President Trump tweeted tonight: “something big just happened”…

Fox News is reporting: A “high value ISIS target” believed to be Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed by U.S.-led forces in Idlib, Syria, a well-placed military source told Fox News on Saturday night.  The U.S. military cannot yet confirm the identity of the deceased target. (link)

President Trump visited South Carolina yesterday, receiving an award and delivering the keynote speech at Benedict College, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). [Video and Transcript Below]

.

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Two great gentlemen. Thank you very much. And thank you all. Please, sit down.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you, President! (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. And I want to thank Representative Donalds. There’s somebody with a future. (Laughter.) I don’t know if I’d trade him — that future — for the age. I’d love to pick up that age. That was a good age. But he’s got a tremendous future ahead of him.

And a very special thanks to Matthew Charles. I saw him on television the first time when he had so much difficulty trying to get something that he was really entitled to. And I looked at that smile. That smile is infectious, and he’s a great gentleman and we’re very proud of him.

And I’m very proud of being involved with criminal justice reform and getting it done, getting it passed. And we had a lot of votes that normally wouldn’t have gone that way. And they really — they were pushing me, some of them, at the end. And we have some of the folks here: Tim Scott and Lindsey. They’re here. But I’m going to introduce them in a little while.

But we had tremendous help. This was a bipartisan bill. We had a lot of support on both sides. And people that you would’ve least expected really helped us a lot. So, they’ve been trying to get this passed for many, many years.

But to everyone at the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center: It’s my great privilege to speak with you today, and my true honor to receive the Bipartisan Justice Award. I am very, very grateful for that. And it will be at a very high level in the Oval Office — a place called the Oval Office. Have you heard about that? (Applause.) It’ll be right in the Oval Office with me. I’m very proud of it. Thank you.

I also want to thank everyone from one of our nation’s incredible HBCUs — I’ve been working with them — Benedict College. We know Benedict College. (Applause.) And especially your very dynamic president, Dr. Roslyn Clark Artis. (Applause.) Where are you? Where is Doctor? Where are you?

And the outstanding students who are joining us today. You are outstanding and you have a tremendous future. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. (Applause.)

We’re thrilled to be on your campus and to celebrate all that we have achieved together and to discuss the actions that we’re taking to build a future of safety and opportunity and fairness for all Americans.

Four years ago, 20 African American Republicans and 20 African American Democrats founded the 20/20 Bipartisan Justice Center to advance the cause of criminal justice reform. And I’d heard about it for so long and it was going nowhere. Nowhere. But they all got together, and you fought to fix a broken system. You sought to confront inequality and stop injustice. And you worked to restore hope and optimism where they are really needed the most and where there was very little.

With your help, last year we brought the whole country together to achieve a truly momentous milestone. They said it couldn’t be done. Past administrations had tried and failed. Some didn’t try very hard. I will sell- — I will say that. But they tried and they failed.

After years of waiting, we assembled a historic coalition. And it was indeed historic. We had them so liberal you wouldn’t believe it, and so conservative you wouldn’t believe it. And they got together. I said, “How did we do that one?” But it was a beautiful thing to watch. It really was.

And we rallied activists, and faith leaders, and law enforcement, and lawmakers alike. We worked across party lines very strongly.
After all of the work and effort, we passed the bill and I proudly signed it into law — the most significant criminal justice reform in many generations.

We call it the FIRST STEP Act. I sort of liked the idea of just calling it “Criminal Justice Reform.” But FIRST STEP is good because that allows a second step and a third step. And that’s okay because we can go there, too. (Applause.)

But the FIRST STEP Act proved that we can achieve amazing breakthroughs when we come together as a nation and we put the interests of our citizens before the interests of any political party.

Since we passed this landmark legislation, 10 states have followed our lead and passed legislation that takes critical steps to advance criminal justice reform at the state level. We gave it a beautiful stepping stone. And some states have come and they’ve really taken it to a level that you’d be very proud of. And it’s only because of what we did that they were able to do it legally and in many other ways.

So I want to say congratulations to all of the leaders here today from Arizona, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Tennessee. Congratulations. Great job. Really great job. (Applause.)

We’re also grateful to all of the mayors, city council members, and state legislators who are fighting for reform in your own communities. I especially want to thank the South Carolina leaders. And I have their names written down; there are so many of them. I’ll do this before you, Henry. Is that okay? I want to introduce our great governor. They love Henry. (Applause.) They might like Peggy more, but that’s okay. But we’ll do this first.

State Senator — and they’ve helped so much — and President of the Senate, Harvey Peeler. Harvey? Where are you, Harvey? Thank you, Harvey. (Applause.)

State Senator Gerald Malloy. Gerald, thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)

State Senator Katrina Shealy. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) I thought you were over there.

And statehouse members: Speaker Jay Lucas. Jay? Thank you, Jay. Thank you, Jay. (Applause.) Majority Leader Gary Simrill. Gary, thank you. (Applause.) And all members: Brandon Newton, Mike Burns, Bill Chumley, Peter McCoy, Sylleste Davis, Chris Murphy, Bobby Cox, Alan Clemmons. I want to just thank all of you for being here. And I’m sure that we probably left some out and they’ll never speak to me again. You see? (Laughter.) But all we can do is try.

I have all these names written down. And they’ve worked very hard, and they’ve worked hard. And I said they really have to be mentioned because they’ve been tremendous supporters of all of us. So thank you all for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you. (Applause.)

With us this afternoon is a very special friend of mine. He was with me from day one, before it was fashionable. (Laughter.) And he picked a winner. It’s like going to a horse race, isn’t it? (Laughter.) He picked a winner. But he had good feelings, and he was tremendously loyal friend and he’s a great governor. And he’s become more and more popular. I never want to see his approval rating go above mine; otherwise, we’ll have to come in and give it one slightly negative speech — (laughter) — about Henry McMaster. Thank you, Henry. (Applause.)

And also, please, Peggy McMaster, First Lady. Congratulations on a job well done. Thank you, Peggy. She has been by his side — I’ll tell you. Thank you very much, both. Great job you’re doing, too, as governor.

Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette. Pamela, thank you. Pamela Evette, thank you. (Applause.) Thank you very much.

And Alan Wilson is here someplace. Alan? Alan? Thank you, Alan. Great job, Alan. (Applause.) Thank you very much.

Two friends of mine that are warriors — really, warriors. Two great people. And you have them both. They’re senators and they fight. And somebody just said, Lindsey, we’re up to 50 already and we — I haven’t even made a phone call. Fifty. Fifty out of fifty-three. And they said, “If you get to 40, that’s pretty good, if you haven’t done anything.” But we’re up to 50. I don’t know if you’ve heard that, Lindsey. Did you hear that? And Tim said that was going to happen.

But two really great men. They love your state and they love the people of this country. They love our country. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott. Could you please — (applause). Thank you, fellas. Thank you.

All I can say is, thank goodness they’re on my side — (laughter) — because if they weren’t, I’d have big trouble, right? They’re warriors. They really are. They’ve done so many different things: tax cuts and all of the things we’ve done for our military, and Choice. Military Choice. They were right in there. And, Tim and Lindsey, you never let the people down. Forget about me; you never let the people down. Thank you very much. Great job. (Applause.)

And Representative Ralph Norman. I want to just mention he’s been a friend of mine, he’s been a warrior. (Applause.) Very popular guy.

But we learned a lot, because Ralph had one election. “He was so far ahead that everybody said, “Hey let’s not vote; he’s going to win too easily.” We can never let that happened again, because he — he won. But it was a little closer than we thought. Everybody stayed home. We can never let that happen. So we always have to pretend we’re one point behind, right? But he is a fantastic man and he’s been incredible, and he’s really a popular person in South Carolina.

And Joe Wilson. Joe? Joe, thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, Joe. Joe is an incredible guy. Been with us from day one, I think, Joe. Right? Day one. And he loves this state and he loves our country. Thank you very much, Joe. Great job. Appreciate it.

And Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin. Steve, thank you very much. Steve. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Great job.

Thanks also to my good friends, Pastor Darrell Scott and Kareem Lanier. Where is Darrell? You talk about a warrior — this guy. (Applause.) I met him a long time ago. He was defending me on CNN — low-ratings CNN. And — (laughter) — and he was brutal. You know, I said, “He’s a pastor. He’s a man of the cloth. And, boy, can he go at it.” (Laughter.) So you have the two — you have that little dichotomy, but he never let it bother him. And what he has done in defending us, I will never, ever forget it. Darrell Scott has been incredible. Both of them.

But when I saw Darrell on television, I said, “You have to get — we have to find out who that man is. He’s fantastic.” Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you, Darrell. (Applause.)

And I always thought he was a very young guy. How many years are you married to your great wife?

MR. SCOTT: Only 38.

THE PRESIDENT: I said, “How many years are you married?” I thought he was like 40 years old. (Laughter.) He said, “We’re having our anniversary.” He’s got an incredible wife. “Oh, how many years?” “Thirty-eight years.” I said, “You got to be kidding me.” Thirty-eight, right? Thirty-eight. That’s great. Congratulations, Darrell. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great friend of mine.

And we’re also joined by several outstanding members of my administration — people that have really made a difference: Secretary of HUD Ben Carson. (Applause.)

A man that has had more impact on investment in various cities and inner cities and people that really need help — an incredible, inspirational man; an unbelievable athlete; and somebody that’s done a job that — we can’t even believe what a great job he’s done, because opportunity — you know, I don’t know if you go see what’s happening with Opportunity Zones; I don’t think there’s ever been anything like it. And I have to give Tim Scott a lot of credit for that. Maybe all of it. (Applause.)

You know, I go around and I talk about Tim Scott where they’re not that familiar. And I say, “Yeah, there’s a senator from South Carolina.” I could be in the other parts of the country. “Tim Scott.” And they come to me, “Why did you mention Tim Scott? Why didn’t you take more credit?” I said, “Because, honestly, it was his idea.” We got it done together, but it was.

And, Tim, I don’t think we could have picked a better person than Scott Turner to make our vision come true. It’s the hottest thing there is. I don’t think there’s been anything like it. (Applause.) So, fantastic job. What a job.

Johnathan Holifield, who’s with me, and Ja’Ron Smith, who’s with me and been with me for a long time. I want to thank you both. I know Ja’Ron was back here. (Applause.) Where is Ja’Ron? He was back here. There he is. He never wants credit. You know, usually he’ll stay back there and I don’t want you ever to be — I want you to be right where you should be. But you are — what a job you guys have done. Thank you very much.

And a very special thanks to someone who worked tirelessly to get this law passed. You know, I’ve always said — I think I was telling Tim before, and I pulled Lindsey aside. I said, “You know, I think he’s a liberal. He could be a liberal.” (Laughter.) Jared Kushner. He could be a liberal. (Applause.) He wanted to get that through. He came to me. I said, “Jared, okay. Okay. Just don’t ever come again. Please, just leave me alone.” (Laughter.) And we got it done. Right, Jared?

We called a couple of folks that people didn’t think would come along and they were incredible once they understood what we were doing. And it’s really — you know, it’s really worked out. It’s been a while now, right? It’s been a while. And it’s really worked out. We’ve had tremendous support, and a lot of people are very happy.

I want to extend my warmest condolences to the family and many friends of Elijah Cummings, who are celebrating his life today in Baltimore. Not long ago, I met with Elijah in the Oval Office, and I saw the passion he had with me for lowering prescription drug prices. He had a very strong passion for that.

We’re going to get it done. I will tell you, we are absolutely getting it done. But I was with Elijah and I have rarely seen anybody want to do something like that. And we’re going to have that done. Prescription prices are coming down. We’re the first year in 50 years where they have actually come down. And if we could get support on the other side, we’ll get those prices so far lower than they are right now, you won’t even believe it. I think people are going to be very surprised.

So I want to give my warmest respects. Please. (Applause.)

Every African American leader here today — we have lot of great leaders from all parts of our country — is very proud of a noble heritage. Throughout our history, African Americans have strengthened, uplifted, sustained, defended, and inspired the United States of America.

At the founding of our republic, African American heroes gave their lives for the cause of independence. In the next century, leaders like Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass escaped the evil of slavery and fought for the ideals enshrined in the Declaration of Independence: that we are all created equal and that our rights come from God. (Applause.) True.

In the 20th century, African American churches, civic organizations, and HBCUs, like this one — this great one that we have right here. It’s a beauty, isn’t it? A nice auditorium too, by the way, I have to say. I go to a lot of places. This is one of the nicer ones. Do you mind if we come back? (Laughter.) But you helped lead the righteous struggle to secure civil rights.

African Americans have given their blood, sweat, and tears for this nation. You are entitled to a government that protects your families, your jobs, your safety, and that always puts American citizens first. So true. So true. (Applause.)

From the beginning, my vow has been to stand up for those who have been forgotten, neglected, overlooked, and ignored. And we stand up loudly and clearly in our nation’s capital.

My goal has been to give a voice to the voiceless and to make Washington see and hear those who have been made to feel silent and to feel invisible.

Although criminal justice reform was not a theme of my campaign initially, when I came into office, I heard from countless leaders and listened to many diverse points of view, including to our great church leaders and religious leaders. Everyone from governors to law enforcement officers, faith-based ministries. They call came to see me — asked me to fight on behalf of this forgotten community.

I knew criminal justice reform was not about politics. I’m, to this day, not sure that what I did was a popular thing or an unpopular thing, but I know it was the right thing to do. (Applause.) Thank you.

Last year, Kim Kardashian West and Kanye West, they came to see me. And really good people. They really are. And they told me the story of a woman named Alice Johnson. Alice had already served 22 years for a first-time, non-violent drug offense. And she was going to be in prison for, it looked like, at least another 28 years. That’s her whole life. During her time in prison, Alice became a minister and mentored fellow inmates. She’s an incredible woman. She took responsibility for her actions, but her sentence was simply not proportionate to her crime. And that’s why I commuted Alice’s sentence.

And I’ll never forget the scene: She came out of prison, and there were her children, all grown up: big, strong guys; beautiful — really beautiful, incredible women with such love in their hearts. And they embraced and they kissed and they hugged and they cried outside of this big, monstrous prison.

It was a scene that played all over our country, and it was a scene that I don’t think anybody has any idea the impact of what that had on a lot of people that don’t maybe think like we do. It had an incredible impact. It was a beautiful thing to see. There was so much love. That was true love. And that was a truly happy family. And that was something they never expected. Twenty-eight more years.

I knew in that moment that I made the right decision. And we’re all delighted that Alice is with us. She’s been such an incredible representative. In fact, sometime I’m going to sit her down and ask what is it that you do? Please explain it to me, Alice, because I’d like to have a little bit of what you have. (Laughter.) But she has been — she’s got an incredible warmth and passion. And she really is a very special person. I’ve gotten to know her.

So, Alice, please come up and say a few words. Alice, thank you. (Applause.) Thank you, darling.

MS. JOHNSON: I never in my wildest dreams would have thought that I’d be standing before such a group as this. What an honor.

Being incarcerated, separated from my family for 22 years — almost 22 years — was one of the hardest challenges of my life. When one person goes to prison, it impacts not only that person, but their family, their communities, their society. For generations, we are impacted. Criminal justice reform is not a partisan issue. We are human beings.

I represent, as you see my face here, see the faces of the ones that you will never see unless we come together; unless we come together to act to cause other families to be reunited the way that I was reunited with my family. It was only by the grace of God that our President’s heart was touched by my story and signed papers to commute my sentence.

Kim — (applause) — and I want to thank all of you for the warm reception that I have received since I came home. I think that my story touched so many who saw it, who read about it, who heard about it, because we are just regular people. When I came home, I didn’t come home as an ex-felon, I came home as a returning citizen. (Applause.)

