President Donald Trump's approval rating remains higher than at any point during his first term in office, according to a new poll from CNN.
The Thursday poll shows Trump at 47% approval rating with 52% disapproval. The poll found that a plurality of Americans, 28%, say Trump's "single most significant" action has been securing the border, followed by his slashing of government with Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency at 12%.
Meanwhile, many Americans say they want Trump to do more to address everyday prices. According to the poll, 62% of Americans say he hasn't gone far enough on the issue, including 47% of Republicans, 65% of independents and 73% of Democrats.
CNN conducted its poll from Feb. 13-17, surveying 1,206 U.S. adults in both English and Spanish. The poll advertises a margin of error of 3.1%.
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The Thursday poll shows Trump at 47% approval rating with 52% disapproval. The poll found that a plurality of Americans, 28%, say Trump's "single most significant" action has been securing the border, followed by his slashing of government with Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency at 12%.
Meanwhile, many Americans say they want Trump to do more to address everyday prices. According to the poll, 62% of Americans say he hasn't gone far enough on the issue, including 47% of Republicans, 65% of independents and 73% of Democrats.
CNN conducted its poll from Feb. 13-17, surveying 1,206 U.S. adults in both English and Spanish. The poll advertises a margin of error of 3.1%.
Subscribe to LiveNOW from FOX! https://www.youtube.com/livenowfox?sub_confirmation=1
Where to watch LiveNOW from FOX: https://www.livenowfox.com/
Follow us @LiveNOWFOX on Twitter: https://twitter.com/livenowfox
Raw and unfiltered. Watch a non-stop stream of breaking news, live events and stories across the nation. Limited commentary. No opinion. Experience LiveNOW from FOX.
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00:00Biden administration in 2021. And today we expect Kash Patel to be confirmed as the next director
00:06of the FBI. We are proud to announce that the president will host his first official cabinet
00:12meeting here at the White House next Wednesday, February 26th. In just four weeks, President
00:18Trump has already hosted the leaders of Israel, Japan, Jordan, and India. And next Monday,
00:24the president will host France's President Emmanuel Macron. And on Thursday, the UK Prime
00:30Minister Keir Starmer will visit the White House as well. As you all know, over the past month,
00:36the president has taken questions from the press, all of you, nearly every single day,
00:41sometimes on multiple different occasions in the same day on any topic any of you wish to
00:47talk about. President Trump set the tone on this approach immediately when he took more than 12
00:52times the questions in his first few hours in office as Joe Biden did in his entire first week.
00:59Yesterday, we hosted a local media row here at the White House with television and radio
01:04stations from across the country that reached up to 60 million viewers and listeners.
01:10In our ongoing pursuit of transparency on this one month celebration, I am thrilled to bring
01:16three of my colleagues and our policy experts here at the White House to further recap this
01:21incredible first month of accomplishments in greater detail. We have Deputy Chief of Staff
01:26for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, the Director of the National Economic
01:31Council Kevin Hassett, and our National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. I will hand it over to them.
01:36They will deliver brief remarks on the accomplishments of this administration
01:40in the first month, and then we will open it up to Q&A. When we open up the Q&A portion,
01:44I do ask for the sake of efficiency in this room that you direct your question to the principle
01:49you seek an answer from, and I will call on you in this room. But first, I will let them
01:54roll through their remarks. First up, I'll turn it over to Stephen Miller.
02:00Thank you. It's great to be back. I want to just thank you all for joining today,
02:05our one month celebration of the most historic opening to a presidency in American history.
02:12No president comes close to what Donald Trump has achieved over just the last 30 days. He has
02:19packed eight years of transformative action, restoring this nation, restoring our laws,
02:25restoring fairness, restoring economic opportunity, restoring national security
02:30in just one month. No one in this country has ever seen anything like it. And when you look
02:36at the consequentiality and the significance and the transformative nature of the actions he's
02:41taking, it truly defies description. For example, in just one area, this nation has been plagued
02:48and crippled by illegal discrimination, diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
02:52It strangled our economy. It has undermined public safety. It has made every aspect of life
02:57more difficult, more painful, and less safe. He has ended all DEI across the federal government.
03:05He has terminated all federal workers involved in promulgating these unlawful policies.
