Trump Marks One Month in Office: White House Reveals Shifting U.S Stance in Russia-Ukraine War. Tensions escalate as Trump completes one month in office, with White House officials blasting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a "dictator" during an explosive press briefing. Karoline Leavitt, alongside Hassett, Waltz, and Miller, highlighted the administration's frustration with Ukraine and revealed a significant shift in the U.S. stance on the Russia-Ukraine war. The briefing also touched on strained relations with Canada amid the ongoing conflict.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello. Good afternoon, everybody. I brought some heavy hitters in here with me today.
00:06Today marks one month of President Trump's return to the Oval Office, and there is no
00:11denying this administration is off to a historic start. The President has already signed 73
00:18executive orders. That is more than double the number signed by Joe Biden and more than
00:23quadruple the number signed by Barack Obama over the same period. These executive orders
00:29have ended burdensome regulations, sealed the border, unleashed our domestic energy sector,
00:36eliminated divisive DEI from our federal government, stopped the weaponization of
00:40government, cut waste, fraud, and abuse, reinstituted America First trade and foreign
00:46policies, and ultimately restored common sense. The President also signed the Lake and Riley Act
00:52into law, which ensures ICE will detain illegal aliens arrested or charged with theft or violence.
00:59As of today, the Senate has already confirmed 18 Cabinet-level nominees, which is more than at
01:05this point under the Obama administration in 2009 and more than double the pace of the Biden
01:11administration in 2021. And today, we expect Kash Patel to be confirmed as the next director of the
01:17FBI. We are proud to announce that the President will host his first official Cabinet meeting here
01:23at the White House next Wednesday, February 26. In just four weeks, President Trump has already
01:30hosted the leaders of Israel, Japan, Jordan, and India. And next Monday, the President will host
01:36France's President Emmanuel Macron. And on Thursday, the UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer
01:41will visit the White House as well. As you all know, over the past month,
01:46the President has taken questions from the press, all of you, nearly every single day,
01:52sometimes on multiple different occasions, in the same day, on any topic any of you wish to
01:57talk about. President Trump set the tone on this approach immediately when he took more than 12
02:03times the questions in his first few hours in office, as Joe Biden did in his entire first week.
02:10Yesterday, we hosted a local media row here at the White House with television and radio stations
02:15from across the country that reached up to 60 million viewers and listeners.
02:21In our ongoing pursuit of transparency on this one-month celebration, I am thrilled to bring
02:27three of my colleagues and our policy experts here at the White House to further recap this
02:31incredible first month of accomplishments in greater detail. We have Deputy Chief of Staff
02:36for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, the Director of the National Economic
02:41Council Kevin Hassett, and our National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. I will hand it over to them.
02:47They will deliver brief remarks on the accomplishments of this administration
02:50in the first month, and then we will open it up to Q&A. When we open up the Q&A portion,
02:55I do ask for the sake of efficiency in this room that you direct your question to the principal
03:00you seek an answer from, and I will call on you in this room. But first, I will let them
03:04roll through their remarks. And first up, I'll turn it over to Stephen Miller.
03:09Thank you. It's great to be back. And I want to just thank you all for joining today,
03:15our one-month celebration of the most historic opening to a presidency in American history.
03:22No president comes close to what Donald Trump has achieved over just the last 30 days. He has
03:28packed eight years of transformative action, restoring this nation, restoring our laws,
03:35restoring fairness, restoring economic opportunity, restoring national security
03:41in just one month. No one in this country has ever seen anything like it. And when you look
03:46at the consequentiality and the significance and the transformative nature of the actions he's
03:52taking, it truly defies description. For example, in just one area, this nation has been plagued
03:58and crippled by illegal discrimination, diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
04:03It strangled our economy. It has undermined public safety. It has made every aspect of life
04:08more difficult, more painful, and less safe. He has ended all DEI across the federal government.
04:16He has terminated all federal workers involved in promulgating these unlawful policies.
04:20He has ended diversity, equity, and inclusion in all federal contracting. He has restored merit
04:27as the cornerstone of all federal policy, restored the full, fair, impartial enforcement
04:33of our federal civil rights laws for the first time in generations. And he has cracked down
04:40on individuals across this government and nonprofits who have engaged in illegal racial
04:45discrimination against the American people. This includes making clear to every educational
04:51institution in this country that ending diversity, equity, and inclusion, ending unlawful race
04:56discrimination, is a precondition of receiving federal funds. He has also saved women's sports
05:03by ending the participation of men in women's sports. He has ended radical gender ideology
05:10across the entire federal government, and he's pressured the private sector to also end and
05:15combat radical gender ideology. He's re-established the scientific and biological truth that there are
05:21only two sexes in this country, male and female, and those are biologically based determinations.
