we're coming on the air because president-elect donald trump is about to hold his first formal news conference since winning the election. he's expected to answer questions about resolving potential conflicts involving his business. he will also likely face questions about the reports that surfaced yesterday concerning a written addendum to his intelligence briefing on russian hacking which includes alleged and unverified russian claims to have damaging information on the president-elect. we're joined by chuck todd and cynthia mcfadden. where do we stand? >> senior intelligence officials tell us that that two page addendum was intedeed part of t briefing materials used by mr.

clapper and others available to them, but that it was never discussed in the briefing. the briefing was all -- there is no place at trump tower to contain top secret documents. no documents were turned over. and intelligence officials say, and i will quote, intel and law enforcement officials agree that none of the investigations have found any conclusive or direct link between donald trump and the russian government, period. >> hallie jackson is at the news conference. we get a review of this news conference already in tweets from president-elect trump. >> reporter: we did. a bit of what you could say was a defeat storm this morning with donald trump strongly denying this, calling it fake news. even at one point questioning whether we were living in nazi germany. we expect him here in the robby trump tower any minute. into 30 seconds being a go, staffers came out to put manila

envelopes on the table next to where he will be speak. remember, this is miss first press conference as president-elect and miss first press conference in about 168 days. so nearly six months. there are a lot of questions facing him, not just about the reporting on russia as cynthia just explained, but about how he will separate his business interests there his interests in leading the nation. >> and this comes hours after president obama delivered his farewell speech in chicago. will this be a rebuttal from the president-elect? >> i don't think it will be anymore. i think there is too much on the president-elect's agenda. his credibility and the american presidency is intertwined. and it's being called into question by one political party, by people on capitol hill. and his job is to figure out what will he do or say particularly on the russia story that starts a process that attempts to restore credit ability of the presidency he needs to figure out how to come out and say in some form we need

to get to the bottom the of all of this because there is so much in the air, so much uncertainty. we're nine days from his inauguration and i think we're in an you beunprecedented situa where there needs to be an urgency about getting to the bottom of this russia story. >> and at the sim same time in of his cabinet picks. and we understand things are getting quite heated there. >> reporter: there are some fireworks and from marco rubio taking on rex tillerson on whether he could be tough against russia on cyberhacking, whether he will advise donald trump to appeal the executive sanctions against putin and whether he would say that vladimir putin is a war criminal for what happened in allepo. tillerson pushed back saying that he had no proof of that and also rubio questioning whether

vladimir putin is principally responsible for murdering political opponents and journalists. this of course because tillerson has a long standing relationship with russia as head of exxonmobil. he said that he did believe the intelligence reports on russian hacking, something that donald trump has not been willing to say, that he would hold open the possibility of continuing the sanctions, but he would not get into discussion about war crimes on vladimir putin. >> all right. andrea mitchell watching that hearing for us. and we're told we're with three minutes from the president-elect coming down and again his first news conference of any kind really, he's taken a few questions outside the elevator, but first formal news conference since 9 election. and chuck, back to these allegations that surfaced yesterday. it helps his argument against the media. >> look, politically he has got the organization that decided to publicly release this totally unverified and filled with

unsubstantiated climbs about the president-elect. did donald trump a political favor because there are specifics that can he dep. but the problem we're in now, this is much bigger than -- you can deny a specific and the public and your supporters can believe you're denying it all, and that is the political favor that buzz feed did here by releasing this. but the bigger picture, we are in a situation where the next president of the united states, what he does on putin and sanctions and crimea and all of those things, whatever action he takes, there will be a seed of doubt, was that influenced by a relationship that he may or may not have with vladimir putin. does he owe the russians anything. is he more ssympathetic -- ther are too many questions. it's imperative on him and his own presidency. he should want to get to the bottom of this. the smart political thing for him do is to say we need a 9/11 commission. i'm with john mccain, we have to get to the above of what russia

did. end of story. if he did that, it would calm the waters big time. >> and he will come out and based on his tweets say he did not receive that information and he will be correct based on what you -- >> based on our reporting, yeah. and you might wonder why was it part of this addendum if the intelligence community didn't believe to be true. says it wasn't verified. and it was context. they wanted it available we're told so that if they felt they needed to explain to the president-elect the difference between vetted intelligence, ie the russians did try to participate in the election, and this raw kind of disinformation are that is out there. they also had information about hillary clinton and the clinton foundation. not verified, not believed, not intelligence. >> so as a way to say hey, we see that other stuff out there, but we understand the difference about that. >> and trying to explain to the president-elect who has said this is just political. oh, we'll show you just political. this is the kind of political