03:10He has ended diversity, equity, and inclusion in all federal contracting. He has restored merit
03:16as the cornerstone of all federal policy, restored the full, fair, impartial enforcement
03:23of our federal civil rights laws for the first time in generations. And he has cracked down
03:29on individuals across this government and nonprofits who have engaged in illegal racial
03:34discrimination against the American people. This includes making clear to every educational
03:40institution in this country that ending diversity, equity, and inclusion, ending unlawful race
03:45discrimination, is a precondition of receiving federal funds. He has also saved women's sports
03:53by ending the participation of men in women's sports. He has ended radical gender ideology
03:59across the entire federal government, and he's pressured the private sector to also end and
04:05combat radical gender ideology. He's reestablished the scientific and biological truth that there
04:10are only two sexes in this country, male and female, and those are biologically based
04:16determinations. They are not based and can never be based on gender identity. That includes rooting
04:22out of the Department of Defense all DEI policies, all critical race theory, all gender madness,
04:27and once again having a military that is focused solely and exclusively on readiness, preparedness,
04:33and lethality. As I'm sure Kevin will talk about more, of course, he has undertaken a historic
04:38cost-cutting effort across the federal government, launching the first ever Department of Government
04:43Efficiency, uncovering corruption on a scale that we never thought imaginable, terminating every
04:49single federal worker that we have found to be engaged in the corruption and theft and the waste
04:54of taxpayer dollars, and already saving 50 billion dollars in a single year, which over a 10-year
05:00period would be 500 billion dollars. Just think about how vast and enormous that sum is. Of course,
05:08as you all know, he has renamed the Gulf of Mexico to his correct and proper name, the Gulf of
05:13America. He has renamed Mount Denali into Mount McKinley, part of a historic effort to restore
05:18patriotism and national pride all across this land. He has ended the weaponization of the federal
05:24government, restored the Department of Justice to its true mission of combating threats to this
05:29nation and keeping the American people safe. He has ended all federal censorship of free speech.
05:36This has been one of the greatest crises that has plagued this nation. Years and years and years,
05:42the federal government violating the First Amendment to take away Americans' right of
05:46free speech, President Trump has ended that, and he has demanded that all federal workers,
05:52all law enforcement cease any effort to intimidate the rights of Americans or to police their speech.
05:59He has also restored the death penalty at the Department of Justice, including for illegal
06:04aliens who commit murder, including for those who murder cops, and including for all of those
06:09who threaten Americans with heinous acts of violence. The death penalty is back. Law and
06:15order is back. The streets are being made safe once again. On the public health front,
06:21he has launched the nation's first ever commission, the Maha Commission,
06:25Make America Healthy Again, following the historic confirmation of RFK Jr.
06:30To finally uncover the true root causes of the public health crisis in this country,
06:36the childhood disease epidemic in this country, the spiraling rates of pediatric cancer
06:42and devastating childhood sickness, he has finally created a situation where the federal
06:49health agencies in this country will be focused on preventing disease, on keeping children from
06:54getting sick in the first place, not sending them to a lifetime in and out of hospitals suffering
07:00needlessly when we can find ways to prevent this epidemic of illness. Then, of course,
07:06on homeland security, today it is officially the law of the land at the conclusion of the
07:13congressional notification process that six Mexican cartels and two transnational gangs,
07:20TDA and MS-13, so eight organizations in total, are now formally designated as foreign
07:27terrorist organizations, which means that every single member of those organizations
07:32who operates on U.S. soil is now, as a legal matter, a terrorist, and they will be treated
07:38as terrorists. This is a sea change in U.S. policy, and this means the Department of Justice
07:44and the Department of Homeland Security, along with the rest of U.S. law enforcement and the
07:48Department of Defense, are now operating in a legal reality where these cartels are recognized
07:54as terrorists, and there will be a whole of government effort to remove these terrorists
07:59from our soil and to degrade their ability to threaten or undermine any American security
08:05or sovereignty interests. Border crossings, since the day he took office, are down 95 percent.
08:13I think it's almost impossible to even describe the scale and scope of that achievement.
08:18President Trump, within days of taking office, cut border crossings 95 percent,
08:26and those few who have dared to cross are being either prosecuted or deported. They're either
08:33facing significant jail time for trafficking, smuggling, harboring, aiding, impeding, or they're
08:39being immediately removed from our soil. Either way, at the end of the process, they are going
08:44home. He's re-implemented remain in Mexico, and he has obtained historic cooperation from foreign
08:50countries all around the world in accepting their deportees back, and he has used the United States
08:55military to fully seal the southern border with a historic deployment of both active duty and
09:02National Guard troops, resumed the building of infrastructure, he has opened up Guantanamo Bay,
09:07and he's using military aircraft to carry out deportations all across this country,
09:12and ICE is joining with ATF, DEA, and FBI to carry out the largest deportation operation
09:18in American history. The criminals are going home. The border is sealed shut. America is safe,
09:23sovereign, proud, and free. We are a nation that everyone in the world understands all across this
09:28planet. You do not come here illegally. You will not get in. You will go to jail. You will go home.
09:34You will not succeed. This is the biggest and most successful change in any area of law
09:40enforcement that this nation has ever seen, and he did it in under one month. Thank you.
