But the broader question is delay, i dont really much take that either. I think sometimes weve been criticized for dong you things too quickly. And now maybe were doing things for too slowly. So maybe im right in the middle of the sweet spot, i would argue. But i think the president has hit this timing perfectly, and i will tell you three reasons why. One of the things he told us to do before the executive order was get the money right. He has picked a cabinet full of people that know Business Operations and business functions have to follow first so that you can then provide policies to implement. You dont have the right money and backoff infrastructure to enforce those things, youll have to change your vision or change your amount of money. So just off the top of my head, the first, i already preemptive answered and that is we learned a lesson here that we dont want to innovate and secure policy on the Security Side without doing that in tant em. And you saw the president sign Technology Counsel security order, and that was done intentionally. And then lastly in between now and then, the president fy18 budget allocated 1,819,000,000 to dhs Cyber Security alone. It dedicated an increase of 1. 5 billion across all departments involved in protecting cyber space. So from my perspective both his first budget request and future ones have right side that amount of money in keeping america safe and that might answer all three of your questions. Sarahs going to pull me away. Thank you so much. America might have about political motivations that these Cyber SecurityCompanies Like you mention facebook, theyre very political or crowd strike. Im sure hell be happy to come back questions later. Actually, he was wrong on one thing. I would gladly let him stay up here and talk Cyber Security all day. A few announcements and then as promised, i will get to, im sure, all of your many pressing questions. I would like to announce that the president also just signed another executive order establishing the bipartisan president ial Advisory Commission on election integrity. This will be chaired by Vice President mike pence. The president s committed to the thorough review of rejection and voting issues in federal elections, and thats exactly what this commission is tasked with doing. The Bipartisan Commission will be made up of around a dozen members, including current and former secretaries of state with kansas secretary of state chris serving as vice chair. It will also include individuals with knowledge and experience elections, election management, Election Fraud detection, and voter integrity efforts. Five additional members that have been announced as of today, connie, secretary of state of indiana, bill gardner, secretary of state of new hampshire, matthew dunlap, the secretary of state of maine, ken blackwell, former secretary of state of ohio, and cristy maccourtroom i can, a commissioner on election. The commission enhance or undermine the American Peoples confidence in integrity in the federal elections and identifies system vulnerabilities that lead to improper rejections and voting. We expect the report will be complete by 2018. The experts and officials, meetings and hearings will be open to the public for comments and input, and we will share those updates as we have them. In cabinet news, secretary purdue cincinnati, ohio today to announce the Agricultural Department plan for reorganizing to provide Better Service to the American People as the president directed in his march 13th executive order. With the barges of the ohio river behind him, many of come contain products that are beginning a journey that will ultimately take them to markets overseas, secretary purdue will announce a new mission area for trade and foreign agriculture affairs, recognizing the growing importance of International Trade to the Agriculture Sector of the economy. United states immigration and Customs Enforcement will hold a press conference at 2 15 today. Probably not too far away, to announce the results of the highly successful recent gang surge operation. The president has maiden format of our nations immigration laws a top priority and todays announcement will underscore not only that commitment, but his focus on targeting transnational gangs and prioritizing the removal of criminal aliens who pose a threat to public safety. Also today, secretary mattis met with turkish Prime Minister in london to discuss a range of bilateral Security Issues and the secretary reiterated the United States commitment to protecting our nato ally and both leaders affirmed their support for peace and stability in iraq and syria. One other thing i wanted to point out. Last night obamacare suffered another serious blow as aetna announced its decision to pull out of the nebraska and delaware marketplaces, which ends their participation exchanges completely. Theyve sustained hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several years and is projected to lose more than 200 million in 2017. The company attributes those losses to structural issues within the exchanges quote that have led to coop failures and carrier exits in consequent risk pool deterioration, end quote. This latest news adds to the mountain of evidence that obamacare has completely failed the American People and reinforces why there is no time to waste in repealing and replacing this law before it takes our entire Health Care System down with it. Finally, i know hold this hands. I know we sent out a timeline regarding the former the firing of former director comey yesterday because there seems to