So I just want to say thank you again for all of the work that is being done. I thank all of our legislators who have come together and put aside all of their political differences to work on this very important issue, because this truly has become a movement and it is one that we as returning citizens would not allow you to forget those who have been left behind. Thank you. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Fantastic. Thank you, darling. I’m proud of you.

Thank you, Alice. And Alice’s story not only touched my heart, but it showed me that significant disparities and injustices can exist in the criminal justice system. And I actually went to Alice and I said, “Alice, you were in a prison for 22 years. You got to know a lot of people in that prison. How many people do you have in that were — there’s only one Alice, right? — but people like you. People that are there for so many years for something that, really, it’s time to come out?” And I said, “Because I want their names.” And she knows. Right? She knows the ones. She knows the ones that we’re talking about. Some great people are there.

And so we’re going to work on that, right? You’re going to give me a big list and we’re going to do — we’re going to do some good things. Okay? (Applause.) She goes, “Hmm, probably.” Thank you, Alice. Great job.

The more people I spoke with, the more clear it became that the system could be deeply unfair, contributing to a tragic cycle of poverty and crime and incarceration.

To redress this unfairness, the FIRST STEP Act made transformative changes. We rolled back the unjust provisions of the 1994 Clinton crime law — (applause) — which disproportionately harmed the African American community. You know that. I remember very well what happened.

Here with us today is one of the Americans who changed her life and was recently released under the FIRST STEP Act: Tanesha Bannister. And please, Tanesha, come up and tell us your story. Thank you very much. Please. (Applause.)

MS. BANNISTER: As the President of the United States says, my name is Tanesha Bannister. I was released, after doing sixteen and a half years, under the FIRST STEP Act. And it was because of that act that I was able to reunite with my family. I’m joined here today by my son, Abel. He’s somewhere in the crowd. There. (Applause.)

I want to thank all the political leaders and the organizations that helped push this act — organizations like Cut50 that led this act to free not only just me, but thousand of others. I want to thank all the political leaders that crossed party lines and stepped out of their comfort zone to make this happen.

So many, like myself, have been displaced in the criminal justice system for so long. But I stand here today to say: Because of the FIRST STEP Act, we’re able to move towards the second step.

I want to thank the President for giving me another lease on life. If it wasn’t for you, Mr. President, I’ll still be serving five years in prison. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: All right. That’s good. That’s good.

MS. BANNISTER: And I’ll be forever grateful for that.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

MS. BANNISTER: I just want society to know that this is one bright spot that we can stand on that’s not an issue that has to be forgotten about. It’s one that has been focused on by not only just the political leaders, but the organizations that fight, that (inaudible) to Washington. That was our voice when we didn’t have a voice to be heard.

And I just want to say “thank you.” I want to say that, in order to take the first step, you have to be willing to do things that you’re not comfortable with. You might — you don’t have to be willing to have conversations that you’re not willing to have.

For decades, the criminal justice conversation has been a hard conversation to have. Almost non-existent. It was all about the political leaders thinking about who can be tough on crime, who can lock up the most and throw away the key. It dehumanized. But I’m standing here today saying: This is what a second chance looks like. (Applause.)

I’m determined not to let my past define my future, but to continue to move forward day by day, step by step, and not forget about the ones that are left behind. There’s still work to do. But what I can say is, on this day, a change has been made, and we’ll looking forward to things to come in the near future.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, Benedict College, for having me. Thank all the political leaders and organizations that fought for not just myself but others like me.

FIRST STEP Act not only freed thousand of people, but it helped rehabilitate us, to have us ready to integrate back into society and live a comfortable life.

And I just want to say thank you again. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, darling. Alice, when is she running for office, please? I want to back her. We have to back her, right? That was not a written speech, folks. That was delivered from the heart. That was incredible.

Tanesha, do you mind if I take a couple of the lines you just gave and use them in my future speeches, please? (Laughter.)

And, Tanesha, like Alice, I want you to go give me some recommendations of people that you lived with for many years that you know are good people, that are in there for a long period of time. I want you to give me a list of names, okay? Because I know — give me only the right ones. You know the — (applause) — you got a tough couple of bad ones in there too, Tanesha, right? And that’s okay, too. But give me the right ones, the two of you, and as soon as you can. Okay? Because you know some great people that are going to be there for many, many years, Alice. Right? And you’re going to give me some names, all right? Thank you both. Thank you. (Applause.) Incredible. Thank you both.

To ease former inmates’ return to society, the single-most important action we can take is to help them find a good job.

As a result of our tax cuts, our regulatory cuts, and pro-American trade and, you know, we’re putting America first — I think everyone likes that very much — the energy reforms — our economy is booming. It’s booming like never before. Nothing better for former prisoners that are coming home to look for a job when there’s very low unemployment. And that’s what we have right now.

Because of this, the tight labor market, employers are now recruiting Americans who have been on the sidelines for far too long, including those with criminal records. And they’re doing a phenomenal job. They come out, and they’re being hired. And I’ve had many people tell me — people that are doing the hiring — saying these people are unbelievable. They never got a chance before. So we are being helped by — they call it the “Trump economy,” but a great economy. We’re being helped by a great economy.

And perhaps our economy is the best criminal justice reform of all, because when people can get a job, earn a paycheck, and find purpose in their work, and especially when they are coming out of prison, it’s an incredible thing. (Applause.) It’s really an incredible thing.

And we’re setting records also. When they come out, they’re not going back, in many cases. Statistically much, much better. That’s because they get a job and they like it. They love it. But before, they were never getting that job and bad things were happening.

For years, applicants with criminal records were dismissed out of hand, just automatically: “Nope. We’re not interested.” And even if they were qualified, and if you thought they were reformed, they couldn’t get work.

My administration is working vigorously to remove barriers to re-entry and to encourage second-chance hiring. And we’re really doing a great job. When we say “Hire American,” we mean all Americans. Every single American. That’s what we want.

Instead of hiring low-wage labor from overseas, we’re asking companies to hire American citizens, including former prisoners who have been reformed. America is stronger, and our society is brighter, when everyone can contribute, participate, and join in our national revival. And that’s what it is. We have a national revival going on like you haven’t seen in a long time.

Our two great senators, Tim and Lindsey, have been so helpful. I can’t even tell you how helpful.

Here with us today is Jerome Brown, who served 11 years in prison and now is a master barber. Oh, good. I can have my hair properly cut. (Laughter.) Where is he? Lindsey, do you have a scissor on you, by any chance? (Laughter.) Finally, I can get a good haircut. I’ve been criticized for a long time.

Now, it’s — and doing really well. He has more than 500 clients. And, Jerome, I’d love you to come up and say a few words. But perhaps more importantly, check out my hair. See what you can do for me. (Laughter and applause.) Thank you, Jerome.

MR. BROWN: First, I would just like to say thank you to the President for giving everybody a chance. Because, a lot of times, there are people in prison, and you don’t really know, like, their goals or, you know, what they want in life unless they have a chance.

I was kind of fortunate. When I walked through the doors of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, I had a goal in mind. And my goal was to educate myself, and to read and to help my entire 11 years. So, during that time, I made curriculums. I started a program called, “Criminal and Addictive Thinking.” I had barber classes. And I was mentoring guys that couldn’t read or write. I would help them. Anything I can do to help somebody, because helping them helped me.

And it couldn’t have been done without support neither. So, support from my family and my wife Keisha (ph). We’ve been married 24 years. The staff in the BOP.

And now that I’m looking at the FIRST STEP Act, the President is also giving a lot of guys and women support again. Because without the support, they don’t have the incentive to do things positive for their life and to make a change. So, for that, Mr. President, I thank you very much.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Jerome. You’re so beautiful. Thank you very much. (Applause.)

MR. BROWN: My goal now is just to mentor people as much as I can. I mentor guys now that still come home. I try to show them the right way, not to give up, because a lot of people give up easily just because of a criminal record. And they just think that’s the easy way out, just to say, “Oh, I have a record. They’re not going to hire me anyway.”

One quick example: When I was in prison, I had to renew my barber’s license. And for five years straight, New York state denied me because of moral turpitude — because of my conviction. Every year, I say, I don’t care. I’m just going to spend $40 every year. And if they deny me, I’m just going to do it every day until I get out. And eventually, they approved it.

And I had letters from staff and everybody that gave me support. So it’s like — you can never give up. You know, like I said, the support right now from the FIRST STEP Act, I think it’s going to help a lot of men. There’s still a lot of good men left in there, and women.

So, my motto was just, you know: To help one person in any way is to help secure the future everywhere. Thank you. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Jerome. Fantastic job. Thank you very much. Thank you, Jerome. Incredible job.

On criminal justice reform, trade, the economy, and so much else, our America First Agenda is focused on expanding opportunity for citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed.

For decades, politicians of both parties put their own interests ahead of your interests, and put the interests of foreign nations ahead of the interest of our nation.

Our leaders spent $8 trillion on wars in the Middle East, but they allowed our great cities to fall into tragic decay and disrepair. For the cost of one year of war in the Middle East, we could have given scholarships to every child at every inner city school in America and had tremendous numbers of dollars left over. Politicians drained America’s wealth policing ancient tribal conflicts overseas, while leaving generations of African American children trapped in failing government schools and in failing inner cities.

The same Washington establishment enacted ruinous trade policies that shuttered our factories and shipped our jobs very far away to other countries. More than half a million African Americans lost good-paying manufacturing jobs after the twin disasters of NAFTA and China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization. That was a bad day.

At the same time, lawmakers and corporations joined forces to push immigration policies that hurt working-class Americans of all backgrounds. Many politicians fight harder in Congress for illegal immigrants than they do for United States citizens. (Applause.)

My administration will always put American communities first. On issue after issue, politicians raked in cash from special interests while selling out our nation’s workers and our nation’s great families.

Under this administration, the great betrayal of the American worker is over. After years of rebuilding — (applause) — thank you. After years of rebuilding foreign countries, we are finally rebuilding our country, renewing our cities, and securing our neighborhoods, and protecting our own forgotten communities.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Make America great!

THE PRESIDENT: All my life — that’s right. Make America great. (Laughter.) I couldn’t have said it better than you did. Thank you. Thank you, darling.

All my life, I’ve been committed to advancing fairness and opportunity for the African American community. And today, I am here before you with the empty — and we have to say, we’ve had so many people with empty political rhetoric. We’re doing the opposite. We’re acting, not talking. People have talked. (Applause.) They’ve talked. They’ve talked a lot and they’ve got nothing done. And we’re talking about for a century. We’re talking about for over a hundred years it’s been all talk by a certain group of politicians and no action.

Tim Scott, Lindsey Graham — they’ve done more in the last couple of years than some of our, I hate to call them opponents, but I guess that’s what they are, unfortunately. But they have done more than they have in a hundred years.

I am here to report on real actions that we’ve taken, real promises that we’ve kept, and real results that we’ve delivered.

Since the election, the unemployment rates for African American, Hispanic American, and Asian Americans have achieved all-time, historic — in the history of our country — lows. Today we have more working — (applause) — today we have people working at a level and a number, in the history of country. we’ve never had so many people working before. Almost 160 million people. Never come close.

African American youth unemployment — so important — a number that, three years ago, when I was running, was through the roof. It was, you know, just incredible. It recently reached the lowest rate ever recorded. Youth unemployment. So important.

African American poverty rate has reached its lowest level ever recorded in the history of our country. (Applause.)

So, when I’m up on the debate stage with one of these characters, whoever it may be — (laughter) — and I rattle off a couple of those stats, I don’t know how they’re going to beat me. They’re going to have to be awfully good. They’re going to have to be awfully good.

More than 2 million Americans have been raised out of poverty — taken out of poverty, lifted out of poverty. For the first time on record, most new hires of prime working age are minorities and women. That’s the first time in the history of our country. (Applause.) Minorities and women.

Wages are rising fast. And they are rising twice as fast for the lowest-income workers than they are for the high-wage earners. Proportionately, they’re doing the best of all. Women — the best year for employment in 71 years. And soon, I think, it will be historic. It will be “in history.” (Applause.) That’s a good number.

A recent analysis found that middle class income has risen by $5,000. But add to that — that’s median household income — add to that $2,000 from the tax cuts and then $2,000 for energy, because our energy is much cheaper. And when you look at other countries, what we’ve done with energy, we become the number-one producer anywhere in the world, by far. And so that would be $9,000 per household. Median income.

Think of the household median income. Nobody has ever come close. If you go back and you look at the Bush — eight years — it’s $400, for eight years. You go back and you look at the Obama — eight years — it’s less than $1,000. And with us, it’s $9,000, when you add — think of that. And that’s for two and a half years, if they stopped at two and a half. It’s even better now, because we’re almost up to three. I don’t even know if you folks know that, but think of that statistic: $400 for eight years, $975 for eight years, and $9,000 for two and a half years. I mean — (applause.)

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. I just — that just came out. That came out in a poll — Moody’s. And it just came out in a poll. And you can never take this — they said I’ll win the election, practically, no matter what. They had three different forms of win. And they’ve been right in every year except for one. You know what the one was? The last one. They got that one wrong. (Laughter.) Did you know that, fellas? They got that one wrong. They said, “We were wrong about 2016.” They don’t even mention that I happened to be in that election. But they said that was the only one they got wrong. That’s okay with me. (Laughter.) If they’re going to get one wrong, that was the one we wanted them to get wrong, right?

But those are incredible numbers. Those are numbers that nobody would have believed possible. If I would have said that on the campaign trail, people would have said, “You have to be kidding.” They would have said — the fake news said, “You have to be kidding.” (Laughter.) “He’s not telling the truth, ladies and gentlemen.” Well, it turned out that’s far more than we even anticipated.

Through our Pledge to American Workers, more than 360 companies have committed to providing over 14 million training jobs and career opportunities for the American worker. My daughter, Ivanka, worked so hard on that. That’s her love. It’s her passion. It’s incredible.

She came to me at the beginning of the administration, and she said, “I want to help people get jobs, Dad. But they have to be trained.” She was a great student. She’s a great person. And she said, “But they have to be trained.” I said, “What’s your goal?” She said, “500,000 jobs.” She just hit 14 million. Can you be- — I said, “That’s Ivanka.” (Applause.) You know, that’s Ivanka. Fourteen million jobs. (Applause.)

It’s an incredible — it’s one of the reasons, I think, that our employment numbers are so good. I hope that you will judge my administration based on the tremendous amount that we’ve achieved — not talking, but achieving.

We’ve made — it’s — it’s really something. (Applause.) It’s really something. And the support that you’ve given is incredible.

We’ve made our nation stronger than ever before. And I’m here to tell you that we’re just getting started. And we’re just getting started for the African American community too. Please remember that. And I will say this, and I really say this with great confidence: The best is yet to come. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, don’t say, “Sixteen more years,” because you’ll drive them crazy. (Laughter.) They’re afraid. They said, “You know, he’s going to win.” They said — one of these characters said, “You know, he’s going to win, don’t you? You know, he’s going to win.” “Well, no, we’re going to fight.” “He’s going to win and then he’s never getting out. He’ll be here for another four, and then another four, and then another. We’re never going to get him out.”

So when we say “four more years,” sometimes say “16 more years”. It drives them crazy. (Laughter.) And we like doing that, don’t we?

But as we make tremendous strides to deliver greater economic promise to all our citizens, we’ll never let up on our efforts to ensure that our justice system is fair for every single American.

And I have my own experience, you know that. You see what’s going on with the witch hunt. It’s a terrible thing that’s going on in our country. No crimes there. It’s an investigation in search of a crime. It’s been going on for longer than I’m in office. (Laughter.) It’s true. It happened before I even got here with — remember? — the insurance policy. Strzok and Page, the lovers, the great lovers. (Laughter.) The two great lovers, they talked about the insurance policy, right? That, “She’s going to win, but just in case she doesn’t, we have an insurance policy.” That was long before Mueller, and that whole deal.