09:51Well, thank you, Caroline. Thank you, Stephen. One of the things that President Trump cares most
09:56about is job creation, and it was about seven years ago I had the honor of joining you in this
10:01room for the first time, and it looks like we've created a lot more jobs in the last month. Look at
10:06how many people are here. My estimate is about 180, but I didn't count. So thank you. It's really
10:11an honor to be back here. I think that I just want to go over a few things and then hand it off to
10:16Mike. The first thing is that the president has told us to prioritize fighting inflation,
10:21and he had to do that because, as you know, President Biden let inflation get completely
10:25out of control, and he did it with policies that made no sense. They made no sense. A lot of times
10:32people say to us, our friends, the journalists, why are you doing that? But I like to think,
10:38why did they do that? Why did they spend so much money? And then why did the Fed print so much
10:43money so that we had inflation as high as we've ever seen since Jimmy Carter? So why did they do
10:47that? So we're addressing inflation. We didn't have to address it in the first term because it
10:52was always in the ones, almost always. But we're going to get it back there. And how are we doing
10:55it? Well, we're doing it with a plan that President Trump and I and others have talked about in the
11:00Oval that involves like every level of fighting inflation. First, the macroeconomic level. We're
11:06cutting spending. We're cutting spending in negotiations with people on the Hill. We're
11:10cutting spending with the advice of our IT consultant, Elon Musk. And then we're also
11:17looking into supply side things like restoring Trump's tax cuts, maybe even expensing new
11:23factories so that there is an explosion of supply. If you have an explosion of supply
11:27and a reduction in government demand, then inflation goes way down. And then one of the
11:32things that you will want to say is, well, when are you going to see it? Well, the first thing
11:35that you'll see when the markets believe that we're going to get inflation under control
11:40is that the 10-year Treasury rate goes down because that's how they think about future
11:45expected inflation. And so we're still going to see some memory of Biden's inflation. It's
11:49not going to go away in a month. But the 10-year Treasury before the last Consumer Price Index,
11:53it dropped about 40 basis points. 40 basis points because markets were optimistic about our ability
11:59to fight inflation. 40 basis points is kind of not a fun thing to say. I kind of just talked
12:04that way. I apologize. But the way to think about it is for a typical mortgage, if that
12:08affects the mortgage rate, then it's going to save a typical family buying a house about
12:11$1,000 a year. And that's just in our first month. Okay. The second thing we've done is
12:16we've had a lot of trade talks. In fact, I was just meeting a minister from Mexico
12:21with Howard Lettnick just a couple of hours ago. And we're talking about reciprocal trade,
12:26and we're also talking about the fentanyl crisis. And so reciprocal trade is about
12:31our government treating other governments the way they treat us. We want trade to be fair.
12:36It turns out that Americans have been disadvantaged by foreign governments over and over,
12:40and President Trump wants it to stop. The fact that struck me as most noticeable when I started
12:47to look at what President Trump was asking us to do is that last year, last year we have data,
12:53U.S. companies paid $370 billion in taxes to foreign governments. $370 billion. Last year,
13:00foreign multinationals paid us $57 billion in taxes. We have one quarter of world GDP. They
13:07have three quarters of world GDP, and we're paying $370. They're paying $57. This is not
13:12reciprocal. We're going to try, or we're going to fix it. The other thing that we've done is we've
13:17had an all of the above energy approach that's led by Doug Burgum and Chris and a really large team,
13:25EPA. And we've already made so many actions that are going to affect the price of energy
13:31and lower inflation. We've opened up 625 million acres to energy exploration. We've cut 50 years
13:38of red tape that makes it so you can't have permits. And we've even made it so that when
13:44you go home, if you get a new one, then you can take a shower or flush a toilet or read under a
13:50light bulb. We're doing that too. So finally, let's just think about like the facts that we
13:58can see right now that we think are awesome. So guess what? Small business optimism has gone up
14:05by the most ever since President Trump came in. ISM, which is the measure of what's going on in
14:11manufacturing, it's expanding again for the first time in years. CEO confidence is the highest it's
14:20been in years. And the reason people are thinking this is that our policies give people cause for
14:27optimism. And then I want to reiterate what Stephen Miller said, because it's so important
14:32and it's so important for financial markets to start to digest this, that if, say, the Treasury
14:38Secretary or any Cabinet Secretary with Elon Musk is able to find some savings, say $100 billion,
14:46well, in CBO land, that's actually like about 10 times that or maybe 12 times that over a 10-year
14:53window. And so when you're thinking about the negotiations right now over reconciliation and
14:57thinking about, well, $4 trillion, $5 trillion, well, those numbers in terms of the savings are
15:02going to end up being small because of all the waste that we're finding. And so we're incredibly
15:06optimistic about the future of inflation and the future of our economy. And we're optimistic because
15:12we're making so much progress so far and we already see it in market prices. And with that,
15:15I'll hand it off to Mike. All right. Thanks, Kevin. Well, good afternoon.
15:23What a month and what a sea change in our foreign policy. In addition to what we're doing on the
15:30border and restoring American sovereignty, in addition to what we're doing in our economy
15:37and the job creation and the inflation reduction, we are bringing the world back to where it was at
15:43the end of President Trump's first term, which is a world of peace, prosperity, and looking forward
15:49and getting us out of the chaos that we've just seen over the last four years. So over the last
15:55month, just to name a few, I had the honor of sitting in the Oval Office as President Trump
16:04spoke with President Putin and then immediately spoke with President Zelensky. And both of them
16:12said only President Trump could bring both sides of the table and only President Trump could stop
16:17the horrific fighting that has been going on now for the better part of four years,
16:24and that only President Trump could drive the world back to peace. Both of those leaders said
16:29that in back-to-back calls. And of course, we just had our historic talks mediated by our good
16:38friends and partners, Saudi Arabia. We give great thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
16:44for hosting and sat down for the first time in years with the Russians and talked about a path
16:52forward with peace. On top of that, and one of the things that led to that was a tremendous
16:58confidence-building measure that we had with the release of Mark Fogle. I'll remind everyone,
17:03the last time that we had an American released from the Russians, either we gave up a deadly
17:10spy, pressured our allies to give up a lethal killer, or we released under the Biden administration
17:17the world's most notorious arms dealer, Victor Boot, who, by the way, had one of his main
17:22clients for arms, the cartels in Mexico and Central America. We gave up none of that.