05:27They are not based and can never be based on gender identity. That includes rooting out of
05:32the Department of Defense all DEI policies, all critical race theory, all gender madness,
05:38and once again having a military that is focused solely and exclusively on readiness, preparedness,
05:44and lethality. As I'm sure Kevin will talk about more, of course, he has undertaken a historic
05:49cost-cutting effort across the federal government, launching the first ever Department of Government
05:53Efficiency, uncovering corruption on a scale that we never thought imaginable, terminating every
05:59single federal worker that we have found to be engaged in the corruption and theft
06:04and the waste of taxpayer dollars, and already saving 50 billion dollars in a single year,
06:10which over a 10-year period would be 500 billion dollars. Just think about how vast and enormous
06:17that sum is. Of course, as you all know, he has renamed the Gulf of Mexico to his correct and proper
06:23name, the Gulf of America. He has renamed Mount Denali into Mount McKinley, part of a historic
06:28effort to restore patriotism and national pride all across this land. He has ended the weaponization
06:34of the federal government, restored the Department of Justice to its true mission of combating threats
06:40to this nation and keeping the American people safe. He has ended all federal censorship of free
06:46speech. This has been one of the greatest crises that has plagued this nation. Years and years and
06:52years, the federal government violating the First Amendment to take away Americans' right of free
06:57speech, President Trump has ended that and he has demanded that all federal workers, all law
07:03enforcement cease any effort to intimidate the rights of Americans or to police their speech.
07:09He has also restored the death penalty at the Department of Justice, including for illegal
07:15aliens who commit murder, including for those who murder cops, and including for all of those who
07:20threaten Americans with heinous acts of violence. The death penalty is back. Law and order is back.
07:27The streets are being made safe once again. On the public health front, he has launched the nation's
07:33first ever commission, the Maha Commission, Make America Healthy Again, following the historic
07:38confirmation of RFK Jr. To finally uncover the true root causes of the public health crisis in
07:46this country, the childhood disease epidemic in this country, the spiraling rates of pediatric
07:51cancer, and devastating childhood sickness, he has finally created a situation where the federal
08:00health agencies in this country will be focused on preventing disease, on keeping children from
08:05getting sick in the first place, not sending them to a lifetime in and out of hospitals,
08:11suffering needlessly when we can find ways to prevent this epidemic of illness. Then of course
08:17on homeland security, today it is officially the law of the land at the conclusion of the
08:24congressional notification process that six Mexican cartels and two transnational gangs,
08:31TDA and MS-13, so eight organizations in total, are now formally designated as foreign
08:38terrorist organizations, which means that every single member of those organizations
08:43who operates on U.S. soil is now, as a legal matter, a terrorist, and they will be treated as
08:49terrorists. This is a sea change in U.S. policy, and this means the Department of Justice and the
08:55Department of Homeland Security, along with the rest of U.S. law enforcement and the Department
08:59of Defense, are now operating in a legal reality where these cartels are recognized as terrorists,
09:06and there will be a whole of government effort to remove these terrorists from our soil and to
09:11degrade their ability to threaten or undermine any American security or sovereignty interests.
09:18Border crossings, since the day he took office, are down 95 percent. I think it's almost impossible
09:26to even describe the scale and scope of that achievement. President Trump, within days of
09:32taking office, cut border crossings 95 percent, and those few who have dared to cross are being
09:40either prosecuted or deported. They're either facing significant jail time for trafficking,
09:46smuggling, harboring, aiding, impeding, or they're being immediately removed from our soil. Either
09:52way, at the end of the process, they are going home. He's re-implemented Remain in Mexico,
09:58and he has obtained historic cooperation from foreign countries all around the world
10:02in accepting their deportees back, and he has used the United States military to fully seal
10:08the southern border with a historic deployment of both active duty and National Guard troops,
10:14resumed the building of infrastructure, he has opened up Guantanamo Bay, and he's using military
10:19aircraft to carry out deportations all across this country. And ICE is joining with ATF, DEA,
10:25and FBI to carry out the largest deportation operation in American history. The criminals
10:30are going home. The border is sealed shut. America is safe, sovereign, proud, and free.
10:35We are a nation that everyone in the world understands all across this planet. You do not
10:40come here illegally. You will not get in. You will go to jail. You will go home. You will not succeed.
10:46This is the biggest and most successful change in any area of law enforcement that this nation
10:52has ever seen, and he did it in under one month. Thank you.
11:01Well, thank you, Caroline. Thank you, Steven. You know, one of the things that President Trump
11:06cares most about is job creation, and it was about seven years ago I had the honor of joining you
11:12in this room for the first time, and it looks like we've created a lot more jobs in the last
11:16month. Look at how many people are here. My estimate is about 180, but I didn't count.
11:21So thank you. It's really an honor to be back here. I think that I just want to go over a few
11:25things and then hand it off to Mike. The first thing is that the President has told us to
11:30prioritize fighting inflation, and he had to do that because, as you know, President Biden let
11:35inflation get completely out of control, and he did it with policies that made no sense.
11:41They made no sense. You know, a lot of times people say to us, our friends, the journalists,
11:46why are you doing that? But, you know, I like to think, why did they do that? Why did they spend
11:51so much money? And then why did the Fed print so much money so that we had inflation as high
11:56as we've ever seen since Jimmy Carter? So why did they do that? So we're addressing inflation.
12:00We didn't have to address it in the first term because it was always in the ones, almost always,
12:04but we're going to get it back there. And how are we doing it? Well, we're doing it with a plan
12:08that President Trump and I and others have talked about in the Oval that involves, like,
12:12every level of fighting inflation. First, the macroeconomic level. We're cutting spending.
