history >> this is mark who headed up this project. thanks for your time. >> thank you, happy new year. ::

okay, thank you very much. thank you all for being here. and joining the first cabinet meeting of 2019. it will be a very exciting year. i think it will be a very good year. some people think it will be controversial and it probably will. we will get a lot done. i think we can work with democrats actually and get quite a bit done. looking at infrastructure, many things. it can happen i think that both

sides want. we just did a very big and very highly touted criminal justice reform bill. it was a bipartisan thing we finished the year and a tremendous year as terms of achievement. whether regulation cuts or tax cuts or anything else you can name. so many thing we did, judges including two supreme court judges and many federal bench judges. so we have had quite a time and we will have i think, six more years of great success. but i think this coming year will be tremendous actually. everyday border patrol encounters roughly 2000 illegal immigrants. we will talk about this. trying to enter our country. 2000 a day, that is a minimum. every week, 300 americans are killed by the mass majority which comes across through our southern border. the southern border is like a sieve it just pours through the

southern border. unless we will have physical barriers it will never be able to be stopped. too much money is being made. last month 20,000 minors were illegally smuggled into the united states. in the last three years, i.c.e. officers arrested 235,000 criminals who were able to come in over the years through the united states. and we have a very tough quarter. i think you see that even last night where people charged the border. try to get there but could not because we have a wall up. and teargas was flying and a lot of things were happening and i guess for the most part, is very sad. if they knew they had a physical barrier or a wall, if they knew they had something that was going to stop them, they would have never come up in the first place. when you see children getting sick, they get sick on the trail up. very sick, is a terrible journey, a horrible journey.

you hear the things that go on in the caravans. and if they knew they could not get through they wouldn't even start. another one is forming in honduras. we are very much lower the payments to honduras. and to a few other countries that are not playing right. there is no reason for caravans to be forming. they should not allow it to happen. the united states needs a physical barrier. it needs a wall to stop illegal immigration, for the drugs and crime. human traffickers, it is a thing that is horrible. think of that human trafficking for the kidnapped people, they steal people and they sell people. because of the internet, one of the bad things that happens with the internet, one of the many bad things. but because of the internet is the highest it's ever been in history. and this is a world problem not a united states situation. this is a world problem but the southern border is a very high, highly used place by people

that do human trafficking. how could it get worse than that? there is a reason why politicians and wealthy people build walls around their houses and their compounds. president obama recently built a wall around his compound. there is a reason forit. and i don't blame him . we are in a shutdown because democrats refused to fund the border security. they try and make it like it is just about the wall. and it is about the wall. i said over the weekend to a number of people and you know the wheel, the wall, there are some things that never get old. it's never going to change. the wall is your number one point of security. if we had a wall, and we will. and by the way, for those that don't know, we have done tremendous amounts of renovation of existing walls and fences. and brought them back to brand-new condition. we spent a lot of money doing

it and doing it properly. we have a letter brand-new fencing. if you saw last night, they tried to come through well area. the wall existed. if it did not exist you have hundreds of people flowing into the country. some of these are criminals. some of these will split up families by killing people. and hurting people very badly. but if we did not have a form of barrier up last night we would have had, all of those people would have been able to come through. we are in the shutdown because of the fact that the democrats are looking to 2020. they think they're not going to win the election. a lot of signs i guess .2 they will not win the election. i hope they will not win the election. but they view this as an election point for them.i actually think it is bad politics but i'm not thinking about politics.i am thinking about what is right and what is wrong. and we need a physical barrier. everything else is bells and whistles. i know more about drones and

anybody. i know that every form of safety that you can have. and it is all good but it is just very minor compared to the power of the wall. all of the people you see coming up, if they knew that we had actual physical presence there, a physical barrier. even soldiers that have been fantastic, we have had our military. but we have the military, border patrol and i.c.e., i mean it is great to have but you have 2000 miles. you have anywhere from 5 to 600 miles where you need barriers. some of it we have now completed, as you have seen and as i have told you. we need a barrier because he cannot put a soldier every hundred yards. you have a lot of people you put them every hundred yards people will go right through. there is nothing you can do about it unless you are willing to build a wall. and walls work. if you look at israel, i was with prime minister netanyahu. he said i don't know why -- he

says 99.9 percent it works. it will work almost 100 percent of the time. and we would have much less of a problem. and we save money, so much money on a monthly basis. probably would pay for itself in a month or two because we lose pretty close to $250 billion on illegal immigration. and i would say that it could be in a monthly or a couple of months, it would pay for the wall. pay for what we are talking about. the house as you know approved by $0.6 billion. it is a very -- $5.6 billion. a small price to pay. the number you save just on drugs and helping families where all of this stuff doesn't come through on the southern

border. right there you would say. and you would save a lot. they knew pelosi bill, and by the way i think we having the big eight, plus me our meeting in a little while. it will be 3 o'clock. to discuss the board approve i.c.e. and border patrol, they are going to make a plea for the wall. they need a wall. they cannot do it without a wall. all they can do is add many more men and women but the protection is not good because you will go to a certain area you do not have the wall and they will walk right through. like the killing that took place a few days ago, the young police officer. a great young, beautiful person, great family. just took a picture with his son and his wife for christmas. and a few hours later he was shot and killed by someone that had just come across the border. things like that wouldn't happen or certainly they would behappening far , far less. now the democrats in the bill want $12 billion additional for

foreign aid. $12 billion more. it is $54.4 billion which is by itself, a lot. but in foreign aid, they want 12 billion over the $54 billion. think of it. $54 billion, a lot of it because they want to give it. they don't even know who they are giving it to. in many cases people don't even know the name of the country. they know nothing about the country. and yet, so they are going to give 54.4 billion in foreign aid but they want 12 billion more than that in foreign aid. but they won't approve 5.6 billion dollars for a wall that will pay for itself. almost on a monthly basis. it is just politics folks. it is purely politics. so, we have a lot of loopholes.

whether it is catch and releas , the worlds most ridiculous loophole. you catch somebody and then you release them. what we are doing is, we are catching and retaining. the problem is we have to build vast fields of rooms and places for these people to stay. and it is physically not possible. nor is it possible cost wise. a lottery system, the visa lottery system.we bring people based on a lottery. and all of this nonsense, the visa lottery system so they picked them out of a jar. we want to pay people to come into our country on the basis of merit and talent. so that all of the companies that are moving in, we have large numbers of companies. many many companies. more than we have seen in many years. the companies have left our country are coming back.

because of what's going on. you see her job numbers are great. we need people to come in. but we cannot have these loopholes. these loopholes are crazy. one thing i have to say, daca. we are all for daca. republicans have been doing something with daca. but it has been so misreported. we have confines of a deal. this just didn't cover the wall it covered border security. it's been covered incorrectly but it's confusing to a lot of people. we were close to having a daca deal. then we have from the ninth circuit a judge rule, he said, daca was okay. even though with president obama, he signed it. he said i will sign it anyway. and so everybody thought it would be easily overturned by the judge.and the judge amazingly, ruled in favor of the signing.even though

president obama didn't think it would hold up. as he signed it. he said, go back and check. and then you had it upheld in the ninth circuit on appeal. and now it is going to the supreme court of the united states. we had a deal pretty close to being done. a lot of people say, i backed away from it. i didn't back away. the minute the judge overruled the case and they allow daca, they did not talk to us about -- and i don't blame them, they didn't answer the calls. they said we won the case, why should we make a deal with daca. i think it will be overturned in the united states supreme court. and i think it is going to be overwhelmingly overturned. nobody thinks it should have happened. we think it was a fluke and it was a disgraceful situation that a judge ruled the way the judge ruled.but we think it will be overturned.