junk that is out there. we don't believe it. they never got there in the briefing. >> the real consequence is this. if a president trump needs to make the indication to strike say north korea, let's say we think north korea is on the verge of having an active nuclear weapon and we're basing it on intelligence, this issue of distrust between the president-elect and the intelligence community is a rift that will be cited around the world. this is a problem for america's credibility around the world. >> obviously one of the big topics we'll be hearing shortly. what else is on the plate? obviously a lot of questions that we haven't been able to ask for all these weeks. >> yeah, earlier this we're in the lobby the president-elect came down and answered questions from reporters who had been gathering here to look at the comings and goings at the

transition and repeatedly he pushed off questions until today. i believe the conflict of interest will be the headline. we do expect that his sons will end up taking over the trump organization business. but in addition to that look at what is happening in congress. you heard from andrea mitchell on capitol hill. the issue of repealing and replacing the affordable care act does he want repeal and replace simultaneously, what is his plan to ensure that as house speaker paul ryan and others have said, people who are currently covered under the affordable care act, the 20 million americans who have

coverage will rye main covered ev remain covered. and i think there is a laundry list of questions that could you ask on foreign policy, syria, iran. and in addition necessary tidom. the president-elect came into office essentially leading a very qudivided nation. a lot of anticipation and looking out over a crowd of hundreds of journalists who have made the trip here to see what the president-elect has to say. >> it was scheduled to get you had way at 11:00. and how we normally work, typically in a presidential news conference, get a two minute warning and we work from that. we got the two minute warning here, but obviously some sort of del delay. and now let's talk about the wall. so many questions about the candidate and what the reality of governing will be.

remember this was a postponed press conference that he was going to do in december to talk about undoing his businesses. and we should note that the last time he did a news conference, it was the infamous news conference where he called out russia if you're listening, go find hillary clinton's missing e-mails. so i expect fireworks. i think this will be a press conference that is do that natured by russia and his business. health care is a big issue, but i think this russia issuethat natured by russia and his business. health care is a big issue, but i think this russia issue is so much bigger now than everything else. >> let's not minimize the

business issues. >> and your brain blows up here. the whole idea what is actually happening nine days before the election. imagine the reaction -- before the inauguration. imagine in the kremlin, we talked to russians who said that they are just sitting back laughing. if their intention was originally to throw shade on the u.s. democracy and our process, man, have they -- >> they have already succeeded. and if this were another country and right before its transfer of power, we were from the outside this is wis what it could look , that the intelligence community and the incoming president was at war with each other? we would say it's a plit crisis. that's what the world is seeing. it feels fast we're talking about health care or tax reform, it feels so small given the fact

that the commander in chief's credibility is called into question. >> so who else is now in the room? >> basically all of his top adviser. there is bank of elevators to my right here. we saw kellyanne conway, jared kushner, ivanka trump's husband, steve bannon along with other members of the family. i believe standing behind me here you can see jared kushner. i'm not sure if our camera shot can bring that in for you. i see economic adviser gary combs, rudy giuliani, as well. we expect the president-elect any minute. this is significant that his entire senior staff is here. remember, this has been a few

mull chew us 18 month campaign that saw a lot of leadership levels at the highest levels. now just eight days out from the inauguration, the president-elect has his top west wing team in place, they have all gathered here in the lobby. there is a blue curtain separating the members of the media from secret service and other personnel further back in the lobby, but right now all of his advisers are standing waiting to see what the president-elect will have to say. again, there have been stacks of manila folder, thick reams of paper placed on the table in front of the podium. so all indications are the president-elect should be coming down really any minute. we have told of course by sources that top staff behind me has been very involved in figuring out how the president-elect will separate himself from his business interests. and the president-elect is coming out now. >> there you see him waving. president-elect donald trump entering the room and making his way toward the microphone. his first formal news conference

since his election. there was one scheduled in december. >> good morning. thank you for being here. we are now nine days away from the inauguration of the next president and vice president of the united states. it's an opportunity to be here today to allow the president-elect to take your questions. after the president-elect makes some remarks, he will introduce miss sherry dillon, a prominent before we start, i want to bring your attention to a few points on the report that was published it's frankly outrageous and highly irresponsible for a left wing blog that was openly hostile to the president-elect's campaign to draw highly salacious and flat out false information on the internet just days before he takes the oath of office. according to buzz feed's own editor, there are serious reasons to doubt the allegations in the report.