17:29This was released as a confidence-building measure, working with our great Middle East
17:34envoy, Steve Whitkoff, and our Secretary of State as a first step towards opening these talks and
17:41then moving forward towards peace. On top of that, we've secured just in a month the return of a
17:48dozen, 12 American hostages from Russia, from Bulgaria, from Venezuela, the Taliban, and Hamas.
17:58That's from Belarus, not Bulgaria. We also had, for the first time in quite some time,
18:07we took out a senior leader of ISIS, an international financier and recruiter
18:13that the military had been trying to take out for quite some time and wasn't able to do so,
18:20frankly, because of a bureaucratic approval process. President Trump said, take him out,
18:25and that ISIS financier and leader is no longer on this earth.
18:30We've also taken action to eliminate other terrorist organizations in the Middle East.
18:36We drove, before the president was even in office, he started talking consequences for people that
18:43would hold Americans. Heretofore, there's been nothing but upside. You take an American,
18:48you get some better deal. You take another one, maybe you get a better deal. No more.
18:52There is now nothing but downside for taking Americans illegally, either as hostages or
18:58illegal detainees. When President Trump sent a very clear message across the Middle East,
19:03but particularly to Hamas, that there would be all hell to pay, we suddenly saw a breakthrough.
19:09Now, we just saw the release of yet another group of hostages. There have been dozens now,
19:15including two Americans that we've seen once again reunited with their families.
19:21As part of the talks with King Abdullah, he offered, and I think the entire world
19:28is graciously accepted, to take 2,000 sick children, cancer patients, and others out of Gaza.
19:39As a humanitarian gesture, 2,000 Gazans will come out of that hellhole that it is,
19:47that wasteland that Gaza is right now with unexploded ordnance, with debris everywhere,
19:54with no sewage, with no water. President Trump has put forward a plan to deal with
19:59the practical reality that is 1.8 million Gazans now truly suffering.
20:08Just to bring it back to our own hemisphere, we've seen literally in the last month,
20:14after years of national security experts, the generals in charge, and others,
20:20testifying and ringing the alarm bells about the Chinese Communist Party's presence in our
20:27own hemisphere, particularly in the Panama Canal. We're seeing the leadership of Panama
20:33step away from the Belt and Road program, move away from China and back towards the United States,
20:39and even enter into talks and other negotiations about addressing the ports on either side
20:47of the canal. And then finally, last but not least, we've had four world leaders
20:53in the White House, in the Oval Office. We've had the Prime Minister of Japan,
20:57the Prime Minister of India, the King of Jordan, and of course, the Prime Minister of Israel,
21:03just in the last four weeks. And next week, we'll have the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
21:09and we'll have the President of France, Macron. So President Trump is on what we call Trump warp
21:16speed. We are all honored to be really serving under his leadership and his vision. And truly,
21:27when we all say, and the President himself says, he is a president of peace. He is a president
21:34focused on restoring stability. I think the entire world saw what the world would look like without
21:40strong American leadership in the last four years. And it's truly been an honor to get us back to
21:46where we were and back on track under President Trump's leadership. Thank you, Mike. Thank you.
21:54Thank you, everybody. I'm sure you're very eager to ask questions of these very smart people
21:58working very hard on behalf of the President. We do have somebody in our new media seat today.
22:04We have John Stoll, who is the head of news at X. As you all know, you're all on X. It's home
22:10to hundreds of millions of users, a large contingent of independent journalists and
22:14news organizations across geographies and political spectrums. And at the same time,
22:20X remains the go-to platform for many legacy news outlets. And I know, as I mentioned,
22:25many of the reporters in this room use X to attract eyeballs to your work. Prior to joining
22:30X, John spent two decades in journalism, including several years as an editor at the Wall Street
22:35Journal. We are excited to have him in the briefing room today. John, we'll let you kick
22:39it off. And as I said at the top, please direct your question to the individual up here who you'd
22:44like an answer from. John, why don't you begin? All right. Thank you very much. I am sitting in
22:49for a thriving ecosystem of journalists, independent and emerging news organizations
22:55who do depend on X for publicity, for a business model. And so I look forward to seeing many of
23:02them in this seat in months and years to come. I also thank you, Caroline, for opening this seat
23:07up to new media. It really is a testament not only to your open-mindedness, but also to innovation
23:15that you'd actually think about, you know, folks that are not traditionally credentialed to be in
23:20this room. And not only have a question, but also to witness, you know, this is a very important
23:25intersection of power and the free press. And so just the ability to witness this and be part of
23:33it, it brings everybody's game up. So thank you for that. I think this is for Mike. My question
23:38is about Ukraine. Sure. For about more than 10 years, I've been fascinated, like many,
23:45with what's going on. I was in Northern Europe, working out of the Baltics when Crimea was annexed.