it is now going -- and you probably heard, it is now going and will be in the united states supreme court. so, if we win the case. and i say this for all to hear, we will be easily able to make a deal on daca and the wall as a combination. but until we win the case they don't really want to talk about daca. although they should because there are those that do not want to allow daca. i happen to think we could do some things with daca. mike agrees, other people agree, some people don't. i think they are foolish if they don't want to make a deal with daca because if we get overridden it means everybody that has been here has to leave the country. so there are a lot of things going on. we very proud of what we have done with respect to the wall and the renovations that we have done. covered a lot of territory. tremendous amount of miles. that continues but we need the wall for the security of our

country. people want to see it. it is about border security. and i think in the end we will be successful. we are doing so much work right now. you see it going up, it is going up all over. that is the money we were given. i want to thank the military because the military has been fantastic. we've been working with pat shanahan, who is acting secretary of defense. he has been such a pleasure to work for and work with. we work really hard over the last actually, four or five weeks and so much has been done. not only in terms of protection but in terms of helping us with respect to areas that we need help for physical barriers. the military has been really great. the army corps of engineers has been fantastic. and so, with that i think i will ask pat to say a few words and then i will ask matt and

kirstjen to say a few words. we will start with pat. >> happy new year everyone. maybe three points to share with all of you. first is, we have been very, very closely coupled with kirstjen, customs, border patrol. i was speaking with shaughness , the commander. the team has executed operational training every day. the collaboration has been seamless. kirstjen, as you know, she is off here to the right. national guard has been in support and active duty. a shout out, kirstjen has any fantastic job. shaughnessy said -- we've just had sectional interaction. the second is that you highlighted this, restoration of the fences, building out of

the additional mileage of the wall. the army corps of engineers is dialed in and doing this cost-effectively, quickly and with the right amount of urgency as to where we can build additional walls quickly and get after the threat. the threat is real. the risks are real. we need to control our borders and the third piece i would share with you is that we are doing additional planning to strengthen the support that we are providing to kirstjen entertain. >> your people have been fantastic and you have headed it up. i have to say they really have done a great job. again, we are to finish it and complete it. because you cannot have a partial wall. most people come through the area but the areas that are built, no one is getting through. you can't get through unless you are a world-class pole vault or in the olympic team. it is very hard to get through. very few people are able to get through. and you have in particular, you

have done a fantastic job. while we are on you, i just got back from iraq.we had a fantastic meeting with the generals and the syria situation. i'm the only person in the history of our country that could really decimate isis. say that we are bringing the troops back home over a period of time. i never said so quickly but over a period of time. but everyone gives you credit for decimating isis. so we do that and we say we're going to bring the troops back home where they belong. i've been campaigning on that for a long time before i won. a big part of my campaign, i wanted to bring my troops back from this endless wars. going on 19 years in the area. but i'm going to bring them home from syria. so i am the only one that can do that and get add publicity. he is bringing them home! when i took over, they were supposed to be there for 3 to 4 months and ended up being there

for five years. that is a little bit different than you thought but they were supposed to be there a short period of time. they have been there for a long time. and we have done a real job. we are continuing to fight. we never let anybody down and there was a lot of misinterpretation but i think you will see at the end, it is working we are bringing our troops back home and we are doing things in a very exciting and i am really very exciting, i cannot talk about and do not want to talk about. i'm very excited. a lot of great people understood it. lindsey graham understood it, others understood it. what we are doing is the right thing to do. in many respects it is very exciting because i like winning. when i took over syria, syria was a mess. it was riddled, i think you can say this better than anybody. it was riddled with isis. now everyone says is down to one percent of the land and sometimes you can even say less.

one percent. the place was a mess. it was terrible! we also have to have other countries fighting isis. we are helping by doing this people say, russia and iran, we are helping them. everything we do over there helps them. they do not like to see us leave because we are knocking out isis. let them fight isis too. we are spending all this morning. i want to spend money on our country. we've had tremendous success in syria. we are slowly bringing people back and bringing them back. we're hitting the hell out of them, the isis people. and we are doing something that frankly, if i would have told you two years ago, when we first came to office that we would have had that kind of success, nobody would have believed it. they would say you were exaggerating, it's not possible. we have dealt the final blows and the generals were fantastic! when we met with the generals in iraq, they were really fantastic.

they really know their business. we have a lot of exciting things to talk about militarily. i just got a great letter from kim jong-un. those few people that i showed the letter to, they've never written letters like this. this letter is a great letter. we have made a lot of progress with north korea. kim jong-un, kim has been, we have had a -- we really established a good relationship. a lot of good things are happening. i never said -- look, it has been this way for 80+ years. we had our meeting six months ago. in singapore. probably we will have another meeting. he would like to meet, i would like to meet. we've established a very good relationship, we are given no credit for it. frankly, this demonstration did not take place, another administration came in instead of this administration, mainly mike and myself and the group

around us. they would be at war right now. you would have a nice big fat war in asia. it would not be pleasant. instead of that, we're getting along fine. i am not in any rush, all i know is, there are no rockets, no testing. in fact i watched last night, pbs.i've not seen in a while. and i noticed you know, i was in the white house all by myself six or seven days. it was very lonely. [laughter] my family was down to florida. they were like stay there and enjoy yourself but i felt i should be here just in case people wanted to come and negotiate the border security. but i have to say that i was watching pbs and they really covered it accurately. they said that in chairman kim 's speech he really wants to get together. he was to denuclearize and a lot of good things are happening. they covered it very nicely, i was surprised based on everything i've heard about.

i have to start watching pbs much more. it covered it very accurately and actually put a quote - out last night about what they said. it was very accurate. they really do want to say something. is everything going to be done? who knows. deals are deals. but we have established a very good relationship with north korea. that was going to be a war. it could have been a world war iii to be honest with you. a lot of people would have gotten involved in asia and beyond. instead, we have someone i really think wants to get onto economic development. and making a lot of success and money, frankly, for his country. north korea has tremendous potential and we will help them out too. north korea has tremendous economic potential. i look forward to my meeting with chairman kim. we will be setting that up in the not-too-distant future. with that, i will ask secretary nielsen, we will get back onto the border to say a few words.

please, secretary. >> good afternoon, mr. president. reviewing the border security and immigration efforts, is it working? can y'all hear me? okay. as you just -- i want to take an opportunity to thank the great men and women in border patrol, customs and border protection they are simply overwhelmed. i can tell you unfortunately the crisis is getting worse. immigration system is simply broken. from a perspective, mr. president, now more than ever, we need the wall. i will talk about -- this is a

barrier that would keep illegal aliens, drugs, criminals, terrorist and other threats from entering our country. it is not a political issue it is an operational one. we have seen this in el paso, yuma, san diego. under your leadership where wielding the first new owner over a decade but we need more. we need a wall atop a legal entry points. we also need to continue to replace the old outdated and ineffective walls section that you reference. we need to replace them with wall that has been identified for operational purposes. [inaudbile]

we have also seen unfortunately, an increase in fentanyl coming across the southern border which killed about 72,000 people every year. the southern border is also the primary entry point for criminals and gang members. just last year we apprehended more than 17,000 criminals and a thousand gang members along the southern border. we also concerned about potential terrorist as well. in 2018 lonely apprehended 3000 special interest aliens coming into the country along the southern border. these aliens have travel patterns or other characteristics of concern to the intelligence community. mr. president, we need a sound border wall system to keep these threats and others out of the u.s. and i strongly support your continued effort to obtain resources from congress. if i could, let me just give you a little bit more. we also need to address poorly

written and outdated laws. simply put, our laws allow illegal immigrants into the country and allow them to stay. this must change. the reality we are facing, on average we see about 2000 people a day try to illegally enter our country at the southern border. we will never be able to send a majority of the back, unless and until congress acts and closes loopholes people are exploiting to stay in the country. to break it into three categories, single adults, family units and unaccompanied children. in the past, single adults have been the vast majority of illegal aliens. they are still the easiest to handle easy to detain and deport them quickly.under your administration, mr. president, -- we will continue to do so.

