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 a highly successful recent gang surge operation. The president has made enforcement of our nations Immigration Law the top priority and todays announcement will under score 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 the turkish Prime Minister to discuss a range of bilateral Security Issues and the secretary reiterated the United States commitment to protecting our nato allies 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 phar teus payings in exchanges
completely. They sustained hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several years and its projected to lose more than 200 million in 2017. The company attributes those losses to structural issues within the exchanges, quoted, that have led to coop failures and subsequent 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 Healthcare System down with it. Finally, i know those hands. I know we sent out a timeline regarding the firing of Director Comey yesterday because there seemed 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 on 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
clearly. Those words dont leave a lot of room for interpretation, so i think its pretty clear what he meant. Where were these three kofrgss that the president had with james comey about whether or not he was under investigation. He said two phone calls. Is that since january 20 or when . Best of my understanding, i dont have exact dates on when those phone calls took place. John . Sarah, two parts to 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 he is under investigation . No, i dont believe it is. One of these conversations the president said happened at a dinner where the fbi director, according to the president , was asking him to stay on as fbi director. Dont you see how thats a Conflict Of Interest. Fbi director saying he wants to keep his job and the president is asking whether or not he is 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. Sarah, the other thing i want to ask you about. I asked you directly were up to three now. Related to comey. I asked you directly if the president 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 that 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 had already decided to Fire James Comey. Why were so many people giving answers that just werent correct . Were you in the dark . Was the Vice President misled again . I know youd love to report that we were misled and we want to hold on, jonathan. I let you finish and read off
every single one of those statements. Unless you want to trade places, i think its my turn now. I think its pretty simple. I hadnt had a chance to have the conversation directly with the president to say. I had several conversations with him. But i didnt ask that question directly. Had you already made that decision. I went off of the information that i had when i answered your question. I have 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. Wednesday i think was the final straw that pushed him and the recommendation i guess he got from the Deputy Attorney general just further solidified his decision. And, again, i think reaffirms that he made the right one. Was 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 ab contradicting statements and people that were maybe in the
dark, how about the democrats. Lets read a few of them. Do 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. Senator chuck shumer said i dont have confidence in him any longer. Senator Bernie Sanders said it would not be a bad thing for the American People if comey resigned. Nancy pelosi said comey was not in the right job. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said she no longer thought comey was able to serve in a credible way. Just yesterday representative Maxine Waters said Hillary Clinton would have fired comey. Do 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 served 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 have 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 all of your process stories. John roberts. Sarah, you said from the podium yesterday that Director Comey had lost confidence in the Rank And File of the fbi. On capitol hill today the Acting Director of the fbi Andrew Mccabe directly contradicted that. What led you and the white house to believe that he had lost confidence of the Rank And File of the fbi, when the Acting Director said thats the opposite. Ky speak to my own personal experience. I have heard from countless members of the fbi that are grateful and thankful for the president s decision, and i think that we may have to agree to disagree. Im sure there are some people that are disappointed, but i
have certainly heard from a large number of individuals. Thats just myself. I dont even know that many people in the fbi. If i could, to what you were saying about the democrats. Clearly they didnt like james comey too much after the October 28th Pronouncement that he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton. Their point now is timing is different. That this was in the middle of an investigation. Do they have a point . Not at all. Mr. Mccabe made that point far better than i could today when he said that 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 pedd peddle. Another comment from the hearings today. The acting Deputy Attorney general said im sorry. Mccabe said he considers the investigation into russian meddling of the election to be highly significant. In the past the president has said that the investigation was a hoax and he pledged recently whether maybe it wasnt russia, might have been china. Does the president consider this investigation to be highly insignificant . Look, i think he would love nothing more for this investigation to continue to its completion. I think 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 the threat to National Security, does he take that seriously . Does he think thats significant . 