Would the media like to hear Mick Mulvaneys report or would you find it extraordinarily boring and therefore not fit for camera . Yes, please. Would you like to hear it . Yes, please. Why dont we do this. Well say grace afterwards. We are actually going t use that as an opportunity to take a bit of a break here. President trump there, weekly cabinet meeting, calling on his Budget Director Mick Mulvaney for a presentation. We will go back when the president starts to take some questions there from reporters who have assembled in the room. Craig melvin here once again from mcallen, texas. You heard President Trump there going on a bit about the economy, going on a bit about the bad hand he has been dealt with regards to iran, with regards to north korea as well, and, of course, with regards to mexico. All of this coming just less than a day really after President Trump did an aboutface on his Policy Of Separating children from their parents as they illegally try to
cross the border here
tohington, d.c. it was a whirlwind trip for the first lady, melania trump a few moments ago inside the lutheran social services of the south facility in mcallen, texas. that is one of the handful of facilities here in the area that uses migrant children. this particular facility houses boys. i was there yesterday, boys between the ages we re told of 8 or 9 and 16 or 17. these are boys who are not allowed to leave the facility. they are allowed to go outside and engage in recreation for close to two hours a day. they receive some instruction. they re also allowed to spe some time with members of the clergy as well. but melania trump on the ground here for about an hour. again, the plan was, we re told, for the first lady to make at least one additional stop. she was going to stop by a
with migrant children here for a number of years, five, ten minutes from here, we re told the first lady is going to be making several stops in and around mcallen, texas. gabe gutierrez is also here in mcallen, over at the federal courthouse. gabe, what can the first lady expect to see while she s here? well, craig, as you mentioned she s touring the children s center and also planning to tour a processing center with cbp. that trip was delayed a little bit because of the heavy rain that we ve been seeing in this area. i can also tell you she is arriving to an area that has some skepticism about how the president s executive order is playing out. i ll tell you where i am, in front of the federal courthouse here in mcallen, where an immigration hearing is under way right now as it is every day and 60 defendants are here being charged with illegal entry. what is significant about today, craig, is that according to an immigration attorney present
policy here. for a moment as we continue to watch these pictures of melania trump inside this facility here in south texas. i spent some time at a vigil and walk last night here in mcallen, and everyone in the crowd, a few hundred folks, they were all acutely aware that the president had signed this executive order reversing his own policy, ending the separation of children from their parents here. but there was still a great deal of, shall we say, skepticism and suspicion that this was going to be a practice that actually ended and that there was going to be, in fact, this sort of radical change. ann, in terms of the president s actions, what do they mean for the 2300 children who have been separated from their parents over the last month, what do the president s actions mean and perhaps just as important, what don t they mean? so i think skepticism and
four years and we do not know, by the way, if any of the so-called tender age migrants, the toddlers, babies, we don t know if any of them are being kept here. t i can tell you that this is a facility for boys that was once anlyare facility. but an update here on the first lady s travel. she is apparently headed back to the airport, back to mcallen international airport. we were told that she was going to be heading to a processing center. the largest immigration processing center is here in mcallen texas. her plan had been to heado that processing center. we re told now she s headed back to the airport because of the widespread flooding that we have right now in mcallen, texas, and the surrounding areas. it has been raining torrentially for the better part of two days. that flooding we re told is affecting the first lady s caravan.