you about the immediate
reaction to the president's comments that he made
that joint press conference in Helsinki that was immediate every cable channel
Fox NBC CNN reacted immediately to the suggestion the president made that he
did not believe that Russia interfered in the u.s. presidential election
I got bike inbox inundated with emails from Republican members of Congress with
their reaction immediately in 24 hours to 24 hours for the president to correct
the record why did it take so long for the president to clarify the comments
that he made at that press conference look the president put out an initial
tweet after boarding Air Force One that clarified his comments on the
intelligence community wanted to make sure that was clear and at the very
first chance he had in a public setting the following day he clarified his
comments and I don't think that it was that long for that to be the very first
public appearance that he had following arriving back to the United States it's
a pretty long time and it was out there for it wasn't actually 24 hours before
he responded at all again he put out an initial tweet from Air Force One on this
to clarify his remarks and change the wood to wood it wouldn't
and I think that you know a lot of people would argue that there was ample
time for the president he tweets all the time from Air Force One anywhere he did
that to put out a statement which clarified what he meant to say during
the joint news conference and he didn't do that what's up so long as my question
once he reviewed the transcript he wanted to publicly he wanted to publicly
address the clarification and which he did Deputy Attorney General rod roses
scene is that something that the White House would support for the lack of
cooperation and turning over documents to Congress the president's made clear
he liked all documents to be turned over but we're continuing to work with the
art department of justice I don't have anything further with the White House
denounce that ever been do they have the do they have confidence within the
Deputy Attorney Carol the president would like to see the documents turned
over when the president no longer has confidence in someone his administration
will let you know conference with Prime Minister may I asked the president as he
was leaving whether or not he would tell Vladimir Putin to stay out of US
elections as he was leaving with Prime Minister he said yes did the president
tell addameer Putin at their summit in Helsinki to stay out of US elections
certainly the president as both he and President Putin said discussed election
meddling I think we've made very clear what our position is on that they
discussed election meddling but did the President of the United States tell the
president Russia to stay out of US elections to President Putin the
president has made clear to Vladimir Putin that he should stay out of US
elections sorry I will go ahead reserved record was a reporter
last question bye-bye it was a recording made of their one-on-one meeting because
I exist I'm not aware cessarich the president is very concerned about the
election process you talk about what he's doing you did not you did not
mention voter suppression and that voter suppression has been an issue for for
decades and particularly in these last few elections these voter suppression
now on the table when he was talking about voter fraud people were talking
about voter suppression as well his voter suppression on the table is well
we want to do everything within our power to protect the integrity of our
elections and we're going to look at that on a number of fronts the reason I
dressed address these specific issues is because of Russians involvement in our
elections in the past I'm going to take one last question so I want to change
the topic a minute if I may and go south sure I think that thank you
so the incoming president of Mexico has made two very bold suggestions number
one he's looking at giving amnesty to the drug cartels operating within there
today they come out and say they're seriously looking at legalizing all
drugs in Mexico now if they do that obviously it's going to have a
tremendous impact on the incoming amount of drugs in the into the United States
what is the president's position on that and are they going to do anything to
stop that from happening in Mexico certainly we're going to continue
engaging with our Mexican partners I don't have a specific policy
announcement on that front however I can say that we would not support the
legalization of all drugs anywhere and certainly wouldn't want to do anything
that would allow more drugs to come into this country thanks so much have a great
day
you
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