>> for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program visit us at q&a.org. -- a-and-a.org. it's also available as a podcast. >> take you live now to the white house daily briefing. started about 10 minutes ago. press secretary sarah sanders joined at the podium by two veterans who served in iraq and afghanistan. sarah: we're still finalizing what the deal will look like and i won't get ahead of the president's announcement. reporter: thanks a lot, sarah. it seems many republicans, including the house speaker, re caught offguard about the -- by the president's decision about the terrorist. should they have [inaudible] sarah: they should have been well aware of -- the president

has been talking about this for quite sometime. if they were caught offguard they simply haven't been listening what he's been saying and talking about and how he's promised to make good trade deals and make free, fair and reciprocal trade in this country. reporter: is it open to discussing this particular issue that he's advised with the house speaker try to find some sort of compromise on this? sarah: i am not going to get ahead of anything beyond where we are right now, but, again, the president's going to do what he feels is necessary to protect american workers. reporter: thank you. you had mentioned last week that the white house was going to come out with a proposal on guns or to let congress know what they wanted to be done on guns. where is that proposal? sarah: we're continuing to have those conversations. the president has laid out some specific things and some specific places that he does support. for instance, again, reiterating the support for the cornyn bill as well as the stop gun violence act. those are two pieces of

legislation that the president supports. we'll continue some of the discussions that have been ongoing, continue to engage with congress as we lay out some more details of what we'd like to see. including the meeting that will take place on thursday with some of the leaders in the video game industry. reporter: moving the embassy to jerusalem, the president said it would cost $250,000 to build the u.s. embassy there. what was he referring to? sarah: more specific, the point he's making he will do it faster and far less expensive than a billion-dollar project thought. reporter: the trade wars are good, easy to win. can you explain what he meant by that? sarah: the president is confident if that's where we ended up we'd certainly win. that's not the goal. the goal is to get free, fair, and reciprocal trade and hope

other countries will join him. reporter: paul ryan is practically pleading with the president to reverse course on this. are you saying there's no way he will reverse course on this? sarah: the president said today he wasn't backing down but in terms of the specifics what it looks like i am not going to get into that right now because those things are being finalized. reporter: is it possible the details will change? sarah: we have not fully rolled out all of the details so therefore it would be hard for me to say they'll change because we haven't put them all out. reporter: he said 25% tariff on steel imports. 10% tariff on aluminum imports. those would apply to everybody. sarah: again, i won't go further than the comments he made. reporter: we already talked about secretary shulkin. secretary pruitt is under scrutiny and secretary carson is under scrutiny. can you believe the --

sarah: it was cancelled, just to be clear. reporter: i wonder if you can say specifically for both of those and taken all three of those secretaries can they broadly explain the pattern of draining the swamp? sarah: as the president said, he takes spending taxpayer dollars seriously. all of those individual secretaries travel and other are under review and i can't speak further. reporter: can you explain how this is consistent with the president's directive to drain the swamp? sarah: look. that's why they're under review. once that is completed we will have more information but i can't get into anything further. reporter: earlier in the oval office the president thought the palestinians were wanting to talk about mideast peace. did he say [inaudible] sarah: i can tell you we are committed today to the peace process. we'll continue having those conversations and pushing to get something done.

reporter: is he seeing something the rest of us isn't seeing? sarah: he sees more than a lot of us don't see but i can't get into that. reporter: i want to ask you about breaking news that we're getting. the president's former campaign aide is refusing subpoena by a grand jury and he just said on msnbc moments ago i think he, meaning the president, may have done something during the election but i don't know that for sure. your reaction? sarah: i definitely thinks he doesn't know that for sure because he's incorrect. as we said many times before there was no collusion with the trump campaign. anything further on what his actions are he hasn't worked at the white house, so i certainly can't speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has. reporter: what's the reaction he is not cooperating with the grand jury? would you encourage those [inaudible] sarah: look. i won't weigh into somebody that doesn't work at the white house. i will say we are fully

cooperating with the office of the special counsel. we'll continue to do so. i'll reiterate once again the reason we are so comfortable doing so is because there's absolutely no collusion within the trump campaign and any foreign government. reporter: let me ask you one on trade. commerce secretary wilbur ross was asked if there was any possibility the president could change his mind on these new tariffs. he said whatever his final decision is what will happen. what he said he said. if he said something different it will be something different. is this a carefully thought out policy, why is there mixed messaging? sarah: i don't think this is mixes messaging. -- mixed messaging. this is a decision that will ultimately be made by the president. there are a lot of legal details that are being finalized and the secretary won't get ahead of that and certainly not get ahead of the president. at the end of the day this is going to be something the president makes a decision on and he's going to do so fully

