Who had equally come to the same conclusion that the times story was not accurate. You dont think theres something strange about or something odd about the White House Press secretary to get the cia director on the phone about an investigation . No. No. But, see, respectfully using words like knock down. There was a story hold on. No. No. It was there was reporters coming to us saying there is a story out there. Whats your take on it . And our answer was we dont believe its accurate. But obviously, thats our take on it. And reporters are saying to us well, is there anybody that you can point to substantiate this claim . Now, remember, this all started with the fbi coming to us. Bringing it to our attention saying that the story in the times was not accurate, in fact, it was bs. And all we did was simply say thats great. Could you tell other reporters the same thing youre telling us . And i would think that other reporters, yourself included, would think that that would be a helpful thing to get the story straight. All we sought to do was to actually get an accurate report out and, again, i think chairman nunez this morning over and over and over and over again made it very clear that no evidence has been brought to his attention suggest that that report was accurate. So, you know, respectfully, i think its interesting that im being asked whats appropriate when what were doing is actually urging reporters to engage with subject Matter Experts who can corroborate whether or not somethings accurate or not. Should thereby a special prosecutor look into this . Right and my answer would be special prosecutor for what . And heres my right. I guess my sessions was part of the campaign i understand. Heres my jonathan. We have now for six months heard story after story come out about unnamed sources say the same thing over and over again and nothings come of it; right . Weve heard the same people, the same antidotes, and weve heard reports over and over again and as chairman nunez made verylearoday, he has seen nothing that corroborates that. So at what point you have to ask yourself what are you investigating . No, and i think that both the house and the senate have looked at it. You know as well as i do that the Intelligence Community has looked at it as well. Theres a big difference. I think that russias involvement in activity has been investigated up and down. So the question becomes at some point if theres nothing to further investigate, what are you asking people to investigate . I mean, chairman nunez spoke very clearly today when asked over and over and over again about this and that he has seen nothing for him to believe that its there. The president has spoken forcefully time and time again that he has no interest in russia. He hasnt spoken to people in russia for years. And you collectively keep asking to try to find something seemingly, at least the reporting that im seeing in, you know, different organizations suggest that theres nothing new thats being reported. Its the same stuff over and over again that weve heard for literally six months. So the question becomes at some point what do you need to further investigate if theres nothing that has come out . Can you not categoryically deny there were no contacts i guess my question is right and i guess my point is that you had the Intelligence Community look at russias involvement in the election. You had the house and the senate both do the same. So what im trying to ascertain is that at what point how many people have to say that theres nothing before where you realize theres nothing there . I cant say all im saying is the people who have done the investigating about russia overall and its activity in the United States specifically now with regard to our election havent provided anything that lead me to believe or should lead you to believe, and i continue to see reports coming from different media sources saying when they checked in with Law Enforcement or Intelligence Community sources, theres nothing more than has been previously reported over and over again. So at some point, you do have to ask yourself what are you actually looking for . How many times do you have to come to the same conclusion before you take the answer . Did you personally reach out to pompeo . Im not going to discuss what we did internally. But what we shared, we did our job in making sure that reporters had questions, we let them know what subject Matter Experts were available to discuss the accuracy. During the campaign, the president said he was not going to touch medicare, Social Security. It sounded like leaving that as an open question. Im just wondering whats the state of the promise . That he wont touch for current how it works. The budget is dealing with the discretionary numbers, policy decisions are not part of the budget. Thats what he was being asked. So i just want to be clear in terms of and, again he made the promise, he stands by the promise. I will follow up specifically on that. But i think the president has made very clear that it is not his intent to do. He wants to focus on the discretionary side he stands by his word. Fred lucas. Fred. An executive order on religious freedom, will that still come . And if it does, will it go beyond religious freedom . Im sry, fred, what . Beyond the you know, i think we discussed executive orders in the past and for the most part, were not going to get into discussing what may or may not come until were ready to announce it. So im sure as we move forward, well have some. Just one more. Okay. The issue of tax reform, and will it how committed is the administration to a border adjustment tax . And is there enough concern that theres going to be well, im not going to get into the specifics of tax reform today. The president has made clear that well have an outline of a plan very soon. But i think what he will say is he has talked about the concerns he has with current regulatory and tax policy that benefit people from moving out of the country and shipping products back in while shedding American Workers. He will continue to fight for policies that promote manufacturing and job creation in the United States and support