12:17We're cutting spending in negotiations with people on the Hill. We're cutting spending with the
12:22advice of our IT consultant, Elon Musk. And then we're also looking into supply-side things,
12:29like restoring Trump's tax cuts, maybe even expensing new factories so that there is an
12:35explosion of supply. If you have an explosion of supply and a reduction in government demand,
12:40then inflation goes way down. And then one of the things that you want to say is, well,
12:44when are you going to see it? Well, the first thing that you'll see when the markets believe
12:49that we're going to get inflation under control is that the 10-year Treasury rate goes down,
12:53because that's how they think about future expected inflation. And so we're still going
12:58to see some memory of Biden's inflation. It's not going to go away in a month. But the 10-year
13:02Treasury, before the last Consumer Price Index, had dropped about 40 basis points,
13:0640 basis points, because markets were optimistic about our ability to fight inflation. 40 basis
13:12points is kind of not a fun thing to say. Economists talk that way. I apologize. But the
13:16way to think about it is, for a typical mortgage, if that affects the mortgage rate, then it's going
13:20to save a typical family buying a house about $1,000 a year. And that's just in our first month.
13:25Okay. The second thing we've done is we've had a lot of trade talks. In fact, I was just meeting
13:29a minister from Mexico with Howard Lettnick just a couple of hours ago. And we're talking about
13:36reciprocal trade, and we're also talking about the fentanyl crisis. And so reciprocal trade is about
13:41our government treating other governments the way they treat us. We want trade to be fair. It turns
13:47out that Americans have been disadvantaged by foreign governments over and over, and President
13:51Trump wants it to stop. And the fact that it struck me as most noticeable when I started to
13:58look at what President Trump was asking us to do is that last year, we have data,
14:04U.S. companies paid $370 billion in taxes to foreign governments. $370 billion. Last year,
14:11foreign multinationals paid us $57 billion in taxes. We have one quarter of world GDP. They
14:18have three quarters of world GDP. And we're paying $370 billion, they're paying $57 billion.
14:22This is not reciprocal. We're going to try, or we're going to fix it.
14:27The other thing that we've done is we've had an all-of-the-above energy approach that's led by
14:32Doug Burgum and Chris and a really large team, EPA. And we've already made so many actions that
14:40are going to affect the price of energy and lower inflation. We've opened up 625 million acres to
14:46energy exploration. We've cut 50 years of red tape that makes it so you can't have permits.
14:53And we've even made it so that when you go home, if you get a new one,
14:56then you can take a shower or flush a toilet or read under a light bulb. We're doing that too.
15:04So finally, let's just think about like the facts that we can see right now that we think are
15:10awesome. So guess what? Small business optimism has gone up by the most ever since President
15:18Trump came in. ISM, which is the measure of what's going on in manufacturing, it's expanding
15:24again for the first time in years. CEO confidence is the highest it's been in years. And the reason
15:34people are thinking this is that our policies give people cause for optimism. And then I want
15:39to reiterate what Stephen Miller said, because it's so important, and it's so important for
15:44financial markets to start to digest this, that if, say, the Treasury Secretary or any Cabinet
15:50Secretary with Elon Musk is able to find some savings, say $100 billion, well, in CBO land,
15:58that's actually like about 10 times that or maybe 12 times that over a 10-year window. And so when
16:04you're thinking about the negotiations right now over reconciliation and thinking about, well,
16:08$4 trillion, $5 trillion, well, those numbers in terms of the savings are going to end up being
16:13small because of all the waste that we're finding. And so we're incredibly optimistic about the
16:18future of inflation and the future of our economy, and we're optimistic because we're making so much
16:23progress so far, and we already see it in market prices. And with that, I'll hand it off to Mike.
16:27All right. Thanks, Scott.
16:28Well, good afternoon.
16:34What a month, and what a sea change in our foreign policy. In addition to what
16:40we're doing on the border and restoring American sovereignty, in addition to what
16:44we're doing in our economy and the job creation and the inflation reduction,
16:51we are bringing the world back to where it was at the end of President Trump's first term,
16:55which is a world of peace, prosperity, and looking forward and getting us out of the chaos
17:02that we've just seen over the last four years. So over the last month, just to name a few,
17:10I had the honor of sitting in the Oval Office as President Trump spoke with President Putin
17:18and then immediately spoke with President Zelensky, and both of them said only President Trump could
17:25bring both sides to the table and only President Trump could stop the horrific fighting that has
17:30been going on now for the better part of four years, and that only President Trump could drive
17:37the world back to peace. Both of those leaders said that in back-to-back calls.
17:42And of course, we just had our historic talks mediated by our good friends and partners,
17:50Saudi Arabia. We give great thanks to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for hosting and sat
17:56down for the first time in years with the Russians and talked about a path forward with peace.