the executive editor of the "new york times" also it is missed the report by saying it was, quote, totally unsubstantiated, echoing the concerns that many the fact that buzz feed and cnn made the decision to run with this unsubstantiated claim is a sad and pathetic attempt to get vehicle clicks. it is not an tell an intelligence report. one issue it talked about was the relationship of three individuals associated with the campaign. these three individual, paul map fort, michael choen and carter page. carter page is an individual who the president-elect does not know and was put on notice months ago go by the campaign. paul manafort has adamantly denied any of this involvement. and michael cohen, who is said to have visited prague in august and september did not leave or enter the united states during this time. we asked him to produce his passport to confirm his whereabouts on the dates in

question and there was no doubt that he was not in prague. in fact mr. choohen has never bn in prague. a new report actually suggests michael cohen was at the university of southern california with his son at a baseball game. one report now suggests that apparently it'scohen. for all the talk lately about fake new, this political witch hunt is based on some of the most flimsy reporting and it's shameful and disgraceful. with that, it is my honor to into tuesday the next vice president of the united states, mike pence. we are nine days away from the inauguration of the 45th president of united states of america.

i'm profoundly honored and humbled. i will take the oath of office to serve as vice president of the united states nine days from today, but i'm even more honored to stand shoulder to shoulder with the new president who will make america great again. now, the president-elect's leadership and his energy during the campaign was impressive. but as the chairman of the transition effort, i can assure the american people take his energy and his vision during the course of this transition has been even more inspiring. to see the way he has brought together men and women of have ordinary capability at a historic pace in his cabinet. 19 of the 21 cabinet officials have been announced. nine committee hearings already scheduled. seven more soon to go on the books in the next several days. and it is a compilation of men and women with an unprecedented

caliber of leadership and background to help this administration move our nation forward. perhaps that is why there has been such a concerted effort by some in the mainstream media to delegitimize this election. and to todglea demean our incom administration. i have been a supporter of freedom of mess, but with freedom comes responsibility. and the irresponsibility of a new news organizations to run a false and unsub standing yapted report when most news organizations resisted the temptation to propagate this fake news can only be attributed to media bias and attempt to demean the president-elect in our incoming administration and the american people are sick and tired of it. but today, we'll get back to real news.

to real facts. and the real progress our incoming president has already made in reviving the american economy and assembling a team that will make america great again. and we'll hear from the president-elect about issues that are of paramount importance to the american people today. so it is my honor to introduce to all of you my friend and the president-elect of the united states of america, donald trump. >> thank you very much. we used to give news conferences on an almost daily basis. i think we probably maybe won the nomination because of news conferences. and it's good to be with you. we stopped giving them because we were getting quite a bit of inaccurate news. but i do have to say that, and i must say, that i want to thank a

lot of the news organizations here today because they looked at that nonsense that was released by maybe the intelligence agencies, who knows, but maybe the intelligence agencies who would be a tremendous blot on their record if they in fact did that, a tremendous blot. because a thing like that should have never been written. it should never have been had and it should certainly have never been released. but i want to thank a lot of the news organizations for some of whom have not treated me very well over the years, a couple in particular, and they came out so strongly against that fake news and the fact that it was written about by primarily one group and one television station. so i just want to compliment many other people in the room. i have great respect for the

news and great respect for freedom of the press and all of that. but i will tell you there were some news organizations with all that was just said that were so professional, so incredibly professional, that i've just gone up a notch as to what i think of you, okay? all right. we've had some great news over the last couple of weeks. i've been quite active in an economic way with the country. a lot of car companies will be moving in, we have other companies -- big news will be announced over the next couple of weeks about companies that will be building in the midwest. you saw yesterday fiat chrysler, big, big factor going to be built in this country as opposed to another country. ford just announced that they stopped plans for a billion dollar plant in mexico and they will be moving into michigan and expanding very substantially an existing plant. i appreciate that from ford.