be some misperceptions about the meeting between the president and the attorney general and the Deputy Attorney general on monday. But im going to read it to you all again just to make sure were all in the same page because i want the sequence of events to be perfectly clear to everyone. The president over the last several months lost confidence in director comey. After watching director comeys testimony last wednesday, the president was strongly inclined to remove him. On monday, the president met with the attorney general and Deputy Attorney general, and they discussed reasons for removing the director. The next day, tuesday may 9th the Deputy Attorney general sent his written recommendation to the attorney general and the attorney general sent his written recommendation to happen. Hopefully that clears up some of those things and with that, i will take your questions. Steve. Sarah, why did a number of remarks. Why did the president think that james comey was a showboat . I think probably based on the numerous appearances that he made, and i think its probably pretty evident in his behavior over the last year or so with the back and forth and i think that it speaks pretty clearly. Those words dont leave a lot of room for interpretation, so i think its pretty clear what he meant. Three conversations that the president had with james comey about whether he was under investigation, he said one under two phone calls. Was that since january 20th or when . I dont have exact dates on when those phone calls took place. Jonathan. Sarah, two parts of the comey question regarding the interview the president just gave. First of all, isnt it inappropriate for the president of the United States to ask the fbi director directly if hes under investigation . No. I dont believe it is. One of these conversations happened at a dinner where the fbi director koop was asking to stay on as fbi director. Dont you see how thats a conflict of interest . Hes saying he wants to keep his job and the president is asking whether or not hes under investigation . I dont see that as a conflict of interest and neither do the many legal scholars and others that have been commenting on it for the last hour. So, no, i dont see that as an issue. One other thing that i want to ask you about is i asked you directly yesterday. Related to comey. I asked you directly yesterday if the president had already decided to fire james comey when he met with the Deputy Attorney general and attorney general, and you said no. Also, the Vice President of the United States said directly the president acted to take the recommendation of the Deputy Attorney general to remove the fbi director. Sean spicer said directly it was all him, meaning the Deputy Attorney general. Now we learn from the president directly that he has already decided to fire james comey. So why were so many people giving answers . Were you guys in the dark . Was the Vice President misled again . I know you would love to report that we were misled, and we want to create hold on, jonathan. I let you finish and read off every single one of those statements, so unless you want to trade places, i think its my turn now. Am i think its pretty simple. I havent had the chance to have the conversation with the president. Ive had several conversations with him, but i havent asked him that already. Have you made that decision . I went off the information i had. I since had the conversation with him right before i walked on today, and he laid it out very clearly. He had already made that decision. He had been thinking about it for months, which i did say yesterday and have said many times since. And wednesday, i think was the final strawthat pushed him and the recommendation that he got from the Deputy Attorney general just further solidified his decision and, again, i think reaffirms that he made the right one. After the Vice President in the dark too . Nobody was in the dark, jonathan. You want to create this false narrative. If we want to talk about contradicting statements and people that were in the dark, how about the democrats . Lets read a few of them. You want to talk about them . Heres what democrats said not long ago about comey. Harry reid said comey should resign and be investigated by the senate. Chuck schumer said i dont have confidence in him much longer. Senator Bernie Sanders said not be a bad thing if comey resigned. Nancy pelosi said comey was not in the right job. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said she thought comey was no longer able to serve in a credible way. Reportedly urged him to fire comey. Just yesterday representative Maxine Watters said that Hillary Clinton would have fired comey. You want to talk about people in the dark . Our story is consistent. The president is the only person that can fire the director of the fbi. He serves at the pleasure of the president , the president made the decision, it was the right decision. The people that are in the dark today are the democrats. They want to come out, they want to talk about all of these they love comey and how great he was. Look at the facts. The facts dont lie. Their statements are all right there. I think its extremely clear that and frankly, i think its kind of sad. In washington, we finally had something that i think we should have all been able to agree on, and that was that director comey shouldnt have been at the fbi but the democrats want to play partisan games, and i think thats the most glaring thing thats being left out of out of your process stories. John roberts. Sarah, you said from the podium yesterday