the demographics are changing in the vast majority of the people that we see now our family units and unaccompanied children. that makes up about two thirds of those arriving at the border. because of poorly written laws it is virtually impossible to send them home. we are only allowed as you know, to hold families for 21 days. that's it. then we have to let them go under the law. most of them disappear into the united states. nine out of every 10 cases immigration finds families are not eligible for asylum in the first place. and should be deported. but they vanish and escape the law. traffickers know this and they know our immigration laws much better than many members of congress. they are using this as a fast pass to get illegal immigrants into america.the result is an explosion and number of families arriving at the

borders and the number of fake families showing up. they know if they are together they are likely to get in for good. and unaccompanied children. because of outdated laws, we cannot send kids along back to their home countries. they have to be transferred to department of health and human services which places him with sponsors or relatives in america. the result is you see more and more of them every day. parents are making the unconscionable decision to send children on long, dangerous and sometimes deadly journey to our country. we are busting at the seams, hhs is at capacity under the law, they must transfer the kids to hhs. the loopholes serve as a giant -- now a humanitarian catastrophe. we are simply not built to handle this. it is shocking.

women are being trafficked and raped and in fact, one out of three women report they are sexually assaulted on the journey to our borders. kids are getting abused, they are getting sick, very sick. many of them are being recycled and used by smugglers to get into the united states. and nearly 70 percent of illegal aliens report being victims of violence on the journey. 70 percent of those traveling to our country. and families of lost children and those -- we do everything we can to provide medical care when needed. they are doing the best they can with what they have but they do not have the facilities, resources or the legal authority to keep up with the crisis. only congress can give them that. the bottom line is, as you know and repeatedly stated, we need congress to fund and build the

wall, give us the resources to deal with the crisis, come to an agreement and grant the authority to remove illegal -- modifies unaccompanied children can be returned home to their families. right now border patrol and i.c.e. agents are spending so much of the time dealing with overflow that we are having to pull them out of important national security stations, for operations and we cannot afford to do this any longer. i want to close by thanking the administrations, department of defense,department of justice, hhs, and others . we are all working together to address the security crisis. mr. president, you have brought rule of law back to her border. and in women in dhs cannot be prouder to be given the opportunity to do the job that congress and the american people expect. we need congress to act.

we cannot continue to do more with less. and we cannot secure the country with our hands tied behind our back. thank you for your leadership as we continue to work with congress to request fantastic presentation. i appreciate it. you have been working very hard. every time i call you on a different location along the border. trying to straighten it out. if we had a wall or barrier that was not penetrable, you would not have people making that journey. and i think we can say that kirstjen, if we have the wall, people would not bother making the journey. because the journey is tremendously dangerous, horribly dangerous. and children are getting sick. they are being accosted. you heard what the secretary said about all of the crime and rape and everything else that takes place during the horrible

journey. if they thought that they could not get in they wouldn't be making the journey. again, the people coming into the country, we need people to come into the country but they have to do it through the system. they have to do it legally and we want people coming that can help the country where it can be based on merit and achievement, people that will help, coming into the country, so many. so i want to thank you, it was a great presentation. thank you very much. we really appreciate it. acting attorney general, matt whitaker, please. chris mr. president, i'll start by having the fact that you stayed in washington d.c. over the holidays. giving up christmas with your family, new year's with your family, trying to bring an end to the shutdown and security to our southern border. while some members of congress have been on vacation and ignored the problem. you have demonstrated your dedication delivering on this critical issue. for our country and the

american people, but congress has to act. they have to fund the wall. it is undeniable that he border wall improves the security of the southern border. a wall would reduce the flow of drugs, gangs like the violent ms-13 and criminals across the border like you highlighted the great officer that was a legal immigrant that was murdered by an illegal immigrant in california. it would reduce entering illegal and restore integrity to the immigration system. also, we need congress as the secretary nielsen pointed out, to close loopholes in immigration laws. not only do the loopholes frustrate dhs ability to enforce immigration laws including the judicial rulings that prevent dhs from obtaining family units together but the loopholes overwhelmingly contribute to a substantial number of meritless cases. languishing our immigration

courts. dirt in the shutdown after the department of justice will continue to do everything within our power to support both dhs and its critical mission and address illegality at the border. it will not go unchecked. we will continue to prosecute aliens for committing immigration related crimes. like illegal reentry and illegal entries which are at record levels for prosecution currently in your administration. and we will never let up. we will continue these efforts, targeting transnational organized crime and criminal gangs like ms-13. the immigration courts are working. we've been completing cases at levels we have not seen in years. we have over 400 immigration judges on board and we are hiring more. and we are restoring the rule of law for the immigration court system we will continue to do everything we can and we are seeing tremendous progress. but the number of cases originating from the border are

overwhelming the system.we will continue to defend our actions, your administrations actions and federal court as well. did ministration is taken strong action to restore legality to our immigration system. but advocates continue to try and frustrate this in criminal court. we will prevail. finally, and i cannot stress this more, we need congress to act. to show up, to negotiate with you and to solve these challenges that our country faces. department of justice will work every day to support this administration for dhs, to support hhs. but we need congress to do something instead of just going on vacation and avoiding the issue. we need congress to fund the wall, fund the government and close the loopholes in our laws. if congress wants to have catch and release of the board and more drugs, gangs and crime into our country, it can

continue to refuse to provide the funds we need to build the wall and continue to close the loopholes in the law. >> thank you, very much. you mentioned one thing about courts and i know that you are hiring judges but we are one of the only countries that anyone knows of, where if you step one foot into our country, you now have a court case. other countries, you step foot in and they say get out. they put you out. or worse. with our country, if you're able to put a foot on our land, basically, that is what catch and release is. even beyond that. but now you end up with lawyers, judges and things that, it is so ridiculous. this is the system that we have. and nobody pointed it out until we came along.so you have a court case to tell somebody. normal is like hey, you are in our land. we want you to come through legally. get out. number we catch, we do

paperwork, bring them to court, you can never have enough judges because you're talking about thousands. tens of thousands of people. you end up in trials, trials don't take place because what they have to do, because it is impossible to hold all of them. this is by law, by the idiotic laws given to us largely by the democrats. mostly by the democrats. that we can change in one hour if people got together. so we end up with court cases were people that just happened to step a foot on our land. tens of thousands, i think with close to 800,000 pending lawsuits. what happens, the people disappear into the united states. never to show up for their case with it ends up coming back two years, three years, five years or longer. it is ridiculous. we should say sorry, you cannot come in. you need to come in legally.

