Them out at that point. As it was, we did not find any animal remains. Do you have any idea how many people that were looking at yet . No, we dont. You know, there is a 69 teske process to still that and i wish it were very fast, because i think a lot of people would really like to know the families would love to know that information. But, unfortunately, its going to take months of analysis to start to get a refined estimate. Sorry, just one last question. Do you have a time lean for bringing back the remains and ask you tell us what it was like to work with the north koreans on this part of the process. Have they been working with you if good faith every step of the way . Okay. So the first question is, he mentioned were in the process of planning next stems. So we cant say we have any time line today for bringing back more remains. We are hopeful that we will be in the not too distant future. I will say, though, in terms of having worked there. I worked there in the past during the 1996 to 2005 years. I spent a lot of time in the field there. Then i went in with our team on july 27th and there was a very different feel to it this time. It was a much more friendly, welcoming and collegial approach this time compared to the way it used to be. Thank you. Thank you, director. Looking ahead to next week, ambassador bolton will meet with officials in israel and ukraine as well as with hess russian counterpart in geneva as a followup to the helsinki summit to discuss a range of Important National security issues. Lastly, we extend our prayers to those families injured and deceased after the tragic bridge collapse in genoa, italy and the attack in london the president condemns this horrible attack on to provide assistance to the dy United Kingdom wind chill that, ill take questions. John. We heard from the president via twitter on omarosa describing her as crazed, a crying, low life a dog. Is this anyway for a president to talk about any american let alone somebody he hired and made the highest ranking africanamerican woman in his white house . I this i the president is certainly voicing his frustration with the fact that this person has shown a complete lack of integrity, particularly by the actions following her time here at the white house. Why did he hire her . Why did he hire somebody he described as a dog. The president wanted to give her a chance and he made clear when general kelly came on and he voiced concerns that this individual didnt have the best interests of the white house and the president and the country at heart. The president said, do what you can to get along, if you cant, he gave him full authority to carry out the decision to let her go. Steve. What is the strategy in continuing to respond to the charges . Why does he just ignore it . Look, i think hes made again the frustrations, i think all not only those of us here in the white house, but frankly i think most of america would be happy to ignore it. Unfortunately the individuals in this room continue to create a large platform for somebody they know not to have a lot of credibility, for someone they frankly didnt give her a platform in this white house. It wasnt until this individual started to negatively attack this president and this administration and try to tear this entire place down that she received the type of platform and rollout that shes getting. I think it would be great if every Single Person in this room and every Single Person in the Administration Never had to talk about this again. We actually got to focus on the real policies a and the real things that not matter just to people in this building but certainly all americans, africanamericans, hispanics and everybody in between. I think that would be the best thing that we can certainly do for our country. Jill. What do you sa toy critics . You see his attacks on omarosa as a part of a pattern of attacking prominent africanamericans, criticizing don lemon, maxine waters, Football Players protesting racial injustice, dont know what theyre protesting . Look, the president just has absolutely nothing to do with race and everything to do with the president calling out someones lack of integrity. The idea that you would only point a few of the things that the president has said negative about people that are minorities, if fact is the president s an equal opportunity person that calls things like he sees it. He always fights fire with fire and certainly doesnt hold back on doing that across the board. Have you time nda. Im not going back and forth who signs an nda. I can tell you its common for a lot of employees to sign ndas, including in government, particularly with anyone with a security clearance. All right. Unless there is another andy. John may be happy to go by you. That means he gets to take your question, but. The president said he kept omarosa on despite complaints from colleagues because she was personally supportive of him. Sorry, i cant hear you. He said he kept her on despite complaints about her behavior because she was personally supportive about him. Is that true of any other white house officials work income this white house right now . Im not aware of it. Sense you dont want to talk about omarosa. Well do our best. Do you have a reaction to president erdogan calling for a ban on u. S. Electronics i can iphones and would he consider a similar ban by americans . I certainly dont have a policy announcement at this point. Our colleague at reuters reported the u. S. Is warning turkey of increased pressure. I was wondering do you have details on how that was conveyed, what additional stems might look like and if the u. S. Would take steps be every the hearing for the detained american pastor october 12th . How the information from turkey was keefd e received or the United States to turkey . I can tell you the at the tirkish ambassadors turkish ambassadors reques ambassadors, john bolton continued to raise those questions. The president encouraged israels government to release the turkish in july and could that attribute to his frustration with erdogan