Yesterday. Is the president concerned that comments made by his staff came up in this lawsuit, comments by Stephen Miller saying that the second travel ban would have the same policy outcome as the first viewed by the judge in that case, get at yesterdays concerned is he concerned the mixed messaging coming up from the west wing staff . No, hes not. I think the department of justice will be pursuing avenues that will seek to remedy this. I think when you read through the courts ruling in hawaii in particular, it just doesnt seem to make sense. As i mentioned to gabby, the executive or second executive order was literally tailored so to go back and talk about statements that occurred, you know, in some cases well before, even the first one, seems to not be an accurate reading of the law. But ill let the department of justice, you know, be the ones that argue this and make the appropriate legal argument. Hunter. Olivia, im sorry. Your long list of the reports you mentioned, an accusation perhaps dchq was involved, did the president discuss this with theresa may . Again, that happened i think two days ago. It was something that was reported on air. I think the point is theres been no, no, it has not been raised. But i do think that, again, were not im just all were doing is literally reading off what other stations and people have reported. I think that casts concern to some activities that may have occurred during the 2016 election. Were not casting judgment on that. I think the idea is to say if these organizations, these individuals came to the conclusions, they mer ilt looking into. O olivier. The news reports about the president s meeting with Saudi Defense minister crown prince that says that the defense minister told the president about a plot, a terrorist plot against the United States. Did that happen . Whats the nature of that . How worried should the United States be . Were obviously never going to comment on specific threats to the homeland. Were obviously committed to ensuring the safety of every american. But it should be no secret that we share intelligence amongst a variety of countries. We would never comment on a potential threat or not that existed, but we appreciate several countries that we work with closely to make sure that we do what we can to protect the homeland. One more. Secretary tillerson in asia said that 20 years of diplomatic efforts have failed to get north korea to deenuclear ize. Does the government plan a break from diplomacy or only look at a use of force or other coercive measures . The president never takes anything off the table. Thats something hes been very clear about. With that, blake. Over the course of the campaign, president made a couple different many comments about the budget and the deficit. At one point he said he thought that he could get rid of the National Debt over the course of eight years. At another point he said that he would insist on a balanced budget relatively soon. Now the baseline of the administration is giving us is, well, at least were not adding onto the deficit, which is nearly half a trillion dollars. So, im curious as to how we got from that point to now to where he was talking at one point about eliminating a bunch and now is adding onto it. I think director mulvaney addressed that. Look, a couple things. Number one, the senate dragged its feet on getting director mulvaney confirmed and in office. So, i think we were behind the curve on having a director of omb. We got in here, i think we produced a blueprint that is consistent with the president s principles and priorities. But hes already made it very clear that well have a budget probably sometime in may that will outline the more specifics of the revenue piece, the entitlement piece, and the full details of all this. But thats eliminating a 20 trillion debt and tackling the current deficit is something thats going to take a little bit of time, something the president is committed to reducing. I think we talked very extensively about the president s commitment to protecting taxpayer dollars and using the more efficiently. This budget and a lot of the action the president has took on other projects including the f18, the next generation of air force one shows the president is committed on very, very personal basis to getting involved in programs and policies, to reduce the deficit and respect taxpayer money. This is step one and its a down payment on that goal. As for future steps, there are a lot of cuts in here. No matter which way you splice the numbers, if you want to drop it you have to get to entitle emts. I understand. Is that on the table, essentially yes nor . As director mulvaney put it, he was choesz enfor thchosen fo job because of his respect for fiscal posterity and skills. We have to get it passed today. Let us get down to that and well have more. This budget is a huge down payment on the president s goal of showing his commitment to fiscal responsibility and respecting the taxpayer. Aman. When the president put together his tax return this year, will he release it publicly presumably its not being audited, right . Tomorrow is Saint Patricks day. Thats what im more focused on. Assuming his 2016 returns are not under audit yet. Will he release those . Well cross that bridge when we come to it. The president has been clear about his position on his tax returns and well have to see where it goes from there. The president has been very clear throughout the campaign and consistent that hes under a routine audit. John gizzy. Thank you, sean. Reading the draft of the budget and listening to director mulvaneys comments yesterday and today, would appear that the National Endowment for the arts would be phased out entirely in two years. Can you name any other Government Programs or even cabinet departments such as housing and urban