the end, that is your court case. we are trying to be the nicest people on earth. and it is destroying our country. and i think honestly, if i did not come along, no one would even be talking about it. it would be just as bad but our country gets eaten alive by what's happening on the southern border. so we have got to do something about it and we are doing it now, that's what we are doing. one of the things we can do is the wall. because we won't have problems, it will take care of a large number the problems. even changing of some of the laws will not be nearly as important because a lot of people will not come because they know they cannot get through. and if they do come up, they can't get through. one of the other things i would mention, i had a very successful meeting about one month ago with president xi jinping in argentina. the president of china. and he and i had a meeting that

was going to be 45 minutes. it lasted close to four hours. successful. one of the things i asked him to do, if you criminalize fentanyl. because it is not criminal and china has very strong criminal penalties. it is called the death penalty. if you criminalize fentanyl it would help us because we are losing 80,000 people year with fentanyl. 80,000. think about 80,000, that is like a football stadium full of people a year from taking this horrible drug. most of which comes out of china. and he has agreed to criminalize it. that was a big statement. he agreed immediately! by the way, it was not a long negotiation. was really a negotiation on trade. which is coming along very well, we will see what happens. but before that i started with fentanyl.and he agreed to criminalize it and criminalize it at the highest level which means i assume, death penalty. that will be put into effect fairly soon and it should have

an amazing impact on the fentanyl coming into our country. which is right now just about the worst thing we have coming in. this stuff is really brutal and terrible. i want to thank president xi of china. the great governor of texas, he probably knows about more about the border than anybody.i would like to have your feelings on the barriers, i may feel very strongly about it and you know the area very well. >> i think mr. president, your focus on this is really important. while i was the governor, i tried with very poor results, to get the previous administration to recognize the lack of support that the state of texas was getting and we ran numerous operations along the

border. and as the governor, we talked about it, the governor association meetings about the challenge that we had with the 1200 mile border. two thirds of the border is of course, texas and mexico, united states and mexico. but the challenge has always been the lack of support from washington d.c.. to have a chief executive finally recognize that is going to take washington acting to address the issue. it is really heartening from my perspective, having basically been ignored for those eight years. as i was the governor and the previous administration.but it is this message that comes that from the media, from those

that for whatever reason, don't want to secure that border. that you can calm and be rewarded. that has got to stop. one of the ways to do that is obviously with a clear message to those that are trying to use the border as an access into the united states. there is not a reward anymore. don't come! when the summertime gets here, humanitarian issue here mr. president, all too often does not get talked about. the lives that are lost in mexico, in the desert southwest in that region of texas that is incredibly inhospitable.when you're out there trying to cross, i mean -- that is the

heart rendering side of the story, mr. president. that you are trying to address here. and you know, i know here over the course of the last couple of weeks there's been some stories about young people who lost their lives. a couple of young people who lost their lives. and our hearts go out for them. but what about literally, hundreds of people who have died trying to cross that border. because of the incentive that people are giving them. all of these different incentives to come in penetrate that border. and you are standing up and saying, don't come. don't put your family in jeopardy. you know i would personally like to see the media really get you know, focused on those stories. about what you're doing to stop that type of danger and frankly, hostility.

to these individuals. building that border security is the most powerful message that we can send but the most powerful message is from the chief executive of the united states standing up and saying, congress, you have got a responsibility. eight duty to protect and defend the people of this country. i am sitting here ready to negotiate with you. i am sitting here ready to find a solution. to deal with this horrendous condition that we find in this country. all they need to do is come and sit down with you mr. president. i know your heart is. i know we the people around the tables heart is. we are ready to find a solution to this issue of illegal immigration, drug trafficking,

potential terrorist activity along the southern border. and we have got yet to cease. all we need is the will from congress to come we are happy to partner up with them and find a solution. >> thank you very much. we will see what happens at 3 o'clock. we will see what comes of it. you know, i have to say that it would be a lot easier if i never took up this issue. if i left it the way it was where people stream into the country and we have had commit his difficulties. you look at the numbers, the crime, what we do, what we are doing now. we are taking thousands and thousands of people that are, as an example, ms-13, the gang. it is a brutal and vicious gang. they love using knives because they are far more painful than guns. what they do to people is incredible. and we are moving them out by

the thousands. people do not talk about that. we are moving them out by the thousands. they came here over years they've taken over towns in long island and other places. they are bad people and we are doing tremendous, i mean we are doing big numbers. they do not like donald trump, i can tell you that. and it is find that the way i wanted. but ms-13 and other gangs, we are getting them out. and i.c.e. and border patrol, these people have done an incredible job. they will be making a presentation at 3:00 to the folks coming up from congress. i have to tell you it would be a lot easier if i did not do anything. if i just sat and enjoyed the presidency like a lot of other people have done. and don't bring up the southern border and don't talk about all of the problems that were taking place at the southern border that no one wanted to discuss. the fact that people were just -- a lot of things happen. when you hear 11 million, i've been hearing 12 million, i've

been hearing 35 million. for years we've been hearing the same numbers. you have been hearing the same numbers. i used to hear 11 million all the time. and i said as ever increase or go down? nobody knows. it is probably 30, 35 million people. mostly from the southern border. they come in and nobody would talk about it, no one would do anything about it. and a lot of problems were caused. including problems to the educational systems, hospital systems, so many different things that we have and tremendous damage was done. it would've been a lot easier for me to sit back and just let it continue. but it was out of control and our strong economy makes it even more difficult because people come up because our country is doing better by far than any other country in the world from an economic standpoint. we are the talk of the world. we had a little glitch in the stock market last month but it is still up. it is around 30 percent from

the time i got elected. and it is going to get up once we settle the trade issues and once a couple of other things happen it will go up. it has a long way to go. tremendous amount to go. the trade deals were making are fantastic for our country. fantastic. whether it is china, mexico, canada, south korea. we started negotiations with japan. they are all one-way streets, they were bad for the country and good for their countries. we have, we were taken advantage of by so many countries with our military. we are providing all they want and they are not helping us. they're not doing anything toward helping us monetarily. disgraceful. i've been saying it for years, disgraceful. we are giving military protection to countries that are very wealthy and they are not doing anything for us. you can call them allies if you want. we have some great allies but a lot of allies were taking advantage of our taxpayers in our country. we can't let that happen. and pat shanahan agrees with

that. he has agreed with that for a long time. that is very important to him, couldn't get other people to understand it.they did not get what i was saying. a lot of great things are happening. it is a lot easier if i did nothing and we just kept going the way but eventually, at some point, really bad stuff would take place. we are very proud of the job we're doing. i'm very proud of the people around this table. i'm talking about the migration coming up and just, if alex, he's been doing a fantastic job getting prices that were almost ready to make the big final push where they will see something. i don't think anyone has actually been trying. we have been and we have done an incredible job. you'll see a final couple of strokes made. which takes a long time to set up statutorily. statutorily we have a big

process in the think you'll see a tremendous reduction in drug prices. and a lot of great work was done. along with secretary acosta who has created some incredible healthcare programs. cooperative programs where the price of healthcare is really gone down. much far below obamacare, far below and some really great programs that people are signing up ihear , and tremendous numbers. i would like to thank you, a very great job you have done healthcare. a lot of people do not know about it but we have set up some incredible healthcare programs that are far better than obamacare and a lot less expensive. if i could ask the secretary, the children are coming up and very sick by the time, young children are forced to come up and remember this, the coyotes. these are bad ones. the coyotes, they are not stupid. they know our laws better than the people that wrote them. the coyotes are using children to gain access into this

country. they are using these children. they are not with families, they are using the children. they are taking the children and then they dispose of the children after they are done. it is been going on for years. this is not unique to us. but we want to stop it. secretary, if i can ask you to talk a little about the children situation and how sick some of these children are by the time they get to the border. >> sure mr. president. thank you so much and thank you for your strong leadership and the effort to secure our border. we have tragic consequences of the broken system through caring for these unaccompanied alien children. traveling to the u.s. border is extremely dangerous with minors suffering physical, mental or sexual trauma on the way to the country. parents should not send their kids on this journey.

