00:00Thank you all. It's cool to be here. I'm going to give a shout out, of course, to the person
00:03I am replacing today, Carolyn Levitt, who hopefully is at home enjoying some time with her beautiful kids. I told
00:11Carolyn I would stand in for her today for the White House press briefing on the condition that when Usha
00:17has our baby in July that she would be vice president for a couple weeks. So thank you guys. And
00:23I actually want to start first with Nick from Breitbart. Nick, it's good to see you.
00:26Good to see you, Mr. Vice President. Thank you. Today we saw the president endorse Ken Paxton over John Cornyn
00:32in the Texas Senate race. Do you think that sends a message going forward for the next cycle to senators,
00:40you know, considering running for reelection or any mega aligned potential candidates that are considering challenging them?
00:46Well, I'd say a couple of things, Nick. First of all, the president is very gratified by the response that
00:51he's heard from the base and from a lot of voters. I think we're passionate about Ken Paxton.
00:56We think Ken Paxton is going to be a great senator for the people of Texas, but most importantly, a
01:00great United States senator who can work on solving the problems that all of us confront as a country together.
01:06I've known John Cornyn for a long time, but unfortunately, you know, when it really counted, Ken Paxton was there
01:13for the country, was there for the president, and that's why he ultimately earned the president's endorsement.
01:18He thinks he's going to be a better senator, thinks he's going to make a better candidate. And so I
01:23do think it sends a message, but really not just the endorsement, but one of the things the president has
01:29done very effectively going back 10 years in his leadership of the Republican Party and the country as president of
01:35the United States is he said, you know, I want people who fight for the good.
01:39I want people who can't be bought by corporate lobbyists, who can't be bought by Wall Street, who can't be
01:44bought by special interests, who are going to go to Washington and fight for the people who actually elected them
01:49to those positions.
01:50And I think one of the things we've seen in the Republican Party, while I can't say that all of
01:54our representatives are perfect or all of our senators are perfect, we have seen a much better crop of talent
02:02come into Washington since Donald Trump has been the leader of the party and the leader of the movement.
02:06I do think we're going to continue to see that happening.
02:08But I think the message that people should take from this is fundamentally, you have got to serve the people
02:14who sent you.
02:15And if you don't do that, you're going to find yourself out of step with voters or out of step
02:19with the president of the United States.
02:20And that's not a good place to be politically.
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