This rally could be the most epic rally so far this year.  The far-left Mayor of Minneapolis has done everything possible to block President Trump from rallying his supporters in Minnesota.  However, President Trump is undeterred, resolute, and there are tens of thousands of supporters ‘standing‘ to support the peoples’ president.

President Donald Trump will be holding the Keep America Great Rally at the Target Center.  The president is expected to speak at 7:00pm CDT / 8:00pm EDT:

Video Added:

RSBN Livestream Link – GST Livestream Link – Global Times Livestream Link

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Devin Nunes appears on Fox News with Sean Hannity to discuss the manipulated one party procedures within Pelosi’s impeachment program.

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Speaker Pelosi cannot engage the courts for support against the Executive Branch because the House has not created their judicial authority.  As a result of their lack of a vote to initiate the House “impeachment inquiry” there is no penalty for non-compliance behind any committee subpoena.

Attempting to compel testimony that crosses through the separation of powers; and goes even further in an attempt to penetrate the firewall around executive privilege; requires the House -or a committee therein- to carry “Judicial Authority“.

“Judicial Authority” is not absolute authority, but rather a legal reference and framework that forms the basis for an impeachment ‘compulsion demand‘ (or subpoena) by the House.  Judicial Authority is the House saying they have a legal basis to make a demand.

The reason judicial authority is necessary, is because creating Judicial authority, via the Legislative Branch full chamber vote, gives the Executive Branch access to appeal any legislative demand via the Judicial Branch (federal courts).

Repeat for emphasis:

…The reason judicial authority is constitutionally required, is because creating Judicial authority, gives the Executive Branch a process to appeal any legislative demand via the Judicial Branch (federal courts)….

Absent the creation of judicial authority the House has not created a penalty for non-compliance.  However, absent a penalty for non-compliance the Executive Branch has no process to engage an appellate review by federal courts.   This is the purposeful trick within the Pelosi/Lawfare road-map.

Speaker Pelosi’s current Lawfare-inspired road-map (House and committee rule changes therein) attempts to construct a path to impeachment that avoids asserting House “judicial authority”; because they fear losses from a Judicial Branch ruling.  Those who constructed the road-map are also concerned about outright blocks by the courts in their proceedings.

This process issue was argued by Lawfare member Douglas Letter today during a hearingon the topic of the House Judiciary Committee gaining access to Weissmann/Mueller’s grand jury evidence.  [Expanded Here]

Here’s the bottom line: “Judicial Authority”, granted by a full House vote, gives the House of Representatives more authority in their impeachment construct.  However, “judicial authority” also grants the Executive Branch a path to appeal via the Judicial Branch.

Because the Lawfare/Pelosi roadmap intends to subvert judicial authority, it is destined by design to end up running head-first into a constitutional problem; specifically separation of power and executive privilege.  That predictable constitutional issue will end up with arguments to The Supreme Court.  THAT is why the Democrats have been working for months to delegitimize the Supreme Court.

Please let me repeat for emphasis.  The Lawfare impeachment road-map is designed to conflict with the constitution.  It is a necessary -and unavoidable- feature of the plan, not a flaw.  Pelosi and the Lawfare group know they are creating a constitutional crisis; that is why the background attacks against the Supreme Court were started months ago.

Earlier today President Trump held a White House event to sign an executive order on Transparency in Federal Guidance and Enforcement. [Details Here and Here]

In addition, President Trump took numerous questions from the media during a lengthy press conference [Video and Transcript below].

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. I’ll start by saying I just spoke with Boris Johnson, and we had a good talk about a number of subjects, and we’ll maybe talk about it a little bit later. But we had an extended conversation and some pretty good ideas, I think. They want to see if we can do a couple of things, and they’ll be doing certain things for us.

I want to also thank the Minneapolis Police Department. They have been so incredible, what they’ve done. Tomorrow, we have a tremendous amount of people planned to go. I know the requests have been incredible. So, I think it’s a great state and we’re going to have a lot of fun tomorrow night. I think a lot of you are going to be with us. And then, on Friday night, we’ll be going to Louisiana, and there’s a big election on Saturday to see whether or not there’s a runoff, most likely. And I think we’ll do very well. The Republicans are doing very well despite the witch hunt that they have on Republicans.

So I just want to thank everybody for being here and coming to the White House on this important occasion. In a few moments, I’ll be signing two executive orders to expand our record-breaking regulatory reduction campaign that is helping to fuel our incredible economic boom. I guess the stock market is up close to 250 points today, and this is despite lots of trade deals that are getting done one by one.

We did a deal with South Korea — a big one, a really big one. And we did one yesterday with Japan. And that now goes into effect, and it’s tremendous for our farmers.

As you know, we have China coming. They’ll be coming tomorrow. We have the Vice Premier of China coming. So we have a lot of big things happening. We have some tremendous deals under negotiation. So despite all of that, we have a great economy and a great market. Our housing market is on fire, and things are really doing well.

You look at Asia, they’re not doing well. Look at China; China is having a hard time at this moment, and I think they’d like to make a deal very badly.

And so we have a lot of things that are really exciting. And to be in the midst of negotiating some of the worst trade deals ever made, and to be breaking them up and changing them for the good of the American taxpayer and for our country, and to still be doing so well. We had over 100 record-breaking stock markets. I think 121 or something. I’ll get you the exact number. But many, many days, we broke the record. And we continue to do well.

And when these trade deals are done, and when certain other things that we’re doing are done, it’s going to be at a level that’s incredible.

(Baby coos.)

That was the cutest noise. What was that? (Laughter.) I heard this — see, I’m used to hearing them. (Laughter.) And there’s nothing cute about them. (Laughter.) So beautiful. And don’t feel bad, he can — just do whatever you want, okay? (Laughter.) That’s a beautiful sound.

Today, we take bold, new action to protect Americans from out-of-control bureaucracy and stop regulators from imposing secret rules and hidden penalties on the American people.

We’re delighted to be joined on this occasion by Acting Director Russ Vought, who has really done a fantastic job; Deputy Attorney [General] Jeffrey Rosen. Are you busy enough, Jeff? (Laughter.) Huh? And Congressman Mark Meadows. Mark, fantastic that you’re here. Louisiana Solicitor General — oh, I’ll be there — Liz Murrill. Where’s Liz? I’ll see you on Friday.

MS. MURRILL: Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t know if you’ll be there, but we have a big crowd, so it’s going to be great. Thank you very much, Liz.

And several other state and local officials. We want to thank you all for being here.

For many decades, federal agencies have been issuing thousands of pages of so-called “guidance” documents — a pernicious kind of regulation imposed by unaccountable bureaucrats in the form of commentary on how rules should be interpreted.

All too often, guidance documents are a backdoor for regulators to effectively change the laws and vastly expand their scope and reach. Guidance has frequently been used to subject U.S. citizens and businesses to arbitrary and sometimes abusive enforcement actions. Ha! It sounds like they’re talking about me. (Laughter.) I think they’re talking about me. I might have a conflict in signing this deal.

Because of these materials and the fact that these materials are too often hidden and hard to find, many Americans learn of the rules only when federal agents come knocking on the door.

This regulatory overreach gravely undermines our constitutional system of government. Unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats must not be able to operate outside of the democratic system of government — wow — imposing their own private agenda on our citizens. A permanent federal bureaucracy cannot become a fourth branch of government, unanswerable to American voters. In America, the people must always reign.

With us today is Andy Johnson from Wyoming — great place — whose family is one of many that suffered from the absurd redefinitions and interpretations of federal bureaucrats. And Andy is here to say a few words. I’d like to hear that Andy because I think you might be speaking about me or to me. Thank you very much. Where’s Andy? Come on up here with that beautiful baby. Beautiful. That’s great. Thank you, Andy.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Go ahead, please.

MR. JOHNSON: Well, thank you for having me, today, and my wife Morgan and my son, Roaman. I work as welder in Wyoming, and about five years ago, when I applied for a stock pond permit for my private property, I had no idea that the EPA would come knocking at my door and threaten me and my family — civilly, criminally, and a fine of $37,500 per day. The fines were up to $16 million when Pacific Legal Foundation stepped in and sued the EPA on my behalf, and my family.

And, at that point, the EPA changed their attitude; we were able to come to an agreement. We won our case, but unlike a lot of other middle class Americans, that’s not the case. They — we could have never fought. The litigation was way, way too expensive. So I’d just like to thank the President today for signing this executive order, which will hold the EPA and other government agencies more responsible for their actions. Thank you. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: That’s fantastic. Thank you.

MR. JOHNSON: Thank you. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: So they had you up to $16 million. But that’s peanuts for you, right? (Laughter.) That’s great. Glad it worked out and it’s working out even better.

We’re also joined by Richard Schok, who was prevented from expanding his business because of the obscure regulatory guidance on a rule from the 1980s — an old rule. And, Richard, please come up and talk about it. Thank you. Thank you, Richard. Please.

MR. SCHOK: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you.

MR. SCHOK: Thank you.

Mr. President, I’d like to thank you for the invitation to speak and bring much-needed attention to the reform to the rulemaking process used by the regulatory agencies.

I operate a family-owned business in Fairbanks, Alaska. We purchased some land for our business about 20 years ago so we could move operations out of town to the new facility and expand our facilities. We’ve spent the better part of 10 years and over $300,000 fighting with the regulatory agencies over the arbitrary and capricious nature of the Army Corps of Engineers wetland designation and their use of the Alaska supplement versus the 1987 congressionally-mandated Wetlands Manual.

This is effort is also — this effort does not include the time and energy put forth by the Pacific Legal Foundation on our behalf. I’d like to thank those folks as well.

The last straw for us is when we lost our appeal in the Ninth Circuit Court when they held that the agencies can make the regulations they want and require without congressional approval or oversight.

I’m hopeful that the changes made today — with this executive order, other land owners will not be negatively impacted as we have. Thank you again for this opportunity.

THE PRESIDENT: It’s great. Thank you, Richard. (Applause.)

Well, thank you very much, Richard. You know, you mention the Ninth Circuit. So, we have a lot of great new judges in the Ninth Circuit, and we’re going to be very close to 182 new judges over the next very short period of time. So that’ll be — we are in record territory by a lot.

So we’re going to have 182 new federal judges, not including two Supreme Court judges. And I guess we’re already at the 156 number. Jeff and Mark, I think we’re at about 156 judges now signed and sitting and doing a great job. But we’ll be at about 182 before we normalize — normalize, meaning retirement and various other reasons that they leave. And we could average about 40 or so a year from that process. So we’ll have a — probably, a very big record number of judges — federal judges in this administration.

And I want to thank President Obama for leaving us 138 empty slots, because that’s a first. (Laughter.) That’s a first. I said, “How many do we have?” He said, “Sir, you have 138 to 142.” I said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” So I want to thank you, President Obama.