i appreciate it very much from fiat chrysler. i hope that general motors will be following. and i think they will be. i think a lot of people will be following. i think a lot of industries will be coming back. we have to get our drug industry coming back. our drug industry has been disastrous. they're leaving left and right. they supply our drugs but they don't make them here to a large extent. and the other thing we have to do is create new bidding procedures for the drug industry because they are get being away with murder. phrma. phrma high schoas a lot of lobbd a lot of power and there is very little bidding on drugs. we're the largest buyer much dru dr of drugs in the world and we don't bid properly and we'll start bidding and we'll save billions over a period of time. and we will do inna that with a of other industries. i'm very much involved with the generals and admirals on the

airplane, the f-35 you've been reading about. and it's way, way behind schedule and many billions of dollars overbudget. i don't like that. and the admirals have been fantastic, the generals have been man takes tick. i've gotten to know them well. and we will do some big things on the f-35 program. and perhaps the f about-18 program. and we'll get those costs way down and we're going to get the plane to be even better and we'll have some competition and it will be a beautiful thing. so we've been very much involved. and other things. we had jack ma, so many incredible people coming here. they will do tremendous things. tremendous things in this country. and they're very excited. and i will say this if the election didn't turn out the way it turned out, they would not be here, they would not be in my election, they would not be in anybody else's office. they would be building and to go

thi doing things in other countries. so there a great spirit going on right now, a spirit that many people have told me they have never seen before ever. we'll create jobs. i said that i will be the greatest jobs producer that god ever created. and i mean that. i'm going to work very hard on that. we need certain amounts of other things including a little bit of luck, but i think we'll do a real job and i'm proud of what wife do we've done and we haven't even gotten there yet. i look forward to the inauguration. it will be a beautiful event. we have tremendous talent and we have all of the bands or most of the bands from the different segments of the military and i've heard some of these bands over the years. they're incredible. we'll have a very, very elegant day. the 20th will be something that will be very, special, very beautiful and i think we'll have

mastiff crowds because we have a movement. it's a movement like the world has never seen before. it's a movement that a lot of people didn't expect. and even the pole. >> jules polonetsky: s, jrs polls some got it right, but many didn't. and that was a beautiful scene on november 8 and the states started to pour in. and we focussed hard on those states and they reciprocated. and those jobs will have a lot of jobs, security and good news for their veterans and by the way speaking of veterans, i appointed today the head secretary of the veterans administration, david sheltie. he's fantastic. he will do a truly great job. one of the commitments i made is that we will straighten out the whole situation for our veteran. our veterans have been treated

horribly. they're waiting in line for 15, 16, 17 days. cases where they go in and they have a minor early stage form of cancer and they can't see a doctor. by the time they get to the doctor, they're terminal. not going to happen. it's not going to happen. so david will do a fantastic job. we'll be talking to a few people also to help david. and we have some of the great hospitals of the world going align themselves with us on the veterans administration like the cleveland clinic, like the mayo clinic, a few more that we have. and we will set up a group, these hospitals that have been the top of the line. absolute top of the line. and they will get together with their great doctors, dr. toby cosgrove from the cleveland chin

bei clinic has been very involved and we will straighten out the v.a. i've been promising that for a long time. and it's something i feel very strongly. so you will get the information on david and i think you will be very impressed with the job that he does. we looked long and hard. we interviewed at least 100 people. some good, some not so good. but we had a lot of talent. and we think this election will be something that will with time, with time, straighten it out and straighten it out for good. because our veterans have been treated very ununfairly. okay. question. john. >> mr. president-elect, thank you. a couple aspects of the intelligence briefing that you received on friday that we're looking for further clarification head of the intee agencies provide you with that summary and do you accept their opinion that vladimir putin

ordered the hack of the dnc, attempted hack of the rnc, and if you do, how will that color your attempts to build a relationship with the leader who has been accused of committing an act of he espionage? >> first of all, the meetings are classified, so i'm not allowed to talk about what went on in a meeting. but we had many witnesses in that meeting. many of them with us. and i will say again i think it's a disgrace that information would be let out. i saw the information, i read the information outside of that meeting. it's all fake news. it's phony stuff. it didn't happen. and it was gotten by opponents of ours as you know because you reported it and so did many of the other people. it was a group of opponents that got together, sick people, and they put that crap together. so i will tell you that not within the meeting but out side of the meeting somebody released

it. it should never have been -- never have entered papers but it should never have been released, but i read what was released and i think it's a disgrace. an absolute disgrace. as far as hacking, i think it was russia, but i think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. and i can say that when we lost 22 million names and everything else that was hacked recently, they didn't make a big deal out of that. that was something that was extraordinary, that was probably china. we had much hacking going on. and one of the things we will do, we have some of the greatest computer minds anywhere in the world that we've assembled. you saw just a sample of it two weeks ago where we had the six top people in the world. they were never in the same room together as a group. and we put those minds together and we'll form a defense. and i have to say this also, the