We had 18 angry Democrats that hated Trump, looking at me. Spent $45 million, and they found nothing. I think I could do that with almost everyone in the room, except maybe your two senators. I could never find a — that’s why they’re senators, because they’re so clean, right?

But, in America, you’re innocent until proven guilty. And we don’t have investigations in search of that crime. It’s a terrible thing. It hurts people very badly and it divides the country.

Innocent people, and those surrounding innocent people, were being destroyed and humiliated. We have so many people that have been hurt, destroyed, and humiliated in ways that we’ve never seen before in the history of our country. And we’re working to put an end — for everybody — to horrible injustice and the horrible practices that we’ve seen. It’s just — not only here, it’s — it’s in other places. It’s in some pretty high places.

Justice, fairness, and due process are core tenets of our democracy. These are timeless principles I will faithfully uphold as President. They’re principles Republicans stand for and, historically, Democrats have stood for in the past. They used to stand for them. If this were a Democrat, they would never allow this to happen. They would never, ever allow this to happen.

And I’ll tell you, Tim Scott made the finest statement yesterday. He said, “The President is innocent. Forget about due process. He’s innocent.” And I won’t forget that statement.

We have a — (applause) — we have to remember — a big factor, and I say it in more and more of my speeches, because Honest Abe was something pretty special. Abraham Lincoln, he was a Republican, a President revered for what he did to preserve our nation and union and to abolish slavery. Abe Lincoln was a Republican. A lot of people forget that. Fellas, I think we have to start bringing that up a little bit, okay? (Applause.) People forget that. They don’t know that. They don’t assume it, actually.

We’re committed to upholding his legacy and the sacred principle that all people are entitled to live in freedom and dignity. I’m talking about Lincoln more and more, because the Democratic policies have let African Americans down and taken them for granted. And they have. They’ve taken African American communities for granted. And I promise you that Republicans will never, ever do that. We’re going to keep fighting for you and we’re fighting hard, and we’re really having an impact. (Applause.) And you’re having an impact on elections now. And you should never let that happen, but they have taken advantage.

I will always fight against abuses of power from any source. And I will always champion the right to due process, the right to a fair trial, the right to good legal representation for every American, regardless of race, background, position, right? (Applause.) It’s a big thing, legal representation. A lot of people get in a lot of trouble because they have the wrong representation. And they say, “Why I didn’t have somebody that knew what he was doing or tried or was fair?”

This is my promise to each and every one of you: I’m hearing that more and more African Americans are supporting our Republican policy agenda because they see the results that we’re delivering. (Applause.)

You know, during the campaign, I read a long list of things. It was a speech, regular speech. Long list. Highest crime rate: African American. Highest crime rate. Worst housing situation. Lived in the worst areas. Everything was bad. Worst education. There were like 10 — And I’m going over 10 things, over and over and over. Highest rate of incarceration. And this is all African American.

And I said to myself — probably I shouldn’t say it, but I’m going to say, “Vote for me. What the hell do you have to lose?” Do you remember that? (Applause.) “What the hell do you have to lose?” I said it. (Applause.)

By the way, I hate to say this to you, but my poll numbers with African Americans, Tim, went like a rocket ship. Okay? My people said, “I don’t know if that was good to say.” I said, “Look, it’s the truth. What the hell do you have to lose?” And you know what? I said it, and sometimes I take the word “hell” out because the fake news would say, “He used a horrible word. The word ‘hell’ was a horrible…” I said, “I’ve heard worse than that.” (Laughter.) But it was true.

And look at what we’ve done in less than three years. I mean, look at the progress you’ve made. Everything is historic, meaning it’s never happened in the history of our country, what we’ve done. And we’re very proud of it.

And, you know, it’s an incredible, talented, smart, wonderful, warm — look at the people that came up today; warm group of people. And I have so many friends. They’re great, great, and I am so honored. I just am so honored. And, Jerome, I’m putting you in the same category with these two incredible women. If you have some people in there that you’ve been with for a long period of time, you’re going to give me some names. I only want the right names, Jerome. Okay? (Laughter.) I only want the right ones.

But I think it’s a tremendous thing we can do. We can do a lot of great things from — it’s called the power of the White House. We can do some incredible things. And we want to only do the right things. But these are three unbelievable representatives. And there are so many more out there that we don’t know about. We want to find out who they are so we can help them out too. Jared, I’ll put you in charge of that little project. That’s something he’d like to do very much, right? (Applause.)

So as part of our agenda to lift up forgotten Americans, we are investing in distressed communities. Under the crucial provision — a very, very important provision of our new tax law — America’s governors have designated nearly 9,000 communities as the Opportunity Zones that we just discussed, including this very neighborhood surrounding Benedict College. And you see what’s happening even just around your college and in your college.

To bring back prosperity, we slashed taxes on new investment in these areas. And people are investing in these areas that would have never, ever been investing here. And in some cases, they’re rich, and in some cases, they’re not so rich, but the money is flowing into your community. Nine thousand different places.

And I directed every member of my Cabinet to support Opportunities Zones in every possible way. And leading these efforts is Secretary Ben Carson, along with executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council, Scott Turner. Great job. Mick Mulvaney is here someplace. Where’s Mick? He’s here someplace. Where is Mick? (Applause.) And a lot of people are here, a lot of people that have done an incredible job for this community and for the country.

Within my first weeks in office, I also signed an executive order to support historically black colleges and universities — (applause) — by moving federal HBCU initiative to the White House, where it belongs. It’s now in the White House.

Over the past two years, we have increased federal funding for HBCUs by a record 13 percent. Check out the last administration. See what they did for you. Not too much. Not too much.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Nothing.

THE PRESIDENT: You said it: “Nothing.” Not much. Check it out. I don’t want to get into this. I’ll get myself in trouble. But I want you to check it out yourself.

My administration will always treasure and protect HBCUs, like Benedict College. It’s very important. It’s very important. The story of this institution reminds us all how African American leaders have helped America stand for what is just, noble, right, and true.

Nearly 150 years ago, Benedict College began with 10 students and one great Baptist minister. Their first classes took place in a former plantation mansion. In the 1930s, Benedict students participated in one of the first civil rights campaigns in South Carolina. From the halls of this campus came American pastors and poets, advocates and athletes, innovators and entrepreneurs. In their courage, their vision, their determination, their wisdom, and their grace, they lifted up the sights of our nation and called America to greatness. They have done an incredible job. This has been an incredible institution. (Applause.)

The extraordinary legacy of generations of African American patriots shows us that the heart and spirit and soul of our nation is always found in our people. You are the source of America’s strength, the captains of America’s destiny, and the authors of America’s future.

Now, after decades of bitter disappointments and betrayals from Washington — and you have had the most bitter disappointments, more than anyone — my administration is making a decisive break with the failures of the past. We are taking on the entrenched interests, the corrupt power structures, and the rigged systems of the old status quo.

With confidence in our vision, we are putting this nation on a better and brighter path for you, for your families, and for all of our great citizens. We’re keeping our promises. We’re solving problems, righting wrongs, and boldly confronting injustices, wherever and whenever we find them.

Through it all, we are honoring our allegiance to the hardworking men and women whose sweat and sacrifice make our country run.

Together, we are reaffirming the sacred bonds of loyalty and love that unite us together as citizens and patriots and as Americans. We are defending freedom and justice and equality for every man, woman, and child all across our nation. We are fighting to bring opportunity, dignity, and hope to every block, every neighborhood, and every city and town all throughout this magnificent land.

Above all, we are putting our faith in the greatness of our people, the grace of our God, and the glorious power of redemption.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless America.

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

END

.

Chopper pressers are the best pressers.  Earlier today President Trump stopped to answer questions from the assembled press pool as he departed the White House.  [Video and Transcript Below]

.

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Hi, everybody. Hi. How are you? So, the stock market is doing very well. The economy is booming. We have a new record in sight. It could happen even today. But we have a new stock market record. I think it’ll be about 118 times that we’ve broken the record. Jobs look phenomenal.

We’re doing very well in Syria, with Turkey and everybody else that we’re dealing with. We have secured the oil. We have a lot of oil. We’ve secured the oil. We have a couple of people that came knocking. We said, “Don’t knock.” And I think I would say that things are going very well.

I know people are still in a basement, in a secure room in the basement, trying to make us look as bad as possible. But that’s not working too well. A lot of things are happening very good.

And I appreciate Republicans are just outraged, and the American public is outraged, that the Do-Nothing Democrats, they’re doing nothing. They are doing nothing. There’s such an opportunity to get things done. We need USMCA passed. It’s a great deal for our country, for our farmers, manufacturers, unions. It’s a great deal for our country. So we need USMCA passed.

Q Mr. President, some Democrats say comparing the impeachment inquiry to a lynching was painful and offensive. You’re going to an HBCU today. Will you apologize?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it’s a word that many Democrats have used. It’s a word that many people have used over the years. But that’s a word that has been used many times.

And let me tell you something: The level of unfairness for a perfect conversation with the President of Ukraine — this was a perfect conversation. And, frankly, had they known what the conversation was, they wouldn’t have even wasted everybody’s time. But this was a perfect conversation with the President of Ukraine.

The President of Ukraine and his Foreign Minister, separately, came out and said there was absolutely nothing wrong with the conversation. The President of Ukraine and the Foreign Minister came out and said there was no anything. There was no — he used the word “no blackmail.” They said there was no pressure; there was nothing done wrong.

This is a hoax — just like there was no collusion. After two years, they found out and wasted $45 million. This is a disgrace that this could happen in our country.

But remember —

Q Will you apologize for using the word “lynching”?

THE PRESIDENT: Wait. Wait.

The President of Ukraine, right now — the President of Ukraine said “no pressure.” The President of Ukraine and his Foreign Minister said, again, “no pressure, no blackmail.” They don’t even know what you people are talking about. It’s a ph- — it’s a hoax. It’s a hoax. It’s just a continuation of the Russian witch hunt, which turned out to be phony. The Mueller deal was phony. And now they have this.

And all it is, is very simple: It’s one conversation that I had with the President of Ukraine that was perfect. That Adam Schiff defrauded everybody and he made up the conversation in the halls of Congress.

Q Are you at all concerned about the growing criminal investigation into Rudy Giuliani?

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think so, because I think Rudy is a great gentleman. He’s been a great crime fighter. He looks for corruption wherever he goes. Everybody understands Ukraine has big problems in that regard. Rudy Giuliani is a fine man. He was the greatest mayor in the history of New York, and he’s been one of the greatest crime fighters and corruption fighters. Rudy Giuliani is a good man.

Q Would you like to see your Justice Department still investigate Biden? Should the Justice Department still be investigating Biden?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think what Biden did, and his son — and now, I guess, they’re finding also Romania; that just came out today. Or some other country. And I’m sure there are more than that.

When a man walks away — who has no talent, no skill, no experience — with $1.5 billion out of China; when he walks away with $168,000 a month for him and his friend, from Ukraine, when Ukraine supposedly gave him $3 million — whatever the numbers are — and he’s got no experience in oil and no experience anywhere, and now other nations are coming out. I heard one today; I won’t embarrass the nation.

All he’s doing — and in my opinion, that’s a payoff, because you don’t pay that kind of money for any other reason. And then you look at what the father did with oil, and “let’s get oil.” And then, all of a sudden, “let’s not get oil.” And now he’s a great environmentalist, because the Ukraine benefits by that, and other places benefit by that.

No, I consider what they did to be an outrage to our country. I consider that to be an outrage to our country.

Q Mr. President, what do you think about Lindsey Graham’s resolution? Some of your supporters think he’s not doing enough. And also, what do you think about the nine GOP senators who didn’t sign on to that resolution against impeachment?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, some of them weren’t even spoken to yet. They got 40 very quickly. I think they’re at 47. And some of them haven’t even — don’t even know about it yet. It only took place yesterday afternoon.

So they had a great response. No, you have — we have great — great support. We had 185 out of 185 the other night — the Republican congressmen. I think we had 185 present and we had 185 positive votes. And with the senators we’re doing great too.

Q Where are we on the China and U.S. deal — trade deal?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re doing very well with China. We’re moving along nicely. We’re dealing with them right now. And a lot of good things are happening with China. They want to make a deal very badly.

Q What is in your new plan for Afghanistan?

THE PRESIDENT: What?

Q What is in your new plan for Afghanistan? Are you able to —

THE PRESIDENT: We’ve moving with Afghanistan. We’re doing well in Afghanistan. We’re slowly bringing things down to a certain level. But we’re doing very well with Afghanistan. Things are moving along.

Q Your top diplomat in Ukraine said that you held up military funds because you wanted Ukraine to investigate the 2016 election and Burisma, the company on which Hunter Biden sat. Are you saying that he’s making that up?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the problem is — here’s the problem —

Q Do you think — are you calling him a liar?

THE PRESIDENT: Here’s the problem: He’s a Never Trumper, and his lawyer is a Never Trumper. And the other problem is you —

Q Mike Pompeo hired him.

Q Why did Mike Pompeo hire him?

THE PRESIDENT: Hey, everybody makes mistakes. I — Mike Pompeo, everybody makes mistakes.

Q Do you want him out now as the top diplomat?

THE PRESIDENT: He’s a Never Trumper. His lawyer is the head of the Never Trumpers. They’re a dying breed, but they’re still there.

Q Based on what?

THE PRESIDENT: And here’s the other problem —

Q Based on what, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: — you’re with CNN and you’re fake news.

Q Mr. President, on guns: This month is nearly a year since the shooting in Pennsylvania.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the Democrats don’t have any time to work on anything. They have to do US — USMCA. They have to do guns. They have to do — they have many things. We want to reduce drug prices even more. You know, we can go so far, but we could get drug prices substantially reduced. The Democrats — the Do-Nothing Democrats have no time to do it.

Q Do you — will you support the Republican plan that came out this week? It expands access to healthcare.

THE PRESIDENT: Which one?

Q The Republican plan that came out this week. Do you support that?

THE PRESIDENT: We have a great Republican plan. And if we take over the House, which we should — especially because of what they’re doing with impeachment — I think we’ll take over the House by big numbers. You’ll have healthcare the likes of which you’ve never seen. Much less expensive. Deductibles will be much lower. You’ll have great healthcare. We have to take over the —

Q But will we see gun legislation?

THE PRESIDENT: Because the Democrats don’t have any time to do anything.

Q Sir, Vice President Pence said, yesterday, that America stands with the protestors in Hong Kong who are protesting against the Beijing government. Do you agree with that, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I know he made the speech yesterday. I went over the speech. The speech was fine. It was fine.

Q Does America —

THE PRESIDENT: No, his speech was fine.

Q — stand with the protestors?

THE PRESIDENT: But I’m also working very closely with China on a deal. But his speech was fine.

Q Mr. President, are you trying to intimidate the whistleblower?

Q On the deal — on the deal with China, Lighthizer says you are — Lighthizer says you are close to finalizing some sections on the deal with China.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s true.

Q What sections? Is it intellectual property?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re doing very well with China. We’re very good with the farmers. The farmers are going to do better, maybe, than anybody. But everybody is doing well.

China wants to make a deal. They’d like to see some reductions in tariffs. They’d like to see some tariffs that are scheduled to go on very soon — they’d like to see them not go on. But China — they really — look, you know it: They really want to make a deal. They’re going to be buying much more farm product than anybody ever thought possible.

Q Are you confident that you have the votes in the Senate, if an impeachment goes there?

THE PRESIDENT: Only for one reason: I did nothing wrong. The only reason. I had a perfect conversation with the President of Ukraine. Perfect. Had they seen that conversation before they made up the story — they made up the story about that conve- — had they seen it, we wouldn’t even be talking about it right now. The conversation has been perfect. And for that reason, I have tremendous support.

Q Thank you, Mr. President. With the opening of the investigations that your Attorney General, William Barr —

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.

