Transcripts For CSPAN2 President Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting

But in all seriousness we know that youve been very engaged in the process as well, so for i think the first time in 100 years betsy and other members have been just great participants and its been, its been another type of a cabinet meeting, mr. President and we appreciate you allowing us to do that, the blessings that you give us to participate in that cabinet bible study. So if you would lets bow our heads and, father, we thank you for this table, and we recognize that everyone of us are here because you have ordained it to be so, and the importance of what we are about, the issues of which we get the responsibility and the privilege to deal with our at your call. And today we are lifting up a special group of men and women who have really been at the core of how this country has been formed, and thats our veterans, people who have sacrificed, who held their hand up and said here am i, send me, when it may be have been easier for them, certainly less stressful for them, to have not answered that call. Amen. I want to start by saying a special greeting to my friend, youve been an incredible representatives of this country and this administration. What youve done on energy is unsurpassed, nobodys done it better and you have a fabulous man at your recommendation following you up and he is going to be very outstanding. I know him also. He was your choice and what youve done really would be hard to duplicate so you were a great governor of texas and you are a great secretary of energy and im not sure which you were better at but as far as energy is concerned he couldnt have asked or anything better and i want to think we will be friends fora long time so i want to thank you. [applause] also i want to wish chad, youre going to be in a very noncontroversial position and i have no doubt youre going to do incredibly well. Numbers at the border have gone down record levels. I want to thank mexico for that, to a large extent. We have loopholes that are all over the place thats going to be changed in 15 minutes if the democrats want to do something but they dont want to do anything. Theyre either bad people or incompetent people, one or the other because it can only be one of those two. We have two or three loopholes that would make it so easy but we will get it done, probably have to wait until 2020 to get it done but i want to thank you very much and it was great meeting your family the other day. Have fun as acting and lets see how things work out but the numbers that are being produced at the border in decline is recordsetting. Its incredible whats happened so there are a lot of reasons for it. Mexico as of today as 20,000 soldiers on our southern Border Guarding it and they have soldiers on their side, what they call their southern border. We call that a different name but they call it their southern border but we have a tremendous amount of help, i think they have five or 6000 soldiers there was guatemala, el salvador. Honduras. We have agreements signed with them that nobody thought would be possible to get and now when people come from those countries we bring them right back and theyve been very receptive. So there have been tremendous changes made at our border and i want to wish you, youve been there for a long time and you seen it in good times and bad times but right now its been very strong despite our good economy we have the greatest economy weve ever had and a lot of people want to come up and take advantage of the economy and we want them to, and want them to be a part of this country but they have to do it through a legal process, to do it legally and have to do it for america to. We want people with skill that can help our companies and make us even greater but were having the greatest economic year weve ever had and i guess you could say the greatest employment year cost at this moment were close to 160 million people, thats more people and have ever worked in the history of our country and africanamerican employment, Asian American employment and unemployment both , they are slightly different terms to think about what i can talk to our great secretary, our new secretary, a very talented secretary of labor unemployment and employment for africanamerican, asianamerican, or hispanic american its the best in our country. For women best in 71 years and were doing numbers weve never done before. I saw this morning when it was Just Announced that just this year its a play seven percent area and to me i dont view it as 27 percent, i view it as jobs. Its just jobs, very simple. The overall stock market is through the roof from the time of the election. Probably i guess its going to be bordering on 17 percent from the time of the election. Thats something nobody would have thought possible and they announced another number this morning was a number that was very warm to my heart. Since the election we traded 11 trillion in work. China has gone down by double that number but weve gone up by 11 trillion. So when whoever it was that was going to be president , they said within two years china would overtake the United States as the worlds largesteconomy but so far we read them right now. Its not even close. And you havemore people in this position. Theyll never catch us. Theyll never catch us weve accumulated we picked up 11 trillion, not billion, trillion. Dollars in wealth. In work. Since the time of the election. And as you probably know i think the number is 44 trillion down, i think its higher than that. And for a lot of other countries. Look at europe, thats despite the fact europe isnot doing well , despite the fact china is doing poorly, theyre having the worst year in 57 years and other things are happening. The other thing were taking in billions and billions of dollars in tariffs, giving some of those to the targeted farmers as china targeted farmers giving some of those like sonny i guess you gave 15 billion the last year, 12 billion the year before because thats the amount of money at china from our farmers and targeted them. And they got back and i think the farmers are very happy. Now china is buying again and we saw a tremendous trade deal with japan. Its 40 billion, its a tremendous, 40 billion a year. As atremendous trade deal and a lot