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 that he stepped onto the campaign stage, to the day that he took the Oath Of Office to become president , he has talked about National Security. Hes made that one of the biggest priorities in the administration. You just saw tom bosser here talking about cyber security. On all fronts, whether securing the border, whether its protecting people abroad here, the president has been focused on National Security. What about the election and the threat to National Security. I havent had chance to ask him about that. Were still waiting on the final conclusion of that investigation. 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, as has been mentioned, Vice President pence yesterday said 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 i answered that. If you have, i dont think i caught it. The vp said yesterday that the president chose to support the decision of the Deputy Attorney general and Attorney General. He certainly accepted the Deputy Attorney general that doesnt mean that he wouldnt still accept his recommendation. Theyre on the same page. 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 that he was going to do this, why ask for those 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 said he was going to do it either way. Im confused to even why we got the memos. I think he wanted to get the
feed back from the Deputy Attorney general who the deputy of the fbi reports to. It further solidified the decision that he made. The only person that can fire comey was the president. He made that decision. It was clearly the right one, as evidenced 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 a blue tie. He fired him because he was not fit to do the job. Its that simple. This shouldnt be a complicated process. The president knew that Director Comey was not up to the task. He decided that he wasnt the right person in the job. He wanted somebody that could bring credibility back to the fbi. That had been lost over this 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 difference. Sarah. Did you call on me . Thank you. Sarah, going back to what you said about democrats. Yes, there are some democrats saying comey should have been fired, but theyre questioning the timing. Why now. Even though the Deputy Attorney general did do that, theyre questioning why now. I think that i have answered this. I hate to again just keep repeating myself. Were kind of getting lost on the same questions here. He had decided that he wasnt fit. Theres never gonna be a good time to fire one. Whether its on a tuesday or a friday. He decided he wanted to give Director Comey a chance. He did. He felt like he wasnt up to the task. Last question. Monday sean spicer, when he was at the podium, he said after the testimony with clapper and yates, he said, he talked about there was no collusion from what mr. Clapper said. He also said there needs to be a
timeline when the Russian Investigation ends. Yesterday he said it should continue. Which one is it . Should it continue or should it end . Spicer said the president wanted it to end monday. Now yesterday he said it should continue. Im just trying to find out what it is. I said we want it to come to its completion. We want it to continue until it is finished, which we would like to happen soon so that we can focus on the things that we think most americans frankly care a whole lot more about. I think the people in this room are obsessed with this story a lot more than the people that we talk to and we hear from every day. Wed like to be focused on the problems that they have. Thats the point. Wed love for this to be complete. But we all want it to be completed with integrity. That was one of the other reasons, frankly, that the decision the president made was the right one. Because i think it adds credibility and integrity back to the fbi where a lot of people frankly were questioning it. We now know the president fired the fbi director with six
years left on his ten year term because he was a show boat. How important is it that the next fbi director not be a show boat or a grandstander . How important is it that its a person with loyalty to the president . I think the main factor that theyre looking for is that they are loyal to the Justice System, theyre loyal to the American People. This president is looking for somebody who can come in that is independent and has the support i think across the board, whether its republicans, democrats, members of the fbi, certainly the American People. Again, it wasnt just one thing that caused the president to make this decision. A large part of why he made this decision was because he didnt feel like Director Comey was up to the job. He had watched just an erosion of confidence that he had in his ability to carry out the task that needed to be done. Hes looking for somebody who can do that. Jordan . Two questions. First i want to followup on
what john said about the Rank And File. Could it be the Acting Director of the fbi has a better handle on the Rank And File than you do . Look, im not going to get into a back and forth who has a better handle. Again, i have heard from multiple individuals that are very happy about the president s decision and i know that it was the right one. I believe that most of the people that weve talked to also believe it was the right decision to make. About the meeting yesterday between President Trump and the Russian Foreign minister. Can you walk us through how a photographer from either russian State News Outlet or the russian government got into that meeting and got those photographs out . Yes, the same way they would who ever the president was meeting with when it comes to a Foreign Minister or a H