this is not a compassionate act is a dangerous act in endangering your children. unfortunately, more and more minors have been arriving at the border over the last year. when they are apprehended at the border the department of homeland security takes him into custody. dhs then refers into hhs. where we then select someone to care for them until they can be released to a suitable sponsor. while we saw a dramatic drop in the number of unaccompanied children arriving after the president took office the numbers are now rising significantly. in 2017 we received approximately 29,000 unaccompanied children. in calendar year 2018, we received approximately 51,000 unaccompanied alien children. almost double from the previous year. currently, there almost 13,000 unaccompanied alien children in our care. and we expect the number to rise in the new year.

we brought more capacity online to address the situation. almost double the capacity in the past year. but having to continually expand capacity is simply a symptom of a broken system. caring for unaccompanied alien children in inappropriate environment is incredibly expensive. care for a uac in fiscal year 2018 cost about $2 billion. just for that. and we expect something similar for this coming year unless the situation is adjusted imagine if we secure the border and did not have to spend $2 billion caring for these kids what we could do with that $2 billion. we've also had to provide ethical assistance and help address medical needs to both adults and children migrants when they arrive at dhs. we are proud of the standards that we set for the care of the kids and unaccompanied alien children program. but this is a tragic, on -- unsustainable until it is fixed. we need a system that discourages parents from

working with smugglers to bring minors into the country on this dangerous journey. and we need it now. i also want to note the great work you do with president xi on getting fentanyl considered a crime. if we do not have border security on our southern border, it will redirect to mexico and will come in from there. it will keep telling american citizens even with china's scheduling to stop the flow from china. we will get it from mexico if we don't get the borders secure with a wall. >> thank you very much, thank you also with what you're doing with drug pricing. i think is going to be spectacular. thank you.mr. vice president. >> thank you, mr. president. having spent the christmas break here in washington along with you, i want to thank you for the strong stand you've taken for border security. not just because you said you would but because as the

cabinet and the nation looking on today can see, we think the tragedy of officer singh, being struck down by an illegal immigrant at the time of the christmas holiday, we think of the videos of the american people that they woke up today of a large assault on the border that required our border patrol to deploy teargas. this is the information you here every day. we are made aware of every day but you bring it before the american people and being willing to take a strong stand to shut down the government until we get the funding to build the wall and bring about the kind of changes that true border -- it will achieve true border security. i appreciate your stand. you give the numbers before but they are worth repeating.

17,000 criminals have been apprehended attempting to come into the country. a -- we think about the tragedy along the border that the secretaries spoke about today but we think about the cost to american people and our society by not addressing the issue in a meaningful way. mr. president, you directed our entire team to reach out to democrats in the congress. we met several times before christmas and mick mulvaney and i traveled and we met with leadership. there we presented a good-faith offer to resolve the issue. to achieve a principled compromise. only to find out days after christmas that the democrats estopped negotiations altogether.they are coming here today your invitation.

i sincerely hope that confronted with the facts and information that we will review again today, is that democrats on capitol hill will join republicans and will join in your call to achieve real border security. and as you said yesterday, we are ready to deal. we have an offer on the table. that would reopen the government and achieve border security. i know other senators are talking about fresh ideas. some of which you reflected on today. and i know we will get consideration to those issues but we owe the american people nothing less than our best efforts but not just to reopen the government but as you have made clear, reopen the government once we have the resources to build awall , a physical barrier and make measurable progress in achieving real border security. >> thank you very much. i want to thank mick mulvaney.

he has been really an activist. he has got great energy and doing a great job. we appreciate it, holding everything together very quickly. things are going very well. again, i want to say that middle east, we inherited a lot of problems when i became president i took over a lot of problems. the middle east, the southern border, north korea, that was the easy stuff.[laughter] we took over a lot of problems and we have done i think we will do well with all of them. i think we are doing really well. whether we should have been in the middle east or not, where i come from on that, we are doing something very special. i think you will see that and follow what i said and again in the campaign for a long period

of time. we doing a lot more work and a lot more result than ever thought we could do or i could do as president. north korea, you know how i stand on that. it was rough there for a while. and if you go before i got elected and you look at what was happening and what is going on right now, the relationships really have been very good. we will see what happens. i always say dealing with people i will tell you that we have, i know that you would love to see what's on the letter. and i frankly love to read it to you. we have a very good relationship going. time will tell. time will tell. and the economy. the economy is doing fantastically well. unemployment at a record low. black, hispanic, asian is at the lowest it's ever been in history of our country. ...

for a little while and talk about some other issues. great job. thank you to everybody and the media. i was lonely over the weekend. i was in washington hoping that we would see a little action and i would get a call that said

lets gelet's get together and ls work hard, but they chose hawaii over washington. i really believe they want to do something. but mike said is true there's been a lot of good discussions going on. jared has been working very hard and some of the talent around the table even though not on that issue they have a lot of friends in congress and we've had a lot of good discussions going on. i think the democrats want to see something happen and i know the republicans want to see it happen but you can't have border security without the wall or a strong barrier. it's got to be very powerful and strong something people cannot just walk through. many of the problems we've spoken about today was totally disappeared even some of the walls we have to have changed

the have to have them once they enter and nobody's going to be able to enter than we do with the way we are doing so we've made progress on the wall and innovations. much of that is finished. we just gave out a large contract for many miles, 115 miles of wall in a very important area. as i said to you over the weekend and i appreciate everybody coming. it's like our country had a lot of problems when i was elected and we have a lot less now and some of the big ones we are in the process of invincible that we had a lot o have the blood od we are in the process of solving problems a lot of people thought were not solvable. if you have a problem and you yt think it's solvable you sit back

and enjoy the presidency but i can do that. we have a long way to go. the country has a great future with tremendous potential. we want to solve the problems not just sit back and enjoy the presidency. thank you for coming. >> a few questions most notably is there a number below 5 billion you might be able to accept to reopen the government and get this moving forward? >> i would rather not say. could we do it for a little bit less, it's so insignificant to what they are talking about. here a lot has already been done. somebody said we didn't spend the money. we have to spend if we don't pay

contracts until they are finished. that's one of the things these would've instituted we'd like to have people do the work so if we are building a wall we pay when it's finished so they did a good job and if they don't give a good job we don't pay them for not all the money has been paid but it's been used so maybe you can remember that when you say i haven't spent the money. 5.6 billion compared when you see the democrats want to give away 12 million extra and we are giving away 54 billion in foreign aid so we give money to countries but not our own which is another thing i've been complaining about and that's being cut back when we gave money to guatemala and honduras and el salvador and they do nothing for us when we give money to pakistan $1.3 billion,

i ended that. a lot of people don't know that because they haven't been fair to us. we want a great relationship with pakistan, but they house the enemy and take care of the enemy and we just can't do that so i look forward to meeting with the folks and the new leadership in pakistan and we will be doing that in the not-too-distant future but i ended it with pakistan and a lot of other money that's being sent out on a monthly basis and yearly basis to countries that don't even vote for us in the united nations. we want something to help certain countries. it's not only about the rich countries because they do take advantage of us for a small percentage of their military and they'd cheat on trade but other than that they are wonderful.