democratic national committee was totally open to be hacked. they did a very poor job. they could have had hacking against which we had. and i will give reince priebus credit because when rins saw what was happening in this country, he went out to various firms and ordered a very, very strong hacking defense. and they tried to hack the republican national committee and they were unable to break through. we have to do that for our country. it's very important. >> just for the last part of that question, how could all of this potentially color your attempts to build a better relationship with president putin. >> well, president putin and russia put out a statement today that this fake news was indeed fake news. they said it totally never happened. now, somebody would say of course he will say that. i respected the fact that he said that. and i'll be honest, i think if he did have something, they

would have been glad to release it. i think frankly had they broken into the republican national committee, i think they would have released it just like they did about hilly and aary and al horrible things that mr. podesta said about her. what he said was morhorrible. if somebody said about me what podesta said about hillary, i would have fired them immediately. because what he said about her was horrible. but we talk about hacking. hacking is bad and it shouldn't be done. but look at the things that were hacked and what was learned from that hacking. that hillary clinton got the questions to the debate and did not report it? that is a horrible thing. that is a horrible thing. you can imagine that if donald trump got the questions to the debate, it would have been the biggest story in the history of stories. and they would have said immediately you have to get out of the race. nobody even talked about it.

very terrible thing. >> thank you, mr. president-elect. on that intelligence report, second part of the conclusion was that vladimir putin ordered it because he aspired to help you in the election. do you accept that part of the finding and will you undo what president obama did to punish the russians or keep it in place? >> if putin likes donald trump, i consider that an asset, not a liability. because we have a horrible relationship with russia. russia can help us fight isis which number one tricky, i mean, if you look, this administration created isis. by leaving at the wrong time. the void was created, isis was formed. if putin likes donald trump, guess what, folks, that is called an asset, not a liability. now, i don't know that i'm going to get along with uhe tvladimir putin. i hope i do, but there is a good chance i won't. and if i don't, do you honestly believe that hillary would be

tougher on putin than me? does anybody in this room really believe that? give me a break. >> you can make clear whether during your visit to either moscow or st. petersburg you engaged in conduct you now regret and others saying that are you potentially vulnerable to blackmail by russia or by intelligence agencies? >> what did i do? when i leave our country, i'm a very high profile person, wouldn't you say? i am extremely careful. i'm surrounded ee eed by bodygd people and i always tell them anywhere if i'm leaving this country, be very careful because in your hotel rooms, and no matter where you go, you will probably have cameras. i'm not referring just to russia. but i would certainly put them in that category. and number one, i hope you're going to do it anyway. but in those room, you have

cameras in the strangest places. cameras that are so small with modern technology you can't see them and you won't know. you better be careful or you will be watching yourself on nightly television. i tell this to people all the time. i was in russia years ago with the miss universe contest which did very well. the moscow area. did very, very well. and i told many people, be careful because you don't want to see yourself on television. cameras all over the place. and again, not just russia. all over. does anyone really believe that story? i'm also very much a germaphobe by the way. believe me. >> how do you plan to disentangle yourself there your business and following up on the russia raeks, do you believe it was just filed and did russia

have any leverage over you financial or otherwise and if not the, will you release your tax returns to prove it? >> so i tweeted out that i have no dealings with russia. i have no deals in russia. i have no deals that could happen in russia because we've stayed away. and i have no loans with russia. as a real estate developer, i have very, very little debt. i have assets and now people have found out how big the company is. i have very low debt but i have no loans with russia at all. and i thought that was important to put out. so i have no deals. i have no loans. and i have no dealings. we could make deals in russia very easily if we wanted to. i just don't want to because i think that would be a conflict. so i have no loans, no dealings and no current pending deals. now, i have to say one other thing. over the weekend, i was offered $2 billion to do a deal in dubai with a very, very amazing man,

great developer from the middle east. hussein demack. a friend of mine. great guy. and i was offered $2 billion to do a deal in dubai. a number of deals. and i turned it down. i didn't have to turn it down because as you know, i have a no conflict situation because i'm president. which i didn't know about that until about three months ago, but it's a nice thing to have. but i don't want to take advantage of something. i have something that others don't have. vice president pence also has it. i don't think he'll need it. i have a feeling he one of the need it. but i have a no conflict of interest provision as president. it was many, many years old. because they don't want presidents -- i understand that. they don't want presidents getting tapping gelled up in minutia, they want a president on run the country. so i could actually rungelled u

minutia, they want a president on run the country. so i could actually run my business and run government at the same time. i don't like the way that looks, but i would be able to do that if i wanted to. i'd be the only one that would be able to do that. you can't do that in any other capacity. but as president, i could run the trump organization, great, great company, and i could run the country. i'd do a good job, but i don't want to do that. all of these papers that you see here -- yes, go ahead. >> to you blif tdo you believe was justified and will you release your tax returns to -- >> i'm not releasing the tax returns because they're under audit. >> but every president since the '70s -- >> the only one that has a problem with the tax returns is the reporters. >> you don't think the american republic -- >> i'm one of them. no, i don't think they care at all. i think you care. i think you care.