Q — is (inaudible), is this because people who are investigating you are, in fact, engaging in criminal conduct?

THE PRESIDENT: So they’ve started, and it’s been going on a long time. And I sort of semi-read the papers. And I read them probably in greater detail than you, actually. And I try and sift out the fake news from the real news.

But, as you know, there’s been a long-term look at — look-see — and it looks like it’s becoming very serious, from what I’m hearing. Investigate the investigator — whether it’s Strzok and Page, whether it’s Clapper, and whether it’s Comey, and all of these people — because terrible things went on for our country.

And we have a great Attorney General — a highly prestigious man, a very honorable man. And they’ve been looking at it for a long time.

I can’t tell you what’s happening. I will tell you this: I think you’re going to see a lot of really bad things. And a lot of people think that — and they know they have problems because they were very dishonest. And, again, I leave it all up the Attorney General and I leave it all up to the people that are working with the Attorney General who I don’t know.

But I will say this: I think you’ll see things that nobody would’ve believed. This was the worst hoax in the history of our country. And a lot of people say that the phony deal on impeachment, where I have a perfect conversation — perfect — with the President of Ukraine — and they’re using that to impeach one of the most successful Presidents.

We’re going to hit another stock market high. We have the best jobs report. We have the best unemployment numbers. We have the best employment. More people working today in the United States than ever before. I’ve rebuilt the military. We’re strong. We just did a great thing in Syria where we’re getting our troops out. We took over oil. A lot of great things are happening in this country.

I will say this: If anything ever happened with this phony witch hunt that the Democrats are doing — the Do-Nothing Democrats — I really believe that you’d have a recession- depression the likes of which this country hasn’t seen.

Now, a strong statement was made by a very highly respected man this morning on Wall Street — a man who is very respected — about that, that if anything happened to Trump — President Trump — you would see repercussions in the market like you haven’t seen before.

But here’s the thing: I don’t have teams. Everyone is talking about teams. I’m the team. I did nothing wrong. This has been going on for — before I got elected. This was going on from the insurance policy — Strzok and his lover, Page. This was the insurance policy. It was Strzok and Page. We did nothing wrong. But Strzok said, “Oh, she’s going to win. She’s going to win. But if she doesn’t, we have an insurance policy.”

So — so, let me just tell you something. So, this has been going on since before I got elected. And people are angry about it. And do you know who’s angry about it? The Republican Party is angry about it because this isn’t a takedown of the President, this is a takedown of the Republican Party. And, frankly, the Democrats should be ashamed of themselves.

Q (Inaudible) cost of South Korean defense sharing (inaudible)?

Q Mr. President, you tweeted about Never Trumpers the other day. You have a few in your administration. Are you making personnel changes?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, if you let me who know who they are — who are they? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.

Q I hear you have a list.

THE PRESIDENT: No, no. Tell me who the Never Trumpers are because I’m not a fan of the Never Trumpers.

We do have Never Trumpers. I’m not a fan. I think they’re bad people. Some have recovered. Okay? They went through, I guess, a recovery program. It’s called, “They learned how to win through me.” But others haven’t. I’m not a fan of Never Trumpers, and I never will be.

But a Never Trumper sometimes is more vicious than a failed Obama candidate or a failed Clinton candidate who I beat both in the same election with very little experience.

Don’t forget, I beat the Obama people. I beat the Bush people. And I beat the Clinton people. And I had no experience. That’s not a bad job. But there’s a lot of angry people out there. And that’s the way it goes. Thank you.

END 12:07 P.M. EDT

White House Trade and Manufacturing Advisor Peter Navarro appears on Fox Business to discuss the purpose and intent of the USMCA and the ongoing China trade discussions.

What Navarro skims upon is the heart of the economic purpose behind the USMCA as requested by President Trump and constructed by USTR Lighthizer. The USMCA establishes an internal North American manufacturing system; this provides the alternative for Asian manufacturing of goods for the U.S. market.

This manufacturing system is why Mexico is “all-in” to support the USMCA. Additionally, the economic benefits within the system as constructed is exactly why Mexican President Lopez-Obrador is willing to pressure House democrats to ratify and also back-up President Trump on other geopolitical issues (immigration controls etc).

.

On the Stock Market dynamic. Currently there is a great deal of investment capital waiting to see where the money should be placed. Investment in China has dropped dramatically; investment in Southeast Asia shifted, but new investment is pending this outcome. Multinationals are calculating the TCP (Total Cost of Production), and if the new USMCA is passed there will be a triggering effect of North American investment because the uncertainty will be eliminated.

Unfortunately the advisors to Speaker Nancy Pelosi know the likelihood of economic benefit from the new North American trade agreement; and that’s why they are holding back passage of the USMCA. The democrats know it would be a big investment boost to the economy. Their political future is dependent on not allowing that to happen.

Their excuse for not passing USMCA is a false-excuse surrounding labor issues. The North American content standards within the USMCA will drive the manufacturing decisions; this is the closure of the NAFTA loophole.

To protect herself from the political backlash, Pelosi has leveraged AFL-CIO union President Richard Trumka to support her false claims. Trumka is trying to help the democrats politically by agreeing with the false-narrative about the labor concerns. It’s all a scheme:

(Via NBC) […] In an interview with The Washington Post published Wednesday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said it would be a “colossal mistake” for the Democratic-held chamber to vote on ratifying the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement soon. The head of the key labor group, which represents more than 12 million active and retired members across a range of industries, added that the agreement “would be defeated” if the House voted before Thanksgiving.

Trumka’s comments underscore the sustained resistance to the USMCA from labor groups even as the White House and key business organizations push for the deal’s swift approval. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democratic negotiators have said they want to resolve concerns about the deal harming American workers or the environment before they ratify it.

The labor leader’s remarks undermine a key claim from the president as he makes his case for the deal: that major labor unions back the USMCA. (read more)

Today President Trump has traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to deliver remarks at the 9th annual Shale Insight conference.  Anticipated start time 3:40pm EDT.

UPDATE: Video Added

WH Livestream Link – Fox Business Livestream – Fox Livestream – Local Livestream

.

.

.

.

Earlier today President Trump delivered remarks departing the White House.  [Video and Transcript below]

.

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. We’re going to Pennsylvania, on an energy meeting and speech, and look forward to it.

I hope you saw what I had to say about the safe zone in Syria, and — are dealing with Turkey. It’s been very successful. We’ll see what happens. It’s a very volatile part of the world, but, so far, it’s been pretty amazing what’s gone on. We’ve lost no soldiers. We didn’t have a soldier hurt. We didn’t have a finger broken. It’s pretty unusual.

And we have thousands of soldiers that have moved out or are moving out of various areas. We have it under very good control. Turkey has done what we’ve asked them to do.

We have tremendous economic might — far more than we had, relatively speaking, when I took office. When I took office, everybody said that China would be the largest economy in the world within the first two years. And we picked up trillions and trillions of dollars of worth, and China has lost trillions of dollars of worth.

So we are far and away the most powerful economy in the world. And if you have a smart President, you’ll stay there.

Other than that, our military is looking good. It’s been rebuilt and we’re respected again.

But I’m going right now — I’ll be going over to Pennsylvania. And many of you, I hope, will be following me.

Thank you. Thank you.

END 1:36 P.M. EDT

Earlier today President Trump delivered remarks about the ongoing issues with Turkey and Northern Syria from the White House.  [Video and Transcript]

.

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. My fellow Americans, I greet you this morning from the White House to announce a major breakthrough toward achieving a better future for Syria and for the Middle East. It’s been a long time.

Over the last five days, you have seen that a ceasefire that we established along Syria’s border has held, and it’s held very well, beyond most expectations. Early this morning, the government of Turkey informed my administration that they would be stopping combat and their offensive in Syria, and making the ceasefire permanent. And it will indeed be permanent. However you would also define the word “permanent” in that part of the world as somewhat questionable, we all understand that. But I do believe it will be permanent.

I have therefore instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to lift all sanctions imposed on October 14th in response to Turkey’s original offensive moves against the Kurds in Syria’s northeast border region. So the sanctions will be lifted unless something happens that we’re not happy with.

This was an outcome created by us, the United States, and nobody else, no other nation. Very simple. And we’re willing to take blame, and we’re also willing to take credit. This is something they’ve been trying to do for many, many decades. Since then, others have come out to help, and we welcome them to do so. Other countries have stepped forward, they want to help, and we think that’s great. The nations in the region must ultimately take on the responsibility of helping Turkey and Syria police their border. We want other nations to get involved.

We’ve secured the oil, and, therefore, a small number of U.S. troops will remain in the area where they have the oil. And we’re going to be protecting it, and we’ll be deciding what we’re going to do with it in the future.

In any event, by the moves that we’ve made, we are achieving a much more peaceful and stable area between Turkey and Syria, including a 20-mile-wide safe zone. An interesting term, “safe zone.” That’s the term we’re using it. Hopefully, that zone will become safe. Thousands and thousands of people have been killed in that zone over the years. But it’s been sought for many, many decades, and I think we have something that’s going to be strong and hold up.

Turkey, Syria, and all forms of the Kurds, have been fighting for centuries. We have done them a great service, and we’ve done a great job for all of them. And now we’re getting out. A long time. We were supposed to be there for 30 days; that was almost 10 years ago. So we’re there for 30 days, and now we’re leaving. It was supposed to be a very quick hit and let’s get out. And it was a quick hit, except they stayed for almost 10 years. Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand.

I want to thank Vice President Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo for leading the American delegation so successfully to Turkey several days ago, along with National Security Advisor O’Brien. I want to thank them very much. The American delegation negotiated the original five-day ceasefire that [DEL: ended :DEL] [enabled] Kurdish fighters to safely leave. It just got them to a point where, frankly, they were able. It enabled them to get out, to go and move, really, just a few miles in a slightly different direction. So this enabled them to do so.

Countless lives are now being saved as a result of our negotiation with Turkey — an outcome reached without spilling one drop of American blood. No injuries. Nobody shot, nobody killed.

I have just spoken to General Mazloum, a wonderful man, the Commander-in-Chief of the SDF Kurds. And he was extremely thankful for what the United States has done. Could not have been more thankful. General Mazloum has assured me that ISIS is under very, very strict lock and key, and the detention facilities are being strongly maintained. There were a few that got out — a small number, relatively speaking — and they’ve been largely recaptured.

I’m also sure that he will be issuing his own statement very shortly. We had a great talk. But we’ve saved the lives of many, many Kurds. He understands that. The war was going to be vicious and probably not very long. And I’m very happy to have been involved in it, as are our Vice President, our Secretary of State, and all of the other people on our team. By getting that ceasefire to stick, we’ve done something that’s very, very special. But by getting the ceasefire after a tremendous amount of really tough war for a very short period of days, that is something very special.

Our troops are safe, and the pain and suffering of the three-day fight that occurred was directly responsible for our ability to make an agreement with Turkey and the Kurds that could never have been made without this short-term outburst.

Should Turkey fail to honor its obligations, including the protection of religious and ethnic minorities — which I truly believe they will do — we reserve the right to re-impose crippling sanctions, including substantially increased tariffs on steel and all other products coming out of Turkey.

We are now an economic powerhouse like never before, and, very importantly, like no other. Our economic might is stronger than it’s ever been, and our competitors are not doing very well.

We also expect Turkey to abide by its commitment regarding ISIS. As a backup to the Kurds watching over them, should something happen, Turkey is there to grab them.

Further, we implore European countries to come and take those fighters that the U.S. captured and bring them back to their countries for incarceration and for trial. Until just recently, Europe has been very unresponsive in doing what they should have been doing for a long time. Now is their chance to finally act.

American forces defeated 100 percent of the ISIS caliphate during the last two years. We thank the Syrian Democratic Forces for their sacrifices in this effort. They’ve been terrific. Now Turkey, Syria, and others in the region must work to ensure that ISIS does not regain any territory. It’s their neighborhood; they have to maintain it. They have to take care of it.

There were some political pundits who responded to Turkey’s offensive in Syria by calling for yet another American military intervention. I don’t think so. But halting the incursion by military force would have required deploying tens of thousands of American troops against Turkey — a NATO Ally and a country the United States has developed a very good relationship with, including President Erdoğan.

The same people that I watched and read — giving me and the United States advice — were the people that I have been watching and reading for many years. They are the ones that got us into the Middle East mess but never had the vision or the courage to get us out. They just talk.

How many Americans must die in the Middle East in the midst of these ancient sectarian and tribal conflicts? After all of the precious blood and treasure America has poured into the deserts of the Middle East, I am committed to pursuing a different course — one that leads to victory for America.

Through much work, we have done things that everybody said couldn’t be done. Today’s announcement validates our course of action with Turkey that only a couple of weeks ago were scorned, and now people are saying, “Wow. What a great outcome. Congratulations.” It’s too early to me to be congratulated, but we’ve done a good job. We’ve saved a lot of lives.

Most importantly, we have avoided another costly military intervention that could’ve led to disastrous, far-reaching consequences. Many thousands of people could’ve been killed.

The last administration said, “Assad must go.” They could’ve easily produced that outcome, but they didn’t. In fact, they drew a very powerful red line in the sand — you all remember, the red line in the sand — when children were gassed and killed, but then did not honor their commitment as other children died in the same horrible manner. But I did honor my commitments with 58 Tomahawks.

Eight long years after President Obama’s ill-fated push at regime change, U.S. troops are still on the ground in Syria. More than half a million people are dead, hundreds of thousands are terribly injured, and millions more Syrians are displaced. It really is a nightmare of misery.

Across the Middle East, we have seen anguish on a colossal scale. We have spent $8 trillion on wars in the Middle East, never really wanting to win those wars. But after all that money was spent and all of those lives lost, the young men and women gravely wounded — so many — the Middle East is less safe, less stable, and less secure than before these conflicts began.

The same people pushing for these wars are often the ones demanding America open its doors to unlimited migration from war-torn regions, importing the terrorism and the threat of terrorism right to our own shores. But not anymore. My administration understands that immigration security is national security.

As a candidate for President, I made clear that we needed a new approach to American foreign policy, one guided not by ideology, but by experience, history, and a realistic understanding of the world.

We are building up America’s military might like never before, investing $2.5 trillion since my election. But we will not be depleted. We will not happen again. It will not be allowed to happen again, where our military is depleted, fighting in areas of the world where we shouldn’t be.

When we commit American troops to battle, we must do so only when a vital national interest is at stake, and when we have a clear objective, a plan for victory, and a path out of conflict. That’s what we have to have. We need a plan of victory. We will only win. Our whole basis has to be the right plan, and then we will only win. Nobody can beat us. Nobody can beat us.

I want to again thank everyone on the American team who helped achieve the ceasefire in Syria, saved so many lives, along with President Erdoğan of Turkey — a man I’ve gotten to know very well and a man who loves his country. And, in his mind, he’s doing the right thing for his country, and we may be meeting in the very near future.

I also want to thank General Mazloum for his understanding and for his great strength and for his incredible words today to me — but me just as a representative of the United States — because he knows that we saved tens of thousands of Kurds. And we’re not talking in the long term, we’re talking in the short term. We’re talking something that was going on immediately and something, frankly, that was planned for a long time.

The job of our military is not to police the world. Other nations must step up and do their fair share. That hasn’t taken place. Today’s breakthrough is a critical step in that direction.

Thank you all very much, and God bless America. Thank you. Thank you.

END 11:56 A.M. EDT

President Trump sat down for an extensive interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.  Here’s the interview as broadcast (transcript will follow):

.

Earlier today President Trump held a cabinet meeting and permitted the U.S. media to stay in attendance for the first hour.  No U.S. President has ever allowed this level of transparency in government.  After brief statements, the president took multiple questions from the assembled press pool. [Video and Transcript Below]

.

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Thank you very much. We have a Cabinet meeting. We’ll have a few questions after grace. And, if you would, Ben, please do the honors.