that director comey had lost confidence of the rank and file of the fbi. On capitol hill today, the acting director of the fbi directly contradicted that. What led you in the white house to believe that he had lost the confidence in the rank file in the fbi and the acting director says its exactly the opposite . Well, i can speak to my own personal experience. Ive heard from countless members of the fbi that are grateful and thankful for the president s decision, and i think that, you know, we may have to agree to disagree. Im sure that there are some people that are disappointed. But i certainly heard from a large number of individuals, and thats just myself. And i dont even know that people in the fbi. What you were saying about the democrats, clearly they didnt like james comey too much after the announcement that he was reopening the investigation of Hillary Clintons emails. Their point now is that timing is different. That this was in the middle of an investigation. Do they have a point . Not at all, and i think mr. Mcabe made that point far better than i could today when he said theres been no impediment to the investigation. And as i said before, any investigation that was taking place on monday is still taking place today. So i think thats, again, another sad story by the democrats that theyre trying to pedal. Thank you. Another comment from the hearing today the acting Deputy Attorney general said im sorry the mcabe says that he considers the investigation into russian medaling, the election be highly significant and the path the president said that the investigation was a hoax, and he was questioned even recently maybe it wasnt russia. It might have been china. Has the president considered this investigation be highly significant . Look, i think he would love nothing more for this investigation to continue to its completion. I think the one of the reasons that the hoax component is the collusion component that has been the false narrative that you guys have been pushing for the better part of a year. I think thats the piece that he is repeatedly talking about being the hoax. But in terms of National Security, take that seriously, putting aside the comey. Of course he takes National Security seriously. To even hint that he doesnt i think is to misunderstand this president completely. From the very moment he stepped on the Campaign Stage to the day he took the oath of office to become president , he has talked about National Security. He has made that one of the biggest priorities in the administration. You just saw tom here talking about Cyber Security on all fronts, whether its securing the border, whether its protecting people abroad here. The president has been focused on this. During the election the threat to u. S. National. I havent had the chance to ask him about that. I think were still waiting on the final conclusion of that investigation. He doesnt know look, i think any time we have somebody interfering with our election, that would be considered a problem, and i think the president would certainly recognize that. Matthew. Two questions. First, Vice President pence yesterday said that the firing was based on the recommendation of the attorney general and Deputy Attorney general. We know now that thats not true was the Vice President misled again or did he mislead the American People . I believe ive answered that question. I dont think i caught it because the Vice President said yesterday that the president chose to accept and support the position of the Deputy Attorney general. He certainly accepted the deputy that doesnt mean that he wouldnt still accept his recommendation. I mean, theyre on the same page. Like, why are we arguing about the semantics of whether or not he accepted it . They agreed. I mean, im not sure how he didnt accept the Deputy Attorney generals recommendation when they agreed with one another. If i may just switch topics slightly. If he knew if the president knew he was going to do this, why ask for this memos to begin with . Why not just fire comey . Why have these memos put out and then explain that he did it because of the memos but then say that he was going to do it either way . Im confused as to why even got those memos. I think he wanted to get the feedback from the Deputy Attorney general who the director of the fbi reports to. Again, it further solidified the decision that he had made. The only person that can fire comey was the president. He made that decision. He was clearly the right one as evidence by all of the comments, both by house and senate democrats, republicans, and many people within the fbi. I think instead of getting so lost in the process that this happened at 12 01 or 12 02. Did he fire him because he wore a red tie or blue tie . He fired him because he was not fit to do the job. Its that simple. It shouldnt be a complicated process. The director knew that comey was not up to the task. He decided that he was not the right person for the job. He wanted to bring credibility back to the fbi that had been lost overly last several months. The president made that decision. He made it. He moved forward. It was the right one. I dont think that, you know, the back and forth makes that much different. Sarah, did you call on me . Yes. Thank you. Going back to what you said about democrats. Yes, there are some democrats stated that comey should be fired, but theyre questioning the timing. Why now . Even the Deputy Attorney general did say that. I think ive answered this. I hate to, again, repeat myself, but were getting lost on the same questions here. He had decide