but first of all, you learn very little from a tax return. what should you do is go down to federal elections and take a look at the numbers and actually people have learned a lot about my company and now they realize my company is much bigger, much more powerful than they ever thought. we're in many, many countries. and i'm very proud of it. and what i'm going to be doing is my two sons who are right here, don and eric, are going to be running the company. at the are going to be running it in a very professional manner. they're not going to discuss it with me. again, i don't have to do this. they won't discuss it with me and with that, i'm going to bring up sherry dylan and she will go -- these papers are just some of the many documents that i've signed turning over complete and total control to my sons. >> can we ask one more question on russia, sir? >> good morning. my honor and privilege to be

here today as president-elect trump's request. he's asked me as you've just heard to speak about the conflicts of interest and the steps he's taking. as you know, the business empire built by president-elect trump over the years is massive. not dsz similar to the fortunes of necessary son rockefeller when he became vice president but at that time no one was so concerned. president-elect trump wants the american public to rest assured that awful his efforts are directed to pursuing the people's business and not his own. to that end, as he explained, he directed me and my colleagues at the law firm morgan lewis to design a structure for his business empire that will completely isolate him from the management of the company. he further instructed that we build in protections that will assure the american people the decisions he makes and the actions that he takes as president are for their benefit and not to support his financial

interests. as he said, he's voluntarily taking this on. the conflicts of interest laws simply to not apply to the president or the vice president. and they are not required to separate themselves from their financial assets. the primary conflicts of interest statutes, section 18 usc 208. and it simply is inexplicable by its terms. and this is not just our interpretation. it's congress itself who made this clear in 1989 when it amended section 18 usc 202 to state that except as otherwise provided, the terms office and employee in section 208 small n shaul not include the president. even so, president-elect trump wants there to be no doubt in the minds of the american public that he is completely isolating himself from his business interests. he instructed us to take all steps realistically possible to make it clear that he is not

exploiting the office of the presidency for his personal benefit. he also sought the guidance of individuals who are familiar with and have worked extensively in the fields of government ethics and constitutional law. critical to the morgan lewis team is fred fielding standing here to our side and with us today, many of you have known him. he has served several presidents over the years including serving as counsel to presidents ronald reagan and george w. bush as well as serving on president george h.w. bush's commission on federal ethics law reform and he also held the position of vice chair of ethics resource center. mr. fielding has been extensively involved with and approves this plan. he's here today to support the plan and he will continue to provide guidance as the plan is implemented and as eric, don, along with others take over management of the trump organization. i'm going to detail some of the extraordinary steps now that the

president-elect is taking. first, president-elect trump's investments and business assets commonly known as the trump organization comprising hundreds of entities which again if you all go and take a look in the financial disclosure statement, the pages and pages and pages of entities have all been or will be conveyed to a trust prior to january 20th. here is just some of the paperwork that is taking care of those actions. second, through the trust agreement, he has relinquished leadership and management of the trump organization to his sons don and eric and a long time trump executive. together dorn, eric and alan wil make decisions for the duration of the presidency without any involvement whatsoever by president-elect trump. further, at the president-elect's direction, the trust agreement provides that to ensure the trump organization continues to operate in

accordance with the highest and legal ethics standards, an ethics adviser will be appointed to the management team. the written approval of the ethics adviser will be required for new deals, actions and transactions that could potentially raise ethics or conflicts of interest concerns. president-elect trump as well as don, eric and alan are committed to ensuring that the activities of the trump organization are beyond reproach and cannot be perceived to be exploit difference of the office of the presidenc presidency. president-elect trump will resign from all officer and other positions he holds with the trump organization entities. further, in addition, his daughter ivanka will have no further involvement with or management authority whatsoever with the trump organization. as she and jared move their family to d.c., ivanka will be focused on settling her children into their new home and their new school. the president-elect has also already disposed of all of his