And again, Richard, thank you very much for your nice words. When Americans and their businesses are sued by government agencies, they are sometimes not even given an explanation of what they do wrong, and how they can fix it.

With us today is Kevin Lunny, whose company was forced out of business through the terrible practice of a certain way of government handling of things. Not fair; not right. Kevin, please come up and discuss it. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you very much.

MR. LUNNY: My name is Kevin Lunny. I’m a third-generation cattle rancher at the Point Reyes National Seashore in California.

About several years ago, we also were the owners of the Drakes Bay oyster farm — a sustainable family business where we produced nearly half of all the oysters in the state of California.

THE PRESIDENT: Wow.

MR. LUNNY: In 2014, the National Park Service launched a National Environmental Policy Act process that costs millions of dollars and lasted over eight years. And the National Park Service forced our oyster farm out of business. And if that wasn’t enough for our family and our community, today the rest of agriculture, which includes about another 24 ranching family farm businesses within the National Seashore, are facing the exact same process.

Our fear is that that process could ultimately be facing — and those families may be facing what the oyster farm faced. And so I’m here, Mr. President, thanking you for calling this meeting together so we can have this discussion. We urge you to continue your good work in following these policies and making sure these federal policies are managed in a way that family farmers and ranchers like us can actually benefit and survive these procedures and — so they’re not just for federal agencies that have pre-decided what they want before the process has begun and for professional litigants that abuse the process.

Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Well thank you, Kevin. (Applause.) (Applause.) Thank you. And the business is — is the business gone now?

MR. LUNNY: The business is gone. Twenty million oysters destroyed.

THE PRESIDENT: Wow. They forced you out of business?

MR. LUNNY: Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: So, I have to say, Kevin, I really — I know what you’ve been through. I read a little bit about it. And I’ve heard about it, also. And it’s very sad. But we thank you both for being here, very much. Really, thank you very much.

No American should ever face such persecution from their own government — except, perhaps, your President. (Laughter.) Don’t feel bad, Kevin. (Laughter.) They treated you better than they treat me. (Laughter.) I do believe that’s true, huh? I do believe that’s true, Meadows.

Today, I am taking action to stop it. My first executive order will require agencies to publish guidance documents online, so that small businesses and everyday citizens can easily find them.

Agencies will have to seek public input on the most important guidance, and the whole process will be closely overseen by the White House. We’re going to have somebody right here in the White House looking at it, Kevin, so this doesn’t happen to other people. You’re very brave to be here. I really think it’s incredible. I really mean it. Americans will no longer be subject to the rules of hidden games that are played on the public.

The second order I will sign today will protect American citizens from secret interpretations of regulations, unexpected penalties, and violations of their rights. From now on, agencies will be required to inform individuals about any case against them and respond to their arguments. It will be the agency’s duty to fully educate small businesses about new regulatory changes.

Today’s action is just the latest step in my administration’s tireless fight to curtail job-killing, soul-crushing regulations. I want to thank Jeff for doing the great job. The Justice Department worked very hard with all of our people over here. They did a fantastic job and I want to thank you very much, Jeff.

We ended the war on American energy. We’re cancelling restrictions that devastated American autoworkers. We’re stopping regulations that micromanaged our great farmers. We’re bringing major companies back to our country. They want to be here. We’re the hot economy. We’re the place they want to be. And we are reversing the last administration’s ridiculous attack on, as an example, incandescent lightbulbs.

We’re also working, as you know — cars are very expensive. Far too expensive. And we’re going to be able to bring the price of cars down about $3,500 — and, at the same time, make the car a lot more affordable and a lot safer. So we’re going to have affordability, safety, and we’ll also be getting some of the old cars off the roads, because people now have an incentive to buy a new car that’s a lot less of a problem, from an environmental standpoint. It’s really an amazing thing.

We’re going against California. And they make their cars so light, it’s papier-mâché. And you get in an accident; it’s very, very dangerous. So we’re coming out with a whole new standard, and I think it’s going to be something very special. It’s gotten tremendous receptivity.

Same thing with the lightbulb, the incandescent lights. Aside from the fact you look better — of course, who cares about looks? But you do look better with incandescent. They weren’t allowed. And you have the privilege of buying now a much more expensive bulb under the past rules — much more expensive bulb that doesn’t have a good-looking light. But maybe, very importantly, when the bulb is out and no good, it’s literally considered a hazardous waste site, because it’s all the gasses. And if it breaks, you’re supposed to bring it to a certain location. And I say, “Who does that?” Nobody. Nobody does. It’s very dangerous.

So we have a — we’re allowing people to choose. They can buy a much less expensive bulb that looks better, or they can spend a lot more money on what they were doing, and that’s fine, too. They might like it. It might last longer, and that’s okay. But it is still a hazardous situation when you have to dispose of these things, whereas in the old system, you don’t have. So we’re bringing the incandescent bulb back for those that want it. We’re going to have both alternatives. We like to have alternatives.

At the start of my presidency, I imposed a two-for-one rule on new regulations, requiring that for every new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.

In the first two years of the Obama-Sleepy Joe Biden administration, the cost of regulatory compliance went up by $245 billion. Can you believe that? And in our administration, we’ve taken it down by more than that. So it’s $245 billion up, and we’ve taken it down by much more than that.

According to the Economic Council of Advisers, our regulatory reductions will save the average American household over $3,000 — think of this — every single year. Thanks to these regulation cuts, as well as our tax cuts and pro-American trade policies, our economy is stronger than it’s ever been. Stronger than ever before. And that’s despite all of these negotiations that we’re doing to really make us into something that we’ve never seen before — meaning, fair trade deals.

We’ve created 6.4 million new jobs. Just last month, unemployment reached the lowest rate in over 50 years. The African American, Hispanic American, Asian American unemployment rates have hit record lows. We have more people working in the United States today — almost 160 million people — than at any time in the history of our country. Wages are rising very fast, and twice as fast for low-income workers. The biggest beneficiary, actually, is the low-income worker. Their wages are rising at a rate that we haven’t seen in many, many decades.

When I first started campaigning — many of you were with me — I used to talk about workers that would make more, years ago, 21 years ago, than they made a few years ago, because now it’s gone up a lot. But a few years ago. And they’d have two jobs and three jobs, and yet they did better 21 years before.

With today’s executive order, we continue this incredible economic success and we defend American liberty for generations to come.

I would like to now invite Acting Director of OMB Russ Vought to say a few words about the exciting news. And I want to thank Russ for doing an incredible job. And when Russ is finished, we’re going to sign the executive orders. Thank you very much.

ACTING DIRECTOR VOUGHT: Thank you, Mr. President. As a result of your leadership, today we’re making a major step forward in the effort to drain the swamp and to get our arms wrapped around the administrative state. We can’t do that until we know all of the dark, regulatory, stealth regulation that is out there, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re asking all agencies to be putting on their website — on a searchable website — all of these regulations, so that we can understand what it is, and anything that’s not put up there is rescinded.

Secondly, we want to make sure that the American people — families and small businesses — are no longer bullied by their federal government. We’ve all had to deal with the motor vehicle department down the street from us. Think about dealing with the federal government; it’s an entirely different situation. And the people that are here today, who have flown in on their own dime to be a part of this celebration, can attest to that.

We want to make sure that there are no stories ever again of people being bullied by their federal government. So we’re thrilled that you took this on, Mr. President. Looking forward to these executive orders. Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. (Applause.)

Come on, folks. Gather around.

(The executive orders are signed.)

Where’s Kevin?

MR. LUNNY: Right here.

THE PRESIDENT: Come here. (Hands over pen.) (Applause.)

Plenty to go around. Okay. Thank you very much everybody. Congratulations. (Applause.)

Q Are you going to take any action regarding the Turkish attacks in Northern Syria? And have the Kurds, as Senator Graham said, been shamelessly abandoned?

THE PRESIDENT: So, we have no soldiers in the area. We’ve been talking to Turkey for three years. They’ve been wanting to do this for many years, as you know. They’ve been fighting each other for centuries. They’ve been fighting each other for — hundreds of years, this has been going on.

We were put into this battle — interjected. It was supposed to be a 30 — a 30-day period. And we’ve been there for many, many years. And it’s time to get out. We’re speaking to both sides. We’ve told President Erdoğan how we feel. But we are speaking to both sides, and we’re seeing what can be made out of a situation.

But we have no soldiers in the area, you know. We’re getting out of the endless wars. We have to do it. And eventually somebody was going to have to make the decision. And, frankly, we’re getting a lot of praise from that decision. We — people are saying, “Got to sometime bring our people back home.”

We’re really serving and we were serving as a police force. We had defeated ISIS. We defeated the caliphate, 100 percent. Erdoğan and the existing groups of people, including Kurds — but you have the PKK, which is a natural enemy with Turkey, and likewise and opposite, they’ve been fighting, again, for many, many years. They have — they’re bitter enemies; have been always. Probably, possibly always will be.

So we are — we are out of there. We’ve been out of there for a while. No soldiers whatsoever.

We are taking some of the most dangerous ISIS fighters out. We’ve taken them out and we’re putting them in different locations where it’s secure. In addition, the Kurds are watching. And if the Kurds don’t watch, then Turkey is going to watch because they don’t want those people out any more than we do. But we have taken a certain number of ISIS fighters that are particularly bad. And we’ve wanted to make sure that nothing happened with them, with respect to getting out. And I think we’re doing a great job.

I think the people of this country — I campaigned on ending the endless wars. We’re all over the world, fighting wars. Half the places, nobody even knows what they’re doing over there. And I feel that we are doing the right thing, and I think the country feels that, too.

We’ve had tremendous support outside of the Washington — little Washington area. And even in Washington, people are saying, “You’re doing the right thing.” It has to be done; otherwise, you’re never going to do it.

At the same time, we’re dealing with both sides. We’re going to see what we can do.

Q In a statement this morning, you cautioned Erdoğan. Since then, it appears as though there have been casualties on the Kurdish side. Are you concerned about escalation? And are you concerned that Erdoğan will try to wipe out the Kurds?

THE PRESIDENT: I will wipe out his economy if that happens. I’ve already done it once, with Pastor Brunson. I’m sure that he — I hope that he will act rationally. You do have to understand: They’ve been fighting each other for many, many decades. Actually, for centuries, they’ve been fighting each other. And it was time for the Americans — we did a great job.

We took care of ISIS. We captured 100 percent. Do you remember I was thinking, John, of leaving at 97 and 96 percent? And that last 3 or 4 percent was the hardest part. And they told me it would take a year to two years to do it, and I did it in a month. Remember that?

I flew to Iraq and I met with a lot of great generals there. Great generals. They said, “Sir, we can do it in two weeks to a month.” And we did it in two weeks to a month, and we took it. And, in the meantime, we’ve been watching over a lot — with the Kurds — watching over a lot of prisoners. Some very bad — some very bad people. A few, in particular, are very bad. Really bad. And some of those people we’ve already taken. We’ve taken them out.

