in video, says allowing transgender men in competitive women’s sports is abusive

VDC receives several daily briefings from the White House press pool

Monday, April 14 meeting with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele and cabinet secretaries

The pool reporter collected the following “spray quotes” from the meeting:

Bukele on [suspected gang member} Kilmar Abrego Garcia detention:

“How can I return him to the United States? I smuggle him into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it.”

AG Pam Bondi on Abrego García:

“Immigration court and an appellate immigration working ruled that he was a member of MS 13, and he was illegally in our country right now. It was a paperwork, it was additional paperwork. It needed to be done. That’s up to El Salvador if they want to return him. That’s not up to us. The Supreme Court ruled president that if as El Salvador, wants to return this, this is international matters, foreign affairs.”

Secretary of State Rubio on Abrego García: 

“He was illegally in the United States and was returned to this country. That’s where you deport people back to their country of origin, except for Venezuela that wasn’t refusing to take people back, or places like that. I can tell you this, Mr. President, no, the foreign policy of the United States is conducted by the President of the United States, not by a court. And no court in the United States has a right to conduct this foreign policy in the United States, it’s that simple, end of story.”

President Trump:

On Congolese and Venezuelan jails: Four years ago, when I heard that this guy was having open borders, I said every single criminal from all over the world is going to be dumped into a country, and that’s what happened jails. The jails of the Congo were emptied out. The jails in Venezuela were emptied out. And you know what happened? They cried one way then, but now, Venezuela has other problems.

You know, the brothers had no money as they shut off their oil, and we were secondary tariffs because they’re not they’re not doing what’s right over there. They know what to do. We spoke to him. I spoke to him. They know what to do, but they have no money.

On tariffs exceptions: Look, I’m a very flexible person. I don’t change my mind, but I’m flexible. I have to be. You just can’t wall and you’ll only sometimes you have to go around it, under or above it, there’ll be maybe things coming up. I speak to Tim Cook. I helped Tim Cook recently and that whole business.

I’m not I don’t want to hurt anybody. But the end result is we’re going to get to the position of greatness for our country, with the greatest economic power in the world. If we’re smart, if we’re not smart, we’re going to hurt our country very badly.

Ukraine: “They have millions of people dead. Millions of people dead because of three people. I would say three people. Let’s say Putin, number one, let’s say Biden. You had no idea what the hell he was doing. Number two, and Zelensky. And all I can do is try and stop that’s all I want. I want to stop the killing.”

Thursday, April 10 Cabinet Meeting at White House.

Trump began taking questions from the pool at 1:36pm. Before the Q&A, each member of the Cabinet and Musk gave brief statements. Musk is seated at the far end of the table, with the words “Top Secret!!” written on his notepad.
 

Some quotes from Trump’s introduction:
 
On his tariff policy, Trump said “There will always be transition difficulty” but added that he’s proud of having “the biggest day in history” on markets yesterday.
 
Trump added: “Everybody wants to come and make a deal, and we’re working with a lot of different countries, and it’s all going to work out very well. I think it’s going to work out really, very well, but we’re in good shape.”
 
Commerce Sec. Howard Lutnick gave a tariff negotiation update: “We have so many countries to talk to. They have come with offers that they never, ever, ever would’ve come with but for the moves that the president has made demanding that people treat the United States with respect.”
 
Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent tried to give positive news amid markets turmoil: “We’re going to get an increase in the debt ceiling, so that will be the done and dusted … for two years.” He said the inflation report “was quite good” and that energy prices are down more than 20% since Jan. 20.

The Cabinet meeting ended at 2:00 pm. Trump took a handful of questions from the pool. Some notable moments below.

Trump punted to Bessent when asked about today’s market dive, saying he hasn’t seen anything yet because he’s been in the Cabinet meeting. Bessent predicted that as negotiations play out, “we will end up in a place of great certainty over the next 90 days with tariffs.” Bessent added: “I don’t see anything unusual today.”

Trump said if deals aren’t reached, higher tariffs will come back. He declined to rule out the possibility of extending the 90-day pause he placed on his “reciprocal” tariffs yesterday.

On the escalating trade war with China, Trump said “I have great respect for president Xi… he’s been a friend of mine for a long period of time. I think that we’ll end up working out something that’s very good for both countries. I look forward to it.”

“We’ll see what happens with China. We would love to be able to work a deal. They’ve really taken advantage of our country for a long period of time,” Trump said. He brushed off China’s move to cut the number of American movies shown in the nation. “I think I’ve heard of worse things,” he said, eliciting some laughs among his Cabinet in the room.

Earlier, Trump said his administration will work with farmers who are in the country illegally. “If they have strong recommendations for their farms, for certain people, we’re going to let them stay in for a while,” he said. “Work with the farmers, and then come back and go through a process, a legal process, but we have to take care of our farmers.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the U.S. will not negotiate with people accused of attacking or vandalizing Teslas and Tesla dealerships: “And you know, you also gave us a directive to prosecute the people who are going after Tesla, to the fullest extent of the law, some of the greatest police work I’ve seen. We’ve made four arrests,” Bondi said. “There will be no negotiations at your directive… They’re all looking at 20 years in prison.”

 RFK assassination files to be released – Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced that the Trump Administration will release files related to the 1968 assassinations of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the coming days, the White House pool reported April 10.

Gabbard said those papers “have been sitting in boxes in storage for decades. We’ve been scanning – we’ve had over 100 people working around the clock to scan the paper around RFK – Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination,” Gabbard said.

Hundreds of illegals on terror watchlist received Medicaid – DOGE reports that under the Biden administration, it was routine for Border Patrol to admit aliens into the United States with no legal status and minimal screening. So far, CBP identified a subset of 6.3k individuals paroled into the United States since 2023 on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center watchlist or with criminal records. These paroles have since been terminated with immediate effect.

Despite having no other legal status, paroled aliens are able to file for work authorization and receive social security numbers. Among these 6.3k paroled aliens with criminal or terrorist records (all have a social security number):
– 905 collecting Medicaid (including 4 on the terrorist watch list). $276k was paid out
– 41 collecting Unemployment Insurance, receiving $42k in benefits
– 22 received federal student loans totaling $280k
– 409 received {net} tax refunds (2024 only) for $751k
– Several (final number TBD) received SNAP (food stamp) benefits