23:53And a lot of this came on Twitter. The platform used to be known as Twitter.
24:00A lot of European leaders would talk about their disappointment and solidarity with Ukraine.
24:06But when it came to actually doing something, it felt like they were passing a hot potato and
24:09sent it over the Atlantic. I wonder how much of what we're seeing right now out of the
24:15administration and President Trump is a call to Europe and the European leaders and the allies
24:20that we've traditionally had to pick up that hot potato and start doing something a little bit more
24:24concrete to win and preserve the peace in Ukraine. The second question I have is, it's related,
24:31is there's been some, a lot of speculation that President Trump and the administration
24:37might be manipulated by Vladimir Putin. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the
24:42administration's posture and your confidence in the competence of this administration to
24:47go toe-to-toe with Vladimir Putin. Well, if there's any, I'll take the
24:50second question first. If there's anybody in this world that can go toe-to-toe with Putin,
24:55that could go toe-to-toe with Xi, that could go toe-to-toe with Kim Jong-un,
25:00and we could keep going down the list, it's Donald J. Trump. He is the dealmaker in chief.
25:05There is no question that he is the commander in chief. I, for one, and I think all Americans
25:11and around the world should have no doubt about his ability to not only handle Putin,
25:18but to handle the complexity of driving this war to an end. Then on your first piece on Europe,
25:25I'll take you back to 2014. You're right, there was a lot of hand-wringing in Europe and not a
25:30lot of action. There's also a lot of hand-wringing here in Washington under the Obama administration
25:35and not a lot of action. They literally threw blankets at the problem. I'll remind everyone
25:41that Putin had some type of conflict, invasion, or issue with their neighbor under President Bush
25:48with Georgia, under President Obama with Ukraine 2014, not under President Trump, 45, and again
25:56with President Biden in 2022. The war should have been deterred. The war should have never
26:01happened. I have no doubt it would not have happened under President Trump. We'll stop
26:05under President Trump again. But I just want to push back on this notion of our European allies
26:11not being consulted as we've entered into this process. I already mentioned the immediate phone
26:16call President Trump made to President Zelensky. He has talked to President Macron of France
26:22repeatedly last week. President Macron convened European leaders and then is coming here
26:28on Monday. Prime Minister Starmer is coming next Thursday. I've talked to every one of my
26:38national security advisor counterparts across the spectrum in Europe. I've talked to Secretary
26:45General Rutte, the leader of NATO, the Secretary General of NATO. We have repeatedly—oh,
26:51by the way, we had half our cabinet, seven cabinet officials, including the vice president
26:56at the Munich Security Conference, all engaging, all listening, and all making sure our allies
27:01are heard. However, we've also made it clear for years, decades even, that it is unacceptable that
27:10the United States and the United States taxpayer continues to bear the burden not only of the cost
27:16of the war in Ukraine, but of the defense of Europe. We fully support our NATO allies. We
27:22fully support the Article 5 commitment. But it's time for our European allies to step up.
27:29And one of the things that Secretary General Rutte said on our call was,
27:33this last couple of weeks have been a real wake-up call. And I asked him,
27:36what have you been missing the last couple of years? The fact that we are going to enter into
27:41a NATO summit this June with a third of our NATO allies still not meeting the 2% minimum,
27:49a commitment they made a decade ago, literally a decade ago, with a war on their doorstep,
27:55the largest war that they're all extremely concerned about, but yet it's, well, somebody else
28:02needs to pay. We've got other domestic priorities. It's unacceptable. President Trump's made that
28:07clear. And the minimum needs to be met. We need to be at 100% in this June at the NATO summit.
28:13And then let's talk about exceeding it, which is what President Trump has been talking about with
28:175% of GDP. Europe needs to step up for their own defense as a partner. And we can be friends and
28:23allies and have those tough conversations. Great. Peter.
28:27Thank you, Caroline. I have a Ukraine one and a Doge one. Who can talk Doge?
28:31Stephen.
28:34All of us. Well, so Stephen, we're hearing about these Doge dividend checks that would be 20%
28:40back to taxpayers, 20% to pay down the debt. 60% is left. Who gets that?
28:46Well, the way that it works is when you achieve savings, you can either return to the taxpayers,
28:51you can return it to our debtors, or it can be cycled into next year's budget and then it just
28:58lowers the overall baseline for next year. So in other words, you can just transfer into the
29:02next fiscal window and then lower the overall spending level. And that means that you can
29:06achieve a permanent savings that way. And that reduces the deficit.
29:09And when is it that people might see those checks?
29:11Well, it's all going to be worked on through the reconciliation process with Congress that's
29:15going underway right now. As you've seen, the Senate's moving a bill, the House is moving a
29:19bill. The president has great confidence in both chambers to deliver on his priorities.