They should go back, by the way. They should go back to Europe. Many of them came from Europe, but they should go back to Germany, to France, to — I spoke with Boris Johnson a couple — to UK. Some to UK, actually. But they came from various parts of Europe. They didn’t come from our country, and we did them a big favor.

And we said to France, we said to Germany, we said to various countries in Europe: “We’d like you to take your people back.” “Well, we don’t want them. We don’t want them. How about you taking them?” I said, “We don’t want them either. Nobody wants them; they’re bad. But somebody has to watch over them.” I said, “Look, we did you a big favor. You take your people back. You take them back.”

They’re citizens, in many cases, of those countries — of France, Germany. They didn’t want to take them back. I gave them one chance, I gave them another chance, I gave them a third chance, and I even gave them a fourth chance. They didn’t want to take them back. Not that I blame them too much; they’re used to this with the United States — taking advantage of the United States, whether it’s on trade or NATO — to take advantage of the United States.

But we think that maybe the Kurds will do a job. And if not the Kurds, we think Turkey will do a job. But we have thousands of people. Thousands. I don’t know if you know that. We have thousands of captured fighters, and thousands and tens of thousands of family members. And we did a big favor to a lot of countries, and those countries didn’t want to take them back. So that’s the way it goes.

Steve.

Q What if some of these ISIS fighters escape and pose a threat elsewhere?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, they’re going to be escaping to Europe. That’s where they want to go. They want to go back to their homes, but Europe didn’t want them from us. We could have given it to them. They could have had trials. They could have
done whatever they wanted.

But as usual, it’s not reciprocal. You know my favorite word, “reciprocal.” That’s all I want. I don’t want an edge; I just want reciprocal. And it’s not reciprocal, Steve. It’s not a fair deal for the United States.

And when President Obama took the PKK — you know, where they bring in PKK — that’s a tough deal because that’s been a mortal enemy of Turkey. So when you bring them in into a partnership, it’s a tough situation because it’s tough for Turkey; it’s probably tough for them. They’ve hated each other for many, many years — for hundreds of years. I mean, it’s amazing, when you look at history and you look at culture. But you look at the length of the time and the fighting for so long.

So we imposed ourself into it. And look, I’ve said it — I said it just yesterday: The single worst country the United States — if you take a look at, you know, what we’re doing with countries and the relationships we have with countries —

But maybe putting it a different way: The worst mistake that the United States has ever made, in my opinion, was going into the Middle East. It’s a quagmire. We are up to close to $8 trillion, and we’re bringing our folks back home. We have great, talented military. We’re bringing them back home.

Our military has never been stronger, but we’re now acting as police. We’re — we’re policing areas. We’re doing jobs that other countries should be doing. We’re doing jobs, frankly, that Europe should be doing. We’re doing jobs that Russia should be doing, that Iran should be doing, that Iraq, Turkey, Syria should be doing. They should be doing this. We shouldn’t be doing it. We’re 7,000 miles away.

Q Lindsey Graham is talking about imposing economic sanctions on Turkey over this incursion into Syria. What do you think about that? Would you support that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think it’s okay. I’ve already told that to President Erdoğan. Far more than sanctions — I’ll do far more than sanctions. Lindsey and I feel differently. I think Lindsey would like to stay there for the next 200 years and maybe add a couple of hundred thousand people every place. But I disagree with Lindsey on that.

But I will tell you that I do agree on sanctions, but I actually think much tougher than sanctions if he doesn’t do it in as humane a way as possible. But I’ve gotten him to stop for — virtually, from the first day that I was in office. But they wanted to fight, and that’s the way it is. And they’ve done it for so long.

Yes, go ahead, please.

Q Sir, what does “as humane a way as possible” actually mean? Does it mean civilians? Or —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re going to have to see. We’re going to have to define that as we go along. They want to — if you listen to Erdoğan, he wants to have people go back to where they came from, go back to Syria. Right now, he’s holding — in all fairness to him, he’s holding millions of people that would be all over the place if he wasn’t holding them. So he wants to repatriate, he wants to have them go back into the area that he’s looking at.

But we’ll see. We’ll see how he does it. He can do it in a soft manner. He can do it in a very tough manner. And if he does it unfairly, he’s going to pay a very big economic price.

Q Mr. President, you said — with the letter that you sent up to Nancy Pelosi yesterday —

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q — you appeared to declare war on the impeachment inquiry. Can you tell us, in your own words, why you think it is incumbent upon the House to hold a full vote to authorize an inquiry? And if they were to hold the vote and it were to be positive, would you then cooperate with the inquiry?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me just say that the Republican Party — and President — but the Republican Party has been treated extremely badly by the Democrats — very unfairly — because they have a tiny margin in the House. They have eviscerated the rules. They don’t give us any — any fair play. It’s the most unfair situation people have seen. No lawyers — you can’t have lawyers. You can’t speak. You can’t do anything. You virtually can’t do anything.

And then, on top of it, they have a guy named Schiff. And Nancy Pelosi knows all this because she’s just as guilty as he is. But you have a man named Schiff, where I had a perfect phone call with the President of Ukraine — like, I mean perfect. People read it, but they don’t read that. They heard Schiff’s version of it. He defrauded the American public. He gave the most horrible rendition, adding his own words.

I mean, Mark Meadows is here. I think I can say honestly, Mark, you didn’t believe it when you heard it.

REPRESENTATIVE MEADOWS: Right.

THE PRESIDENT: And Mark has never heard anything like it. And many of the people that we work with, including Democrats, have never heard anything like it. He made up a phone call. He made it up. Because what happened is they spoke about a day too early. They heard a whistleblower who came out with a false story — you know, people say, “Oh, it was always fairly close.” It wasn’t close at all. What the whistleblower said bore no relationship to what the call was. We have a transcribed call, done by professionals. And the call was a perfect call, but Schiff made it up.

Then it turns out that the whistleblower was in cahoots with Schiff. Then it turns out that the whistleblower is a Democrat — strong Democrat — and is working with one of my opponents as a Democrat that I might end up running against. The whole thing is a scam. It’s a fix.

And we wrote a letter yesterday, and it probably ends up being a big Supreme Court case; maybe it goes a long time. I don’t know. But the Republican Party has been treated unbelievably badly and unfairly by the Democrats, John.

Q But then again, sir, if they held a vote in the full House, and the vote were to authorize, would you —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, yeah, that sounds okay.

Q — would you cooperate?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we would if they give us our rights. It depends. If they vote and say you can’t have lawyers, you can’t ask questions, you can’t have anybody present — all of these crazy things. And even some of the reporters said to me, “It really is an unfair situation.”

They ask all the questions and then — for instance, the ambassador who testified was a fine gentleman. He gave great testimony for us. But we don’t get to do any of that or show any of that, so they brought out only the couple of negative things, all which were knocked out by his other statements. It was a great witness for us, but if you would’ve listened to them, you would’ve said it was a better witness for them. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even close. He was a fine gentleman. And we saw that, and we said that’s very unfair.

Yes.

Q Mr. President, there were reports this afternoon that the Chinese are lowering their expectations for a trade deal. Are you also lowering your expectations for a trade deal?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t think so. I think they feel that I’m driving a tough bargain. But I have to. You know it better than anybody. You do a good job over there. I watch a lot.

We are so far down, in terms of where we started, from Presidents that didn’t do their job for many years. Since the World Trade Organization founding — China went in in 2001 or so — China went in and just ripped off the world.

So, and I told that to President Xi. I said, “You know, this can’t be like a 50/50 deal.” Because a 50/50 deal, you’re like up there and we’re down here. So a 50/50 deal, it doesn’t work, right? You got to have a little balance. This has to be a better deal from our standpoint. And I think they fully understand it.

One of the really good meetings I had today was with our people on opioids and drugs and fentanyl — and fentanyl, in particular, with respect to your question. And they said that Chinese leadership has a lot of respect for our President, and they are really being much more careful. It’s a much different situation.

We have some great drug numbers. Now, what is great drug — if you’re down 15, 16, 20, 25 percent, it’s still horrible what’s going on in this country and in the world. In the whole world, it’s horrible.

But no, I think they have a lot of respect for us. It’s the first time they’ve ever respected us. I think China has a lot of respect for me and for our country and for what we’re doing, and I think they can’t believe what they’ve gotten away with for so many years.

Q Are the Chinese wrong to be putting pressure on the NBA, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the NBA is a different thing. I mean, I watch this guy, Steve Kerr, and he was like a little boy. He was so scared to be even answering the question. He couldn’t answer the question. He was shaking. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know.” He didn’t know how to answer the question. And yet, he’ll talk about the United States very badly.

I watched Popovich. Sort of the same thing, but he didn’t look quite as scared, actually. But they talk badly about the United States. But when it talks about China, they don’t want to say anything bad. I thought it was pretty sad, actually.

Q So are you okay with the Chinese government pressuring the NBA, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: It’ll be — it’ll be very — it’ll be very interesting. Excuse me.

Q Are you okay then with the Chinese government pressuring the NBA over Hong Kong?

THE PRESIDENT: They have to work out their own situation. The NBA is — they know what they’re doing. But I watch the way that like Kerr and Popovich and some of the others were pandering to China, and yet to our country, they don’t — it’s like they don’t respect it. It’s like they don’t respect it.

I said, “What a difference. Isn’t it sad?” It’s very sad. To me, it’s very sad.

John.

Q Mr. President, Joe Biden came out for the first time today and said you should be impeached. Your response?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, he’s falling like a rock. We have him on tape with corruption. I mean, he’s getting the prosecutor for, I guess, John, it was $2 billion — saying, “We’re not giving you the $2 billion” — or whatever the amount was — “unless you get rid of this prosecutor.” And then he goes, “Lo and behold, the prosecutor was gone.”

Q It was $1.2 billion.

THE PRESIDENT: And that was the prosecutor — excuse me, John?

Q $1.2 billion.

THE PRESIDENT: $1.2 billion. Not a lot of money. And then his son takes out $1.5 billion from China.

And, by the way, the $50,000 a month that he was getting from Ukraine, it looks like it’s $168,000, split among him and somebody else — his friend. And also there’s a payment of about $3 million to his son. His son just got thrown out of the Navy.

So Biden is dropping like a rock. I don’t think he’s going to make it. I didn’t think he wasn’t going to make it for a long time. I don’t think he’s going to make it. And I guess this is one way he can do it. You know, he didn’t say that until right now. And he sees what’s happening to him. I guess he’s no longer the frontrunner.

But, look, I feel badly for him because I know he’s going through a lot. He’s been hit. And he’s been caught red-handed. I mean, here’s a man who is on tape saying exactly what he’s going to do in terms of corruption, and he gets away with it. If that ever happened to a Republican, they’d be getting the electric chair right now. They’d be right now being walked into the electric chair. It’s a whole different standard.