not releasing [ inaudible ]. Certainly the president has a great deal of frustration on the past that general brunson has not been released and employees of facilities have not been released. We will continue to call on turkey to release those individuals. Does the president or this white house believe it is a violation of department of justice protocol if it goes beyond september 1st . Im not going to say that we would say necessarily a specific violation. I think we have been clear not only do we but the American People want this to wrap up. John. Thank you, sarah. Two questions on turkey. As the relationship between the president and the president erdogan grows proiferous. My question very simply is are we going to see the restoration of the readouts on the calls between the president and other World Leaders . That was term natd on the day after terminated on the day after president erdogans election. All tow we know he, the president made a congratulatetory call to him. There has been no readout since. Is that going to be restored . Certainly, we will keep you posted not just on calls with turkey but other state of head calls and provide readouts when we have them. The taliban has been on a surprise offensive. Theyve killed about 100 Afghan Security forces, a couple dozen civilians, as far as we know. The president was visited with the tenth Mountain Division fort drum. They served in afghanistan. Does this new offensive, is he still committed to his strategy he outlined a year ago to afghanistan or has this new offensive given him maybe a different approach might be needed . Certainly no announcements or chalgs changes from his last rollout in august. Have you asked the president if hes ever used the n word. The president directly addressed that during twitter. You are kefr to him. I can say ive never heard him. Did you ask him . I didnt have to, he addressed the American People all at one time. Why dont you ask him directly . Again the president asked that directly on twitter today. Can you stand at the podium and guarantee the American People will never hear donald trump utter the n word on any context. I cant guarantee anything. I can tell you the mr. President addressed this question directly. I can tell you that ive never heard it. I can also tell you that if myself or the people that are in this building serving this country every single day doing our very best to help people all across this country and make it better, if at any point we felt that the president was who some of his contradiction claim him to be, we certainly wouldnt be here. This is a president who is fighting for all americans, who is putting policies in place, that help all americans, particularly africanamericans. Just look at the economy alone. This president since he took office in the yearandahalf that hes been here has created 700,000 new jobs for africanamericans. Thats 700,000 africanamericans that are working now that werent working when this president took place. When president obama left after eight years in office, eight years in office he had only created 195,000 jobs for africanamericans. President trump in his first yearandahalf has already tripled what president obama did in eight years. Not only did he do that for africanamericans, but hispanics, 1. 7 more hispanics are working now. This is a president who carries ability auto americanings a put policies in place. Sorry, going to kevin. Just to be clear, you cant guarantee it. Loose, i havent been in every single room. Ki tell you the president has addressed this directly. Directly to the American People. Ki tell you what the focus and the heart of the president is and thats on helping all americans. And certainly this is somebody who has been in business for decades and youre just now hearing some of these outrageous accusations after the fact hes dealt with people all over the world. It wasnt until he became a candidate for president you started to hear these salacious and ridiculous claims and certainly i think if you look at the actions that this president has taken, certainly the policies that hes enacted, you can see the heart of who he is. And you can see exactly what he has done and the type of president and person he is. Kevin. Sarah just a very quick one on something that omarosa said today. She called the president unfit, mentally unfit for the office. As someone who worked with her, how surprised are you at the level of her an mus towards this president and this white house . Im certainly, i think like most people that worked with her very disappointed that she would go to such a selfserving and somebody who blatantly cares more about herself than our country to make up some of these outrageous claims and accusations. Look, she worked here for a year and didnt have any of these things to say. In fact, everything she said was quite the opposite. And not just the year that she worked here, but the time she spent on the campaign trail and i think its really sad what shes doing at this point. If i could follow very quickly, i want to ask you very briefly. We read earlier this afternoon the Trump Campaign has made an arbitration action against omarosa. And im just curious. I know there are separate entities, is it likely the white house is considering pursuing something in the way of possible action towards omarosa for violating i certainly wouldnt be able to comment on any potential legal matter, major. A moment ago, you said one motive of omarosa was to tear this entire place down. What do you mean by that and do you have ongoing concerns that while she was here, shed tape other conversations that could either be damaging to the reputation of this white house or relevant towards something youd rather keep qui snet. I think the greatest concern is the lack of integrity this individual has shown. One other thing, she played a tape recording of the president. Do you have own doubt that is an you a thoen thent kif authentic conversation . I dont. The president said he was unaware. Is that a true representation . As i said moments ago, the president