there are countries that are poor we don't want anything from them, we want to help them there are horrible things in the world and we want to help them, we don't want money from them. when you have massively wealthy countries with low military because the united states subsidizes them so they take advantage of us on military, they could easily pay us the full amount and they also take advantage of us on trade so when i speak up that's why i got elected on issues like that and the border and it would be so easy not to do anything. when they say i'm not popular in europe i should be. if i were popular in europe i wouldn't be doing my job because i want europe to pay. germany pays 1% and they should keep paying 4%. other countries pay a small percentage of what they should be saying so when i say i'm

sorry you have to pay up, i shouldn't be popular. i was 88% and now i'm at a very low number. i don't care i'm not elected by europeans on elected by americans and american taxpayers frankly so, you know my relationship with the leaders in europe is good. a lot of them don't even understand how they got away. angela merkel and the other leaders i'm friends with all of them i will say how did this ever happen and they sort of go like i can't believe it either. because presidents and other people in their administrations in the past allowed them to get a fee. some would say no one ever asked us to pay. we have negotiations going on with numerous countries right now to pay a lot of money to the united states for what we are doing for them. i would say they are thrilled

because they had many years they didn't have to pay but now they do. if that makes me unpopular in those countries that's okay but we are doing a tremendous service and they should at least respect us. they didn't and that was the problem. >> mamaybe the military has an angle -- >> i kno >> i know every angle, they have no angles. they under past leadership including for many years taken advantage of by other countries. allies and not allies they were taken advantage of and our country has to be respected. we are not respected when horrible things are happening where we have barriers put up and we open the country up where cars are sent in with no tax no nothing and they won't accept

our cause. they pay no tax but we are expected to pay 25, 40, 50%. i will be honest it's just not in my dna. i don't know how people in my position a lou allowed these tho happen and we are not allowing it to happen anymore. i could be the most popular person in front for any office but i don't want to i want people to treat us fairly and they are not. there is no angles. when a country sends us 200 soldiers to iraq or 100 soldiers from a big country to serious or afghanistan and then they tell me 100 times we sent you soldiers and that is 1100 of the

money they are taking advantage of th your just doing that to me me happy. other past presidents that while they are involved in the afghanistan war because they sent us 100 soldiers, and yet it is costing us billions and billions of dollars and i can give you an example i get along very well with india and the prime minister but he is constantly telling me he built the library in afghanistan. that's like five hours of what we spend. he's very smart and we are supposed to say thank you for the library although no one is using it but it's one of those things. i don't like being taken advantage of. what other countries have done for the longest period of time is give us some soldiers and then talk about it like it's the end of the world and we are

subsidizing their militaries by billions and billions of dollars many, many times with the soldiers cost the country. did you hear about mitt romney and what is your reaction to the op-ed? >> i am surprised he did it more quickly. i was expecting something i'm surprised he did it this quickly. look, i endorsed him and he thanked me very profusely but i am surprised because we have done a lot and he says it. he agrees i don't think anybody would have been able to do the tax cuts like i didn' did we'ved the greatest tax cuts ever, we got and more approved, we got rid of the individual mandate which essentially is repealed and replaced with obamacare because that takes you to case should when the supreme court in texas. obamacare was only kept because of the individual mandate but now that that's gone i don't

know how you can possibly keep it so that's repealing the replaced. john mccain voted against it. i've been campaigning for many years and john mccain voted against it. that was the end of that. for many years it was repealed and replaced into an o'clock in the morning, so i'm a very flexible guy. we were part of that lawsuit as you know and a great judge, highly respected from texas said the individual mandate that means we should win at the supreme court where this case will go. when we do we will sit with the democrats and come up with great health care, far better and have everything included, far better because obamacare is so expensive, the premiums are way too high and the deductibles you can't even use it the deductible is so high unless you get hit by

a tractor you can't even use it. nobody's seen anything like it the deductibles are so high. obamacare is a tremendous failure but now that we want the individual mandate which by the way was the most unpopular. i love him to be a team player, possibly he will be. i'm surprised he acted so quickly. i gave him an endorsement. i have great popularity in utah i did something for them nobody else would have done that has to do with their parks as you know. it was a big day we did that for a very special person who is now going to be retiring after 42 years, you know who i'm talking about our great friend, great senator whose a spectacular man and also mike leigh who also pressed it very hard, so orrin

hatch and mike leigh. the people of utah appreciate what i did for them. >> hundreds an >> hundreds and hundreds of miles of parks they will be able to now use as opposed to -- i was surprised at mitt romney but i just hope he's going to be a team player and if he is that we'll be great. i will say this, if he fought really hard against president obama like he does against me would have won the election. does that make sense if he thought the way that he fights me i'm telling you he would have won but i think he's going to end up being a team player and i think that he agrees with many of the things that we have done and we will see what happens.

>> [inaudible] i think they should be involved. i will give you an example. you can talk about the generals i gave them all the money they wanted and they didn't do such a great job in afghanistan they've been fighting for 19 years in ad the general thanked me profusely. he thanked me even more the following year when i got $716 billion he couldn't believe it. >> all these thing things we arg including ships and missiles and everything but general mattis was so thrilled. i'm not happy with what he's done in afghanistan, and i should be happy that he was very happy and thankful when i got him $700 billion int $700 billie

$716 million. so i wish him well. i hope he does well but is no president obama fired him and eventually, so do i.. i want results. >> we are talking to the telegram and a lot of different people, but here's the thing, india is there, russia is there. russia used to be the soviet union. they went bankrupt fighting in afghanistan, russia. so you take a look at other countries, pakistan is there. they should be fired that russia should be fired and the reason russia was in afghanistan is because the terrorists were going into russia. they were right to be there but the problem is it was a tough fight and literally they went

bankrupt they went to being called a russia again as opposed to the soviet union. a lot of these places you are reading about now are no longer a part of russia because of afghanistan. but why isn't russia air or india, why isn't pakistan there and why are we there with 6,000 miles away but i don't mind. we want to help people in other nations. you do have terrorists mostly taliban but i will give you an example. caliban is our enemy, isis is our enemy. we have an area that i brought up with our generals four or five weeks ago where caliban is here, isis is here and they are fighting each other. i said why are we getting in the middle of it? like them fight a. so they go in end up fighting

both of them it's the craziest thing i've ever seen. i think i would have been a great general but who knows these are two enemies fighting against each other and we end up going into the training and what are we doing? india, great relationship with the prime minister, great gentleman and he's done a fantastic job. india, russia you look at some of the satellite countries that are wealthy. i've spoken to some of them and a very rich country but what you do if the united states pulled out of? we would be taken over by the taliban and terrorists. i said then why are you charging us when we have to use your country to send product through and when we send airplanes over to your country? we are doing the job for you why

are you charging us and he said to me, very great gentle man thomas markham he said nobody ever asked me not to and i said i am asking you not to. he said we will not judge you and i'm talking about millions and millions of dollars. but i say what would happen if we were not here and he looks at me and goes we would be overrun. we could not defend ourselves. but he doesn't charge us anymore. >> what is your timetable when do you want the troops to be out of? >> we don't want syria. it was a long time later and

when president obama decided not to violate his statement that never crossed the red line and then he didn't do anything about it, making a threat is okay but you always have to follow through with it if you are going tweregoing to make the threats u can't fake it and then do nothing so syria was lost long ago and besides that we are talking about sand and death, we are not talking about vast wealth. the kurds it's very interesting turkey doesn't like them that other people do. they are smelling -- selling the small oriole that they have come about they are partners selling oil to iran. we are not thrilled about that. i'm not happy about it at all. at the same time they fight better when we fight with them when we send 30 f-18s in front

of them they fight better than when we don't and you've seen what happens. we want to protect the kurds nonetheless that i don't want to be in serbia forever. it's sad and it's death. when we kill isis, if we don't -- everyone says that they will come to our country. that is true, a small percentage but they will also go to iran who hates isis more than we do. they are going t to russia who hates isis more than we do so we are killing and then i read when we pulled out russia is thrilled, they are not happy because they like it when we are killing isis because we are killing them for them and for a al-assad and also for iran and just while we are on iran, it's a much different country than it was when i became president.