What Joe Biden said on tape — this isn’t like, “Gee-whiz, we think.” What he said on tape — and the fake media doesn’t want to play the tape. They hardly play it. So I feel, you know, that it’s too bad what’s happened to him. He is sinking and his campaign is sinking.

But he walked away with hundreds of — I mean, you look at the kind of numbers his son — who is, at best, incompetent — got thrown out of the Navy. I don’t even want to say why; A subject that we just discussed. I don’t want to say why. But he gets thrown — and then all of a sudden, he’s making a deal with Ukraine, where they’re getting $168,000 a month between the two of them — $168,000 — and he gets $3 million payments and all of this money coming out? And the kid has no expertise in energy, and it’s an energy company. He has no expertise. You and I both know much more than he does, John.

And then you walk into China, and a couple of days later — 10 days later, to be exact — he gets $1.5 billion out of China, and he’s got no expertise. And I have friends that are the smartest people on Wall Street. I said, “Is that possible?” They say, “No, it’s not possible.” It’s a pretty sad situation.

Please.

Q Mr. President, I just want to clarify something you said earlier. If Pelosi holds a vote on the floor on impeachment and commits to the rules of previous impeachment proceedings, you’ll participate in that investigation?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, if the rules are fair.

Q Okay.

THE PRESIDENT: I — because I don’t know how — I don’t know exactly your definition.

If Republicans get a fair shake — because the Republicans have been — look, we were very nice to them. When Paul Ryan was the Speaker, he really wouldn’t give subpoenas. And I’m not saying good, bad, or indifferent. Here’s a man that knows it very well. They’d go in with all of the corruption that you’ve been reading about, and all of the things that they did wrong with Comey, and all of these people and all of the things they did wrong.

When we wanted a subpoena — meaning, they wanted a subpoena — it was very hard to get it and I’m not sure he ever even issued a subpoena. And Nancy Pelosi issues subpoenas: “Come on in and get them.” Gives them to Nadler. Gives them to Crooked Schiff.

I mean, this Schiff is one crooked guy. The guy made up my phone call. Think of it. In the United States Congress, he made up my phone call. And I’ve had people that said, “I didn’t like the way you talked to the Ukrainian President.” I said, “Did you read my speech?” “No, I heard Schiff.” Shifty Schiff. “I heard Schiff.” I said — that’s how I said — I said, “Well, let me see what he said.” A lot of people saw that.

This — and frankly, I think if it wasn’t for me, I don’t know if anybody would have even noticed and called him out. He took my really — believe it or not — congenial and gentle words, and he made me sound like a tyrant. It’s a terrible thing. He defrauded the American public.

I mean, honestly, I don’t know what can happen, but there are those that say he should be prosecuted for what he did. He should certainly be impeached, but he should be prosecuted for what he did. And I think he’s a very bad leader of this movement.

Yes, please.

Q And just, on the phone call, there’s a new report out today that the whistleblower says a White House official came to him and said you committed a crime on that call. Did any White House official express any concern to you —

THE PRESIDENT: No, no.

Q — or speak to you about that phone call afterward?

THE PRESIDENT: It’s all a big con, don’t you understand? Look, the phone call, you have it; it’s the transcript. That’s why they keep saying, “Oh, the whistleblower said this and that.” What happened is, if they would have seen the transcript early, they wouldn’t have had a whistleblower, because he wouldn’t have said — there was nothing he could say. All you have to do is read the transcript. Very calm.

And what’s even more important than the transcript, in a certain way? Although, I think the transcript is the most important, because it was really plain vanilla. No emotion. No nothing.

These are crooked people that are doing — these are Democrats, headed by a — a Democrat lawyer, a big Democrat lawyer. This is a con job. This is a con being perpetrated on the United States public and even the world. And the world is watching, and they — they get it better than a lot of other people. It’s very interesting.

But a poll just came out today: A very small people want to see something — even though I only get negative press from you people — not you, necessarily. But — but, that’s the way it is.

So, I say this: Look, all you have to do is read the transcript. But you know what’s almost as good as the transcript, I think? Is the Ukrainian President saying — he didn’t even know that they were talking about — “no pressure.” The foreign minister of Ukraine saying, “No, it was a very normal call. There was no pressure at all.”

What is bad is when you see all of the elements, when you see that Schiff saw the whistleblower. When you see what the whistleblower said about the phone call, and it was totally different. He made it up. And I don’t know why a person that defrauds the American public should be protected, okay?

Q Sir, then why did your administration try to bury that transcript in the extra level of —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that I don’t know. Again, I’m not a lawyer. I can say this: I assume it was for leaks. I have no idea. I’m just answering. Because this city is like the leaking capital of the world. If you want to get something out to the press, all you have to do is hand it to somebody in Washington.

So, I assume it was for leaks. I mean, I’ve read that, and it doesn’t seem like a big deal. What is a big deal —

Q (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT: I think they’re probably trying to protect it from leaks.

But here’s the other thing: We gave that transcript over almost immediately. It wasn’t like we waited until now. Until now would be immediately, because it’s only been doing it for three weeks. We gave that transcript up almost immediately.

And you know, when I heard Schiff’s phony version, and when I heard what was being horribly said by this so-called whistleblower — and I’d like to find who is the person in between the whistleblower and hearing about this — the conversation? The conversation was, I think, a perfect conversation. But who’s the person giving this information?

If that person exists — I’m not sure that person exists — but I think it’s important — and I say this to Congress — I think it’s important to find out who that person is, because we could have a spy. And I don’t want to have spies when I’m negotiating with China and Syria and all of the countries — if you look at Turkey, with Erdoğan. I have calls with all these people. And Kim Jong Un.

I don’t want to have spies in the White House. I want to be free to make calls. I don’t think it’s fair that somebody interprets a call. He didn’t interpret it wrong; I don’t mind a misinterpretation. This was a fraud, because that call was perfect. And if you read the whistleblower’s report, that was no — it bore no resemblance to what the call was.

Steve?

Q Could we go back to your conversation with Boris Johnson?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q There was a case involving a car crash involving a —

THE PRESIDENT: I hate the case. I —

Q — American diplomat’s wife. Did you bring — did you talk about that?

THE PRESIDENT: That’s true. I — we talked about it.

Q What did you decide?

THE PRESIDENT: So, what we’re going to do — it’s a very, very complex issue, as you know, because we’re talking about diplomatic immunity, which, in itself, is quite a subject, right? You people could lecture me on it, I suspect. But it’s quite a subject.

A terrible accident occurred. The person driving the car — they know who it was, and they have it on camera. A young man was killed on his motorcycle. He was killed — sounds like instantly killed.

The woman, through diplomatic immunity, left the UK, and came back to America. And what I’m going to try and do and see — because I understand where the people from the UK are. And, frankly, a lot of Americans feel the same way. We have — I was telling Boris, we have a lot of Americans that, you know, they side on the fact that, you know, you have two wonderful parents that lost their son, and the woman was driving on the wrong side of the road.

And that can happen. You know, those are the opposite roads. That happens. I won’t say it ever happened to me, but it did. When you get used to driving on our system and then you’re all of a sudden in the other system, where you’re driving — it happens. Have to be careful — very careful.

So a young man was killed, the person that was driving the automobile has diplomatic immunity. We’re going to speak to her very shortly and see if we can do something where they meet — it was an accident. It was an acc- —

Q Like send her back?

THE PRESIDENT: It was a terrible accident.

Q Send her back, you mean, for trial? Or —

THE PRESIDENT: We’re going to speak to her and we’re going to see the person driving the car — the wife of the diplomat. We’re going to speak to her and see what we can come up with so that there can be some healing. There’s tremendous anger over it. It’s a terrible incident. There’s tremendous anger, and I understand the anger from the other side very much.

Q Mr. President, when you met with Robert Mueller in May of 2017 at the Oval Office, were you in fact interviewing him for the position of FBI? And were you aware, at the time that he was in the Oval Office, that he had had prior conversations with Rod Rosenstein about potentially becoming Special Counsel?

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, to you second question: Absolutely not. I had no idea that he was doing that. To the first question, he absolutely wanted to become the FBI Director, and I said, “No.” I said, “Listen, you’ve been there for…” — I believe it was 12 years. And I said, “No.” And it has since been proven that I was right. Plus, we have witnesses to it. I interviewed numerous people that day. And he was one of the numerous people. Making a decision ultimately — but he was one of the people. I said no — nicely, respectfully.

Q Did you speak to him about a potential conflict of interest because of the dispute he had with you over the golf membership?

THE PRESIDENT: I knew about it. We didn’t speak about that, because I wasn’t going to accept him. That may have been one of the reasons I said no. Who knows? But I did have conflicts of interest with Robert Mueller. We had a business dispute. I thought we had, as you know, three basic conflicts of interest, and none of them were very good. But we had a — we had a business dispute.

But I thought he was there for 12 years. That was long enough, especially when you saw what happened with the FBI.

And you have to understand, nobody respects the FBI more than do. And I think, if you took a vote in the EBI, they’d vote me President right now — a vast, vast majority. And they’re great people. I know a lot of them. But your leadership was terrible, whether it was Comey or Mueller or anybody.

I mean, this leadership turned out to be a disaster for this country, when you look at Strzok and Page, when you look at the “insurance policy.” “You know, she’s going to win. But just in case she doesn’t, we have an insurance policy.” Well, that only means one thing; there’s no other interpretation.

So when you look at that — no, Robert Mueller wanted a job to be the Director, and I turned him — very nicely, respectfully — down. The other element of your question: I never — I never heard that until just recently when it’s being reported a little bit.

Q So these trade — the trade talks —

THE PRESIDENT: Please. Go ahead, Steve.

Q — coming up with China: Are you optimistic that some sort of deal will be reached with these —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, China wants to make a deal. In my opinion, China wants to make a deal more than I do, okay? But — but — look, I’m very happy right now. We’re taking in billions of dollars of tariffs. And despite what the news was saying, there’s no inflation. There’s not a very big price increase, if any, because they’ve eaten the tariffs. They’ve devalued their currency and they’re pouring a lot of money into their system.

Now, they’ve lost three and a half million jobs and their chain is breaking up; their supply chain is breaking up like a broken egg. They want to make a deal.

The question is: Do I want to make a deal? And the answer would be, if we make the right deal, I’d love to do it. I think it would be a great thing for China, also.

Q But they seem to be reluctant to make concessions on IP and (inaudible) —

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’ll see. I mean, you don’t know that. Look, there is so many false reports. Everybody is trying to guess. But there’s really only two people that matter on this one, and that’s President Xi and myself. We get along very well.