18:04On top of that, and one of the things that led to that was the tremendous confidence-building
18:09measure that we had with the release of Mark Fogle. I'll remind everyone, the last time that
18:14we had an American released from the Russians, either we gave up a deadly spy, pressured our
18:22allies to give up a lethal killer, or we released under the Biden administration the world's most
18:29notorious arms dealer, Victor Boot, who, by the way, had one of his main clients for arms,
18:34the cartels in Mexico and Central America. We gave up none of that. This was released as a
18:41confidence-building measure, working with our great Middle East envoy, Steve Whitkoff,
18:47and our Secretary of State, as a first step towards opening these talks and then moving
18:53forward towards peace. On top of that, we've secured just in a month the return of a dozen,
19:0012 American hostages from Russia, from Bulgaria, from Venezuela, the Taliban, and Hamas. Excuse
19:08me, that's from Belarus, not Bulgaria. We also had, for the first time in quite some time,
19:18we took out a senior leader of ISIS, an international financier and recruiter
19:24that the military had been trying to take out for quite some time and wasn't able to do so,
19:30frankly, because of a bureaucratic approval process. President Trump said take him out,
19:36and that ISIS financier and leader is no longer on this earth. We've also taken action to eliminate
19:44other terrorist organizations in the Middle East. We drove, before the president was even in office,
19:50he started talking consequences for people that would hold Americans. Here to four, there's been
19:56nothing but upside. You take an American, you get some better deal. You take another one, maybe you
20:01get a better deal. No more. There is now nothing but downside for taking Americans illegally,
20:07either as hostages or illegal detainees. When President Trump sent a very clear message across
20:13the Middle East, but particularly to Hamas, that there would be all hell to pay, we suddenly saw
20:18a breakthrough. Now we just saw the release of yet another group of hostages. There have been
20:25dozens now, including two Americans that we've seen once again reunited with their families.
20:32As part of the talks with King Abdullah, he offered, and I think the entire world
20:39has graciously accepted, to take 2,000 sick children, cancer patients, and others out of Gaza.
20:48As a humanitarian gesture, 2,000 Gazans will come out of that hellhole that it is,
20:58that wasteland that Gaza is right now with unexploded ordnance, with debris everywhere,
21:04with no sewage, with no water. President Trump has put forward a plan to deal with the practical
21:11reality that is 1.8 million Gazans now truly suffering. Then just to bring it back to our
21:20own hemisphere, we've seen literally in the last month, after years of national security experts,
21:28the generals in charge, and others testifying and ringing the alarm bells about the Chinese
21:35Communist Party's presence in our own hemisphere, particularly in the Panama Canal. We're seeing
21:41the leadership of Panama step away from the Belt and Road program, move away from China and back
21:48towards the United States, and even enter into talks and other negotiations about addressing
21:55the ports on either side of the canal. Then finally, last but not least, we've had four
22:02world leaders in the White House, in the Oval Office. We've had the Prime Minister of Japan,
22:08the Prime Minister of India, the King of Jordan, and, of course, the Prime Minister of Israel
22:14just in the last four weeks. And next week, we'll have the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,
22:19and we'll have the President of France, Macron. So President Trump is on what we call Trump warp
22:27speed. We are all honored to be really serving under his leadership and his vision.
22:36And truly, when we all say, and the President himself says, he is a President of peace.
22:43He is a President focused on restoring stability. I think the entire world saw
22:49what the world would look like without strong American leadership in the last four years,
22:54and it's truly been an honor to get us back to where we were
22:58and back on track under President Trump's leadership.
23:01Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I'm sure you're very eager to ask questions of
23:07these very smart people working very hard on behalf of the President. We do have somebody
23:13in our new media seat today. We have Jon Stoll, who is the head of news at X. As you all know,
23:19you're all on X. It's home to hundreds of millions of users, a large contingent of
23:24independent journalists and news organizations across geographies and political spectrums.
23:29And at the same time, X remains the go-to platform for many legacy news outlets. And I know,
23:35as I mentioned, many of the reporters in this room use X to attract eyeballs to your work.
23:40Prior to joining X, Jon spent two decades in journalism, including several years as an editor
23:45at The Wall Street Journal. We are excited to have him in the briefing room today.
23:49Jon, we'll let you kick it off. And as I said at the top, please direct your question
23:53to the individual up here who you'd like an answer from. Jon, why don't you begin?
23:57All right. Thank you very much. I am sitting in for a thriving ecosystem of journalists,
24:02independent and emerging news organizations who do depend on X for publicity, for a business model.
24:11And so I look forward to seeing many of them in this seat in months and years to come. I also
24:16thank you, Caroline, for opening this seat up to new media. It really is a testament not only to
24:23your open-mindedness, but also to innovation that you'd actually think about folks that are not
24:28traditionally credentialed to be in this room, to be in this room and not only have a question,
24:33but also to witness. This is a very important intersection of power and the free press.
24:40And so just the ability to witness this and be part of it brings everybody's game up. So
24:46thank you for that. I think this is for Mike. Well, my question is about Ukraine.
24:50Sure. For about more than 10 years, I've been fascinated, like many, with what's going on.
24:57I was in Northern Europe working out of the Baltics when Crimea was annexed. And a lot of
25:06this came on Twitter. The platform used to be known as Twitter. A lot of European leaders would
25:13talk about their disappointment and solidarity with Ukraine. But when it came to actually doing
25:18something, it felt like they were passing a hot potato and sent it over the Atlantic.