29:23I would just take this opportunity to note that President Trump has made a historic commitment
29:29to the working class of this country to fight for a major tax relief and major price relief.
29:34And cutting spending as Doge is doing and cutting taxes is the key to delivering on both of those
29:40promises. And President Trump is resolutely committed to doing both.
29:43Thank you. And on Ukraine, I guess this is for Mike.
29:45Sure.
29:46After the president's post on Truth Social yesterday, need to know, who does he think
29:51is more responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin or Zelensky?
29:57Well, look, his goal, Peter, is to bring this war to an end, period. And there has been ongoing
30:06fighting on both sides. It is World War One style trench warfare. His frustration with
30:12President Zelensky that you've heard is multifold. One, there needs to be a deep
30:19appreciation for what the American people, what the American taxpayer, what President Trump
30:24did in his first term, and what we've done since. So some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv,
30:30frankly, and insults to President Trump were unacceptable, number one. Number two,
30:36our own Secretary of Treasury personally made the trip to offer the Ukrainians what can only
30:43be described as a historic opportunity. That is for America to co-invest with Ukraine in their
30:50minerals, in their resources to truly grow the pie. So case in point, there's a foundry that
30:57processes aluminum in Ukraine. It's been damaged. It's not at its current capacity. If that is
31:03restored, it would account for America's entire imports of aluminum for an entire year. That
31:10one foundry, there are tremendous resources there. Not only is that long-term security for Ukraine,
31:17not only do we help them grow the pie with investments, but we do have an obligation
31:22to the American taxpayer in helping them recoup the hundreds of billions that have occurred.
31:29So rather than enter into some constructive conversations about what that deal should be
31:37going forward, we got a lot of rhetoric in the media that was incredibly unfortunate.
31:42And I could just tell you, Peter, as a veteran, as somebody who's been in combat,
31:48this war is horrific. And I think we've lost sight of that, of the literally thousands of
31:54people that are dying a day, families that are going without the next generation. And I find it
32:01kind of frankly ridiculous. So many people in Washington that were just demanding, pounding
32:07the table for a ceasefire in Gaza are suddenly aghast that the president would demand one and
32:13both sides come to the table when it comes to Ukraine. A war that has been arguably
32:21far greater in scope and scale and far more dangerous in terms of global escalation to U.S.
32:28security. And I do have one for Caroline. Does President Trump have a bet with Trudeau about this
32:35USA Canada hockey game tonight? And when there is a big hockey game on, is the president watching
32:41for the goals or for the fights? Probably both. I think he's watching for the United States to
32:48win tonight. I know he talked to the USA hockey team this morning. He talked to the players
32:53after their morning practice around 10 o'clock. And I also spoke to some folks from that team
32:58after they were jubilant over President Trump's comments to the team. I believe they're going to
33:03put out a video of that call. So he looks forward to watching the game tonight and we look forward
33:08to the United States beating our soon to be 51st state, Canada. Bloomberg, go ahead.
33:13My question is for Mike Waltz. Can you give us a readout of Kellogg's meeting with Zelensky
33:18that just wrapped up? And in particular, Zelensky publicly rejected this deal about the rare earth
33:23minerals. Where does that stand? Well, we're going to continue to have,
33:28he needs to come back to the table and we're going to continue to have discussions about
33:32where that deal is going. Again, we have an obligation to the taxpayer. I think this is
33:36an opportunity. The president thinks this is an opportunity for Ukraine going forward.
33:40There can be, in my view, nothing better for Ukraine's future and for their security
33:48than to have the United States invested in their prosperity long term. And then a key piece of this
33:54has also been security guarantees. Look, the reality that we're talking about here is,
34:02is it in Ukraine's interest? Is it in Europe's interest? It certainly isn't in Russia's interest
34:08or in the American people's interest for this war to grind on forever and ever and ever.
34:14So a key part of his conversation was helping President Zelensky understand this war needs to
34:21come to an end. This kind of open-ended mantra that we've had under the Biden administration,
34:26that's over. And I think a lot of people are having a hard time accepting that. And then
34:31the other piece is there's been discussions from Prime Minister Starmer and also President Macron
34:37about European-led security guarantees. We welcome that. We've been asking Europe to step up and
34:43secure its own prosperity, safety, and security. So we certainly welcome that. And we certainly
34:49welcome more European assistance. As I told my counterparts, come to the table with more
34:56if you want a bigger seat at the table. And we've been asking for that for quite some time.
35:01And has Russia pushed for sanctions in your talks with them? And have you consulted
35:05with international partners and allies about potentially rolling back sanctions
35:09in these negotiations to end the war?
35:11The talks with our Russian counterparts, both with my counterpart, the National Security Advisor,
35:17Secretary Rubio's counterpart, the Foreign Minister Lavrov, it really was quite broad,
35:27focused on what is the goals for our broader relationship, but very clear that the fighting
35:34has to stop to get to any of those brighter goals. And as a first step, we're just going
35:38to do some common-sense things like restore the ability of both of our embassies to function.
35:45And again, this is common sense. In foreign policy world, they call it shuttle diplomacy.
35:53We have to talk to both sides in order to get to both sides to the table. And both sides have said
35:58only President Trump could do that.