SECRETARY CARSON: Our kind Father in Heaven, we’re so thankful for the many blessings that you have bestowed upon us in this country. And we’re thankful for the people of courage who have been here before us, who have fought hard for the rights of our country.

And we thank you for President Donald Trump, who also exhibits great courage in face of constant criticism. And we ask that you would give him strength to endure and the wisdom lead, and to recognize you as the sovereigns of the universe with the solution to everything.

And the people around the President — the Vice President, the Cabinet, the advisors — give us all an understanding heart and a compassionate heart. Those are the things that will keep America great. And help us all to recognize as a nation that separation of church and state means that the church does not dominate the state, and it means the state does not dominate the church. It doesn’t mean that they cannot work together to promote godly principles of loving your fellow man, of caring about your neighbor, of developing your God-given talents to the utmost so that you become valuable to the people around you, and having values and principles that govern your life.

And if we do those things, then we will always be successful. And we thank you for hearing our prayer, in your Holy name. Amen.

THE PRESIDENT: All right, thank you, Ben. That was a great job. Appreciate it.

The economy is doing fantastically well. It’s getting very close to another record. We’ve had many records since we won office. We’re getting very close to another record. I don’t know if anybody saw it: The household median income for eight years of President Bush, it rose $400. For eight years of President Obama, it rose $975. And for two and half years of President Trump — they have it down as two and a half years — it rose $5,000, not including $2,000 for taxes. So it rose, let’s say, $7,000. So in two and a half years, we’re up $7,000, compared to $1,000, compared to $400. And that’s for eight years and eight years.

That’s a number that just came out, but that’s a number that I don’t know how there could be any dispute or any — I’ve never heard a number like that, meaning the economy is doing fantastically well.

We need — for our farmers, our manufacturers, for, frankly, unions and non-unions, we need USMCA to be voted on. If it’s voted on, it’ll pass. It’s up to Nancy Pelosi to put it up. If she puts it up, it’s going to pass. It’s going to be very bipartisan. It’s something that’s very much needed. It’ll be hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Mexico and Canada have approved it; it’s done. They’re waiting for our approval. And we can’t seem to get the votes. I call them the Do-Nothing Democrats; I mean that. They’ve done nothing. But this is something they can do very easily. We’ll give them bipartisan approvals and credits — all the credits they want — but they have to be able to do it.

So the economy is doing fantastically well. We want to vote on USMCA. We have other trade deals that we’ve done. We’ve done South Korea, which is a fantastic deal for us; it turned out even better than we thought. South Korea was a terrible deal. The person in charge of that particular deal, Hillary Clinton — you’ve heard of her; she’s the one that’s accusing everybody of being a Russian agent. Anybody that is opposed to her is a Russian agent. So that’s a scam that was pretty much put down.

Tulsi — I don’t know Tulsi, but she’s not a Russian agent. I don’t know Jill Stein. I know she likes environment. I don’t think she likes Russians. If she does like them, I know she’s not a asset. She called her an “asset” of Russia. These people are sick. There’s something wrong with them.

But I think that Tulsi Gabbard probably got helped quite a bit by this stir. I think we were helped because it shows, for two and half years, we end up winning. I had to go through two and a half years. If she would have done this earlier, people would have realized what a scam it is. Everybody is a Russian or a Russian agent or a Russian asset.

The economy, again, is at a level that it’s never been. We are doing — whether it’s household income, whether it’s almost any chart — and I think maybe the best of all is unemployment. Unemployment has reached historic lows. African American, Asian American, Hispanic American reached numbers that nobody ever thought would be possible. Had the lowest ever in history.

So, if you’re black, if you’re Hispanic, if you’re Asian — anybody — African American, Hispanic American, Asian: the lowest in history. For women, the lowest in 71 years. The best. When I say “lowest,” I’m talking about the best. Both the best unemployment numbers and the best employment numbers — either way you want to cut it. You can say them both because it’s best in both.

As far as employment is concerned, we have the most people working today than ever before in the history of our country. We’ve never had — there’s close to 160 million people. So it’s — some incredible things are happening.

Syria: We will be giving a much fuller report. Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense Esper, and the different people that are very much involved. Mike Pence, Vice President.

We are having very good news coming out. The ceasefire is holding. The Kurds are moving out to safer areas beyond the “safe zone,” as we call it. Having the safe zone is not a bad thing; it’s a good thing. And plenty of Turks have been killed because of conflict on their border. So, you know, you have to look at it both ways. But the ceasefire is absolutely holding. There’s been skirmishes, but very little, relatively speaking. Of course, if you watch the fake news, it’s like pretty — pretty wild. It’s really holding.

I’ve watched these pundits that have been working on this thing for 20 years. They’ve been working on the Middle East for 20 years; they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re telling me what to do. They’re saying, “What did Trump get out of it? What did he get out of it?” I’ll tell you what I get out of it: We won’t be fighting, and we’ll bring our soldiers back home. They were supposed to be there for 30 days, and they’ve been there now for 10 years, in Syria. Ten years. They were supposed to go in, do a quick hit on ISIS, and come out.

Now, as far as ISIS is concerned, when I took over — November, 2016 — ISIS was all over the place. I’m the one — meaning it was me and this administration, working with others, including the Kurds — that captured all of these people that we’re talking about right now.

Because President Obama — it was a mess. And I was told and you were told, and everybody told it would be years before you ever did what I did in about a month and a half after I started. I went over to Iraq, I met with our generals, and we figured out a plan, and it was done within a month and a half. I’m the one that did the capturing. I’m the one that knows more about it than you people or the — or the fake pundits.

But I sort of have to smile to myself. I was telling a couple of people — I’m watching these people that I’ve been watching for 20 years. I’ve been watching the same faces; they’re just a little bit older and a little bit grayer. I’ve been watching them for 20 years, saying about the Middle East. And they’ve been wrong on everything they’ve ever said.

And now, all of a sudden, people are starting to say, “You know, what Trump is doing is great.” And we have tremendous — a tremendous power. Because since the election of 2016, November — since that beautiful day, our country has picked up in value trillions and trillions of dollars of worth. Trillions and trillions of dollars. Numbers that nobody would believe. Numbers, if I would have said it on the campaign trail, I would’ve been — I would’ve been excoriated by the fake media. Excoriated.

The numbers are far greater than anything that even I predicted. You hear that with the household median income. Four hundred dollars for eight years. Nine hundred and seventy-five dollars for eight years. Seven thousand dollars for two and half years — up. Nobody has ever seen numbers.

Larry Kudlow is going to speak in a minute, and he’s going to tell you that’s one of the greatest strengths of our country.

And, by the way, other areas and countries are doing poorly. Europe is doing very poorly. Asia is doing very poorly. China is doing very poorly — worst year they’ve had in 57 years. I wonder why. I wonder why. I’m sure you can’t figure it out.

And we’re doing great. We’re taking in billions and billions of dollars in tariffs from China, and they’re eating the tariffs because they devalued their currency. And they’re pouring money into their economy because they don’t want to lose the jobs, but they are losing the jobs. They’ve having a terrible year. Worst in 57 years, they say.

And if they say that, it means it’s worse. And they announced that they have the worst numbers they’ve had in 20 years. They announced six. I don’t think it’s six; I think it’s probably minus-something. It could very well be minus. It could very well be in negative territory.

But we’re doing great. And, by the way, the deal with China is coming along very well. They want to make a deal because they sort of have to make a deal, I think. They have to make a deal because their supply chain is going down the tubes. Their supply chain is broken like you’ve never seen anything broken before. It’s broken.

So, our soldiers — on Syria, they’re moving out, very nicely. ISIS is being held by the Kurds. And I have an absolute commitment from Turkey that they’re watching them, just in case. So we have a double: We have the Kurds are watching them.

As you know, most of the ISIS fighters that we captured — “we.” We. Not Obama. We. We captured them. Me. Our country captured them, working with others, including the Kurds. And we helped them, don’t forget. We helped the Kurds. Everyone said the Kurds helped us; that’s true. But we helped the Kurds. They’re no angels, but we helped the Kurds.

And we never gave the Kurds a commitment that we’d stay for the next 400 years and protect them. They’ve been fighting with the Turks for 300 years, that people know of. And nobody ever committed, “Gee, if you do this, we’re going to do that, and we’re going to stay with you forever.” Nobody ever said that.

But when I watch these pundits that always are trying to take a shot, I say — they say, “What are we getting out of it?” You know what we’re getting out of it? We’re bringing our soldiers back home. That’s a big thing. And it’s going to probably work. But if it doesn’t work, you’re going to have people fighting like they’ve been fighting for 300 years. It’s very simple. It’s really very, very simple.

But we’re going to bring our soldiers back home. So far, there hasn’t been one drop of blood shed during this whole period by an American soldier. Nobody was killed. Nobody cut their finger. There’s been nothing. And they’re leaving rather, I think, not expeditiously — rather intelligently. Just leaving. Leaving certain areas. Leaving.

We’ve secured the oil. If you remember, I didn’t want to go into Iraq. I was a civilian, so I had no power over it. But I always was speaking against going into Iraq. It was not a great decision. But I always said, “If you’re going in, keep the oil.” Same thing here: Keep the oil. We want to keep the oil.

And we’ll work something out with the Kurds so that they have some money, they have some cash flow. Maybe we’ll get one of our big oil companies to go in and do it properly. But they’ll have some cash flow, which they basically don’t have right now. Everybody is fighting. It’s not a big oil area, but everybody is fighting for whatever there is. So we have a lot of good things going over there, and they’re going very well.

As far as the continuation of the witch hunt, we beat the Russian deal. We beat the Mueller deal. Now I find out, as I said before, that they’re trying to make other people into Russian agents, Russian assets. It has no credibility.

Now they have what should be extremely easy to beat, because I have a perfect phone call. I made a perfect call — not a good call; a perfect call. In fact, a friend of mine, who’s a great lawyer, said, “Did you know this would be the subject of all of this scrutiny? Because the way you expressed yourself, this is like a perfect call. You must’ve known this was going to happen.” No, I didn’t. That’s just the way I talk to the President of Ukraine — who, by the way, said there was no pressure, there was no blackmail, there was no anything.

And Congressman Hurd — I have to tell you, yesterday, he was great. He was great, what he said. I gained a lot of respect for him very quickly, because he said, “You know, with all of this going on, I haven’t heard one Ukrainian saying there was pressure. I haven’t heard one Ukrainian — not one — say that there was pressure of any kind.” There haven’t even been reports of it to our people. Nobody has even said it. And the reason you haven’t heard it — because there is no pressure.

The conversation I had was perfect. And what happened is I released the conversation, and that threw Shifty Schiff off. Crooked — he was a corrupt politician. Schiff is a corrupt politician. That threw him off because he made up a lie. He made up what I said in my conversation. And he went before the United States Congress, and he said a made-up story; it was fabricated. He totally fabricated it. They said he’s — he’s a screenwriter. Well, this was screenwritten. It was a fabricated story.

So he made up a lie, and I released — they never thought that I’d do this — I released a transcription, done by stenographers, of the exact conversation I had. And now, the game was up.

And the other thing is, the whistleblower and the other whistleblower and the informer — all these people — they’d seemed to have disappeared. You know why they disappeared? Because they talked about another conversation — a conversation that I never had. They made up a conversation.

Now, if you look at the whistleblower report and you look at the actual transcribed conversation — the actual conversation that I had — and you couple that with the President saying that that was a perfectly fine conversation — I don’t even know — he didn’t even know what they’re doing. He didn’t even know about the money not being paid. Okay? I think that came out somewhere, that the money — he didn’t know that. Then you also have his foreign minister saying, “No, it was a very good conversation.” There was no anything asked for. There was no pressure whatsoever.

So this is a phony investigation. I watched a couple of people on television today talking about it. They were talking about what a phony deal it is, what a phony investigation it is. And Republicans have to get tougher and fight. We have some that are great fighters, but they have to get tougher and fight because the Democrats are trying to hurt the Republican Party for the election, which is coming up, where we’re doing very well. We had a record crowd — the history of the arena — it’s the biggest crowd they’ve ever had. And we had 20,000 people outside, at least. We’re doing great on the election.

You saw what happened in North Carolina. We picked up two seats that people didn’t think we were going to pick up. That was two weeks ago. Last week, a Governor that people thought was okay went down, and now he’s got a big election. He was under 50 percent; nobody thought that was going to happen. We’re doing very well.

But a lot of these stories that are made up, between a guy like Shifty Schiff — who’s a phony guy, a corrupt politician — the media buys it. Because, unfortunately, the media is corrupt also. Much of the media — so much of it, such a big percentage of it. It’s such a shame. Some great reporters and great journalists, but some really bad people. So, that’s the story.

The economy is good. We’re doing well with getting out, finally, after 10 years. Again, 30 days to 10 years. And we’re getting out. Nobody — none of our people are injured. It’s very smooth thus far. And I think that you’re going to see something that’s going to be good.

Remember this: If Turkey misbehaves — I don’t think they will — but we have a power that nobody thought we had, to the extent. It’s called sanctions. It’s called tariffs. We’ll tariff the hell out of their product coming here. They send tremendous amounts of steel to the United States and other things. We will tariff them and we will sanction them. But I don’t want to use that as a threat because Mike Pence and our Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, they went out and they negotiated a very good five-day ceasefire. I’m sure if we needed a little extension, that would be happening. But our power is — our power of economics, it’s very powerful.

We’ve rebuilt the military since November of 2016. Our military was totally depleted from being in stupid situations like this for so many years. Our military was depleted to a level that we had very little ammunition. I was actually told we had no ammunition. Now we have more ammunition than we’ve ever had. Our military is stronger — stronger than it’s ever been. Probably stronger than ever. And in a few short months, as the equipment pours in from the money we spent — two and a half trillion dollars — it will be at a level that it’s never even come close to. It’s a big difference. All made in the USA. All made in the USA.

So, we’re doing very well. And if anybody has any questions? Please.

Q Mr. President, will you maintain a limited number of troops in Syria?

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me?

Q Will you maintain a limited number of troops in Syria?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we don’t think it’s going to be necessary. I don’t want to leave troops there. It’s very dangerous there. You know, we had 28 troops, as it turned out. People said 50; it was 28. And you had an army on both sides of those troops. Those troops would’ve been wiped out. I don’t think it’s necessary other than that we secured the oil in a little different section, but we did secure the oil.

And the other reason — region where we’ve been asked by Israel and Jordan to leave a small number of troops is a totally different section of Syria, near Jordan and close to Israel. And that’s a totally different section. That’s a totally different mindset. So we have a small group there, and we’ve secured the oil. Other than that, there’s no reason for it, in our opinion.

And, again, the Kurds are going to be watching. We’re working with the Kurds. We have a good relationship with the Kurds. But we never agreed to, you know, protect the Kurds. We fought with them for three and a half to four years. We never agreed to protect the Kurds for the rest of their lives.

Remember this: When Iraq was fighting the Kurds, everybody thought we were going to fight with the Kurds. I said, “Well, it’s a little strange that we’re fighting with the Kurds when we just spent $4 trillion on Iraq and now we’re going to be fighting Iraq.” So what I did is I said, “We’re not going to take a position. Let them fight themselves.” I thought the Kurds would do very well. Everyone said, “Oh, the Kurds will do very well.” Well, Iraq moved in and the Kurds left. They didn’t fight because they didn’t have us to fight with.

A lot of people are good when they fight with us. You know, when you have $10 billion worth of airplanes shooting 10 miles in front of your line, it’s much easier to fight. But with that, they were a good help. But we were a great help to them too. They were fighting ISIS. You know, they hated ISIS, so they were fighting ISIS. But we never agreed. Where’s an agreement that said we have to stay in the Middle East for the rest of humanity, for the rest of civilization, to protect the Kurds? They never said that.