investments in publicly traded or easily liquidated investments. as a result the trust will have two types of assets. first it will hold liquid assets. cash, cash equivalence and treasuries. and perhaps some positions in a government-approved diversified portfolio, one consistent with the regulations from the office of government ethics. second, the trust is going to hold his pre-existing illiquid but very valuable business assets. trump owned, operated and branded golf clubs, commercial rental properties, resorts, hotels, rights to royalties there pre-existing licenses of trump production and goods. so things like trump tower, mar-a-lago, 40 wall street will all be in the trust. through instructions in the trust agreement, president-elect trump first ordered that all pending deals be terminated. this impacted more than 30

deals, many of which were are set to close by the end of 2016. as you can well imagine, that caused an immediate financial loss of millions of dollars, not just for president-elect trump, but also for don, eye vap caiva eric. the trust agreement imposes severe restrictions on new deals. no new foreign deals will be made whatsoever during the duration of president trump's presidency. new domestic deals will be allowed, but they will go through a vigorous vetting process. the president-elect will have no role in deciding whether the trump organization engages in any new deal and he will only know of a deal if he read it is in the paper or sees it on tv. because any new deal could and i emphasize could be perceived as causing a conflict or as exploiting the office of the presidency, new deals must be vetted with the ethics adviser whose role will to be analyze

any potential transactions for conflicts and ethics issues. the ethics adviser will be a recognized expert in the field of government experts. again, his role will be to scrutinize the new deals and the actions and any new deals must receive written approval. to further reinforce the wall that we are building between president-elect trump and the trump organization, president-elect trump has ordered through his trust agreement to sharply limit his information rights. reports will only be available and reflect profits and loss on the company as a whole. there will be no separate business by business accounting. another step the president-elect has taken, he created a new position at the trump organization. the position of chief compliance counsel. whose responsibility will be to ensure that the trump businesses again are operating at the highest levels of integrity and not taking any actions that

could be perceived as exploiting the office of the presidency. he's also directed that no communications of the trump organization including social media accounts will reference or be tied to president-elect trump's role as president of the united states or the office of the presidency. in sum, all of these actions complete relinquishment of management, no foreign deals, ethics adviser approval of deals, sharply limited information rights, will sever president-elect trump's presidency from the trump organization. some have asked questions why not divest, why not just sell everything. form of line trust. and i'd like to turn to address some of those questions now. selling first and foremost would not eliminate possibilities of conflicts of interest. in fact, it would exacerbate them. the trump brand is key to the value of the trump organization's assets. if president-elect trump sold his brand, he would be sbimgtsed to royalties for the use of it

and this would result in the trust retaining an interest in the brand without the ability to assure that it does not exploit the office of the presidency. further, whatever price was paid would be subject to criticism and scrutiny. was it too high, is there pay for play, was too much paid to curry favor with the president-elect. and selling high school s asset the rights to the brand would create a fire sale. president-elect trump should not be expected to destroy the company he built. this plan offers a suitable alternative to address the concerns of the american people. and selling the entire trump organization isn't even feasible. some people have suggested that the president-elect sell the business to his adult children. this would require massive third party debt sourced with multiple lenders whose motives and willingness to participate would be questioned and undoubtedly investigated.

and if the president-elect were to finance the sale himself, he would retain the financial interests in the asset that's owns now. some people have suggested that the president-elect trump could bundle the assets and turn the trump organization into a public company. anyone who has ever gone through this extraordinarily cumbersome and complicated process notices that it is a nonstarter. it is not realistic and it would be an inappropriate for the trump organization. some people have suggested a blind trust, but you cannot have a totally blind trust with operating businesses. president trump can't up know he owns trump tower. and the press will make sure that any new developments at the trump organization are well publicized. further, it would be impossible to find and struks al trustee that would be competent to run the trump organization. the approach he is taking allows do

don and eric to preserve this great company and this approach is best from a conflicts and ethics perspective. it creates a complete separation from president-elect trump and separates him and prevents him from participate management business and imposes strict limits on what the trustees can do and requires as sent of any ethics adviser to a new deal. i will turn to one last topic today that has been of interest lately. emole uhement. a word i think we've all become familiar with and perhaps had not heard before. and we'll describe some other actions the president-elect is taking to avoid even the appearance of a conflict. emoluments comes from the constitution. the constitution says officials may not accept gifts, titles of nobility or emoluments there foreign government with respect to their office. and that no benefits should be derived by holding an office. the so-called emolument claw has never been interpreted however