had a direct conversation with general kelly, asked him to try to work things out. If it didnt, he gave general kelly the full authority to make decisions about hiring, firing, including with respect to omarosa. Because he knew what would happen, hed approve snit. On the timing i think he knew it was certainly a possibility. As to the fact whether or not kelly tauld i called the preside president , i dont think. Repeatedly we heard the president has been banished if iraq and syria. Well the Defence Department yesterday the lead Inspector General for Operation Inherent resolve says that their forces are estimated to be anywhere between 28,631 fighters which would be about the number that they have at their peak. So has isis been practically langished . Certainly we know the caliphate has been destroyed, certainly there continue to be isis fighters. That itself why we continue to take all of those threats seriously and look for ways every single day to defeat them and protect American People and our allies. Can i go back to the race question again. I get that you can cite things statistics that might be positive statistics for policies the president has done for africanamericans and minorities. What do you sa i to people who look at the pattern of the comments the president made specifically about African Americans and feel like he is singleing those folks out because of their race . Are they missing something . Are they deluding themselves . What do you sa i to them . There are other of people that look at to the pattern and says, yes, he says neg testify things about a lot of people. There seems to be a pattern of singleing out africanamericans and commenting about their lack of intelligence or their looks . I dont think so. As i said the president has said similar things about a number of individuals, certainly that are not africanamerican or any other minority. I can simply talk to you about the policies and the person that the president is. I think in again the person that a lot of his contradiction say he is, certainly wouldnt have been in business with him for decades, certainly he wouldnt have had bill and hillary clinton. They attended his wedding. A number of democrats begged him for campaign continentbutions. If they were who he said he was, why did they have these relationships with him . I think its very convenient these accusations came someone rung for office. He has shown time and time again through his actions and policy, he wants to do everything he can for all americans to make america better and not just for a certain citigroup of people but for everybo owe a Certain Group of people. I think to try to single that auto to one group is frankly silly. I think if you did a comparison, there are a lot of nasty things out there from other people. Do you think that the president is always going to fight fire with fire. This isnt something that isnt knew. Its what the American People voted for him. They overwhelmingly elected him to be the president of the United States. Since he took office, he has governed in a way that is helping all americanles. Frankly, if we want to look at who is creating division in the country. I think think the media has done certainly more than the president ever has by elevating people like the author of this book. By focusing on sparsely attended rally, instead of all of the attended policies that this administration and this president are enacting that are helping people not just on the economy, but on school choice, on prison reform, thats disproportionately affected africanamericanings and hispanics. This is a president governing to help all americans. I think we will be better off if the media gave that more attention. You expressed how you feel about omarosa since the public cakes of this book. How is she viewed by fellow Staff Members here at the white house while she worked here . Did she pull her own weight . Is she viewed as untrustworthy . Did you trust her . Im trying to get a sense of whether your view of her has changed with the publication of this book . Certainly, ive expressed some disappointment. Im not going to get into a back and forth on personal feelings that i have with a former colleague. I think the focus not only of my time here, but of this administration is looking forward and how we can actually implement policies that matter to the American People, not with liked who in the building behind me. A different topic. And a follow up. When the first time the Mueller Investigation indicted some russians this administration sanctioned those russians. The 12 that were recently indicted, 12 russian nationals, does this admin strapgs plan at Administration Plan to level sanctions against them . I dont have a follow up. Are you saying you would like the president to stop tweeting ability omarosa . I think if the media continues to give it walltowall coverage, the administration in some cases will be forced to respond. But i think it would better off for all of us to walk away and focus on some things that matter. Hi, sarah thank you so much. I want to ask you about 60th [ inaudible ]. How much does his trip has to do with countering the growing presence of china in the region . Certainly, we have a lot of shared values with the countries that hes visiting. We would always like to be the priority partner for those countries. We hope that those relationships will continue to develop. We will keep you posted. Last question, stephen. Bear in mind the Trump Campaign announcement its pursuing arbitration of omarosa necessitates attention and a Major National focus. Can we talk, can i ask you once more about the practice of signing people to nondisclosure agreements . Because, let me ask you what it says about the expressions of loyalty or lack thereof . People who work behind that wall . Why do people need to be contractually obligated in perpetuity to never say anything negative about the president , the member of his family . Why is that necessary . Again its common in a lot of. Corporations, protecting corporate interest. Certainly, its also,