of that goes to the farmers and manufacturers and tech companies. We signed a deal with korea and thats in a beauty to so we have a lot of good things happening. We have toget us mca sign. Nancy pelosi, cant get her off herdesk. The democrats want to have it, the manufacturers wanted. The woman is grossly incompetent and where having a problem because mexico and canada are calling. Saying whats going on . Its sitting on her desk. The democrats have it, all she has to do is put it up for a vote. Shes set for a month now she likes it, she wanted. She likes it, she wanted. A woman is grossly incompetent, all she wants to do is focus on impeachment which is a little dream shes got. She can keep playing that game and ive been told that who knows if this is so but i think it so, i have already, that shes using us mca because she doesnt have the Impeachment Vote so shes using usmca to get Impeachment Votes. And it doesnt matter because right now you have a Kangaroo Court added by little shifty schiff where we dont have lawyers, we dont have witnesses, we dont have anything and yet i just got to watch and the republicans are absolutely killing it. They are doing so well because its a scam. Its a big scam. Theyre doing something the founders never thought possible and the founders didnt want and theyre using this impeachment hoax for their own political gain. To try and damaged the Republican Party and damaged the president but it had the opposite effect as you seen the polls and im the highest ive ever been in the polls. You dont hear that on television because the news and the democrats are one and the same. One other thing i thoughtid bring up while were here, i went for a physical on saturday. My wife said thats wonderful because i have to make the time because it looks like january be a busy month. She should be able to get the votes, the woman is highly overrated. The woman is incompetent and if shes able to get the boat so maybe shell get by using us mca but i went for a physical and i came back. My wife said are you okay . Theyre reporting you may have had a hard area i said when i have aheart attack . They said you went to walter reed medical center, thats where we go. I said i was there for a short time. I went a very good team, just a piece of it, the rest of it takes place in january. Had a routine physical. Visited the family, visited a couple of groups. The family of a young leader who was very badly injured who was in the operating room. I toured the hospital for a little while. I was out of there quickly. And i been reading in the news that we understand you have aheart attack. I was called by our people in public relations. Are you okay. They said okay from what . The word is you had a heart attack. Cnn says you might have had a heart attack. You had massive chest pains, you went to thehospital. You are sick. Theyre sick. And the press really in this country is dangerous. We dont have freedom of the press in this country, we have the opposite. We have a very corrupt media and i hope they can get their act straight now because its very add, very dangerous for our country. Thank you very much, go ahead please. [inaudible] i dont know him. I understand somebody had the misfortune of calling them, i corrected them. I understand he wears his uniform when he goes in. I dont know vindman at all but one understand is even he said it was correct and if everybody reads the transcripts, i have to call with the president of ukraine by the way said there was no pressure whatsoever, they probably think , they cant even understand whats going on with this country but vindman, i watched him for a little while this morning and ill let people make their own determination but i dont know vindman, ive never heard of him. I dont know any of these people other than i have seen one or two a couple of times, they are ambassadors but these are names like taylor, like kant with the baseball time, wonderful bowtie, maybe ill get one myself day. I dont know who cant is. I dont know who taylor is. They heard a conversation of a conversation of another conversation that was had by the president. Whats going on is a disgrace. And its an embarrassment to our nation and in the meantime we cant get usmca approved because nancy pelosi is grossly incompetent. And youre about to find that out. Thank you very much. [inaudible] china is going to have to make a deal with iraq, if they dont, thats it. Im happy with china right now, theyre paying over 100 billion and china neighbor never gave us a red cent and i told you i gave a lot of money to the farmers and im helping people because china is paying, theyre paying for it. Theyre devaluing their currency and pouring cash into their economy. Their supply chains are being killed and they had the worst year in 57 years. With that being said i have a Good Relationship with china and we will see what happens. Im happy right now. If we dont make a deal with china i will raise tariffs even higher. [inaudible] make your way out. Keep moving. The senate is in recess for their weekly party lunches. Lawmakers will be back at 2 15 eastern to vote on two judicial nominations for the us court of appeals for the 11th circuit. When the senate gavels back in you can see live coverage right here on cspan2. En cspan3 live coverage of the House Intelligence Committee impeachment inquiry seedings. The committee holding two hearings with testimony from National Security Council European Affairs Director colonel Alexander Vindman and jennifer williams, an aide to Vice President mike pence. Lawmakers will hear from kurt volker and tim morrison, National Security to route director for russia. Watch live coverage of the impeachment inquiry hearings on cspan3 and live at cspan. Org. Over the weekend, former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick spoke at an event in las vegas hosted by the Nevada Democratic party. This was mister patricks first major speech since announcing his candidacy for president. Prior to the event he spoke with recruiters about his Campaign Strategy and his position on various policy issues. Hi everybody. I said it right, please make notes. This is i think the fourth, fifth city weve been in in the last few days since announcing. Its been an exciting entry into the race, ive been meeting wonderful people and geg