with the idea of doing what he can to protect american workers and to promote economic and national security. april. sorry. reporter: what, if any, of a shift was there today in jared kushner's position as it relates to the meeting with netanyahu? sarah: none at all that i am aware of. reporter: as it relates to the security clearance, he doesn't have the security clearance? sarah: as we said many times before i won't comment on any individual security clearance. reporter: is he carrying -- sarah: his role wasn't impacted. reporter: past -- one from a church in chicago has written president trump at least twice in reference to chicago and guns and you say that you will continue conversations about guns. would he be someone you would bring in who deals with

gangs, something that's the vocal point of this president, chicago as well? sarah: i would have to look into that. i am not aware of the individual or the letters so i'd have to check into that before i make a comment on that. reporter: does the president believe we should take guns from people who are dangerous before due process as he said last week? arah: the president needs to ex-- wants to make sure we expedite the process. he feels if people are harmful to themselves or other people we will expedite that process. certainly want to have due process but make sure it's not tied up for months and months and months and someone that could potentially be dangerous is allowed to have a gun without us being able to expedite that process and that's what he'd like to see us do. peter. reporter: there are reports the president's private attorney had trouble reaching him before the end of the campaign to talk about the $130,000 payment to stephanie. did the president talk about

this during the campaign or afterward? sarah: i'd refer you to michael on that. reporter: let me ask you about the follow-up of the mideast process. the president talked about a difficulty reaching a deal. it's been a year since president netanyahu's first visit. he said a year ago the administration were to achieve a great peace deal he'd be doing very diligently. why hasn't the administration put forward a proposal, framework how he sees peace in the middle east? sarah: look, we will do that when we think the time is right but we'll continue pushing forward. we're as committed now as we've ever been and we want to continue in this process and we will let you know what that plan will look like. reporter: has there been any progress toward achieving some kind of proposal? why would that be? sarah: look, again, we're not going to get ahead where we are in this process. the conversations are still ongoing. this wasn't a problem that was created in a short amount of time. i don't think we're going to fix it overnight but certainly we're very committed to fixing

and to being part of and we're going to continue those conversations and continue pushing for that peace. john. reporter: thank you, sarah. brief questions. first, "the new yorker" is carrying a story in which the former british agent christopher steele claims that russian sources within the kremlin torpedoed the nomination of governor romney to be secretary of state because he's a sworn ish enemy of the putin regime. the administration's response to that claim? sarah: i am not aware of anything regarding that and don't know that to be factual in any capacity at all. blake. sorry. reporter: when the president announced the tariffs on china he said they would be in effect for a very long time. i'm curious, why didn't he simply say, until china relents on its policy on steel and give

a set goal for the tariffs? sarah: look, again, the president's ultimate goal is to get free, fair, and reciprocal trade and if china wants to come to the table and play ball and make some significant changes then we would be open to those conversations. but at this point we have not seen an indication of that taking place. take one last question. blake. reporter: to end with trade, there was a study released today this would be a net loss of 146,000 jobs. has the white house studied how many house would be lost or created because of this policy? sarah: look, this is something the president is committed to doing and feels like both our national security are vitally important in this process and we have to be able to have these industries to protect that and so that's a big part of the goal. reporter: a study? sarah: i won't say we are not looking at every facet of this because we certainly are. it's been a very thoughtful and

long process but that's the focus of the decision that he's making. reporter: the president's close friend, karl icahn, it's out there he sold $31,000 worth of stock of a company related to this whole issue before the president made his announcement. can you tell us the last time the president has spoken with mr. icahn and whether or not he told mr. icahn what he was planning? sarah: i am not aware of the recent conversations between the two of them. i will have to get back to you. thank you. i'm going to let these -- [inaudible] i'll let these guys take a break and if they want to say anything, they're welcomed, certainly to make a quick comment before we leave. reporter: can you talk about morale? sarah: i would not agree -- i think we are in a great place. we have an incredible story to tell. it's been an historic first year and we're focusing on

things president trump campaigned on. we're excited what we've done and where we're going and we're continuing to work hard for the american people. i'm going to let these guys take a break. [inaudible] reporter: third briefing you have not taken from cnn. do you expect the justice department to enforce all subpoenas, sarah? > thanks for being here. > thank you. >> we thought you would have questions for us.