I can’t imagine he likes me the way he did when I first became President, because, you know, it’s been — it’s been a rough time for China. China has gone down many trillions of dollars and we’ve gone up many trillions of dollars. I mean, we’ve — since I’ve been elected, many, many, many trillions of dollars have been — increased the value of — if you call it “value”; you could call it “worth” or “value” — of our country. We’ve you’ve increased — not just stock market, I’m talking our country. Our economy is bigger. It’s stronger.

And I believe if my opponent got in, you would have had a tremendous slide. And don’t forget, I only look at our numbers from the day after the election, because there was euphoria when I got elected and we picked up a tremendous amount from, let’s say, the 9th of November to January 20th, when we had the inauguration. And it’s been that way ever sense. It’s been a fantastic thing.

But China wants to make a deal very badly. And if we can make a deal, we’re going to make a deal. There’s a really good chance. There’s a really good chance, Steve.

Q Have you spoken — have you spoken at all, Mr. President, to the Attorney General about the coming Horowitz Inspector General’s report and/or the Durham report — either investigation?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I really — I’m leaving that to the Attorney General — highly respected man, a very highly principled man. I did read the Comey report — 78 pages of total kill. And I think it says, frankly, a lot to the Attorney General that he decided not to prosecute on that report, because I think most people reading that report would have done that. That report was horrible for Comey. Horrible. But he’s a highly principled man, and I’m leaving it up to him.

Q Mr. President, can you tell us what you said to President Erdoğan on Sunday when he said to you — did you promise him anything or did he promise you anything on Sunday?

THE PRESIDENT: No, we’re talking about it. No. But he said, “I want to go in. I want to go in.” But he’s been telling me that for two and a half years.

Q And did you agree to that?

THE PRESIDENT: He’s been telling that, virtually — he’s been saying this for many years, before me. And, you know, he’s ready to do it. They’ve been, again, fighting for so long. They’ve been fighting for so many — these are — this is like Israel and the Palestinians, okay? There’s only one difference: maybe the hatred is even greater. Is that possible? Maybe not. But it’s — this is a very, very serious hatred that’s come over many years.

Yes, sir.

Q But, Mr. President, the Kurds helped the U.S. defeat ISIS. And, by allowing this offensive, is it going to be more difficult in future times of need to develop alliances?

THE PRESIDENT: No, it won’t be. It won’t be at all. Alliances are very easy.

But, you know, our alliances have taken advantage of us. If you look at how much money we spent on NATO and how much money countries from Europe — who are really a much bigger beneficiary that we are, okay? You know, they’re there and we’re here. We’re many miles away. Our alliances, in many cases, have taken tremendous advantage of us.

If you look at NATO, I got them to pay $100 billion more. The Secretary-General, Stoltenberg, came out with a report recently that, because of President Trump, the other countries — 28 countries — so 27, not including us — they paid over $100 billion more because of me. But still, as good as that is — sounds good — it’s nothing compared to the kind of numbers you’re talking about.

So I’m very happy with that, but the United States is paying over 4 percent and Germany is paying 1 percent — maybe a tiny bit more, but I actually think, the way you calculate it — because you can look at it many ways — is probably less than 1 percent. France is paying less than what they’re supposed to.

Out of the 28 countries, 20 of them are delinquent. You know what the “delinquent” means? That’s an old real estate term. “He’s delinquent with his rent.” They’re delinquent with their payment. They owe us a tremendous amount of money and they never pay us back.

Because if Germany doesn’t pay — they don’t add that up, they just say, “Oh, that’s okay.” Then they don’t pay. And yet, they’re — if you go back that way, like the old fashioned way –like you don’t pay and you owe it. But they don’t pay and they just go on to the next year. They owe us hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. So, no. I don’t look at it that way.

Now, the Kurds are fighting for their land, just so you understand. They’re fighting for their land. And, as somebody wrote in a very, very powerful article today, they didn’t help us in the Second World War. They didn’t help us with Normandy, as an example. They mentioned names of different battles. They were there, but they’re there to help us with their land. And that’s a different thing.

In addition to that, we have spent tremendous amounts of money on helping the Kurds — in terms of ammunition, in terms of weapons, in terms of money, in terms of pay. With all of that being said, we like the Kurds.

Now you have different factions in there. Again, you have PKK — that’s a different faction. And they worked with us. It’s a rough group, but they worked with us. But we’ve spent a tremendous — and they’re fighting for their lands. So when you say, “They’re fighting with us” — yes, but they’re fighting for their land.

Now, if we go on the theory that some of the folks in Washington go by — who all do very well with the military-industrial complex. I mean, you know, the military-industrial complex. Take a look at Dwight Eisenhower; he had it figured right many years ago. It’s got tremendous power. They like fighting. They make a lot of money when they fight.

But it was time to bring our soldiers back home. So I see — and I will tell you: The hardest thing I have to do, by far, much harder than the witch hunt, is signing letters to parents of soldiers that have been killed. And it’s not only that — in areas where there’s not a lot of upside, if there’s any upside at all, and in many cases, it’s only downside.

And especially when that solider was killed in a Blue-on-Green attack. You know what that is, right? That’s where a solider being trained or whatever turns his gun on an American solider. “Here, son. Take your gun. You know how to use it.”
And he takes the gun and he turns it. And he shoots one — we have many of them in Afghanistan — in particular, in Afghanistan.

The hardest thing I have to do is signing those letters. That’s the hardest thing I have to do. And each letter is different. We make each letter different. And last week, I signed of them for Afghanistan; one in Iraq; one in Syria, from two weeks ago. And sometimes I call the parents. Sometimes I see the parents. I go to Dover, when I can, but it’s — it’s so devastating for the parents that — you know. It’s so devastating when they bring that boy or young woman out of the back of those big, powerful planes in a coffin, and the parents are there.

You know, we have people that do that. That’s what they do. They — they work that. They accommodate everybody. That’s what they do. They an incredible job. And they said — I said, “The parents seemed to be okay.” I’ll get there early. “The parents seemed to be okay.” “Well, actually, sir, they aren’t.” “No, no. The way they’re talking. They’re really okay, aren’t they?” “Sir, you never know until the back of that massive cargo plane opens up.” And they walk down holding a coffin with four or five great soldiers on each side of it, representing our various forces. That you never know.

And then I see it. And I see people that were smiling, “Oh, Mr. President, thank you for being here. Thank you for being here.” And I think they’re doing great. And then, twenty minutes later, we’ll be outside when that big plane pulls up and that door comes down, and they are walking the coffin with their boy inside this coffin with an American flag over the top. And they’re walking that coffin down this ramp. And I’ve seen people that I thought were really incredible the way they were ta- — I didn’t even understood how they could take it so well — scream, like I’ve never seen anything before. Sometimes they’ll run to the coffin. They’ll break through military barriers. They’ll run to the coffin and jump on top of the coffin. Crying mothers and wives. Crying desperately.

And this is on these endless wars that just never stop. And there’s a time and there’s a place, but it’s time to stop.

And just to finish, last Friday, I went to Walter Reed. And I gave out five Purple Hearts to incredible young men — in this case, all men. And they took a beating. Beautiful people. They took a beating. One couldn’t be there because the beating was so great that he was at a totally different part of the world. He lost a leg. He lost an arm. Ryan. He had tremendous damage, beyond even what these young folks went through.

But I’ll tell you what: For me, it’s very hard when I see that. It’s very hard. It’s easy to talk tough. You know, tough guys. All of these tough guys. “Let’s keep fighting. Let’s keep fighting.” If they had to go to Walter Reed — where they do unbelievable work. I have to tell you, these doctors are unbelievable. You know, it’s easy to say, “Oh, they’re not the…” They’re the best in the world. I’ve never seen anything like it.

One young man, last week, had his nose rebuilt. And they said it was in a thousand pieces. And, I said, “So where were you hurt?” He said, “My face, sir, was almost obliterated.” I said, “You have a better face than I do.” (Laughter.) And he said, “Sir, I had a doctor who was unbelievable, and they put it together.” They said — he said “a thousand fragments.” Now, I don’t if that’s even possible. But a thousand fragments. And they put it together.

And his father, who was crying, came up to me and said, “You’re not going to believe this, but my son didn’t have a great-looking nose and now his nose is better.” (Laughter.) Okay? It’s an amazing thing.

But when you see these — and the Purple Hearts — you see this kind of thing — and I see a lot of it at Walter Reed. And, again, the job those doctors and the people do at Walter Reed, it’s something to be commended.

Thank you all very much. Thank you. (Applause.)

END 4:39 P.M. EDT

Despite Wall Street headline writers trying to frame an opposite reality, President Trump has no disposition toward making a trade deal with China.  Conversely, China has no intention of changing the closed and state-controlled structure of their economy.  That’s the reality amid a trade dance that is going absolutely no-where.

This quote is priceless: “We can add the Diplomatic war to the Financial war, Currency war and Technology war, that we already have,” John Browning, managing director at brokerage BANDS Financial in Shanghai, said in a note to investors.

The Chinese position is thus:

REUTERS […] The U.S. demand that the Chinese Communist Party fundamentally change how it directs China’s massive economy to shift to a more Western model of free-market capitalism is irrational and misguided, a Chinese diplomat in the United States said.

“What we achieved during the past few decades shows that our system is good for development in China,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

China would not ask the United States to shift to an economy that relies heavily on state-owned enterprises, or ask it to start fully funding education, as China’s does, he said, so why should Washington expect the same from Beijing?

“We hope to strike an agreement but also accept the differences,” the diplomat added.  (read more)

President Trump:

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Trump said: “If we can make a deal, we’re going to make a deal, there’s a really good chance.”  “In my opinion China wants to make a deal more than I do,” Trump added. (link)

In an attempt to change their diminishing economic position and create leverage Beijing fires DPRK rockets.

The response from President Trump – The U.S. Department of Commerce on Monday blacklisted video surveillance firm Hikvision and 27 others, days ahead of the talks.

The Commerce Department barred the technology and artificial intelligence companies from doing business with U.S. firms, citing human rights violations of Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang. Chinese officials said the action interfered with China’s sovereignty.  (Full Story)

This ongoing dynamic is not going to end….

Communist China and Chairman Xi Jinping are trying to wait-out President Trump hoping he doesn’t get re-elected in 2020.   President Trump is using communist China’s strategy of waiting-him-out as an opportunity, and somewhat of a smart excuse, to put more punishment on Beijing.

President Trump has been very clear in his objective.  However, President Trump has also been clear that he sees little possibility of any trade-agreement.

There is not going to be a U.S-China trade agreement.

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President Trump Campaign Manager Brad Parscale is reporting that Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is attempting to block President Trump from speaking at an event in the city on Thursday October 10th.   This is beyond outrageous.

[Trump Campaign] The radical leftist mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, is abusing the power of his office and attempting to extort President Trump’s re-election campaign by conjuring a phony and outlandish bill for security in an effort to block a scheduled Keep America Great rally. Democrat Mayor Frey is using the bogus security charges to pressure the Target Center, site of the contracted October 10, 2019 rally, into preventing Minnesota residents from exercising their First Amendment rights in support of President Trump.