25:23I wonder how much of what we're seeing right now out of the administration and President Trump
25:28is a call to Europe and the European leaders and the allies that we've traditionally had
25:31to pick up that hot potato and start doing something a little bit more concrete to win
25:37and preserve the peace in Ukraine. The second question I have is related. There's been a lot
25:44of speculation that President Trump and the administration might be manipulated by Vladimir
25:50Putin. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the administration's posture and your
25:55confidence in the competence of this administration to go toe-to-toe with Vladimir Putin.
26:00I'll take the second question first. If there's anybody in this world that can go toe-to-toe
26:05with Putin, that could go toe-to-toe with Xi, that could go toe-to-toe with Kim Jong-un,
26:10and we could keep going down the list, it's Donald J. Trump. He is the dealmaker-in-chief.
26:16There is no question that he is the commander-in-chief. I, for one, and I think all
26:21Americans and around the world should have no doubt about his ability to not only handle Putin,
26:29but to handle the complexity of driving this war to an end. Then on your first piece on Europe,
26:36I'll take you back to 2014. You're right, there was a lot of hand-wringing in Europe and not a
26:41lot of action. There's also a lot of hand-wringing here in Washington under the Obama administration
26:46and not a lot of action. They literally threw blankets at the problem. I'll remind everyone
26:52that Putin had some type of conflict, invasion, or issue with their neighbor under President Bush
26:59with Georgia, under President Obama with Ukraine 2014, not under President Trump 45, and again
27:06with President Biden in 2022. The war should have been deterred. The war should have never happened,
27:12and I have no doubt it would not have happened under President Trump. We'll stop under President
27:17Trump again, but I just want to push back on this notion of our European allies not being consulted
27:23as we've entered into this process. I already mentioned the immediate phone call President
27:28Trump made to President Zelensky. He has talked to President Macron of France repeatedly last week.
27:34President Macron convened European leaders and then is coming here on Monday. Prime Minister
27:40Starmer is coming next Thursday. I've talked to every one of my national security advisor
27:50counterparts across the spectrum in Europe. I've talked to Secretary General Rutte,
27:57the leader of NATO, the Secretary General of NATO. We have repeatedly â oh, by the way,
28:02we had half our cabinet, seven cabinet officials, including the Vice President,
28:06at the Munich Security Conference, all engaging, all listening, and all making sure our allies are
28:12heard. However, we've also made it clear for years, decades even, that it is unacceptable
28:21that the United States and the United States taxpayer continues to bear the burden not only
28:26of the cost of the war in Ukraine but of the defense of Europe. We fully support our NATO
28:32allies. We fully support the Article 5 commitment. But it's time for our European allies to step up.
28:39And one of the things that Secretary General Rutte said on our call was, this last couple
28:44of weeks have been a real wake-up call. And I asked him, what have you been missing the last
28:49couple of years? The fact that we are going to enter into a NATO summit this June with a third
28:55of our NATO allies still not meeting the 2 percent minimum, a commitment they made a decade ago,
29:03literally a decade ago, with a war on their doorstep, the largest war that they're all
29:08extremely concerned about, but yet it's, well, somebody else needs to pay. We've got other
29:15domestic priorities. It's unacceptable. President Trump's made that clear. And the minimum needs
29:19to be met. We need to be at 100 percent this June at the NATO summit. And then let's talk
29:24about exceeding it, which is what President Trump has been talking about with 5 percent of GDP.
29:30Europe needs to step up for their own defense as a partner. And we can be friends and allies
29:34and have those tough conversations.
29:37Peter.
29:38Thank you, Caroline. I have a Ukraine one and a Doge one. Who can talk Doge?
29:42Stephen Schreiber.
29:44All of us.
29:46So, Stephen, we're hearing about these Doge dividend checks that would be 20 percent back
29:51to taxpayers, 20 percent to pay down the debt. 60 percent is left. Who gets that?
29:56Well, the way that it works is when you achieve savings, you can either return it to taxpayers,
30:02you can return it to our debtors, or it can be cycled into next year's budget and then it just
30:09lowers the overall baseline for next year. So, in other words, you can just transfer into the next
30:13fiscal window and then lower the overall spending level. And that means that you can achieve a
30:17permanent savings that way, and that reduces the deficit.
30:20And when is it that people might see those checks?
30:22Well, it's all going to be worked on through the reconciliation process with Congress that's going
30:26underway right now. As you've seen, the Senate's moving a bill, the House is moving a bill.
30:30The president has great confidence in both chambers to deliver on his priorities.
30:34I would just take this opportunity to note that President Trump has made a historic commitment
30:39to the working class of this country to fight for a major tax relief and major price relief.
30:45And cutting spending, as DOJ is doing, and cutting taxes is the key to delivering on both
30:50of those promises. And President Trump is resolutely committed to doing both.
30:53Thank you. And on Ukraine, I guess this is for Mike.
30:56Sure.
30:57After the president's post on Truth Social yesterday, need to know,
31:01who does he think is more responsible for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin or Zelensky?