development and education, in which its entire function may be phased out or reduced to another agency and government or even the state . John, who is here from omb, is the appropriate person to ask on that. I know theyve done several briefings on the budget. We could have omb definitely get back to you on this. If you can contact him after this. Caitlyn. Going back to the fact the president used wiretap in quotes and last night he said it was very important that it was in quotes. But out of the four tweets he accuses barack obama of wiretapping him he only used quotes in two of them. Two of them he specifically said he tapped his phones. He didnt use the term wiretapping. Mens ago yminutes ago you said was communications being swept up. Do you feel barack Obama Wiretapped trump tower or broadly surveilled, which is it . He was very clear about this last night. He talked about it yeah, he was. He said he meant it, he put it in quotes. It was very broad. And, so, thats what he meant by the use of the term. So, was it phone tapping . No, it was surveillance. I think we covered this like ten times. There has been no specific answer what it was. I understand that. But thats the point of them looking into this, caitlyn. I think the idea is to look into this, have the house and Senate Intelligence committees look into this and report back. Phoebe. I want to followup on that. If all this comes out and theres no proof that president obama had any role in any wiretapping, there was no wiretapping, will President Trump then offer an apology . I said three times this week and i think the answer is were not going to prejudge where the outcome of this is. I think we have to let the process work its will and when there is a report that comes out conclusive from there, well be able to comment. To jump ahead of this process at this point would be inappropriate. Can i go to brian of salem radio, georgia. Thank you, sean, for taking questions from a talk radio host right here in georgia and not in the d. C. Swamp. First i had two questions. The president s tax returns and classified information, President Trump campaigned on draining the swamp. The American People then want to know why comey has not yet been fired by the Trump Administration. The second question is with regard to there are many conservatives are really concerned that paul ryan, speaker of the house, is leading President Trump down a very long path on health care. How do you react to that . On the first one theres no personnel updates with respect to the with the exception of the ones that i mentioned today. On the second, you know, donald trump is not one to be led down a path by anyone. I think he talked today at the lunch with the speaker ryan hes working hand in glove with the speaker. He talked about it last night. This is a commitment that he has to enacting health care. This is a process that he is committed to, wants to see through because of a goal that he wants to achieve, which is making more Patient Centric Health care system that lowers the costs and increases the options. He does president get led down any paths. He leads very clearly and i think if you listen to speaker ryan today, hes in agreement that theres been a Strong Partnership between the house, the administration, and i think the senate so far to make sure that we get this bill done. And thats what our goal is going to be. And thats, you know so i would argue weve actually done a pretty good job of getting that done. Johnathan. I want to ask about the decision to cut the National Institutes of Health Budget by 9 . It is a very important part of the government funding medical research. Director mulvaney yesterday acknowledged the private sector cant fill that gap. When there are Rare Diseases we need a robust government presence. The government provided medical innovation. How do you square those things when youre cutting nih by 19 . Many conservatives wanted to increase the budget. Director mulvaney, somebody asked him during the q. And a. Period the same question. He suggested it wouldnt my take from listening to him yesterday was it wouldnt be cut. This is an assumption in washington, johnathan, if you get less money its a cut. And i think that the reality is that in a lot of these, theres efficiencies, due pligs at this, ways to spend money better. If youre wasting money, thats not a true dollar spent. When you look at the way director mulvaney and the president approached this budget, it was can we ask can we get more with the same dollar, can we find duplicity, can we find efficiencies, can we combine facilities in some cases at n. I. H. To enhance a better experience, whereby we actually have an outcome thats reduced savings. To assume that because you spend a ton of dollars, youre going to get a better outcome, with all due respect, when you look at the district of columbia, they spend by par more per capita than any other city in the country on education. And i think they have tremendous issues that are constantly being dealt with in their education system. So, to assume that just because you throw money at a problem it somehow magically solves is a very washington way of looking at a budget problem. Thankfully i understand that. Part of the issue is were working as the director outlined a couple weeks ago, during the pass back process to work with them, to talk to each of these algt siz and departments about how to walk through their budget in a way that ensures they can continue to do the Core Functions if they want, while finding ways to reduce waste, get rid of enhanced efficiencies, and get rid of duplicity. That is a very washington way of looking at a problem when you say, lets just look at how much we spend as a measure of how much we care or how much were going to get done. And i think the president has been very