Frey’s city government preemptively informed the Target Center that it would be responsible for $530,000 in security and other costs related to the event. The Target Center attempted to pass the costs on to the Trump campaign under threat of withholding the use of the arena.

The Trump campaign informed the Target Center that the U.S. Secret Service is solely responsible for coordinating security and that withholding the use of the arena would be viewed as a breach of contract and result in court action.  Additionally, the ridiculous sum of $530,000 is more than 26 times the estimated security costs for a 2009 Target Center health care rally held by President Barack Obama. Police officials estimated that the costs then were around $20,000. Again, the costs are a matter between the city and the Secret Service.

“We are well aware of Mayor Frey’s vocal partisan opposition to President Trump and calls to disrupt the rally,” read a letter from Trump law firm Jones Day to the Target Center’s management firm.  “This last-minute squeeze seems to be nothing but a pretextual political effort with serious First Amendment ramifications.”

In 2016, President Trump earned more than 1.3 million votes in Minnesota and came within 1.5 percentage points of winning the state.

“This is an outrageous abuse of power by a liberal mayor trying to deny the rights of his own city’s residents just because he hates the President,” said Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. “People want to hear from their President, and no mayor looking to beef up his resume for a run for higher office should stand in the way.”

Below is the letter from the Trump campaign to the Target Center’s management firm:

General Manager
AEG Management, TWN, LLC
600 1st Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN 55403
Re:​Threatened Breach of Contract by AEG Management TWN, LLC

Dear Sir:

Our Firm represents Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (“the Campaign”). The Campaign is in receipt of your threat to violate the terms of its contract with AEG Management TWN, LLC (“AEG”) to lease the Target Center from October 9–10, 2019, in connection with a Campaign rally featuring President Trump. The rally is scheduled for this Thursday evening. The Campaign’s preparations for the rally remain ongoing in reliance on that contract, and tens of thousands of the President’s loyal supporters are expected to attend.

Your letter of this morning on behalf of AEG threatening to terminate the rental contract at the last minute seems to rest on a representation by the City of Minneapolis that, without any apparent backup support, that “additional security and related costs” associated with the rally will be $530,000. You claim it is somehow the Campaign’s responsibility to “coordinate” these additional services and expenses, “including arrangements for payment to be made directly by [the Campaign] to the City, in advance of” the rally. If the Campaign does not, you assert, AEG will deem it a default or force majeure and cancel the contract.

Your position is clearly wrong under the plain wording of the contract. Neither the Campaign nor AEG is responsible for arranging or paying for rally-related security. Rather, the U.S. Secret Service – and the U.S. Secret Service alone – is “solely and directly” responsible for coordinating law enforcement services in connection with the rally. “As such, no law enforcement costs shall be coordinated by [AEG], charged through [AEG] to [the Campaign], or shall otherwise be reimbursable expenses in connection with the [contract].” The Campaign cannot be in breach of an obligation it does not owe to AEG. Yet AEG’s failure to deliver the Target Center on October 9 would be a breach of contract, and the Campaign will aggressively pursue all remedies available to it in law or equity – not to mention in the court of public opinion.

We presume this contrived legal justification for threatening to terminate the contract is the result of AEG receiving pressure from City leadership determined to cancel the rally. We are well aware of Mayor Frey’s vocal partisan opposition to President Trump and calls to disrupt the rally. This last-minute squeeze seems to be nothing but a pretextual political effort with serious First Amendment ramifications. Politics is no basis to interfere with a contract, and if the agreement with the Campaign is not honored, the Campaign will also look to hold AEG and the City responsible for the apparent infringement on the Campaign’s financial interests and fundamental First Amendment rights, as well as those of its many supporters.

Please confirm that AEG will honor its agreement with the Campaign by no later than 11:00 am CDT on Tuesday, October 8, or else we will prepare the necessary papers to begin court proceedings.

Regards,

XXXX

Earlier this evening President Trump held a meeting with senior military leadership prior to a dinner with spouses at the White House. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, everybody. This is a group gathering of very talented people. And somebody was saying before, I think Mark Esper, our new Secretary of Defense — and, by the way, congratulations.

SECRETARY ESPER: Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Congratulations on really having done already a really great job. But you were saying this is the first group where just about everybody — they’re appointed by Trump. And that’s good. That’s good. Just about everybody. So we have the people that we want. We’re very happy with them.

Our military is in great shape. I want to — in particular, I want to congratulate Mark for new — the new boss, right? You’re the new boss. And it’s some somebody that’s respected by everybody in this room and respected by just about everybody outside of this room, I can tell you. So, Joint Chiefs of Staff. The head is — that’s — it doesn’t get any bigger in your world.

But we are having a meeting tonight. We have a meeting now, and then we’re going to the White House and we’re going to have dinner with the wives and families. And we’re going to have some very interesting conversation.

Things are going very well with our military. We’ve spent $2.5 trillion since I’ve been President, and rebuilt our military. When I came in, we were low on ammunition and, as you know, we had jets that didn’t work too well. We had a lot of — a lot of old planes, and we have now, beautiful new planes, or certainly we have a lot of them coming, but we have a lot of them right now in stock.

And we’re — we’re doing things I think that nobody thought was possible. We have had extraordinary relationships with a lot of our allies and, I would say, good relationships with others. But we want fairness, we want — we want to be treated respectfully. We help a lot of nations, and they are not — they’re not sometimes there for us. So we want to help the ones that — that we want, and we want to help the ones that deserve the help. And I think we’ve discussed this at length, all of us. Perhaps there’ll be some changes made, and perhaps not. But we have to be respected as a nation.

A lot of things are changing. You have some very, very wealthy nations, extremely wealthy nations, where we take care of their military and we take care of their military needs. Nobody can do it better than us. But we are really not being reimbursed for what we’re doing.

And we’re having some very nice talks, very friendly talks. And for the most part, I would say, without exception, people are coming through and they’re saying, “You know, we have to help out also.”

So a lot of very exciting things are happening with our military. We have a great team. This is our team right here. They’re some of the best leaders in the world. I think they’re probably the best leaders in the world. We have the greatest men, we have the greatest women, and we have the greatest equipment. Nobody makes it like we do.

So I just want to thank you all. We’ll have a discussion. Then we’re going to go over and have dinner at the White House. And thank you all very much for being here. Appreciate it.

Q Mr. President, are you confident that — are you confident that these gentlemen — I guess, mostly who are sitting around you — believe what you’re doing in Syria is the best idea at this point?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’ve been in Syria for a long time.
And it was supposed to be a very short hit, and — hit on ISIS. But it didn’t work out that way. They never left. And they’ve been there for many, many years. And we are — we were down to very few soldiers in Syria. We had 50 in the region that you’re talking about — 50 soldiers — and they’ve been already moved out.

But we’ll see what happens with respect to a lot of different things. We’ve told Turkey — I spoke with President Erdoğan of Turkey, and I said, “Got to treat them good, and you got to take care of ISIS.” Don’t forget, we’ve captured — we defeated — this group, largely — defeated ISIS. One hundred percent of the caliphate. One hundred percent. And we wanted to do 100 percent. I was going to do this nine months ago, and we were not at 100 percent, but we were pretty close. Everyone said, “Can we get to 100 percent?” Now I get to 100 percent, and they say, “Well, maybe we could stay longer.” I say, “Well, when do we get out?” There’s got to be a time we get out. We have to bring our people back home.

And frankly, our great soldiers have been talking about this on the campaign. You go back three years ago and more, and you watch the speeches. We want to bring our soldiers back home. These are the endless wars.

And we’re not fighting; we’re policing, to a large extent. We’re policing in certain areas. We’re not police, we’re — these are fighters, great fighters; the greatest in the world. And that’s what they do.

So I’ve told President Erdoğan — I hope he’s going to treat everybody with great respect. You have to understand, they’ve been fighting various of the people that we were working with, and they — Turkey has been fighting them for many years. Somebody said hundreds of years. You had just mentioned to me yesterday, 200 years, maybe more.

At some point, we have to bring our people back home. And that’s what we’re doing. That’s what we’re doing.

Q Is it a firm decision, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: It’s always a firm decision. Last time I made a firm decision, but — and I said, “We’ll do it over a period of time.” We’ve been doing this, actually, over a period of time — over a very long period of time. And we’ve been working with the people in this room, and our soldiers have been coming back over that period of time.

I think that one of the very big factors when we defeated ISIS — we have thousands right now, of ISIS fighters and families. We have family members, wives, children. And many of them come out of Europe, they come out of Germany, they come out of France and other countries of Europe, and I told them, “You have to take these people back.” You have to take them back, give them trials, do whatever you have to do. And they said, “No, we don’t want to do that. I said, “Well, you have to do that.” That’s not fair to the American taxpayers. It’s not fair to America. It’s not fair to the United States not to do that. But they chose not to do it. I said, “Again, you got to take them back.” We can’t take care of sixty, seventy thousand people.

And we’re not going to move the fighters to Guantanamo Bay and take care of them for many, many years into the future. It’s not for us. We did you a great service, a great favor. We defeated the caliphate 100 percent, and now it’s time for Germany and France, and all of the nations where they came from, to take them back. And they chose no. And maybe they’ll — maybe they’re going to change their tune now. I don’t know.

But in the meantime, we’ll have to rely on the European nations. We’ll have to rely on various other nations — as an example, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Russia, and some other nations — to take care of these fighters. But the American taxpayer is not going to spend 50 years of paying tax, or whatever it may be that they’re — wherever they may be, for instance, Guantanamo, or, for instance, prisons in the United States. The American taxpayer won’t put up with that.

Q Mr. President, are you concerned with what the second whistleblower may reveal about your conversation with Ukraine?

THE PRESIDENT: Not at all, because the call was a perfect call. You had stenographers, you had people that took it down exactly. It was a perfect call. It’s just a scam. This is a scam by the Democrats to try and win an election that they’re not going to win in 2020.

All you have to do is take a look at the polls, see what happened. One poll had me up 12 points, 16 points, or 17 points.

We — just take a look at what’s going on. The people understand it’s a scam. They’re trying to win an election in 2020 by using impeachment. If you look at that call, it’s a perfect call. It’s congenial. There was no pressure. And what did the head of Ukraine say? What did the head — did he say there was no pressure? Did his person say — his top representative, his foreign minister, say there was no pressure whatsoever. There was no pressure put on him. This is a scam. This is one of the greatest scams we —

Look, we beat you on the — we won on the Mueller scam. That was a whole big deal. That lasted for two and a half years. We had a few days of peace and then, all of a sudden, they came up with this one. But I guess it’s just part of my life. This is the most ridiculous thing many people have ever seen. All you have to do is read. All you have to do is read what they wrote down, the stenographers. They wrote down an exact call.

