Thank you very much. As you probably have heard and some of
you have reported, a missile was launched a little while ago from North Korea.
I will only tell you that we will take care of it. We have General Mattis in the
room with us and we've had a long discussion on it. It is a situation that
we will handle. With that being said, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi did not
show up for our meeting today. I'm not really that surprised. We have a lot of
differences — they're weak on crime, they're weak on illegal immigration, they want the
illegal folks to come pouring into our border and a lot of problems are being
caused although we've stopped it to a large extent as much as you can without
the wall — which we're going to get. They, before this meeting and before this
missile launch, they've been weak on military in terms of spending and very
hard to get for military. They want it for a lot of other things but the military is
always secondary to them. The military to me is number one, we won't be here without
our powerful military. We're building it up stronger, bigger, better than ever
before, and General Mattis can testify to that. And the other thing they want
tax increases and we want major tax decreases, so they decided not to show up.
They've been all talk and they've been no action, and now it's even worse.
Now it's not even talk, so they're not showing up for the meeting. I will say
this, in light of the missile launch, probably they'll be here fairly quickly
or at least discussions will start taking place fairly quickly. I think that
we're in a very good position in terms of the meeting we just had over at the
Capitol with the Republican senators. It was outstanding. I think we have
tremendous support. I was just informed by Mitch that we had a unanimous vote from
the Republican side at least. We had a unanimous vote on the tax bill, and it
goes now the next step and I think we're going to get it passed. I think it's
going to pass and it's going to be very popular. It's going to have lots of
adjustments before it ends, but the end result would be a very, very massive — the
largest in the history of our country tax cut, and lots of good things are
going to happen, including the bringing back to our country of — it probably will
end up being over four trillion dollars. Money offshore that's stagnant that
companies and they're just not able to bring it back, so I think it's going to
be a number over four trillion dollars. Corporate will be able to compete now
against the world. If you look at China, if you look at so many other countries
you look at many other countries. China is at 15 percent, they're lower than us.
We're getting it down to a level that is either going to be lower or right in the
ballpark so that we can compete much better with our companies, our great,
great companies. And that means jobs and it means lots of other things. I'm very
happy to see that the consumer confidence level is just about the
highest it's ever been. In fact, I don't want to make any mistakes in front of
the press because you'll get me on it, but to the best of my knowledge it's the
highest it's ever been. Consumer confidence has been setting
records, they have confidence in the people leading their country, and I will
say that I think it's going to go better and better and I do believe that this
vote on taxes, which are really tax cuts and reform, is going to be very, very
important. So we had a good day today, we had a phenomenal meeting with the
Republican senators. We had, it was very special that meeting. In many respects I
wish you could have been inside that room. It was very very special, the camaraderie.
It's somewhat of a love fest, they want to see it happen, they want to see it happen
not only for the Republican Party, I think much more importantly they want to see it
happen for the country because they know how important it is for us to compete
and win. And with that I maybe we'll start with Paul Ryan to say a few words
words about where we stand with different things.
And then I'll ask Mitch McConnell.
OK, I'll just briefly say I think it's regrettable that our
Democratic colleagues in the leadership chose not to join us today. For a bill to
become a law, Congress has to pass a bill and the president signs a bill. That
means Congress and the White House always negotiate legislation. We have
important work to do, we have big deadlines to meet, we have a military in
need of our support — and that work needs to happen now. And I just think it's very
regrettable that our Democratic colleagues in leadership chose to not participate
because we have to negotiate these bills to get this work done for the people who
represent, and especially to help our military with these difficult situations
we have. And I just hope that our friends in leadership in the other side of the
aisle will choose to participate so we can get the people's work done.
Thank you.
Mr. President, I'd just add, I've been in this position under a couple of
previous presidents. I can't recall ever turning down an opportunity to go to the White House.
As the Speaker mentioned, only one person America can sign a bill into
law, and that's the president of United States.
You cannot negotiate the year end, the arm of the spending bill without the
person who signs the bill in the room. So I think the Democratic leaders in the
House and Senate need to understand the way the government works.
And we the administration have to be a part of the ultimate negotiation over what the spending
level is going to be for the next year.
Well we are very far apart because our views on
crime and our views on immigration and the military, so many are different, but a
lot of things have happened, even over the last two hours ,with respect to the
missile launch. We want our military funded and we want it funded now. It's
going to be bigger, better, stronger, and already is than ever before. But we want
to get going on that now, so that is a difference in all
fairness from this morning when I told them that we're way, way, far away.
And with that I may just have General Mattis say just a couple of words about what he
just found out. General, do you want to say it just a couple of little pieces of information?
Mr. President, Senator, Speaker — a little over two and a half hours ago
North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile. It went
higher frankly than any previous shots they've taken. It's a research and
development effort on their part to continue building ballistic missiles
that could threaten everywhere in the world basically. And in response the
South Koreans have fired some pinpoint missiles out into the water to make
certain North Korea understands that they could be taken under fire by our
ally. But the bottom line is it's a continued effort to build a threat, sir,
a ballistic missile threat that endangers world peace, regional peace and
certainly the United States.
Thank you general, and we will take care of that
situation. Thank you all very much, I appreciate it. Thank you.
These missile launches today,
Does it change anything about your basic approach to dealing with North Korea?
Nothing changed, nothing changed.
We have a very serious approach, and nothing changed. We take it very seriously.
Do you believe there's any government shutdown, Mr. President?
Would you blame Democrats if that happens?
If that happens, I would absolutely blame the Democrats.
If it happens, it's going to be over illegals
pouring into the country, crime pouring into the country, no border wall — which
everybody wants. I got elected partially because of a border wall. You look at the
military, we want strong funding for the military, they don't. So many things. As an
example, they want high taxes, we want cut taxes. We're going to cut taxes. We're going
to reform, we're going to simplify. They want high taxes, we want low taxes,
so there's a lot of big differences. So we'll see what happens as to shutdown.
We'll see, but right now things have changed over the last two hours because
two hours ago a missile was launched. I think that will have a huge effect on
Schumer and Pelosi. I think, we'll see. We're going to learn very soon. They should be
calling immediately and say we want to see you, but probably they won't because
nothing to them is important other than raising taxes.That's the only thing they
like doing is raising taxes. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it, thank you.