36:01Deanna.
36:02Thank you. And my question is for Mike Waltz.
36:04All right.
36:06The President has called Zelensky a dictator. Does he view Putin as a dictator?
36:11And does he want Zelensky out of power? I know he's called for elections.
36:17And then thirdly, the head of the Defense Committee in Ukraine's parliament
36:21just has claimed that the U.S. has stopped selling weapons to Ukraine. Is that true?
36:27Well, most of our weapons that have gone to Ukraine have been part of a drawdown
36:31authority where we've literally taken them out of our stocks and then eventually through
36:35appropriations started buying them again to refill our stocks. I'll just state that there has been a
36:42lag in a lot of that process. So many of our stocks, as we look at our operations around the
36:48world, are becoming more depleted. That's one of the reasons many people have had a lot of concern
36:54about when does this end? How much is it going to take? How many lives will be lost? How much
36:59will we spend as a member of Congress? We repeatedly asked the Biden administration
37:04those questions and we never got a satisfactory answer. Look, President Trump is obviously very
37:12frustrated right now with President Zelensky. The fact that he hasn't come to the table,
37:20that he hasn't been willing to take this opportunity that we have offered.
37:25I think he eventually will get to that point, and I hope so very quickly. But President Trump,
37:31as we made clear to our Russian counterparts, and I want to make clear today, he's focused on
37:36stopping the fighting and moving forward. We can argue all day long about what's happened in the
37:41past. There have been reports that Trump is unhappy with the rate of deportations and he
37:57wants them to be higher. Is the president happy with the rate of deportations and are there any
38:02plans to speed up the process? Well, first of all, we all appreciate the encouragement from
38:07the media to deport as many illegal aliens as humanly possible. So thank you. And I will promise
38:12you that the full might of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice,
38:18the Department of Defense, and every element and instrument of national power will be used to
38:23remove with speed all criminal illegals from the soil of the United States of America to enforce
38:30final removal orders and to ensure that this country is for American citizens and those who
38:35legally belong in this country. We inherited an ICE that was completely shuttered. We inherited a
38:41Department of Homeland Security whose sole mission was to resettle illegal aliens within the United
38:46States of America. In 30 days, the president sealed the border shut, declared the cartels to
38:52be terrorist organizations, has increased ICE deportations to levels not seen in decades,
38:59and we are shortly on the verge of achieving a pace and speed of deportations this country has
39:04never before seen. Thank you. And Mike, there have been reports that there's some underground
39:09opposition to Trump's pick for Undersecretary of Defense and Policy, Elbridge Colby.
39:15Have you or anyone from the administration been personally lobbying senators to support
39:21Elbridge Colby? Look, I've worked with Bridge Colby in the past. He has the president's full
39:29support to be the Undersecretary of Policy, which will be a critical policy arm for Secretary
39:34Hegseth going forward that will implement a lot of these policies. And really, that's been
39:40to the extent of it. I think there's been a lot of kind of breathless, I don't know,
39:47back and forth in the press, but we're full speed ahead to get the president's
39:52team in place so we can implement his America First policy. Thank you.
39:55Mike has spoken pretty extensively. Does anybody have questions for Stephen or for Mr. Heseth?
40:00Nobody wants to talk about the economy? Sure. IRS? Okay, go ahead.
40:06This could be for either one of you. So we reported, several other outlets have reported
40:11that about 3,500 people are due to lose their jobs at the IRS by the end of the week.
40:18If the goal of these spending cuts across the federal government has been to reduce the debt,
40:24why impose some of the deepest cuts we've seen so far at the agency responsible for
40:28raising revenue for the federal government? I think our objective is to make sure that
40:32the employees that we pay are being productive and effective. And there are many, many,
40:38more than 100,000 people working to collect taxes and not all of them are fully occupied.
40:43And the Treasury Secretary is studying the matter and feels like 3,500 is a small number
40:49and probably can get bigger, especially as we improve the IT at the IRS. And so I think that
40:55it's absolutely something that is on the table for good reasons. And the point is that,
40:59don't just talk about the IRS, talk about all of government. There are so many places,
41:03I live in DC, you maybe live in DC, where nobody's going to the buildings. People aren't commuting
41:09because nobody's doing their job. We look back and we see that there are all these people doing two
41:12jobs while they're getting a government payroll on the payroll. So the point is we're fixing that
41:17and the IRS is a small part of that picture. So you're saying that everybody who's being let go
41:22was doing a bad job? I'm saying that we're studying every agency and deciding who to let
41:28go and why. And we're doing so very rationally with a lot of support from analysis. Because
41:33we're being told by a lot of people who have been let go at other agencies that they were told they
41:38were being dismissed because of poor performance when in some cases they haven't even had a
41:42performance review yet because they've only been on the job a couple of months. Yeah, I've never
41:46seen a person who was laid off for poor performance say that they were performing poorly.
42:00On these potential checks that you might send out from Doge, is there a concern as you're thinking
42:04through this that they could be inflationary? Oh, absolutely not. Because imagine if we don't
42:10spend government money and we give it back to people, then if they spend it all, then you're
42:15even. But they're probably going to save a lot of it, in which case you're reducing inflation.