Now, what happened is Schiff, Adam Schiff, went up before Congress, and he read the most horrible speech, attributed the speech to me. These people won’t believe this one. If you went to Annapolis, West Point, or the Air Force Academy, you’re not going to believe this one happened. He went up, and he took a speech, and he made it up. It was horrible. And he said, “The President of the United States said this on the call.” It’s a fraud. He real- — I mean, it’s a fraudulent speech. What he did is incredible. And it shouldn’t be allowed. And I don’t think it’s going to be allowed. I think a lot of things are happening.

By the way, Nancy Pelosi knew it was a fraud, and she didn’t say anything about it. But if you look at the call — you just take a look at that call — that call is a very — a terrific call. It’s congenial, there was no pressure, there was no anything. And you know it, and so do I, and so does everybody else. And that’s why the polls are doing well. That’s why — I don’t bring up fundraising, but that’s why, I believe, in the history of the Republican Party at this time, they’ve never had anything like the numbers that have been raised. They raised $13 million in many small donations in a 24-hour period. That hasn’t even happened.

So, people understand that it’s a fraud. It’s a scam. It’s a witch hunt. And all we do is just keep fighting for the American people, because that’s all I do.

We win. Our economy is doing great. Our jobs numbers are the best they’ve ever been. Just about the best they’ve ever been for many groups: African Americans, Asians, Hispanics. They’re the best they’ve ever been in the history of our country. And overall, they’re the best numbers in 51 years.

So, we’re doing great things and we’re going to keep going. Thank you very much.

END 6:25 P.M. EDT

At the conclusion of the U.S-Japan trade signing ceremony at the White House, President Trump took questions from the media. Below is the segment from the press Q&A.

[Transcript of Presser] – Q Do you have any predictions about China? Do you expect a whole new offer or any optimism?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, they want to make a deal. They’re down three and a half million jobs since we started doing what we do. And their supply chain is really cracked and broken. And they want to make a deal.

Now, they’re coming to see us on Thursday and Friday. We think there is a chance that we could do something very substantial. Bob, I think you think that. We’ll see what happens. But, in the meantime, we’re taking in billions and billions of dollars of tariffs every month and we’ve never had this. We never took in 10 cents from China and we’re taking in billions of dollars and tens of billions a year.

And on October 15th, as you know, it goes up from — up to 35 — I guess, it goes to 35. It’s going to — it’s going to raise fairly substantially. We could always do it a lot more, but we’ve decided not to.

So that’s the story. And I think that they will — they’re coming to make a deal. We’ll see whether or not a deal can be made, but it’s got to be a fair deal.

Look, we’ve lost $500 billion a year for many, many years on average. If you include intellectual property theft and all of the other things that took place, it’s incredible that past administrations could have allowed it to happen. We’re talking about $500 billion — not million; that’s a lot, too — $500 billion a year, for many years, taken out of our country.

We rebuilt China. They did a great job and I don’t blame them. I told President Xi, “I don’t blame you one bit.” I blame the people that ran this country to allow that to happen. And they understand that. But we don’t let that happen anymore.

So, we’ll see what happens. We’re going to have a very important meeting. And they have their top people coming in. And I have my top people doing the job. And if I don’t think they’re doing a good job, I’ll fire them and I’ll go over and take their place. (Laughter.) Okay?

Yeah, please.

Q On Hong Kong, sir, are the Hong Kong protests linked, in your view, to the China trade negotiations in any way?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’d like to see a very humane solution to that. I hope that’s going to happen. And, you know, Hong Kong is very important as a world hub — not just for China, but for the world. And you have great people over there.

I see they’re flying the American flags. They even have signs: “Make China Great Again.” “Make Hong Kong Great Again.” (Laughter.)

And I’m saying, “Get those signs.” But they have, you know, tremendous signage and tremendous — they have a tremendous spirit for our country. They have a lot of American flags, a lot of Trump signs.

I’d just like to see a humane deal be worked out. And I think President Xi has the ability to do it.

I sort of said that I think if he met — he’s a very convincing man, and I think if he met with some of the leaders — that could be one problem, you don’t seem to have a specific leader of the group. But I really think they can do something. We just want to see a humane solution.

Q Did you tell Xi Jinping in any way that you would be quiet about Hong Kong protests during the course of these negotiations?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I didn’t. But I do say that we are negotiating. If anything happened bad, I think that would be a very bad for the negotiation. I think, politically, it would be very tough maybe for us, and maybe for some others, and maybe for him.

But, no, I think that they have to do that in a peaceful manner. It’s — now, I will say, the first time I saw it, if you look — a number of months ago, I saw 2 million people. I’ve never seen anything like it. We talk about crowd size. That was serious crowd size, right? The crowd size is much smaller now, so maybe that’s saying something. But hopefully they can work out something that’s amicable.

Yes, sir.

Q Mr. President, would you accept a partial trade deal with China? There has been some talk today about whether or not it could be headed in that direction.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s a very good question. I think it’s not what we prefer at all. They are starting to buy a lot of our agricultural products. You see that. They’re coming in very strong on pork, also — very, very strong — and in particular. But on other products, that — so, I don’t know if you call that a “partial.” We don’t have an agreement.

My inclination is to get a big deal. We’ve come this far. We’re doing well. Again, the fact that they’ve done what they’ve done with their currency — the devaluation — it really has not increased prices. And now we’re talking China. It doesn’t mean that in all cases that happens; other countries prices increase, but in the case of China that hasn’t happened. And they put a lot of money into their goods. They want to keep their people working. I understand that very well.

But I think that we’ll just have to see what happens. I would much prefer a big deal. And I think that’s what we’re shooting for. Can something happen? I guess, maybe. Who knows? But I think it’s probably unlikely. Okay?

Q Mr. President, on Syria — on withdrawing forces in Syria —

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q — why are you siding with an authoritarian leader and not our Kurdish allies?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’m not siding with anybody. We’ve been in Syria for many years. You know, Syria was supposed to be a short-term hit — just a very short-term hit. And we were supposed to be in and out. That was many, many years ago. And we only have 50 people in that area. That’s a small sector.

And I don’t want those 50 people hurt or killed or anything. I don’t want anything bad to happen to our people. And I told that to President Erdoğan. I said, “Don’t hurt any of our — any of our people get hurt, big trouble.”

Now, a couple of things: I think there’s a lot of pressure on Turkey. They have been fighting with the PKK for many years. They’re natural enemies. If you read today, a couple of reports saying that when President Obama started this whole thing — as you know, it was started by President Obama — he created a natural war with Turkey and their long-time enemy, PKK. And they’re still there. And they’re still hating each other beyond anybody’s belief.

But I have told Turkey that if they do anything outside of what we would think is humane — to use the word a second time; we talk about Hong Kong, we talk about this — they could suffer the wrath of an extremely decimated economy. And I’ve done it once. I did it with Pastor Brunson. You remember the Pastor Brunson? And they wouldn’t give Pastor Brunson back, and they ended up giving Pastor Brunson back pretty quickly. Their currency fell at record levels and lots of other things happened. And it was good. I have a very good relationship with President Erdoğan. I want to see it happen.

I will tell you this though: We defeated ISIS. And when I wanted to — when we were at 96 and 95 and 97 percent, I sort of said, “Let the other countries in the area finish it off.” And I was met with a lot of anger from some people in our country. I said, “All right. I’ll finish it off.” And I got together with our generals. I flew to Iraq. I got together. And we did it very quickly. Far quicker than any general from here told us we could do it. We have some great people over there. They did it quickly.

And I said to the European countries, “You’ve got to take your ISIS…” You know we have 60,000, maybe even 70,000 people — that includes families, that includes wives of fighters that were killed. We have many fighters that were killed in the battles. And we took it. Over 100 percent of the caliphate, I took over quickly. Nobody else was — it was a mess when I came to office. And I think most of you would agree to that. It was a real mess.

I took it over. But then I said, “What are we going to do with these 60- to 70,000 people that are being held and being guarded and we can’t release them?” And many fighters also. And I said, “I want them to go back to Germany, to France, to different European countries from where they came.” And I said to the European countries — I said to all of them, “Take the people back.” And they said, “No, no, no. We don’t want to do it. We don’t them back.” I said, “Well, they came from Germany or they came from France. Take them back.”

And they’re so used to the United States being a sucker, being a fool — we’re talking about billions and billions of dollars. You’re talking about life. You’re talking about so many things, so many elements — and elements of complexity. Because they’re going to walk back into Germany. They’re going to go back into these countries from where they came.

So I said, “Take them back.” And they said, “No.” And then I said again, “I’m going to give you another 30 days. Take them back.” And they kept saying, “No.” Maybe they won’t be saying “no” now. I don’t know.

So I told President Erdoğan, “You got to — it’s going to be your responsibility.” Now, really, who’s responsible — it’s really Russia, it’s Turkey, it’s Iran, it’s Iraq, and it’s Syria, and anybody else in the neighborhood. Okay? We call it the “neighborhood.” It’s not a friendly neighborhood. But these countries should do it.

Now, ISIS is the sworn enemy of all of these countries. Many of them they hate far more than they hate us, and those countries hate them at the same level as we do. They’re — they’re terrible, terrible, savage killers. I said, “Take them back.”

But these countries are rich, in most cases. They’re powerful. They’ve got armies. They can do the work. But we’re not bringing 50-, 60-, 70-, or even 10,000 people to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. We’re not going to paying them for the next 50 years, or paying to take care of them for the next 50 years. So we told Europe — we did a great service to the world. And we did a great service to Europe in particular, where so many of these fighters came from.

We said, “Take them back.” And, you know, unfortunately, like NATO, they take advantage. NATO, as you know, I got the Secretary General [DEL: Stolheim :DEL] [Stoltenberg] said — and, I think, very loudly — the Secretary General of NATO, said that because of what I did, they have paid over $100 billion more money toward NATO defense. But that’s still not enough, okay? It’s still not enough. Not fair. Because United States pays far too much, relative. And obviously, NATO affects them more.

But, like NATO, like trade with the European Union, which is a very tough group to trade with — very, very tough group. Almost as tough as Japan — not quite. (Laughter.) But they are a very tough group to trade with. They take advantage. And I said, “Look, you take them back. We’re not — we’re not going to do this. We’re not going to put in Guantanamo Bay and put them all over our prisons.”

So, right now, we’re at a position where, if Turkey does anything out of what they should be doing, we will hit them so hard on the economy. But when you talk about soldiers — we only had 50 soldiers in the area. I think the area was — it’s a very small area and — very small area. But we only had 50 soldiers there. I don’t want them to be in a bad or compromising position.