31:08Well, look, his goal, Peter, is to bring this war to an end, period. And there has been ongoing
31:16fighting on both sides. It is World War I-style trench warfare. His frustration with President
31:23Zelensky that you've heard is multifold. One, there needs to be a deep appreciation for what
31:31the American people, what the American taxpayer, what President Trump did in his first term,
31:37and what we've done since. So some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv, frankly, and
31:43insults to President Trump were unacceptable, number one.
31:46Number two, our own Secretary of Treasury personally made the trip to offer the Ukrainians
31:53what can only be described as a historic opportunity. That is for America to co-invest
31:59with Ukraine in their minerals, in their resources, to truly grow the pie. So case in point,
32:06there's a foundry that processes aluminum in Ukraine. It's been damaged. It's not at its
32:12current capacity. If that is restored, it would account for America's entire imports of aluminum
32:19for an entire year, that one foundry. There are tremendous resources there.
32:24Not only is that long-term security for Ukraine, not only do we help them grow the pie with
32:30investments, but we do have an obligation to the American taxpayer in helping them recoup
32:36the hundreds of billions that have occurred. So rather than enter into some constructive
32:44conversations about what that deal should be going forward, we got a lot of rhetoric
32:50in the media that was incredibly unfortunate. I could just tell you, Peter, as a veteran,
32:57as somebody who's been in combat, this war is horrific. I think we've lost sight of that,
33:03of the literally thousands of people that are dying a day, families that are going without
33:09the next generation. I find it kind of, frankly, ridiculous. So many people in Washington that
33:16were just demanding, pounding the table for a ceasefire in Gaza are suddenly aghast that the
33:22President would demand one and both sides come to the table when it comes to Ukraine, a war that
33:29has been arguably far greater in scope and scale and far more dangerous in terms of global escalation
33:38to U.S. security. And I do have one for Caroline. Does President Trump have a bet with Trudeau
33:46about this USA-Canada hockey game tonight? And when there is a big hockey game on,
33:51is the President watching for the goals or for the fights? Probably both. I think he's watching
33:57for the United States to win tonight. I know he talked to the USA hockey team this morning. He
34:03talked to the players after their morning practice around 10 o'clock. And I also spoke to some folks
34:08from that team after. They were jubilant over President Trump's comments to the team. I believe
34:13they're going to put out a video of that call. So he looks forward to watching the game tonight,
34:18and we look forward to the United States beating our soon-to-be 51st state, Canada.
34:22Bloomberg, go ahead.
34:24My question is for Mike Waltz. Can you give us a readout of Kellogg's meeting with Zelensky
34:28that just wrapped up? And, in particular, Zelensky publicly rejected this deal about
34:33the rare earth minerals. Where does that stand? Well, we're going to continue to have â he needs
34:39to come back to the table, and we're going to continue to have discussions about where that
34:43deal is going. Again, we have an obligation to the taxpayer. I think this is an opportunity.
34:47The President thinks this is an opportunity for Ukraine going forward. There can be,
34:52in my view, nothing better for Ukraine's future and for their security than to have the United
35:00States invested in their prosperity long term. And then a key piece of this has also been
35:06security guarantees. Look, the reality that we're talking about here is, is it in Ukraine's
35:14interest? Is it in Europe's interest? It certainly isn't in Russia's interest or in the American
35:19people's interest for this war to grind on forever and ever and ever. So a key part of
35:26his conversation was helping President Zelensky understand this war needs to come to an end.
35:32This kind of open-ended mantra that we've had under the Biden administration, that's over. And
35:38I think a lot of people are having a hard time accepting that. And then the other piece is there
35:42has been discussions from Prime Minister Stormer and also President Macron about European-led
35:49security guarantees. We welcome that. We've been asking Europe to step up and secure its own
35:55prosperity, safety, and security. So we certainly welcome that, and we certainly welcome more
36:01European assistance. As I told my counterparts, come to the table with more if you want a bigger
36:08seat at the table. And we've been asking for that for quite some time.
36:12And has Russia pushed for sanctions in your talks with them? And have you consulted with
36:16international partners and allies about potentially rolling back sanctions in these
36:20negotiations to end the war?
36:22The talks with our Russian counterparts, both with my counterpart, the National Security Advisor,
36:27Secretary Rubio's counterpart, the Foreign Minister Lavrov, it really was quite broad,
36:38focused on what is the goals for our broader relationship, but very clear that the fighting
36:44has to stop to get to any of those brighter goals. And as a first step, we're just going
36:49to do some common-sense things, like restore the ability of both of our embassies to function.
36:55And again, this is common sense. In the foreign policy world, they call it shuttle diplomacy.
37:03We have to talk to both sides in order to get to both sides to the table,
37:08and both sides have said only President Trump could do that.
37:11Deanna.
37:12Thank you. And my question is for Michael.
37:16The President has called Zelensky a dictator. Does he view Putin as a dictator? And does
37:23he want Zelensky out of power? I know he's called for elections. And then thirdly, the head of the
37:29Defense Committee in Ukraine's parliament just has claimed that the U.S. has stopped selling
37:34weapons to Ukraine. Is that true?