American Workers. So i dont want to get ahead of the exact nature of the policy. He has been seeking a lot of input, as i mentioned earlier, hes going to talk today with speaker ryan and senator mcconnell. I know that both the joint session, status of repeal and replace, and im sure some discussion tax reform will probably come up. But theres a lot were continuing to move forward and work with them. On the isis strategy, can you just get to the timetable now that you receive what happens. And as a report that youre asking for 30 billion in defense spending on top of the 54 in the budget, is that true . Did that cover the new exit strategy . Yeah. So thank you. Right now literally that principles meeting or principles meeting that i mentioned at the beginning is happening as we speak. So secretary mattis was coming over to brief the principles as far as the isis plan. And, again, part of it was to make sure that he should fully discuss the recommendations, to seek the input and feedback of the other principles downstairs. That can help guide where we go from here, w go. Espe to the funding. I think director mulvania noted that there will be a supplement at some point. Right now the focus is on the budget, and then well go from there. John. Thank you. Two brief questions. First, i read your statement the thursday briefing to governor malloy during the meeting, and he responded, and i quote, sean didnt read a thing that i said that he in connecticut, theyre already working to get criminals in the country illegally out. His objection was to going into Warming Centers or schools where officials might. Your response to the governor on that. A specifically what the comments were with respect to sanctuary cities and, again, i would reiterate with all due respect to the governor, im not here to pick a fight with the governor. I enjoy going to school in the state of connecticut. But i have the kind of affection with that state. But the reality is i think theres a difference whether or not he wants to do with state funds, maybe, you know, without knowing the exact nature of how hes funding, what hes funding, a difficult the question i was asked at the time was how we would be handling it, and i think the answer whether its can it or california that the president s executive order and the president s commitment is to make sure that tax dollars are not used to support programs that are helping people who are not in the country legally and who are not citizens entitled to them. One more question, sean. Within years, the president s always met the polls. Going back to eisenhower. Now, one year ago this week, candidate trump had a disagreement in exchange of words when he goes to his first european trip, will he meet this . Thats a great question. I would be a huge fan of that. But i dont think were in that place in the planning process to make any visits with the pope. Thank you. Two budget questions, if you dont mind. Mr. M ulvania i think just said that dont add to the current budget, which is about 560 billion, but he didnt say it would significantly drop from that either. So my question is is the administration comfortable putting something forward that might rack up deficits of potentially hundreds of billions of dollars . Well, i think im trying to understand the question, if you could help me with this. He said it wasnt going to add to it. Right. So my question is earning necessarily say it was going to cut from it either. If it doesnt cut from it, it could be potentially hundreds of billions in deficits. Right. Im curious correct me if im wrong. He basically made it very clear. It doesnt add to the projected baseline deficit; right . So that continues to be the goal, and i think if we continue to work through this process, it can work both ways. We can identify further savings in reductions through working with the agencies and departments. But were going to make sure that the top line number we maintain as close to that as possible. And as we go through this i mean, this is the beginning of the process as directly node. We send the number to the department agency, give them some idea how we came up with this, and then they come back to us and either justify why the particular program or office or what have you needs to stay in existence or why maybe not the reduction is offered. But its a backandforth process that will occur over the next few weeks. So get ahead of it is the problem. Let me ask you nancy pelosi get a Quick Reaction to nancy pelosi. She put out a statement and said quote five weeks into his administration, President Trump has not introduced a single job failed. Your reaction to that is what . He has created a lot of jobs. He continues to work with congress on both repealing and replacing obamacare. Tax reform and fundamentally, both of those two items alone, i think can help spur a lot of Economic Growth. The meetings that weve had with the ceos, the health insurers, there are so many things that arob killing, and it could be done to help promote a better regulatory and tax climate that lead to job creation. I think thats one of the biggest problems right now is that people in washington arent necessarily talking to job creators. What is the impediment that you have to hiring more American Workers . What is the impediment that you have to manufacturing more . To building here . The meetings and the actions that the president has taken on both regulatory and other matters have helped spur job and job creation. Youve heard these Companies Come in over and over again. Airlines, sprint. Because of your agenda, were willing to commit to hiring additional people to manufacturer more. Thats how jobs are created. Its not through the government. Too often its the government regulations that. And the president fully understands how it works and what those impediments do to creating jobs and growing the economy. So i would just say that you havent see anything yet. Its going to continue to be the case. Trey. Is there concern the administration a largescale military buildup threatening other countries around the world and lead to some sort of arms race with other countries . No. I think when you look