to apply to fair value exchanges that have absolutely nothing do with an office holder. no one would have thought when the constitution was written that paying your hotel bill was an emolument. instead, it would have been thought of as a value for value exchange, not a gift, not a title, and not an emolument. but since president-elect trump has been elected, some people want to define emolument to cover routine business transactions like paying for hotel rooms. they suggest that the constitution prohibits the businesses from even arm's length strktransactions that th president-elect isn't even aware of. these people are wrong. this is not what the constitution says. paying for a hotel room a s. not a gift or present and it has nothing to do with an office. it's not an emolument. the constitution does not require president-elect trump to do anything here. but just like with conflicts of interests, he wants to do more

than what the constitution requires. the president-elect trump has decided and we are announcing today that he is going to voluntarily donate all profits from foreign government payments made to his hotels to the united states treasury. this way it is the american people who will profit. in sum, i and president-elect's other advisers at morgan lewis have determined the approach we've outlined today will avoid potential conflicts of interest or concern regarding exploitation of the office of the presidency without imposing unnecessary and unreasonable losses on the president-elect and his family. we believe this structure and these steps will serve to accomplish the president-elect's desire to be isolated from his business interests and give the american people confidence that his sole business and interests is in making america great again, bringing back jobs to this country, securing our borders and rebuilding our

infrastructure. the american people were well aware of his business empire when they voted. many people voted for him precisely because of his business success. president-elect trump wants to bring this success to all americans. thank you. >> mr. trump, can we ask you policy questions? >> thank you, mr. trump. what is your response that your cabinet is filled with conflicts of interest and do you plan to set an example in the future to make sure that your cabinet and everyone throughout your administration -- >> i really think that when you watch what is going on -- i was just watching as an example rex tillerson. i think it's brilliant what he's

doing and what he's saying. i watched yesterday as you know our great senator who is going to be a great attorney general. and he was brilliant. and what people don't know is that he was a great prosecutor and attorney general in alabama. and he was brilliant yesterday. so i really think that -- i think we have one of the great cabinets ever put together. and in the indicate of rex, he ran incredibly exxonmobil. when there was a fine, he would get it. when they needed something, he would be there. a friend of mine who is very substantial in the oil business, harold hamm, big supporter, he said there is nobody in the businesslike rex tillerson. and that's what we want. that's what i want on bring to government. i want to bring the greatest

people into government because we're way behind. we don't make good deals anymore. we make bad deals. our trade deals are a disaster. we have hundreds of millions of dollars of losses on a yearly basis. hundreds of billions with china on trade and trade imbalance. with gentlemjapan, with mexico, just about everybody. so we need people that are smart, we need people that are successful and they got successful because generally speaking they're smart and that is what i put. i'm very proud of the cabinet. i think they're doing very well. and it's very interesting how it's going. but i think they're doing very, very well. >> i wanted to ask you a few questions on obama care. can you be specific on what guidance you're giving congressional republicans on the time line for repeal and replace, whether it needs to be

simultaneous simultaneously? and have you outlined a plan for what you want the replace package to look like, would it guarantee coverage for those who have gotten health 14ur7insuran? >> you will be very proud as not only the media and reporter, you will be very proud what have we put forth having to do with health care. obamacare is a complete and total disaster. they can say what they want. they can guide you anyway they want to guide you. in some cases they guide you incorrectly. in most cases you realize what has happened. it's imploding as we said. some states have over 100% increase and 17 -- and i said this two years ago, '17 is going to be the bad year. it's going to be catastrophic. frankly, we could sit back and with the thought from a political standpoint but it

wouldn't be fair to the people, we could sit back and wait and watch and criticize and we could be a chuck schumer and sit back and criticize it and people would come -- they would come begging to us please we have to do something about obamacare. we don't want to own it, we do that want to own it politically. they own it right now. so the easiest thing would be to let it implode in '17 and believe me, we get pretty much whatever we wanted. but it would take a long time. we're going to be submitting as soon as our secretary's approved almost simultaneously, shortly thereafter, a plan. it will be repeal and replace. it will be essentially simultaneously. it will be various segments you understand, but are most likely be on the same day or the same week but probably the same day, could be the same hour.

so we'll do repeal and rereplac. very complicated stuff. and we'll get a health bill passed, we will get health care taken care of in this country. you have deductibles that are so high that after people go broke paying their premiums, which are going through the roof, the health care can't even be used because the deductibles are so high. obamacare is the democrats' problem. we'll take the problem off the shelves for them. we're doing them a tremendous service by doing it. we could sit back and let them hang with it. we are doing the democrats a great service. so as soon as our secretary is approved and gets into the office, we'll be filing a plan and it was actually pretty accurately reported today the "new york times" and the plan will be repeal and replace

obamacare. we're going to have a health care that is far less expensive and far better.