37:37Well, most of our weapons that have gone to Ukraine have been part of a drawdown authority,
37:42where we've literally taken them out of our stocks and then eventually, through appropriations,
37:47started buying them again to refill our stocks.
37:51I'll just state that there has been a lag in a lot of that process. So many of our stocks,
37:56as we look at our operations around the world, are becoming more depleted. That's one of the
38:02reasons many people have had a lot of concern about, when does this end? How much is it going
38:07to take? How many lives will be lost? How much will we spend? As a member of Congress,
38:13we repeatedly asked the Biden administration those questions and we never got a satisfactory
38:19answer. Look, President Trump is obviously very frustrated right now with President Zelensky.
38:26The fact that he hasn't come to the table, that he hasn't been willing to take this opportunity
38:34that we have offered, I think he eventually will get to that point, and I hope so very quickly.
38:41But President Trump, as we made clear to our Russian counterparts, and I want to make clear
38:45today, he's focused on stopping the fighting and moving forward. And we could argue all day long
38:51about what's happened in the past.
38:53Reagan.
38:57Excuse me, I just called on Reagan. Reagan, go ahead.
38:59I have a question for Stephen and a question for Mike.
39:01Sure.
39:01Stephen, I can start with you.
39:04There have been reports that Trump is unhappy with the rate of deportations and he wants them
39:08to be hired. Is the President happy with the rate of deportations and are there any plans
39:13to speed up the process?
39:15Well, first of all, we all appreciate the encouragement from the media to deport as
39:19many illegal aliens as humanly possible. So thank you. And I will promise you that
39:24the full might of the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice,
39:28the Department of Defense, and every element and instrument of national power
39:33will be used to remove with speed all criminal illegals from the soil of the United States of
39:39America to enforce final removal orders and to ensure that this country is for American citizens
39:45and those who legally belong in this country. We inherited an ICE that was completely shuttered.
39:51We inherited a Department of Homeland Security whose sole mission was to resettle illegal
39:56aliens within the United States of America. In 30 days, the President sealed the border shut,
40:02declared the cartels to be terrorist organizations, has increased ICE deportations to levels not seen
40:08in decades, and we are shortly on the verge of achieving a pace and speed of deportations
40:14this country has never before seen. Thank you.
40:16And Mike, there are reports that there's some underground opposition to Trump's pick for
40:22Undersecretary of Defense and Policy Elbridge Colby. Have you or anyone from the administration
40:28been personally lobbying senators to support Elbridge Colby?
40:33Look, I've worked with Elbridge Colby in the past. He has the President's full support to be the
40:41Undersecretary of Policy, which will be a critical policy arm for Secretary Hegseth going forward that
40:46will implement a lot of these policies. And really, that's been to the extent of it. I think
40:52there's been a lot of kind of, you know, breathless, I don't know, back and forth in the press. But
41:00we're full speed ahead to get the President's team in place so we can implement his America
41:04First policy. Thank you.
41:06Mike has spoken pretty extensively. Does anybody have questions for Stephen or for Mr. Hassett?
41:11Nobody wants to talk about the economy? Sure.
41:15IRS? Okay, go ahead.
41:16This would be for either one of you. So we've reported several other outlets have reported that
41:23about 3,500 people are due to be lose their jobs at the IRS by the end of the week.
41:29If the goal of these spending cuts across the federal government has been to reduce the debt,
41:34why impose some of the deepest cuts we've seen so far at the agency responsible for raising
41:39revenue for the federal government?
41:41Well, I think our objective is to make sure that the employees that we pay are being productive
41:46and effective. And there are many, many, more than 100,000 people working to collect taxes,
41:52and not all of them are fully occupied. And the Treasury Secretary is studying the matter and
41:57feels like 3,500 is a small number, and probably can get bigger, especially as we improve the IT
42:03at the IRS. And so I think that it's absolutely something that is on the table for good reasons.
42:08And the point is that don't just talk about the IRS, talk about all of government,
42:13that there are so many places, I live in D.C., you maybe live in D.C., where nobody's going into
42:18the buildings. People aren't commuting because nobody's doing their job. We look back and we
42:22see that there are all these people doing two jobs while they're getting a government payroll
42:25on the payroll. So the point is we're fixing that, and the IRS is a small part of that picture.
42:30So you're saying that everybody who's being let go was doing a bad job?
42:35I'm saying that we're studying every agency and deciding who to let go and why. And we're doing
42:40so very rationally with a lot of support from analysis. Because we're being told by a lot of
42:45people who have been let go at other agencies that they were told they were being dismissed
42:50because of poor performance, when in some cases they haven't even had a performance review yet
42:54because they've only been on the job a couple of months. Yeah, I've never seen a person who was
42:58laid off for poor performance say that they were performing poorly. Okay. Good point. Sure, Caitlin.
43:06I have a question. I'll start with you, Kevin. Thank you for being here. And then I've got a
43:09question for Mr. Waltz. On these potential checks that you might send out from DOJ,
43:14is there a concern as you're thinking through this that they could be inflationary?