when i became president, i had a meeting at the pentagon with lots of generals that was like from the movie better looking than tom cruise and stronger. i have more generals than i had ever seen and we were at the bottom of this incredible role. i said this is the greatest group i've ever seen. every part of the middle east and other places that was under attack was under attack because of iran and i said to myself while. you look at every place saudi arabia was under siege because of the border with saudi arabia that's why they were there and i asked the question how do you stop these people all over the place gave plenty of money,

president obama gave $150 billion gave 1.8 -- i'm still trying to figure that one out, 1.8 billion in cash, playing loads of cash from five different countries you know why from five different countries? because we didn't have enough cash in the tri-state area to give them 1.8 billions of you to use the currency of other countries, that is the real reason. so, with all of that being said, i did something called terminate the whole iran nuclear deal which by the way in eight years it'gives the right to have nuclr weapons. iran is no longer the same country, is pulling people out of syria that they are pulling people out of yemen. iran wants to survive now. it was a power in the middle east they are going to take over the whole middle east.

that's what they wanted to do and destroy israel while they are at it. it's a much different country right now having riots every week in every cit and every citn they've ever had before. the currency is under siege thanks to us. a lot of bad things are happening. when we do all the things we've done monetarily, iran is in trouble and i would love to negotiate with iran. they are not ready yet, but they will be. it's a much different country right now than it was when i took over. when i took over two years ago they were going to take over the middle east and have all the nuclear weapons they wanted in a short period of time because of the deal. when i terminated the deal and did what i had to do, iran is a much different country today than it was 19 months ago that i

can tell you. we are getting them very hard. when i met with the genitals in iraq, i said to a couple of them why didn't you do this before. they said the commanders were telling us what to do. don't you tell them thanks know, we take orders and they do they are great soldiers. i do it differently. after a few minutes they listened up and said this is what we should do. but we ar were supposed to be ot many years ago. if you remember that was five years ago and we never left. i go to the walter reed hospital and see soldiers that are so badly injured and hurt and i don't want that.

i want to spend money without depleting it every day. our military is getting really strong i can tell you when i first got here about the military i don't even want to talk about and one of the things i told the secretary and other people, we do these reports on our military. so my team goes over there mostly appointed by president obama but we have ours, too. she goes over there and do a report on every single thing happening ihappening and release public. they are getting report giving d releasing it for the public that means the enemy. they study every line. let them do the reports that they should be private reports

walked off and if a member of congress wants to see if he can go in and read it but from these reports criticizing every single thing and even in some cases saying good, perhaps that for these to be given out essentially to the enemy is insane and i don't want it to happen anymore. >> there's nobody more critical it's not my fault i didn't put us there. we are getting out and we are giving out smart and winning. but to answer the question over a period of time i never said we are getting off tomorrow i said we are pulling them out and they will be pulled back we are getting out of syria but very powerfully. yes ma'am. [inaudible] we are asking for 5.6. somebody said 2.5.

this is national security we are talking about just what we talked about the military and syria and all these different places. we spend in afghanistan more in one month then we are talking about for the world. think about that that's another way we spend more money than most countries spend except for the few. it's ridiculous. what i'm talking about is 5.6 billion the house approves and i have to tell you the house is very aggressive. they stepped up and approved. nancy said he will never get to republicans to vote for it. i never saw something so beautiful in my life. the spirit they had, and i would like mitt romney to join and not because we are doing some great things. we don't need another democrat.

and i want the democrats to join. 5.6 billion in such a small number literally. we are talking about national security and assistant just a border it is national security, health and wellness, this is everything. >> [inaudible] maybe they have an idea. we are better off waiting for the supreme court if the supreme court rules president obama was wrong which they showed because by the way if he was right, i've been given tremendous balance. can you imagine me having that power would that be scary? if he is allowed to do what he did, then i'm allowed to do whatever i want to do on things that probably a president as he said probably a president doesn't have the right to do.

>> [inaudible] >> could be a long time or quickly. it's too important of a subject to walk away from. i was here christmas evening all by myself in the white house except for the guys out on the lawn with machine guns, i was waving to them. i'd never seen so many guys with machine guns in their life, these are good people and they don't play games. they don't wave, they don't even smile. they were all alone with the machine gunners and i felt very safe i have to tell you. they are great people and there's a lot of them. i was hoping maybe somebody would come back and negotiate but they didn't do that, and that's okay. look, this is something that really should be bipartisan and we will see if it is. i hope it is.

[inaudible] >> if the supreme court would do a favowere todo a favor to the d say the president shouldn't have done that, we will settle this whole thing including a big immigration policy not just border security because we would do something with dhaka. most are fine with this. these are people that have been in the country for a long time and in many cases they don't even speak the language of the country for which their parents came. >> you mentioned border patrol is coming in. >> all the issues to tell chuck and nancy and others from border

patrol and also local law enforcement of how bad it is, how dangerous it is and why we need a wall. the vatican has the biggest of them all. it's never going to change. we can have all of the drones flying over people but the only thing that stopped them was the ball. if we have drones up there it's wonderful we will get nice pictures. >> [inaudible] a lot of people thought it was 25 billion. that was for overall homeland security which more than double. a lot of people said you shouldn't have taken the

25 million. it covered a lot more territory than the wall. [inaudible] >> as long as it takes. i am prepared and i think the people of the country think i might. the people of this country think i'm right. i could have done nothing and i could have had an easier presidency by doing nothing, but i am here. i want to do it right and i'm talking about middle east problems and north korea problems. >> i don't know that they will. i hope that he does. i think i have the highest rating in the history -- i was just looking at the pool. i don't know why, but they like me. they say i'm the most popular president in the history of the republican party. a number that is hard to believe. how do i have these numbers and get bad press because people see

the numbers that -- what we are doing and the gasoline is way down. i called up some of the opec people and said don't do this. if you look back a few months it was at 83 a barrel and that was going to be bad. was going to 125. i made calls and said you better let that gasoline flow and they did and now it is down to 44. and i put out a social media statement yesterday. i said do you think that it's like that that happened? i called up certain people and i said what that oil and gasoline flow. it was going up to 125. if that would have happened then you would have had a recession depression like we've had in the

past. >> i don't know if he's going to become a team player. i think people are very upset with what he did. he hasn't even gotten into office yet. he was very happy when i endorsed him. i don't know what's changed other than we've succeeded many of the things we said we were going to do. and we are succeeding in others and things that people thought were impossible to do. i think that ronnie hopefully will be a team player and if he's not that's okay i will handle it. they say about corker retired and they say that jeff flake, wonderful guy, i never even met him and he was going to tell people how to win in 2020 because come he wrote a book about it, didn't work out too

well, that book, because we won in 2016 because we didn't want to wait until 2020. so, jeff flake is now selling real estate or whatever he does. he will probably go to work for cnn. that's my prediction. bob corker, we had a good relationship and he thought he would get good publicity for himself and his ratings stooped when he couldn't come in the primary. he was going to be a senator, bob corker was going to be a senator for another 20 years and for some reason he hates me because he thought it was going to be good publicit publicity tt work out too well. i hope he's a team player but if he's not, that's okay. we have some great republicans and if you look at the way they are standing up for border security you would be proud of them if you are republican or a person that loves the nation. thank you very much, everybody.