And we have protected them. We’ve taken very good care of them. And I hope they’re going to watch over ISIS, because that’s — again, most of it is not in the safe zone, as we call it. Some places are called “demilitarized zone.” In the old days, we’d call areas like this a “demilitarized zone.”

And our relationship with the Kurds is good, and they’re going to be safe. And I will say this: If shooting didn’t start for a couple of days, I don’t think the Kurds would have moved. I don’t think, frankly, you would’ve been able to make a very easy deal with Turkey.

I think when it started for a few days, it was so nasty that when we went to Turkey and when we went to the Kurds, they agreed to do things that they never would have done before the shooting started.

If they didn’t go through two and a half days of hell, I don’t think they would’ve done it. I think you couldn’t have made a deal. And people have been trying to make this deal for years. But we’re close to making it. We’ll see what happens. Again, they’ve been fighting for 300 years, that we know of. Three hundred years. So why should we put our soldiers in the midst of two large groups, hundreds of thousands, potentially, of people that are fighting? I don’t think so. I don’t think so.

Yes, Steve?

Q You said that Republicans need to get tougher and fight. What are you talking about, Mr. President?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the Democrats fight dirty. I think the Democrats are lousy politicians with lousy policy. They want open borders. They don’t care about crime. They want sanctuary cities. They don’t care about drugs. They don’t care about almost anything. They don’t care about USMCA. How about that?

I think they’re lousy politicians. But two things they have: They’re vicious and they stick together. They don’t have Mitt Romney in their midst. They don’t have people like that. They stick together. You never see them break off. You never see somebody go out and — that’s why I respected so much what I watched with Will Hurd today, because he was one of the few that didn’t seem to be there and yet he made a statement, and he said, “Well, I haven’t seen any complaints whatsoever from the Ukrainians.” I mean, the Ukrainians didn’t complain, and they didn’t tell any of our ambassadors.

This thing is all about a letter that was perfect. You never hear the letter anymore. It was all about whistleblowers. You never hear — what happened to the whistleblowers? They’re gone, because they’ve been discredited. What happened to the informant? And where’s the IG? Why didn’t the IG read the letter, read the transcript — he could have gotten it, I guess, I assume. I would have declassified it for him, if I had to do that. Why didn’t he read this and then see that the whistleblower’s account was totally different than the letter? Then he would’ve said, “Oh, there’s no problem here.” The whistleblower gave a false account.

Now you have to say, “Well, do we have to protect somebody that gave a false account?” You know, these whistleblowers, they have them like they’re angels. Okay? So do we have to protect somebody that gave a totally false account of my conversation? I don’t know. You tell me. Do we have to protect the informant? Now, I happen to think there probably wasn’t an informant. You know, the informant went to the whistleblower, the whistleblower had second- and third-hand information. You remember that. It was a big problem.

But the information was wrong. So was there actually an informant? Maybe the informant was Schiff. It could be Shifty Schiff. In my opinion, it’s possibly Schiff. Why didn’t Schiff say that he and his staff, or his staff, or a whole group — why didn’t he say that he met with the whistleblower? He knew all about the whistleblower. Why didn’t he say?

He’s a crooked politician. Very bad for our country. This whole thing is very bad for our country. In the midst of that, I’m trying to get out of wars. But we may have to get into wars too. Okay? We may have to get into wars. We’re better prepared than we’ve ever been. If Iran does something, they’ll be hit like they’ve never been hit before. I mean, we have things that we’re looking at.

But can you imagine I have to fight off these — these lowlives at the same time I’m negotiating these very important things that should’ve been done during Obama and Bush and even before that. All right? So that’s where we are right now.

Actually very fair question.

Go ahead.

Q Mr. President, will the troops from Syria come home, or will you send them to other military bases?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, they’re going to be sent initially to different parts, get prepared, and then ultimately we’re bringing them home. Yeah. We’re bringing our troops back home. I got elected on bringing our soldiers back home. Now, it’s not very popular within the Beltway, because, you know, Lockheed doesn’t like it, and these great military companies don’t like it. It’s not very popular.

Outside the Beltway — my largest cheer in Dallas — I had 25,000 people — close — in that arena. A record crowd. I had so many people outside of the arena. Thousands. My largest cheer that night was two things: We’re building the wall; that’s number one. And number two, and probably tied for number one, was we’re bringing our soldiers back home. That was our largest cheer in Dallas. Great place. Great state — Texas. Tough state. They’re tough.

When I said, “We’re bringing our soldiers back home,” the place went crazy. But within the Beltway, you know, people don’t like it. It’s much tougher for me. It’d be much easier for me to let our soldiers be there, let them continue to die. I go out to Dover and I have to — I meet parents. It’s not a pleasant thing; it’s the most unpleasant thing I do. Most unpleasant thing I do. When I see that big cargo plane open, and I see those coffins get rolled off, or when I go over to Walter Reed Hospital — where the doctors are incredible, by the way — saving people that could’ve never been saved even five years ago. You know that. But those people are horribly wounded. Horribly, horribly wounded. Wounded warriors. It’s the toughest thing I do.

The toughest thing is sending letters. I send many letters home to parents, and I speak to parents. But I send many letters home to parents; their son or daughter has been killed over in the Middle East. For what? For what? There are times to fight and there are times not to fight. There are times to be smart.

We have tremendous economic power, and we’re using our economic power — much more powerful, in certain ways, than playing with — with guns. And much better for our country, and much better for everybody, and actually much better for humanity. Okay?

Thank you all very much. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Q Mr. President, on your decision to not hold the G7 — the G7 not at Doral? Are you planning to do it at Camp David now?

THE PRESIDENT: Doral — Doral was a very simple situation: I own a property in Florida. I was going to do it at no cost, or give it free, if I got a ruling, because there’s a question as to whether or not you’re allowed to give it because it’s like a contribution to a country. I’d have to get a ruling. But I would have given it for nothing. It’s a lot of — a lot of money I would have given away, like I give away my salary. I give away my salary. It’s, I guess, close to $450,000. I give it away. Nobody ever said he gives away his salary. Now it comes up because of this. But I give away my presidential salary.

They say that no other President has done it. I’m surprised, to be honest with you. They actually say that George Washington may have been the only other President that did. But see whether or not Obama gave up his salary. See whether or not all of the other of your favorites give up their salary. The answer is no.

They say it’s the only one. They think George Washington did, but they say no other. So I give up — it’s a lot of money, $450,000, close to. And I give that up.

So I have a place that’s in the best location. I’m very good at real estate. Very, very good. Much better than you even understand. When you see my financials, which I’ll give at the right time, you’ll say, “Man, he was much better than we even thought.” This guy knows, right here — Mnuchin — because he was in the private sector. He knows — he knows very much what I have. He would tell you. Someday, maybe, he’ll tell you.

But I’m very good at real estate. There’s Miami — this facility. Everybody would have had their own building. Everybody in the G7 would have had their own building. It was so good. Florida loved it. They love economic development. It’s — it’s not because — it’s a beautiful place, it’s new, it’s been totally rebuilt. It’s new. Everything is new. It’s got massive meeting rooms. Unlimited for security because it’s on, you know, hundreds of acres. Best location. Right next to the airport, Miami International — one of the biggest airports in the world. Some people say it’s the biggest. But one of the biggest airports in the world. It’s only minutes away. It would’ve been great.

But the Democrats went crazy, even though I would’ve done it free, saved the country a lot of money. Then they say, “Oh, but you’ll get promotion.” Who cares? You don’t think I get enough promotion? I get more promotion than any human being that’s ever lived, I think, I get. I think I would have that — I think I can say that fairly safely. I think I get more promotion than any human being that’s ever lived — some good, some bad. The people that like me give me only good. The people that don’t like me give me only bad. But that’s the way life is. I don’t need promotion. I don’t need promotion. Okay?

But I was willing to do this for free. And they would’ve had — it would’ve been the greatest G7 ever. And I would’ve said to my family — because they run my business now; I don’t run my business. I actually put all the stuff in trusts. They run my — and I didn’t have to do that. I was under no obligation to do it.

You know, I don’t know if you know it: George Washington — he ran his business simultaneously while he was President. Many other Presidents — there weren’t too many really rich Presidents, but there were a few — they ran their business. Hey, Obama made a deal for a book. Is that running a business? I’m sure he didn’t even discuss it while he was President. Oh, yeah. He has a deal with Netflix. When did they start talking about that? That’s only, you know, a couple of examples.

But other Presidents, if you look — other Presidents were wealthy. Not huge wealth. George Washington was actually considered a very, very rich man at the time. But they ran their businesses. George Washington, they say, had two desks: He had a presidential desk and a business desk. I don’t think you people, with this phony emoluments clause —

And, by the way, I would say that it’s cost me anywhere from $2 [billion] to $5 billion to be President — and that’s okay — between what I lose and what I could have made. I would have made a fortune if I just ran my business. I was doing it really well. I have a great business. I have the best properties.

But between what I lose — and, in all fairness, some properties — Doral is an example. Doral was setting records when I bought it, because I owned it for a period of time. Setting records. It was going to — there was nothing like it. It was making a fortune.

And then what happened? I announced I’m going to run for office. Right? And all of a sudden — and I say, “We got to build a wall, we got to have borders, we got to have this, we got to have that.” All of a sudden, people — some people didn’t like it. They thought the rhetoric was too tough. And it went from doing great to doing fine. It does very nicely now. It’s actually back, I understand, very strongly.

But Doral was setting records. And I knew this would happen. Most of the stuff that I have — because now, instead of having 100 percent of the market that loves you and they love your brand and it’s luxury and it’s great, now you have 50 percent of the market. That’s called politics. I fully understood that.

So it’s cost me between $2 billion and $5 billion. And if I had it to do again, I’d do it in an instant. Because who cares? If you can afford it, what difference does it make? If I had this to do again — because I’m making a big difference for the country.

The country is stronger now than it’s been in many years — maybe ever. Out military is rebuilt. Our economy is hitting records. As I said, best unemployment numbers, best employment numbers. We’re strong. We’re bringing our soldiers back home from the endless wars. We’re doing great.

So whether I lost $2 billion, $5 billion, more or less, it doesn’t make any difference to me. I don’t care. If you’re rich, it doesn’t matter. I’m doing this for the country. I’m doing it for the people that show up. I haven’t had an empty seat at a rally. I will say, “Where’s the rally?” “It’s in a certain place.” “Okay. Just get the biggest arena.”

I go to these massive basketball arenas, like in Dallas, where the Mavericks play, and fill it up and set a record. I’ve set a record in almost every place I’ve been because we just need a little small stage. We don’t need basketball courts, ice hockey courts. And I take less than musicians, because they have bands. I don’t have band. I set the world record for somebody without a guitar. Okay? I don’t have bands. All right?

So that’s the story. And, you know, those people are the poll. And I had great polls. I have my best polls now. I think it’s because people think that it’s terrible what they’re doing. Pelosi, Shifty Schiff, Schumer — these people are trying to destroy the country. It’s a very bad thing, what they’re doing.

The President of the United States should be allowed to run the country, not have to focus on this kind of crap, while at the same time doing a great job with Syria and Turkey and all of the other things that we’re doing.

Korea — okay, maybe someday — but I’ll tell you what: If somebody else became President, with that same mindset that they had, you’d, right now, be in a big war with North Korea. You don’t hear too much about it. It could happen. Could happen. I don’t know. I always say, “Who knows?” It’s deals. Who knows?

But, in the meantime, North Korea is — I like Kim; he likes me. We get along. I respect him; he respects him. You could end up in a war. President Obama told me that. He said, “The biggest problem — I don’t know how to solve it.” He told me doesn’t know how to solve it. I said, “Did you ever call him?” “No.” Actually, he tried 11 times. But the man on the other side — the gentleman on the side did not take his call. Okay? Lack of respect. But he takes my call.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

Q Sir, the G7 — so what’s the plan for the G7 now, if it’s not at Doral? What’s the plan for the G7 now?

THE PRESIDENT: We’ll look at other locations. I don’t think it’ll be as exciting. I don’t think it’ll be as good. It’ll cost the country a fortune because it’s very expensive.

I know France had a budget of many, many millions of dollars. They just did it. They did a great job, by the way. But France had a budget of many, many millions of dollars. It’s going to cost, you know, a fortune for the country. I was willing to do it for free, but people didn’t like that. They thought I may get some promotional value. I need promotional value so badly, right? I don’t need promotion.

Go ahead. What did you say? What else? Steve? No?

Q Sir, could I ask you about Iran? Sir. Sir, on Iran —

Q Sir, is it a forgone conclusion that the House will impeach you?

THE PRESIDENT: On Iran, what? Say it? What? What do you mention the word “impeach”?

Q Sir, do you believe — do you believe it’s a forgone — do believe that it’s a forgone conclusion that the House will impeach?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think they want to. Any Democrat wants to because they’re not going to beat me in the election. So, of course, they want to impeach me. Why wouldn’t they want to impeach me? It’s so — it’s so illegitimate. It cannot be the way the Founders — our great Founders — meant this to be.

But I see this guy, Congressman Al Green, saying, “We have to impeach him, otherwise he’s going to win the election.” What’s that all about? But that’s exactly what they’re saying. “We have to impeach because otherwise he’s going to win.” I’m going to win the election.

Look, I have the strongest economy ever. “It’s the economy, stupid.” Right? I have the strongest economy in the history of our country. Okay? And we’re setting records. Over 100 times — I think it’s like 118 — but over 100 times, we’ve had the highest stock market in history, since November 8th. Over 100 times.

And, by the way, the day I got elected — the following day — from there until January 20th, the market went through the roof. You know why it went through the roof? Because they got rid of Obama and they got rid of Clinton. And if anybody else — if any of these people that I’ve been watching on this stage got elected, your 401(k)s would be down the tubes. They’d go down not 20 percent or 30 percent; they’d go down 70, 90, 80 [percent], and destroy this country. You’d destroy the country.

So, I think they want to impeach me because it’s the only way they’re going to win. They’ve got nothing. All they have is a phone call that was perfect. All they have is a whistleblower who has disappeared. Where is he? He’s gone. Then they have a second whistleblower. “The second whistleblower has got — oh, it’s going to…” Where is he? He disappeared. Then they have an informant. “Oh, the informant is…” Where is he?

They’re interviewing — they’re interviewing ambassadors who I’d never heard of. I don’t know who these people are. I never heard of them. And I have great respect for some of them. One of them said, just recently — a very, very highly respected man — I’m not going to get into their names, but a highly — said, “No, no. We were very, very bothered by Joe Biden and his son back during the Obama administration.” He said, “We were very…” He’s supposed to be their witness.

Don’t forget, many of these people were put there during Obama, during Clinton, during the Never Trump or Bush era. You know, you had a Never Trump or Bush. You have heard of those? Those people might be worse than the Democrats — the Never Trumpers. The good news is they’re dying off fast. They’re on artificial respiration, I think.

But, no, impeachment — they want to impeach and they want to do it as quick as possible. And that’s pretty much the story. Okay?

Q What about Republican support? Do you — are you working behind the scenes to shore up support in the Senate?

THE PRESIDENT: I think I have great Republican support.

Q Do you run the risk of alienating any of the Republicans in your Party?

THE PRESIDENT: No, I don’t think so at all. No, they — because, you know what?

Q Some of them are very angry about the Syria decision.

THE PRESIDENT: Look — no, you don’t — I have to do what I have to do. I’ll tell you what: I want to bring our soldiers back home. If people want to leave them there, I’ll take that every day. All I know — you were at Dallas — all I know is the place went crazy when I said, “We’re bringing our soldiers back home.” Within this little area — this is a very unique area — they may feel that. But I have to do what I got elected on, and I have to do what I think is right.

Now, if I got elected on something and I think I was wrong, I’d second guess myself. I’d change. But they want our soldiers back home. And I think we can do as well, or better, frankly. Let them — they’ve got to — they’ve got to keep going at each other. It’s artificial to have these soldiers walking up and down between two big countries.