clear as to what his priorities on this budget are and the outcomes we expect from every dollar that we spend. So, for being in office for 55 days or 50 some odd days, whatever its been, weve had a unique ability to go forward so far and make a very strong commitment to enhancing our National Security, to protect the country and keep america safe and our citizens safe while at the same time making sure that we dont ask for people to work harder, to spend more send more to washington. That gets ultimately wasted. I just dont see how that is showing respect to the American People or the american taxpayer, especially when so many people are working two, sometimes three jobs, or, you know, or both parents are working just to get by, pay the mortgage, and were saying hey, dont worry, keep sending more money to washington and were not going to take the time. There should be a review of all these agencies. Director mulvaney was pointing out how many unauthorized agencies and departments and programs we have throughout the government. If were going to do that, at some point there should be a debate on whether or not these agencies and programs are achieving their mission. And if they are, then great, fund them. But if theyre not, we shouldnt be asking hard working american taxpayers to send more money to washington to fund things that dont further those goals. Thank you guys very much. I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. Take care. Have a good one. All right. That was sean spicer, the White House Press secretary taking questions. I am jake tapper with the the lead. A rather contentious white house briefing. We witnessed several rather interesting exchanges despite leaders from both the democratic and republican parties, including the House Speaker and the house senate and house and Senate IntelligenceCommittee Leaders all saying that they have seen zero evidence and have no reason to believe that President Trumps claim that president obama had him wiretapped at trump tower is true. Well, despite that, today the white house stood by the president s claim. Are you saying that the president still stands by his allegation that president obama ordered wiretapping or surveillance of trump tower despite the fact that the Senate IntelligenceCommittee Says they see no indication that it happened . Does the president still stand by the allegation . He stands by it, but again, youre mischaracterizing what happened today. He wasnt mischaracterizing what happened today. Lets bring from cnns jeff zeleny and manu raju. Its been almost two weeks, gentlemen, since this wild and apparently baseless claim has been made. The white house has gone through several responses. First they were trying to find out just what it was the President Trump had been tweeting about. Then they demanded a congressional investigation to find out what happened. Then they switched to no comment with people including vicepresident pence refusing to say that they agreed that this allegation had happened. Then when it became clear that both the former director of National Intelligence and the current fbi director were saying this did not happen, they started trying to walk it back by claiming that wiretapping was in quotes, and therefore, what President Trump was referring to was any kind of surveillance, and moreover, not only did President Trump not mean, hey, i was wiretapped at trump tower, me personally. It now, of course, the definition had been expanded to include there was surveillance conducted and maybe somebody, somebody talked to had something to do with somebody on the trump campaign. Then last night President Trump told his Favorite Channel fox news that there are going to be some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks. Right. And now we have this, just anger from sean spicer who cannot defend the indefensible so he is trying to change exactly what happened. Jeff . Well, jake, i think when the president said last night something very interesting would be coming out, i do not think what he had in mind was the fact that yet another set of congressional leaders, republican and democrat alike from the Senate Intelligence committee would release that joint statement this afternoon about an hour before the briefing saying that, look, theres no evidence of any of this, that it just simply didnt happen. So, what is happening tonight is this afternoon, rather, the president is increasingly isolated in this belief and we saw sean spicer there in a frenzy going for ten minutes straight reading fringe news accounts trying to answer this question. But as you said, its indefensible here. This has hung over this white house like a storm cloud for the last two weeks or so. Never mind the fact that theyre trying to get health care through. The budget through. Other things. Not exactly sure why sean spicer decided to engage like that. He tried to move on after engaging for so long in that back and forth. The reality is you can engage all day long. The rest of the presidency here, there is no evidence. This is coming from both sides, both parties, both sides of capitol hill. And there simply is not an end to this here. So, jake, again, i think as you pointed out, it was the president who started this two weeks ago on saturday and he called for a congressional investigation the next day. Again, he started this. Im not sure who is going to end it quite frankly. Manu raju, we have now heard from both the democratic and Republican House and Senate IntelligenceCommittee Leaders and theyre saying there is no evidence that trump tower was wiretapped. There is no evidence that donald trump was wiretapped. Yeah, thats right. And sean spicer mischaracterized what devin nunez, the republican chairman of the house Intelligence Committee, said yesterday at the press conference i was at. He said