And I will tell you this: Everybody respects our country again. If we want to go in, if we have to go back for any reason — because bad things happen. But we’re 7,000 miles away. These ISIS people — whatever you want to call them — these people are right there. They’re right there. They’re touching many of these countries that I just named. Iran, as an example, hates ISIS. And ISIS hates Iran. Iraq, you know all about that. Turkey, Syria — let them take care of it. Let them take care of it.

We want to bring our troops back home. It’s been many, many years. It’s been decades, in many cases. We want to bring our troops back home. And I got elected on that. If you go back and look at our speeches, I would say, “We want to bring our troops back home from these endless wars.”

And we’re like a police force over there. We’re policing. We’re not fighting; we’re policing. We’re not a police force. We’re the greatest military force ever assembled because of what I’ve done over the last three years with $2.5 trillion, Mr. Ambassador, we’ve spent on our military — $2.5 trillion.

But we’re not going to be there longer. And we’re going to be watching Turkey and we hope that them and all of the other countries — or some of the other countries, including the European Union — goes in and does whatever they’re supposed to do with these captured ISIS fighters and families. Okay?

Q Mr. President, a number of Republicans, including — including Nikki Haley and Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell were very critical of this decision today. Mitch McConnell put out a statement saying, wish you would recon- — exercise leadership and reconsider, and suggested not doing so would be reminiscent of what the Obama administration would do. Would you respond to that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q And also, did you –

THE PRESIDENT: Sure.

Q Did you consult with the Joint Chiefs of Staff when you made this decision?

THE PRESIDENT: Sure. I consulted with everybody. I always consult with everybody. If you remember, about eight months ago, I talked about doing this. And we kept 2,000 people there, and then slowly brought them out. But once we captured ISIS, I didn’t see — I don’t want to stay there for the next 40 years. It’s not going to do anything. The end game is going to be the same.

I have great respect for all of the people that you named. And they have their opinion, and a lot of people do. And I could also name many more than you just named of people that totally are supportive. You see the names coming out; people are extremely thrilled because they say it’s time to bring our people back home. We’re not a police force. They’re policing the area. We’re not a police force.

The UK was very thrilled at this decision. As you know, they’re over there — they have soldiers over there also. And others. But many people agree with it very strongly. And I understand both sides of it. I fully understand both sides of it. But I campaigned on the fact that I was going to bring our — our soldiers home, and bring them home as rapidly as possible.

I, we, all together, you — we defeated and took over 100 percent of the ISIS caliphate. Everybody said that was going to be an impossible thing to do. I did it, and I did it quickly because we have a great military now.

When I took over our military, we didn’t have ammunition. I was told by a top general — maybe the top of them all — “Sir, I’m sorry. Sir, we don’t have ammunition.” I said, “I’ll never let another President have that happen to him or her.” We didn’t have ammunition.

Now, we’ve captured ISIS. We’ve done what we’ve done. We had 50 soldiers in the area you’re talking about. And I said, “We want to bring our soldiers back home. It’s been a long time.”

Again, we were supposed to be in there for a — just a tiny spot. Like, a 30- to 90-day period. That was many years ago. It’s time.

Q Mr. President, the Kurds themselves have lost thousands of fighters in battling ISIS.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s true. And we’ve lost a lot of fighters, too.

Q Can you guarantee their safety?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’re going to try. If you look at some of the Kurds, as you know, that was — that’s a natural enemy of — of Turkey. It’s — you know, specifically, as I said. I mean, they have natural enemies. They’ve been fighting each other for — somebody said, today — hundreds of years. I mean, one historian said they’ve been fighting for hundreds of years.

We interject ourself into wars, and we interject ourselves into tribal wars and revolutions and all of these things that are very — they’re not the kind of thing that you settle the way we’d like to see it settled. It just doesn’t — it just doesn’t work that way. But hopefully, that’ll all be very strong and strongly done.

We’re spending tremendous amounts of money. I can tell you, the two countries that are most disappointed that we’re leaving are China and Russia because they love that we’re bogged down and just watching and spending tremendous amounts of money instead of continuing to build our forces.

We have tremendous new weapons under development now. We have weapons that nobody can even believe. We’re going to be making some stops over the next four or five weeks. Some we show, some we don’t show.

But we’ve rebuilt our nuclear. We’ve renovated and rebuilt nuclear. We’re building submarines the likes of which has — they’ve never been even thought of before, the genius of them. Hopefully and hope to God we never have to use them.

But we are doing what we have to do. But we’ve been there for many years. Long — many, many, many years beyond what we were supposed to be — not fighting, just there. Just there. And it’s time to come back home.

But I can understand the other side of it. But if you go by the other side, that means we should never, ever come home. We should never, ever come home.

And, you know, I have to sign letters often to parents of young soldiers that were killed. And it’s the hardest thing I have to do in this job. I hate it. I hate it. Afghanistan. I signed one the other day — Iraq, Syria. They get blown up by mines. They get taken out by a sniper. And I have to write letters to people. And we make each letter different. Each person is different. And we make them personal. But no matter what you do, it’s devastating. The parents will never be the same. The families will never be the same. People are killed. Many people are still being killed. It’s going to go on that way for perhaps a long time.

And we’re willing to do what we have to do, but there has to be an end game. And if you stay, it’s going to be the same thing. Eventually, you’re going to have to leave. It’s going to be the same thing.

So, I think what we’re doing is the right thing. A lot of people agree with me. A lot of people agree with me. And again, you go back and see my speeches, a big part of my speech and always — when I won what some people consider to be a surprise election — now I just see a poll that just came out where I’m up massively with independent voters. I don’t know if it’s this or because of the hoax, you know, that’s going on with Nancy Pelosi and her — her friend, Adam Schiff. He’s another beauty. He got caught lying all over the place. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s a mess. Right now, he’s a mess. And everybody knows it. Just all you have to do is a little good reporting, you’ll see he’s a total mess because he got caught.

But, you know, we have to do the right thing for our country, whether it — whatever it may be. And I just think that’s the right thing. I respect both opinions. The problem with the other opinion is: When do we leave? When do we leave? We’re going to stay there forever?

Yeah, Jeff.

Q Mr. President, the White House Counsel’s Office is preparing a letter to —

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q — to Speaker Pelosi about the impeachment inquiry. What do you hope to achieve with that letter?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, the impeachment inquiry is a scam. The conversation that I had with the Ukrainian President Zelensky was a very good conv- — it was a very cordial, very good conversation. The mistake they made — the opponents, the opposition, the Democrats, the radical Left, deep state, whatever you want to call them — they came out with a whistleblower report before they saw the conversation.

Had they waited one day, Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t have made a fool out of herself, and she would have been able to say what I said. Because when she saw it, she said, “This is not what the whistleblower said.” I had a very, very congenial, nice conversation with a man that I like. And he ran on corruption. Because, as you know, Ukraine is known as a very corrupt country — one of the most in the world, shockingly, because I know Ukrainian people. It’s surprising to me. But it’s known as one of the most corrupt countries.

And under the past leadership, it was having a lot of difficulty. This gentleman — the current President, the new President — ran on the basis of anti-corruption, as you know. I think it was his single-biggest thing. And we had a great conversation, but it wasn’t reported that way. The only reason I would have released a letter — because I think it’s terrible to have to release a letter that you have with the leader of a country. I think it’s a terrible precedent.

But the whistleblower report or whatever the news was, was so off. It was so horrible. I said, “I never said that.” I said, “Let me see it.” We have a stenographer report. We have a very, very word-for-word report of what I said; I released it. And almost everybody that read it said it’s either perfect or really very good. But it’s a very normal, nice conversation.

And when you see that the President of Ukraine, President Zelensky, said, “There was no pressure put on me whatsoever.” His spokesman came out two days ago — said there was absolutely no pressure put on the President. I didn’t tell him to say that. There was no pressure put on him. All you have to do is read the report.

The problem is, I released it a day after they had already made their big statements. And again, it’s a big scam. And I think Adam Schiff should be investigated for what he did. He took to the great Chamber — Congress — and he made a speech. And his speech was a fraud. Everything he said was a fraud. He went out as though I wrote it. He defrauded the American people. He defrauded Congress. He defrauded himself and his family. He made a speech as — it was a horrible speech. I said, “What is this go- — what’s going on here?” I think he’s having some kind of a breakdown. Because he got up and made a speech that bore no relationship to what the conversation was.

And I’ll tell you, a lot of people heard that speech and a lot of people thought that’s what I said because they heard his speech. Because they’re not going to read a three- or four-page conversation. They don’t have access to it. But I thought it was one of the — I thought it was a terrible thing, where he’s going up speaking as the President of the United States, saying things that I never said. And the meaning was horrible. And the whole thought was horrible.

And then, the whistleblower, he did — through his committee, through himself — he met with a whistleblower. They never said that. They never talked about it.

And Nancy Pelosi knew all of this stuff. I mean, she’s as guilty as he is because she knew all of that. She knew everything about it. And she didn’t do anything about it.

And I’ll tell you what: They should really be looked at very strongly because what they did is unthinkable. What they did to this country is unthinkable. And it’s lucky that I’m the President, because I guess — I don’t know why — a lot of people said very few people could handle it. I sort of thrive on it. You know why? Because — because it’s so important that we get to the bottom.

We went through the whole Mueller scam — two and a half years. We went through that. And I had three, four days where it was, like, over. And then I’m walking into the United Nations, and they released it as I’m walking in, Mr. Ambassador. I’m walking in. I’m going to meet with — I won’t name, but one of the top leaders of the world. And I see up on the screen and people start screening about this scam called “impeachment.”

You can’t impeach a President for doing a great job. You can’t impeach a President for having the lowest and best unemployment numbers that we’ve had in 51 years. You can’t impeach a President for tax cuts and regulation cuts and creating — and even the Ambassador would say — the strongest economy in the world. We have the strongest economy in the world.

This is a scam. And the people are wise to it. And that’s why my polls went up, I think they said, 17 points in the last two or three days. I’ve never had that one. I’ve never had that one.

So, I think it’s very sad for our country. I think it makes it harder to do my job. But I do my job, and I do it better than anybody has done it for the first two and half years, based on results. I mean, you look at not only the unemployment numbers — look at the employment numbers, Jeff. We have — we’re up to almost 160 million people are working.

And now, today, we’ve signed the deal with Japan, which is such an honor. And you have a great country — a great, great country. And to have you partake in our agricultural product and digital is a real honor for me.

So thank you very much for coming all this distance and — to be here. And I look forward to seeing you for many years to come. Please, again, wish Prime Minister Abe a happy birthday. He’s a very special man. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)

END 4:54 P.M. EDT

Presser begins at 29:36 of video below (prompted):

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appeared on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the severely political nature of Speaker Pelosi’s impeachment agenda.

Within the interview McCarthy highlights that House rules and processes have been usurped to construct a one-party political impeachment operation.  Additionally, McCarthy notes the larger objective of House democrats to stall the USMCA trade ratification in order to undermine President Trump and support China.