And, by the way, I’m just informed: Larry Kudlow is going to say a few remarks, if you want. Would you like to stay for Larry’s remarks?

Q Sure. Sure. Yes, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Because he is a great, great remark-maker. (Laughter.) Larry — after that whole thing, Larry, get up and go get it. I’m sure it’ll be great. Let them know how we’re doing, Larry. If we’re doing poorly, let them know. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.

MR. KUDLOW: Thanks, sir. I appreciate it very much. Here’s a point I want to make right at the start. You’ve put out some great numbers on some of the recent releases. You know, first and foremost, this is a middle class boom. I can’t emphasize that enough. This is a middle class boom, even though perhaps some people won’t give us credit for it.

You’ve been rebuilding the economy, re-incentivizing the economy, lower taxes, lower regulations, opening up the energy sector, tough trade reforms for level playing fields. So after two and a half years, average real family income: $65,000. In fact, it’s really closer to $66,000. So $6,000 gains. About 8 percent. It’s better than anything our predecessors have done, be they Democrat or Republican. I’m not being partisan here whatsoever.

THE PRESIDENT: Maybe ever, Larry. Right? Maybe ever — in history.

MR. KUDLOW: I’d have to go — I’d have to go back and —

THE PRESIDENT: Go check it. I don’t think it’s ever been done.

MR. KUDLOW: But it’s a long ways, you’re right. Sixty-five thousand — almost sixty-six thousand — that is the middle of middle. So, I think that’s very important. And the increase of roughly 8 percent has never been done before.

And, actually, if you look at the composition of wage increases, sir, the biggest gains have come in the middle quintile, the fourth, and the fifth. The lowest 10 percent have had the biggest increases — not the highest wages, mind you — but the biggest gains, which is what really matters to individual people. So I think that’s absolutely a key point. The policies have spurred a middle-class boom.

Now, 3.5 percent unemployment — the lowest in 51 years. 1.4 percent inflation. We’ve had a 50 percent increase, on balance, for the stock market. Household net worth — household net worth of $12 trillion dollars. So, we’re about $103 trillion — $103 trillion dollars for American household net worth. Disposable income is now growing at 3 percent.

The reason these key points — inflation, stocks, income, wages — there’s a model. There’s a couple of these models. They’re very interesting.

I’m going to talk about the Moody’s model. It’s been run by a friend of mine; he’s an old friend of mine, Mark Zandi. Does not have much sympathetic views towards our administration — or me, for that matter. But, nonetheless — nonetheless, he’s a good guy, personally. I don’t take this stuff personally.

But their model is now showing, because of stocks, inflation, what he calls the “pocketbook model” — which is the average family income you talked about before — $66,000 — his electoral range is 289 to 351. 289 to 351. I believe you need 270 to win. And the most important one is the “pocketbook” — the “pocketbook model” gives you 351 thousand. My former boss, Ronald Reagan, used to call it “take-home pay.” We’re seeing it once again. We’re seeing it once again.

Is this stuff going to happen? Well, their view is — and Oxford economics said the same thing — if we continue along this path, those are —

THE PRESIDENT: Are they predicting who is going to win the election, Larry? Is that what you’re saying?

MR. KUDLOW: Those are the kinds of numbers that suggest a very substantial victory. A very substantial victory. Let me go on again. I’ll be brief on the wrap-up here.

America is working. As you said, 6 million jobs, 500,000-some-odd manufacturing job increases since you took office.

Let me make this point. I’ve been working hard on this, trying to convince my former colleagues in the media. September payrolls — we’re still work- — September payrolls, including the revisions, up 181,000. Okay? 7.1 million job openings. 7.1 million job openings. 5.8 million unemployed. We have more job openings than we have unemployed. This is the 18th straight month. That is a very rare economic stat.

THE PRESIDENT: Almost never happens.

MR. KUDLOW: But let me go under the hood, just for a second. Besides the payroll numbers, there’s another survey from which unemployment comes from. Right? That 3.5 percent unemployment rate comes from something called the “household survey,” which tends to ask individual family members, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and starters. Okay? Household survey in the last four months is exploding. And it is averaging close to 400,000 per month. In other words, payrolls came in at 180, and the household survey is averaging close to 400,000.

A lot of business and financial economists believe the household survey is your leading indicator. It tells me, sir, we could be in for another takeoff on the jobs story.

Wages — non-supervisory production wages up 3.5 percent.

One more leading indicator: the housing market — which has been soft for over a year, we’re now seeing single family starts and sales, and pending sales have now shown several months of steady increases. That’s a good leading indicator that the economy is going to be speeding up, not slowing down.

All of this in the face of a couple of years of very tight monetary policy and the fact that the rest of world is not growing — basically, Europe has been in recession. The rest of world has been in a virtual recession because of our incentive-minded policies. Because of our emphasis on trade and energy and deregulation, we are growing twice as fast as the rest of the world. And the numbers are telling me we may be ready for another pickup. We may be poised for another pickup after a quarter or two of softness.

So, I think we’re in pretty good shape, sir. These are facts. My colleagues — or my former media colleagues may or may not agree, but I’m happy to go through the facts, which is what I’m really interested in here. And, of course, it’s not breaking news that I’m a low-tax rate, supply-sider from the Reagan-Laffer years. (Laughter.)

But I do want to bring in my friend and colleague, Russ Vought of OMB, because part of this is the regulatory story —

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. It’s true.

MR. KUDLOW: — the deregulatory story, which is helping jobs.

THE PRESIDENT: We’ve cut regulations more than any administration in history, and that’s in two and a half years. So, in two and a half years, we’ve cut more regulation than any administration in the history of our country. And they’ve been — for eight years and, in one case, for more than that. So that’s been pretty good.

Thank you very much, Larry. That was very good.

MR. KUDLOW: I’m going to give it over to Russ. Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: And Russ Vought —

MR. KUDLOW: Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

THE PRESIDENT: Russ, if you could talk about regulation.

ACTING SECRETARY VOUGHT: Yeah, we’re going like gangbusters, Mr. President, as a result of your commitment to the deregulatory initiative. Some numbers for our — the group here: nine to one. You set a commitment of two for — two deregulatory initiatives for every one. We’re now at nine, at the close of our third year. That is $50 billion in cost savings, up from $33 billion. And that’s just for those who are regulatory parties.

So if we — if you look at the economy-wide cost savings, it’s $220 billion of savings for regulations — deregulatory initiatives in the pipeline. And that’s in just the first round. Right now, we’re going through a process to figure out what’s next.

We want to be finishing the big deregulatory initiatives this year that you ran on. We’re going to go forward this year with some exciting things to make sure infrastructure and permitting happens on a much quicker basis.

The Vice President is going to be leading a task force with governors to really multiply the efforts that they’re doing on the state level — things like occupational licensing — to make sure that a hairdresser in Montana doesn’t have to — when she moves, doesn’t have to go through a thousand hours of training when she moves to Idaho. That’s the kind of thing that we want to multiply between the states and the federal government to be able to really expand on the work that you’ve been doing.

So we’re excited about that. And we can’t think of deregulatory initiatives without thinking about the work that Andrew Wheeler is doing at EPA. So I would love if you want to talk to — about your initiatives as well.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, good. I think I’ll maybe start with you, Andrew, if you could. Please.

ADMINISTRATOR WHEELER: Thank you, Mr. President. I’m here to update you on the implementation of your executive order regarding the Waters of the U.S. As you know, under the Clean Water Act, EPA regulates the discharge of pollutants into the nation’s navigable waters — also known as “Waters of the U.S.,” or “WOTUS.”

In 2015, the Obama administration illegally expanded WOTUS to include things such as dry channels that only flows when it rains, isolated ponds, ditches. That’s meant — that meant that the vast majority of the nation’s waters would have fallen under the federal control. The Iowa Farm Bureau estimated that 97 percent of the state of Iowa would have fallen under federal control. A North Dakota agricultural commissioner estimated that over 90 percent of North Dakota would have been under federal control.

The Obama EPA claimed that the rule was in the interest of water quality, but it was really about power — power in the hands of the federal government. The rule upset the federal-state partnership, and expanding WOTUS would have meant more landowners would have had to obtain costly federal permits for activities on private property.

The permit process can cost anywhere from $30,000 to $300,000 for a water permit, and it takes one to two years or more. So the 2015 rule was mired in litigation. Thirty-one states opposed it.

Mr. President, you knew that the Obama WOTUS power grab was trouble from the get-go. And when you took office, you immediately asked us to fix the problem. EPA and the Department of Army are implementing your WOTUS executive order, and it’s due — two-step process.

Last month, Army Corps head R.D. James and I signed the final step-one rule repealing the 2015 rule. So the 2015 rule is no longer on the books. We’ve reverted back to previous water definitions prior to 2015.

We are working on finalizing step two: our new proposed WOTUS definition that we’ve proposed last December. The proposal will clearly define what is a federal wetland, as well as what is not, which is just as important. And it will limit where federal regulations apply.

Our overreaching goal is that a property owner should be able to stand on his or her property and be able to tell for themselves whether or not they have a federal waterway without having to hire outside consultants to do that for them.

We received over 600,000 comments on our proposal and we intend to finalize our proposal this winter.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. And I know you’re working on the small refineries — getting that straightened away so that it’s going to be terrific for the small refineries. They’ve been hurt for a long time, and we gave them waivers for this year. And that will — that’s helped them a lot. But I want you to work on that. Make sure the small refineries are happy.

And for the farmers, ethanol now has been fully approved. We spoke with Joni Ernst. We spoke with — and, very importantly — and we spoke with Chuck Grassley. And the ethanol — the whole situation with ethanol that has been going on for so long, for so many years — we have that now where it’s finished, approved, done, and we’re getting things ready to sign.

Perhaps, Sonny, you could just talk about ethanol for our farmers for a couple of minutes, please.

SECRETARY PERDUE: You’ve done a couple of things, Mr. President. You’ve — you, first of all, committed to and fulfilled your promise of making the E15 year-round. That’s what’s really needed to build infrastructure. That’s a 50 percent increase in domestic usage there, which will happen. Good for the economy, good for the air, and good for the ag farmers in that way.

You’ve also balanced up the smaller refinery waivers with the farmers and RFS. And once they fully understand what you’ve done here, they’ll be fine, and — as they see it implemented.

THE PRESIDENT: Yeah, they seem to be very happy. They deserve to be happy. They’ve gone through a lot. They were targeted by China, as you know. And we took some of the money out of the tariffs — $16 billion and $12 billion for the two last years — and we gave it back to the farmer. They don’t even want it; they just want a level playing field. But they were targeted unfairly by China.

And now China is buying tremendous amounts of product — agricultural product. They’ve started — maybe Bob Lighthizer could give us just a little update. I noticed that, today, China sent out a statement that the deal is coming along very well, that they expect to have a deal.

Do you want to talk about China for a couple of seconds?

AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: Yeah, sure, Mr. President. We had — we had had deputy-level meetings this morning. Secretary Mnuchin and I were going to be talking to our counterparts on Friday, and we think we’re making great progress. Our — as you say, our target is to have a phase-one deal done by the time you go to Chile. And while there are still some issues we have to resolve, we’re working towards that goal.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, one little example is the farmers. So they were told and I was told, if we could get $20 billion a year in purchase — the biggest they’ve ever done is $16 [billion], is what I’ve heard and what they’ve said. If we could get $20 billion a year from China — that China purchases $20 billion a year of agricultural product — that would be a great thing. So my people had $20 billion done. And I said, “I want more.” They said, “The farmers can’t handle it.” I said, “Tell them to buy larger tractors. It’s very simple.” (Laughter.) “They’ll buy more land and they’ll buy larger tractors. But I want more.”

And I said, “We want $60 billion to $70 billion.” And we agreed to $40 [billion] to $50 billion. So they wanted $20 billion, and I got $40 [billion] to $50 billion. And they’ve already started buying. And that’s just the way it goes. So I want to thank China for that.

And they have started the buying. So while we’re papering the deal — and that’s going well — we hope to sign it probably in Chile, when we have a summit in Chile, or wherever that may be.

But we’ll be able to, we think, sign a completed document with China on phase one. Then we start working on phase two. And actually, things in phase two are easier than phase one, but it’s so big. Like, as an example, on the agricultural products, it’s so big that we thought doing phases would be good. But actually, the things in the second phase are, in many ways, a lot easier than the things in the first phase. So we’ll see how that goes.

SECRETARY PERDUE: Mr. President, I’m not sure who told you the farmers couldn’t handle it, but it wasn’t me.

THE PRESIDENT: I think they could. (Laughter.) I want the farmers to come tell me, “Sir, we can’t produce that much.” The farmers don’t know that language, right?

SECRETARY PERDUE: Right.

THE PRESIDENT: But we took it from $20 [billion] to potentially $50 billion. It will be bought — more — more agriculture will be bought — product — will be bought than any time in our history, by far. That’s on top of the Japan deal that we just made, where Japan is buying a tremendous amount of ag and other things from our country and our farmers.

Our farmers have been great. They never wavered. They said, “The President is doing the right thing. We’re sticking with the President.”

I tell you, I didn’t see anybody — they looked — some of the networks, they looked. They looked all over for somebody that can speak negatively about the President. And those farmers, Sonny, they stopped. They said, “Nope, he’s doing the right thing. It may be hurting us, but he’s doing the right thing.” And I think, in many ways, the farmer maybe is going to be the biggest beneficiary of what we’re doing — certainly one of them. I think our country is going to be the biggest beneficiary.

Secretary, could I ask you to talk a little bit about drug pricing? Because we’ve cut it down a lot.

SECRETARY AZAR: Mm-hmm.

THE PRESIDENT: And we had the first year ever where prices actually went down. And if we had Democrat support, we could get them way down, but we don’t have a lot of Democrat support. If you could talk about it, please.

SECRETARY AZAR: Sure. So we’ve had the third year in a row under President Trump’s leadership, of historic levels of approving generic drugs. Those are the affordable alternatives to brand drugs. We’re approaching 3,000 generic drugs approved under your tenure. That led to — just in the first 18 months of your term — $26 billion of savings for people from those more affordable alternatives.

And as a result, we have seen now, for the first time in 51 years, the largest decrease in prescription drug pricing under the Labor Department’s inflation index — the largest decrease in 51 years.

We’re working with Congress, of course, trying to craft a bipartisan package there. I think we’re in agreement on about 80 percent of the items. We’re probably the most flexible party in the negotiations between the Democrats and the Republicans, and try to deliver real savings for the American people.

But we’re not stopping. We’re continuing to work on your scheme to bring drugs in from Canada — to import drugs — and how we can make sure we’re getting the same kind of deals for the American senior that other developed countries are getting. As you called it, “most favored nation status.” So we’re driving ahead.

THE PRESIDENT: So I’ve read for years that other countries have much lower drug prices than we do. So I said to a couple of our governors — including Ron DeSantis of Florida, who’s very much into it: “Go to Canada, where the prices are 50 percent. Buy it from Canada. We’ll give you the approval.” And we’re working on those final approvals now.

So Canada buys — because of arcane rules and because of protecting the middleman and protecting drug companies, frankly, other countries have prices that are much, much lower. You know, more than 50 percent, in some cases. Canada’s pricing is much lower.

So I told Ron DeSantis, I told other governors, “Go to Canada. Go to other countries. Buy them.” Same product. Same exact manufacturer. Many times, they’re manufactured in the same plant, and a pill will cost you 50 percent or less than it does in the United States. That just shows you how bad people have run our country.

And we’re going to get tremendous price cuts on drugs. And we’re in the process. And I’d like you to speed that up, Alex, if you could. Really speed it up.

SECRETARY AZAR: Okay.