42:18And also when the government spends a lot, that's what creates inflation. We learned that from Joe
42:22Biden. And so if we reduce government spending, then that reduces inflation. And if you give
42:26people money, then they're going to save a bunch of it. And when they save it, then that also
42:30reduces demand and reduces inflation. Okay, so you're not worried about it. And Mr. Bolt,
42:34to follow up on Peter's question, you wrote in an op-ed in the fall of 2023 that, quote,
42:38Putin is to blame, certainly like Al Qaeda was to blame for 9-11. Do you still feel that way now?
42:43Or do you share the president's assessment as he says Ukraine is to blame for the start of this war?
42:48Well, it shouldn't surprise you that I share the president's assessment on all kinds of issues.
42:53What I wrote as a former member of Congress, look, what I share the president's assessment on
43:00is that the war has to end. And what comes with that? What comes with that should be,
43:07at some point, elections. What comes with that should be peace. What comes with that is prosperity
43:12that we've just offered in this natural resources and economic partnership arrangement,
43:17an end to the killing, and European security and security for the world.
43:23The president's not only determined to do that in Europe, he's determined to do it in the Middle
43:28East. And just a few months ago, we had an administration that had tried for 15 months,
43:35week after week, sitting with you here, and couldn't get us to a ceasefire,
43:38couldn't get our hostages out. Now we're at that point. We're back to the maximum pressure on Iran.
43:44And we will, we have just begun, and we will drive towards a ceasefire and all of those other steps.
43:51I'm not going to pre-negotiate or get ahead of the sequencing of all of that. It's a very
43:56delicate situation. But this is a president of peace, and who here would argue against peace?
44:01Okay, so you do share that assessment. And can I follow up? In 2017, then President Trump.
44:06Go ahead.
44:06Can I just follow up? You just had two questions.
44:09Mr. Hassett, you were speaking about tariff revenue, and you also addressed a question
44:17about the IRS. President Trump has spoken about replacing income tax with tariff revenue,
44:23especially with all this waste, fraud, and abuse that we're seeing cut. Is that a possibility?
44:28Absolutely. And in fact, if you think about the China tariff revenue that we're estimating is
44:33coming in from the 10% that we just added, plus the de minimis thing, that it's between 500 billion
44:40and a trillion dollars over 10 years is our estimate. And that's something that is outside
44:45of the reductions that markets are seeing through the negotiations up on the Hill. And so we expect
44:50that the tariff revenue is actually going to make it much easier for Republicans to pass a bill.
44:54And that was the president's plan all along.
44:57I have a question for Stephen Miller about Doge. So you spoke about Doge. You said roughly $50
45:04billion is set to be cut in a year of waste, fraud, and abuse by unelected bureaucrats.
45:11We're hearing this ironic narrative from the president's critics and the left-wing media that
45:15Elon Musk is an unelected bureaucrat, and he's doing all this terrible stuff.
45:19Isn't one of Doge's objectives to get rid of the federal bureaucracy, the deep state,
45:26and also who was running the White House when Joe Biden was in office? Because I don't know a single
45:31person who believes it was Joe Biden. You're tempting me to say some very harsh things about
45:38some of our media friends. Yes, it is true that many of the people in this room for four years
45:44failed to cover the fact that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent and was not running the
45:50It is also true that many people in this room who have used this talking point that Elon is
45:56not elected fail to understand how government works. So I'm glad for the opportunity for a
46:01brief civics lesson. A president is elected by the whole American people. He's the only official
46:06in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation, right? Judges are appointed. Members
46:13of Congress are elected at the district or state level. Just one man. And the Constitution,
46:16Article Two, has a clause known as the Vesting Clause. And it says the executive power shall be
46:21vested in a president. Singular. The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected president.
46:29That president then appoints staff to then impose that democratic will onto the government.
46:36The threat to democracy, indeed the existential threat to democracy, is the unelected bureaucracy
46:42of lifetime tenured civil servants who believe they answer to no one, who believe they can do
46:48whatever they want without consequence, who believe they can set their own agenda no matter
46:52what Americans vote for. So Americans vote for radical FBI reform, and FBI agents say they don't
46:58want to change. Or Americans vote for radical reform under energy policies, but EPA bureaucrats
47:02say they don't want to change. Or Americans vote to end DEI, racist DEI policies, and lawyers in the
47:09Department of Justice say they don't want to change. What President Trump is doing is he is
47:15removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement his lawful
47:22orders, which are the will of the whole American people. Thank you.
47:28Thank you very much, everybody. I'm looking at the clock. We've almost had an hour of time. I know
47:33a couple of these individuals have a meeting to get to at 2 p.m., so you're welcome to follow
47:37up with my team for further questions. We're going to let these guys get back to running the
47:42United States government, and we will see you all later. President Trump will be speaking at 3 o'clock
47:46at the Black History Month reception, so thank you. It's good to see you. We'll see you in a bit.
47:51All right, so the White House briefing wrapping up there.