a visit with journalist and author and professor rubin as he describes santa monica's culture, economy and more. >> santa monica is a southern california city and a major tourist destination most known for a place people might come to enjoy the day being a tourist and also now a great popular place for startup companies. >> sunday 2 p.m. eastern on american history tv, santa monica pier historian john harris, author of "santa monica pier a sentry on the last great pleasure pier," shares the history of this iconic landmark. >> we see almost 9 million people a year and that is all walks of life, all income levels, all interests there's almost as many and i think if

you were to walk down the pier today on any given day and ask what brought them here you would get a different reason from each one of them. >> former saudi ambassador talked about u.s. arab relations at a conference in washington. he discussed how the killing of journalists affects the u.s. relationship with saudi arabia. this is 15 minutes. for those of you that do not have your program book with you, there is a sketch of him in it and i will try to paraphrase as

best i can. but focusing on the fact that he was born the same month president roosevelt met with the late king in the suez canal to not begin this special relationship, please get it out of your mind but that is when the special relationship began. no, the special relationship began at the end of world war i and the early 1920s when medical missionaries came across from bahrain to the eastern province and all the way to the capital to treat the wounded, the sick. so, this site who charged

nothing for their services helped to paint the atmosphere of receptivity and make the moment or propitious. when it came to which country, geologists will be asked. the other candidates for the british and french and both of them were colonial powers of the united states and was not passed the scene but cementing it were these medical diplomats. it is believable many have told me they found it unbelievable that people could do this and

this is before air conditioning now and we've asked the question who are these and the answer but to some of us here for this particular relationship to the meeting of 1945 was a difference in terms of the importance of it of course there was a defense aspect to it. americans choose the word security depends interchangeably. security is domestic, overwhelmingly so and defends this external.

so they realized this when you are speaking don't use these words interchangeably and when we talk about regional security, this can confuse people when we are talking about regional defense. before i go on to introduce the prints, we have th the secretary-general here who's going to speak out. we also have the ambassador of kuwait and the jordanian ambassador who graced us with their presence last night and the senior deputy assistant secretary of state for near east affairs focusing primarily on

the golf. at the next great you can concentrate yourselves right here. one i left out. i am glad you are here with us. a star-studded cast and i will be atheywill be as brief as i cn formal. the head of the general intelligence directorate in saudi arabia responsible more for external intelligence and gathering, collecting and

distributing that was for a quarter of a century or just shy of it and then the ambassador in great britain and from there the ambassador to the united states and from there to be the chairman of the foundation for islamic studies and research. this individual has been asked by many to be back by popular demand, and we relish his insight. [applause]

>> members of the board and chairman of the council on relations, thank you very much for the invitation to speak to this distinguished audience. we have a saying in arabic, ladies and gentlemen [inaudible] meaning how often do they resembles yesterday. in the age of strategic confusion, populism and polarization to talk about saudi u.s. relationships is a challenge. for more than 70 years, saudi arabia and the united states have engaged in a special relationship, an alliance that

served the national interest throughout the 70 years of both countries. this important relationship, though never without strange survived and flourished under 13 u.s. presidents and six saudi kings. they recognized the mutual benefits for both countries interests. the relationship, ladies and gentlemen, was always thicker than water, to coin a phrase. at the crisis of the oil embargo of 1973 and the tragic day of 9/11 changed the factors impacting the reciprocal benefits of that relationship. however, despite the intense media onslaught on the kingdom by the instant expert politicians, think tanks and

pundits the relationship recovered and even broadband. nowadays it's once again threatened. the tragic and unjustified crime that took place in istanbul that took the life, god bless his soul come is the theme of today's onslaught and demonization of saudi arabia and in the same fashion as the previous crisis. the intensity and the gleeful ms. is equally unfair and a luscious. subjecting the future of that relationship to this issue is not healthy at all. saudi arabia is committed to bring to justice those responsible for the murder and

where all else fails in upholding the law justice will run its course. from this podium ladies and gentlemen, i've said many times over relationship is too big to fail. i believe that it will survive, this crisis, reasoning together and shifting practice from fiction is the imperative. it is not a choice. to avoid drifting towards alienation and suspicion, we must work genuinely to preserve the mutual trust. when talking about this relationship, ladies and gentlemen, i'm onl i am not onlg about the plethora of the bilateral aspects, diplomacy, orioles padres, arms investment,

finance, education, training i'm also talking about the two countries working together on issues of world peace, middle east peace, security and stability of the world economy and the stabilit,stability of od markets, confronting forces of radicalism and terrorism regionally and internationally by cooperating with american policy we bore the cost because they believe in the value of the friendship with you. today, however, the world is changing and transforming.

the pillars that hold up the strategic relationship are challenged at the importance of saudi arabia has not changed. the kingdom is the center of the islamic world towards which 1.5 billion worshipers turned to pray five times a day. regionally and internationally it is a strategically important role to achieve peace and prosperity by working with the united states and other allies [inaudible] to those four countries. we are an asset.

our fight against the forces of darkness continues we also stand up to the ambitions of the iranian leadership it never ceases to export its terror activities and for the strategic partnership with the united states and hope to sustain it i hope the united states continues to reciprocate in kind. ladies and gentlemen, the word values has been banded about frequently during this time by our detractors to try to distance us from each other.

one value that we hold dearly is attributed to the prophet jesus, peace be upon him, which says people in glass houses should not cast stones. countries that have tortured and incarcerated innocent people and that launched a war that killed many thousands of people based on information shall be humbled in their regard to others. and countries that have persecuted and disappeared, journalists and other individuals should not pose as

champions of free speech. another that we are called to act upon is that the killing of an innocent person is like the killing of all of humanity. this is stated in the koran. it's like killing all of humanity. innocent, unarmed palestinian children are slaughtered every day by the israeli army. refer to persons killed many years ago without recourse to justice, and yet i do not see the same media frenzy the demand to bring the perpetrators and whoever ordered them to kill to

justice. so where doe do we go from here? my hope is that we will remain friends and seek to strengthen our relationship, not break it. ladies and gentlemen, innocence is equally as killed in their houses of worship in pittsburgh. humanity has been told many times over by their murder. let us pause for a moment of silence in wishing all of the innocent victims mercy. thank you, ladies and gentlemen. [applause]

>> you know, teamwork, perseverance, hard work is always the equalizer, and for me many people not only gave me the chance to play division i hockey but professional, and it was through hard work and perseverance, dedication and just to drive to meet your goal and i was very fortunate. >> how long did you play professionally? >> three years. i retired due to an injury in my neck.

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