THE PRESIDENT: Because Canada is loving to sell it. I mean, we’re buying the exact same product for 50 percent. That means people are going to get a 50 percent reduction in drug prices. So — and in some cases, substantially more. It’s hard to believe how this country was taken advantage of by, frankly, everybody in every different way. Okay?

So, thank you. And I’d like to ask Gene Scalia to maybe speak. Gene is a highly respected gentleman and one of the best lawyers in the country. Focused on labor law. And he’s now a Department of Labor Secretary. And it’s great to have you at our first meeting. And thank you. Your first meeting. I’m very proud of you. You got through. He got a — he passed with a massive majority of a votes. (Laughter.) What was the number?

SECRETARY SCALIA: 53-44.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s considered a massive, massive — that’s probably the largest number, if you can believe it. (Applause.)

SECRETARY SCALIA: Thank you, Mr. President. It’s a great honor to join you, the Vice President, and the Cabinet in the important work you’re doing for the American people, including on the economic front. You and Larry Kudlow mentioned some of those numbers, which really are virtually unprecedented. As you said, in some cases, unprecedented unemployment numbers — since we’ve been tracking — for African Americans or Hispanic Americans; the lowest unemployment rate for women in generations.

And as Larry said, for those at the lower end of the economic scale, they particularly are enjoying these benefits. Americans who don’t have a high school degree have the lowest employment rate we’ve ever seen. And this has been, in part, because of your efforts to bring about deregulation to free employers to grow, offer more jobs.

I wanted to mention two that we’re doing at the Labor Department, and they’re both as a result of executive orders that you issued, Mr. President.

The first has to do with what we call association health plans. And this is for small employers who employ tens of millions of American workers. They’re critical to our economy, but they find it hard to provide reasonably priced healthcare to their workers.

So what we did was we reduced some regulatory hurdles that stood in the way of small employers coming together, forming an association, working with the local chamber of commerce, for example, to provide healthcare through that association. That association can give the economies of scale of a larger company. It has leverage of a larger company. It has other ways that it can tailor the benefits available to these employees at the small — at the small employers.

The CBO has estimated that about 4 million Americans would benefit from these programs and that they’ll have premium reductions of as much as $2,000 as a result of these plans.

I should say, some disgruntled state attorneys general — this has happened before, Mr. President — they’ve sued over one of your regulatory initiatives. But I’m also pleased to say that my favorite Attorney General — yours; my former boss — Bill Barr, his lawyers at the Justice Department are defending this litigation right now.

THE PRESIDENT: And we should win. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY SCALIA: And we’ve got a related plan, what we call association retirement plans. And this, again, was a result of an executive order you issued, Mr. President. Same concept: Let smaller employers come together, achieve economies of scale, exercise leverage in negotiating to offer 401(k) plans.

There are about 40 million Americans who don’t have a retirement plan, who don’t have a 401(k) plan. This will make it easier for them to get those plans.

So, Mr. President, those are two examples of steps that are helping the economy, they’re deregulating, but as I’ve described, they’re helping workers get healthcare, get retirement coverage.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s a big thing on the 401(k), Gene, too. That’s very important. Thank you.

Kellyanne, you were going to say about buy-back?

MS. CONWAY: Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. President. Because of the focus that you and the First Lady and the entire Cabinet and this administration have placed on combatting the drug supply/drug demand crisis in our nation, we are happy to report the first decline in 30 years of overdose deaths due to drugs — a decline of 5.1 percent overall — falling off of its peak in some of our states, up to 24 percent. A 24 percent reduction in overdose deaths in Ohio and 23 percent in Pennsylvania. We’ve got about 19 percent in Iowa, 17 percent in Kentucky, 11 percent in New Hampshire, and 9 percent in the hardest-hit state of West Virginia.

THE PRESIDENT: Those are really incredible numbers, folks. I mean, you’re not going to report them, so we’re just wasting our time.

MS. CONWAY: Perhaps they will. But it may —

THE PRESIDENT: Those — those are great numbers.

MS. CONWAY: But this battleship is turning in the right direction, albeit slowly.

But, Mr. President, the most significant bipartisan accomplishment, in my view, of your presidency was HR.6. We’re on the year anniversary of HR.6. Every single Democrat voted for HR.6, including the ones running for President. It is the largest investment of billions of dollars in prevention education, treatment, and recovery, and surveillance, and interdiction in our nation’s history on any one drug crisis.

Part of the education and equipping America is called “Take Back Day.” The Drug Enforcement Agency, the DEA, runs two Take Back Days each year. The next one is this Saturday.

Since the Trump administration got into office, we’ve collected 4.6 million pounds of unused prescription drugs. Let me repeat that: It’s not four — just 4.6 million drugs; that would be something. 4.6 million pounds. That’s the weight of 18 Boeing 757 aircrafts just collected. So it is a drug supply and a drug demand crisis.

We have partnered with over 5,000 law enforcement agencies. And due to private sector partnerships with CVS, Rite Aid, Google, Walgreens, Walmart, and the rest, we have 8,300 total sites nationwide now that Google will map out for us. So if you just type into the computer, “Take back my drugs,” “return prescription opioids,” they will show you locations in your area and tell you how to drive or walk there. And it’s a safe way of returning your drugs. I think it’s a more convenient and more compassionate way for people to return unused, unneeded, expired pills. That happens on Saturday.

The Cabinet has been so consistently and so deeply involved. And I want to thank each and every one of them for this effort, and Mr. President, as well as the First Lady and you.

Also, I’m happy to report that CVS has fulfilled its commitment to double the number of Take Back sites. And in our effort to make every day Take Back Day, people don’t need to wait any longer for every six months. Walgreens, CVS, they’ve got sort of safe delay — safe site, safe safes, where you’re delaying the distribution of pharmaceuticals to make sure it’s going to the person it’s intended to go.

I’m happy to report the NFL, two weeks ago, sent out a message to all of its NFL clubs, equipping them to show our Trump administration public service announcements on Opioid Take Back Day, along with graphics. And the NFL Network is involved.

And finally, Major League Baseball, last week, agreed to show DEA’s Take Back Day public service announcement this Friday during the World Series.

Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Kellyanne. Take Back Day is a big deal. And they’ve been talking about it for a long time. Nobody has ever done it. But it is big.

And Alex wanted to mention just one additional thing. Go ahead.

SECRETARY AZAR: Yeah. Just on the deregulation agenda, deregulation is a — it’s a key part of that great healthcare that you promised the American people, this vision of a personalized, affordable patient-centric system that puts you, the patient, in the center and in control, and treats you like a human being, not like a number. Because if you’re focusing on the bureaucracy, that’s not focusing on the patient.

So we’ve delivered $12.5 billion of regulatory savings. That’s over half of the entire government. I’ll give you an example. We have freed up 40 million hours of doctor and nurse time to not be doing paperwork. Forty million hours have been freed up that they can spend with patients instead. But there’s been incredible change, and we’re going to able to just keep delivering that level of deregulation each year.

THE PRESIDENT: And something that some people think could be as big or bigger than healthcare is transparency. We’re doing transparency. And did you want to give just a one-minute update on that transparency in pricing and transparency on the quality of your doctor?

SECRETARY AZAR: Sure. Yeah. So, this is something — the President has often said that transparency — his initiatives on transparency could be bigger than any kind of healthcare — individual healthcare plan that you might have. What he means by that is, what we have proposed is making all of a hospital’s rates — what they have negotiated with the individual insurer — transparent and available so that you, the patient, would know, before you go to the hospital, what something is going to cost you on your actual insurance plan.

And then we’ll do that with insurance regulations so that your insurance company will send you, before you go to the doctor’s office, an advanced Explanation of Benefits that tells you the list price, the negotiated price, and what you’ll pay out of pocket. We’re going to make this information available to you, as individuals. This is going to empower you. This will shake up the entire healthcare system to put the patient at the center so that you have the right to create a real consumer experience in healthcare, unlike what we’ve had for the last 50 years.

THE PRESIDENT: And just to end, as our — as our trade deals start kicking in — these trade deals are incredible. Whether it’s North Korea, South Korea — North Korea is going to be — probably, something is going to be happening with North Korea too. There’s some very interesting information on North Korea. A lot of things are going on. And that’s going to be a major rebuild at a certain point.

And South Korea is getting much more involved with us than we ever thought in terms of the economy and in terms of the trade deal. A lot of money is being spent over there, and they’re going to be doing it through us. They’ve been doing tremendous purchases. We had a tremendous deficit with them. And we’re slowly eating away at these deficits. We had deficits with everybody.

But as the trade deals start kicking in with China, especially phase one with the farmers and with the banks — the banking system, financial services — as they start kicking in, you’re going to see a tremendous difference in the economy. The economy is already, by far, number one.

So, if I weren’t elected, by right now, China would be the largest economy in the world. It was expected. It was said by many people that China would, right now — they were expecting around the second year of this term. Not only aren’t they the biggest economy in the world, but they are way, way, way far away. We are much bigger than the China economy. And we’re getting bigger, and they’re not.

Now, they have 1.4 billion people. I guess you’d call that an advantage. But we have an economy like no other. I think we have the strongest economy we’ve ever had. And I think if you add the economy, the military, and all the other things that we’ve done, there’s nothing like it. But when trade deals start kicking in — and, as I said, the South Korea deal did kick in, and things are happening with that that are very positive. But as they kick in, you’re going to see tremendous numbers, tremendous changes. Because the trade deals we had were so pathetic. They were so bad. I used to sit back and say to Lighthizer, “How did somebody actually negotiate these deals? How did they even negotiate them?”

This was done at a level that — it’s not even understandable why people were allowed to do it, how they were allowed, how they got passed. But we’re making great deals. And when they kick in, the economy, as good as it’s been doing — and I think, Larry, I can say, that as good as it’s been doing, it’s going to be even better than that.

So, our country is doing fantastically well, perhaps better than ever before. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much.

END 12:54 P.M. EDT

Leftists love to trot out Christine Lagarde as the pontificating elite to defend their multinational interests.  Recently the former IMF leader was elected to take control of the European Central Bank.   As a direct result, Ms. Lagarde is now taking an adverse position toward a strong U.S. economy and decrying the ‘America-First’ policies of President Trump that have removed the tentacles of global financial control.

If you follow trade, finance and the interests of the multinationals, this is actually quite funny.  In this first brief interview segment Ms. Lagarde, has the elitist audacity to warn President Trump that lowering U.S. interest rates defeats the agenda of the EU.  She doesn’t put it in those terms, but watch and we’ll explain:

.

Notice how Lagarde magnanimously claims that lowering interest rates when the U.S. economy is strong, and the U.S. unemployment rate is at historic lows, could lead to rising prices inside the U.S.  Too damned funny; how very kind of the EU to be worried about U.S. consumers… (pro tip: they ain’t).

What she’s really worried about is the dynamic that President Trump has created that is crushing the globalists. Let’s expand.

(Story Link)

♦ The EU economy writ large is contracting, shrinking, due to a lack of investment. The EU has dropped their interest rates in a futile effort to stimulate internal investment… but it ain’t happening. The consequence of the EU lowering rates into negative territory is a weakened EU currency. Two things are happening:

#1) The EU currency dropping means any exports from the EU are less expensive. This is part of the reason for lowering the value of their currency, to keep an export dependent economy alive. However….

#2) By dropping interest rates and driving down their own currency, the value of the dollar increases. This dynamic means EU banks actually purchase U.S. Treasuries for a return. [There is no return in the EU] And simultaneously this drives up the value of the dollar, making any U.S. imports of EU products cost less.

The combination of a weaker EU and a stronger dollar means the prices of the products we would import from the EU are lower. In essence, much like China, the U.S. is importing deflation from Europe.

Any U.S. import company that is not now renegotiating the prices of purchases is a fool. Now is the time for all U.S. companies to drive hard bargains from Asian and EU corporations who wish to sell goods into the U.S. From all current indicators these renegotiations for lower prices is happening both on the Chinese side and the European side.

Ms. Lagarde is not worried that lower U.S. interest rates will drive up U.S. prices, she is worried that lowered U.S. interest rates means greater internal investment in the U.S., while her EU is in direct competition for those investment dollars. Additionally, Lagarde knows that President Trump has boxed them into a trade spiral with no escape.

The lower price of EU products means President Trump can apply greater tariff pressure on the EU and still not create inflation within the U.S. on the imported categories. This is the same outcome Trump’s ‘America-First’ policy is doing to China.

♦ Secondly, it is President Trump’s confrontation with China that has caused Beijing to slow down, and in some cases stop, their industrial purchases. The EU economy, specifically Germany, Italy and France, are dependent on purchases from China. As China stops buying stuff, the EU economy contracts. This is what is happening right now.

If you elevate your perspective what you realize is that every dollar the U.S. does not give to China means one dollar less that China has to purchase from the EU. Yes, that is correct… the U.S. $500 billion annual deficit with China is what allows Beijing to purchase industrial goods from Europe.

As President Trump resets the U.S. trade imbalance with China, he simultaneously diminishes the EU economy. THIS dynamic is what Christine Lagarde is really upset about.

So now we look at the second Lagarde “citizen of this world” soundbite (embedded in tweet) listen carefully:

In that soundbite “U.S. losing leadership” really means the America-First policies of President Trump means the U.S. is no longer spreading American wealth to the rest of the world.

♦ For more than three decades global economies have grown by removing wealth from the United States.  The U.S. multinationals (Wall Street Corporations and pundits) have countered the economic arguments by claiming those global economies have purchased U.S. treasuries; but that means we trade our current wealth for future debt.

President Trump has reversed this dynamic.  We are repatriating our national wealth through new trade policies and will pay for any incurred foreign debt by expanding our own economy and controlling our own destiny.

This is really what’s happening within the global economy that is causing massive reactions by those who were dependent on the status quo.   The ‘America-First’ agenda uses the size and scale of the U.S. market to drive up U.S. wealth, and then stops the export of the dollars generated by making the U.S. the best place to retain investment.

You might remember back in July the IMF, which is euro-centric, increased the projected U.S. economic growth for 2019 to 2.6 percent. They then warned everyone else, that globally the world economy is in a position of weakening, or shrinking etc; and you won’t be surprised at the reason for the IMF negative global forecast. Of course it’s horrible Trump and his strategic trade reset that’s to blame. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

♦ In the bigger picture this is why President Trump is the most transformative economic President in the last 75 years. The post-WWII Marshall Plan was set up to allow Europe and Asia to place tariffs on exported American industrial products. Those tariffs were used by the EU and Japan to rebuild their infrastructure after a devastating war. However, there was never a built in mechanism to end the tariffs…. until President Trump came along and said: “it’s over”!

After about 20 years (+/-), say 1970 to be fair, the EU and Japan received enough money to rebuild. But instead of ending the one-way payment system, Asia and the EU sought to keep going and build their economies larger than the U.S. Additionally, the U.S. was carrying the cost of protecting the EU (via NATO) and Japan with our military. The EU and Japan didn’t need to spend a dime on defense because the U.S. essentially took over that role. But that military role, just like the tariffs, never ended. Again, until Trump.

The U.S. economy was the host for around 50 years of parasitic wealth exfiltration, or as most would say “distribution”. [Note I use the term *exfiltration* because it better highlights that American citizens paid higher prices for stuff, and paid higher taxes within the overall economic scheme, than was needed.]

President Trump is the first and only president who said: “enough”, and prior politicians who didn’t stop the process were “stupid” etc. etc. Obviously, he is 100% correct.

Fast forward to 2017 through today, and President Trump is now engaged in a massive and multidimensional effort to re-balance the entire global wealth dynamic. By putting tariffs on foreign imports he has counterbalanced the never-ending Marshal Plan trade program and demanded renegotiation(s).

President Trump’s goal is reciprocity; however, the EU and Asia, specifically China, don’t want to give up a decades-long multi-generational advantage. This is part of the fight.