43:18Oh, absolutely not. Because imagine if we don't spend government money and we give it back to
43:23people, then if they spend it all, then you're even. But they're probably going to save a lot
43:27of it, in which case you're reducing inflation. And also when the government spends a lot, that's
43:31what creates inflation. We learned that from Joe Biden. And so if we reduce government spending,
43:34then that reduces inflation. And if you give people money, then they're going to save a bunch
43:39of it. And when they save it, then that also reduces demand and reduces inflation. Okay,
43:43so you're not worried about it. And Mr. Waltz, to follow up on Peter's question, you wrote in
43:47an op-ed in the fall of 2023 that, quote, Putin is to blame, certainly like al Qaeda was to blame
43:52for 9-11. Do you still feel that way now? Or do you share the President's assessment as he says
43:57Ukraine is to blame for the start of this war? Well, it shouldn't surprise you that I share the
44:01President's assessment on all kinds of issues. What I wrote as a member of Congress was, as a
44:07former member of Congress, look, what I share the President's assessment on is that the war has to
44:12end. And what comes with that? What comes with that should be, at some point, elections. What
44:19comes with that should be peace. What comes with that is prosperity that we've just offered
44:24in this natural resources and economic partnership arrangement, an end to the killing,
44:30and European security and security for the world. The President's not only determined to do that in
44:37Europe, he's determined to do it in the Middle East. And just a few months ago, we had an
44:42administration that had tried for 15 months, week after week, sitting with you here, and couldn't
44:48get us to a ceasefire, couldn't get our hostages out. Now we're at that point. We're back to the
44:53maximum pressure on Iran. And we have just begun, and we will drive towards a ceasefire and all of
45:00those other steps. I'm not going to pre-negotiate or get ahead of the sequencing of all of that.
45:06It's a very delicate situation. But this is a President of peace, and who here would argue
45:11against peace? Okay, so you do share that assessment. And can I follow up?
45:14In 2017, then President Trump. Go ahead, Jordan. You just had two questions,
45:19Jordan. Go ahead. So, Mr. Hassett, you were speaking about tariff revenue, and you also
45:27addressed a question about the IRS. President Trump has spoken about replacing income tax
45:33with tariff revenue, especially with all this waste, fraud, and abuse that we're seeing cut.
45:37Is that a possibility? Absolutely. And in fact, if you think about the China tariff revenue
45:42that we're estimating is coming in from the 10 percent that we just added, plus the de minimis
45:49that it's between $500 billion and $1 trillion over 10 years is our estimate. And that's something
45:55that is outside of the reductions that markets are seeing through the negotiations up on the Hill.
46:00And so we expect that the tariff revenue is actually going to make it much easier
46:03for Republicans to pass a bill, and that was the President's plan all along.
46:07And then I have a question for Stephen Miller about Doge. So you spoke about Doge. You said
46:14roughly $50 billion is set to be cut in a year of waste, fraud, and abuse by unelected bureaucrats.
46:21We're hearing this ironic narrative from the President's critics and the left-wing media that
46:26Elon Musk is an unelected bureaucrat, and he's doing all this terrible stuff.
46:30Isn't one of Doge's objectives to get rid of the federal bureaucracy, the deep state? And also,
46:37who was running the White House when Joe Biden was in office? Because I don't know a single person
46:42who believed it was Joe Biden. You're tempting me to say some very harsh things about some of
46:48our media friends. Yes, it is true that many of the people in this room for four years failed
46:55to cover the fact that Joe Biden was mentally incompetent and was not running the country.
47:01It is also true that many people in this room who have used this talking point that Elon is
47:06not elected fail to understand how government works. So I'm glad for the opportunity for a brief
47:12civics lesson. A president is elected by the whole American people. He's the only official
47:17in the entire government that is elected by the entire nation, right? Judges are appointed,
47:23members of Congress are elected at the district or state level. Just one man. And the Constitution,
47:27Article 2, has a clause known as the Vesting Clause, and it says the executive power shall
47:32be vested in a president. Singular. The whole will of democracy is imbued into the elected
47:39president. That president then appoints staff to then impose that democratic will
47:45onto the government. The threat to democracy, indeed the existential threat to democracy,
47:51is the unelected bureaucracy of lifetime tenured civil servants who believe they answer to no one,
47:57who believe they can do whatever they want without consequence, who believe they can
48:01set their own agenda no matter what Americans vote for. So Americans vote for radical FBI reform,
48:07and FBI agents say they don't want to change. Or Americans vote for radical reform under energy
48:11policies, but EPA bureaucrats say they don't want to change. Or Americans vote to end DEI,
48:17racist DEI policies, and lawyers in the Department of Justice say they don't want to change.
48:23What President Trump is doing is he is removing federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy
48:30by failing to implement his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole American people.
48:37Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. I'm looking at the clock. We've almost had an hour
48:42of time. I know a couple of these individuals have a meeting to get to at 2 p.m., so you're
48:47welcome to follow up with my team for further questions. We're going to let these guys get
48:51back to running the United States government, and we will see you all later. President Trump
48:55will be speaking at 3 o'clock at the Black History Month reception, so thank you. It's good to see
49:00you. We'll see you in a bit. Don't miss out. Log on to OneIndia.com for more updates.
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