at the state of some of the infrastructure and the military with the age of our ships or planes or some of the other hardware that exist, you recognize that we need to rebuild a lot of these things. The size of our navy has gone down significantly. When you look at the commitment that you have to make. Not just in one year but in several years for a lot of these programs, ships, and tanks, you know, even weapons systems, they dont get built in a month or a day. You have to make a commitment early on to make the investment because of the time that it makes to secure them, to build them, to research and development that goes into it. So i would just suggest to you that this is the first step in making sure we make the commitment to a military that especially through the sequester the last few years has not gotten the funding it needs to get off life support. There are a lot of things that are being taken care of in the military wre theyre just continuing to theyre not putting the systems and the projects in place to allow the military to keep up with the times. And thats the problem. Major. [question off mic] said quote the government owes my son an investigation on behalf of the president of the United States, is the president open to an investigation of the raid in yemen and father brian owens called that a stupid mission. Is there something you would like to communicate to him about that mission that might persuade him otherwise . Yeah. Thank you. Thats multipart, so let me kind of walkthrough slowly. First of all, i can i cant possibly imagine what hes going through, in terms of loss of a son. I can tell him that on behalf of the president , his son died a hero. And the information that he was able to help obtain through that raid as i said before is going to save american lives. Its going to protect our country more. So he made a sacrifice to this country, he was on his 12th deployment. And i know his wife when she spoke to happen, knows that he did this because he loved it. He cared about our nation. And the mission was successful in helping prevent a future attack or attacks on this nation. It obtained a lot of information that will help us keep safe. With respect to his request, it is Standard Operating Procedure for the department of defense to undergo what they call a 15 6 review. That review in this case is three prompt because there was a fatality and loss of life, theres that. Because theres civilians involved, thats another. And then third because there is hardware, a helicopter that was damaged. That is a separate. So, in fact, there will be three reviews done by the department of defense because of the nature of this. But, again, i cant stress enough that on behalf of the president , on behalf of this nation, we express our condolences, extend our prayers to him during this time and as you said any standard procedure. Is there anything the president is particularly curious about with this mission. In that, it was brought to him authorized quickly. Does he believe that it was carried out well . And there was nothing that hes particularly curious about in the way either the helicopter was damaged, fatality, the civilian casualties of any . Number one, ive walked through the timetable previously in terms of how long this had been planned for, dating well back into the previous administration. And as you know their recommendation at the time was to wait for a moonless night. That night wasnt going to occur during president obamas administration, so when general mattis got in the department of defense, he was briefed up on the status of the thing, made aware of when the next time to go. We went through the process to ensure that we continue to believe that the mission, the way it was going to be conducted and the results of the mission would be worthy of action. The conclusion continued to be as it was prior that we should move forward. As i mentioned before, i think you cant ever say that when theres most importantly lost of life and people injured that its 100 successful. But i think when you look at the stated goal of that mission was, it was an information and intelligence gathering mission. And it achieved its objectives. So, again, i would express our thoughts, and our prayers, and our condolences to all of the people and chief owens family and his friends and shipmates. But its something that as a seal and someone deployed 12 times, he knew that this was part of the job, and he knew what he was doing, and so were very comfortable with how the mission was executed and, you know, well let the department of defense go through that review process and then see where that leads us. But i think to get ahead of the three separate reviews done by the department of defense will be responsible at this time. To undo the defense sequester, of you to get 60 votes of the senate. Are you confident with these numbers and with this kind of heavy Discretionary Spending proposed you can get the 60 votes to change the law . Because without that change of law, the proposal is just that. Yeah. I think that when it comes to our nations security, specifically our nations military, i dont think that its a partisan issue. I think across the country whether youre talking about florida or Army Installation or navy base, you understand the state of repair that many of of our planes, ships, and other hardware is in. And i think that there is a bipartisan commitment to give the military and its members the equipment and the tools it needs to succeed and protect this country. April. Sean, im sorry. Sean, i have a couple of budgetary questions for you. One, at the press conference, President Trump talked about the what is the investment in this budget when it comes . Its a good try. I think the director was very clear that were not part of the process today was to start that process that he talked about where were going to the various departments, whether its hud or dot and giving that top line number and then hearing back. So i dont want to get into a specific number with you before we get too far down the process. Thats a conversation that were going to have with the agencies, and then we will have subsequently with