It has been another type of cabinet meeting, mr. President. We appreciate you allowing us to do that and the blessings you give us to participate in that cabinet bible study. If you would, lets bow our heads. Father, we thank you for the stable. Everyone is here because you have ordained it to be so. The importance of what we are about, the issues of which we get the responsibility and privilege to deal with it is your call. Today, we are lifting up a special group of men and women who have really been at the core of why this country has been that is our veterans; people who have sacrificed greatly, who held their hand up me,said, here am i, send when it would have maybe been easier for them, certainly less stressful for them to have not answered that call. We lift them up. You give us the opportunity. Secretary wilkie has the agency that directly deals with that. So many of us have the opportunity to assist and be a part of that. We thank you for that great privilege to serve them after they have served us. We pray for the president s health, wisdom. We ask you to give him strength and continued wisdom and father, all around the stable, we are your servants and we thank you for blessing this country and for your continued, your continued blessings on the United States of america. Amen. I want to start by saying, rick, you have been very youial, you are my friend, have been an incredible representative of this country, administration. What you have done in energy has been unsurpassed. I dont think anyone has done it better. A fabulous man at your recommendation following you up, he is going to be very outstanding. I have no doubt about it. I know him also. He was your choice. What you have done really would be hard to duplicate. So you are a great governor of texas, a great secretary of energy. Which you are better at but i can tell you is far as energy is concerned, we could not have asked for anything better. I want to thank you for your work. We will be friends for a long time. I want to thank you for the outstanding job. [applause] thank you, mr. President. [applause] thank you very much. Thank you for the prayer. You will be in a noncontroversial position. I have no doubt you will do incredible well. Numbers on the board, record levels. People havent seen anything, i want to thank mexico for that, to a large extent. We have loopholes all over the place that could be changed. 15 minutes if the democrats did something but they dont want to. They are either bad people or incompetent, one of the other. A can only be one of those. Three or four loopholes would make it so easy but they dont want to do anything about it but we will get it done, probably have to wait till 2020 to get it done, so we can control things. I want to thank you very much. It was great meeting your family the other day. Have fun and lets see how things work out. The numbers being produced at the border now, the decline is recordsetting. Incredible what has happened. There are a lot of reasons. Mexico has helped, as of today, has 27,000 soldiers on the southern border guarding, they also have soldiers, what they call their southern border, we call it a different name, we call it their, they call it their southern border. We have a tremendous amount of help. 50006000 soldiers there, plus el salvador, guatemala, honduras, we have agreements signed with them that no one thought it would be possible to get. Now when people come from those countries, they bring, we bring them right back, they have been very receptive. Tremendous changes on the border. I want to you have been there a long time. You have seen it in good times and bad times. Right now it has been strong. Despite our good economy, we have the greatest economy we have ever had. A lot of people want to take advantage of the economy. We want them to come up. Part ofthem to be a this country but they have to do it through a legal process, through merit. We want people with skill that can help our companies and make us even greater. We are having the greatest economic era we have ever had. You could say the greatest employment year close to 160 million people, more people than have ever worked in the history of our country. Africanamerican employment, Asian American employment and unemployment, slightly different terms if you think about it, but i can talk to our great sec. , our new secretary of labor, unemployment and employment for africanamerican, Asian American, hispanic american, the best in the history of our country, for women, best in 71 years. Numbers that we have never done before. I saw this morning, it was announced the nasdaq this year is up 27 . I dont view it as 27 . I view it as jobs. It is just jobs. Very simple. Overall stock market through the roof from the time of the election. Probably, i guess, it will be bordering on 70 from the time of the election, something no one would have thought possible. They announced another number this morning that was a number that was warm to my heart. Since the election, we have created 11 trillion in worth. China has gone down by double that number. We have gone up 11 trillion. Whoever it was that was going to be president , they said within three years china would overtake the u. S. Is the Worlds Largest economy. We are so far ahead of them right now it is not even close. If you have smart people in this position, they will never catch us. They will never catch us. We have accumulated. 11 trillion, not billion, not million, trillion dollars in wealth, in worth, since the time of the election and as you probably know the number i saw was 24 trillion down, i think it is higher than that for china and for other countries. Look at europe, despite the fact that europe is not doing well, that china is doing poorly, theyre having the worst year in 57 years, and other things are happening. The other thing we are taking in tremendous billions and billions in tariffs, giving some of those two targeted farmers. China targeted our farmers. Guess we gave 16 billion last year, 12 million the year before. That is the amount of money china took from our farmers in targeting them. They got it back. The farmers are happy. China is buying again. We just signed a tremendous trade deal with japan, 40 billion, tremendous 40 billion a year, tremendous trade deal, a lot of that goes to manufacturer tech companies. We just signed a deal with south korea. That has been a beauty too. We have a lot of good things happening. We have to get usmca signed. Nancy pelosi cannot get it off the desk. Just cant get it. The democrats, unions, farmers, manufacturers want it. The woman is grossly incompetent. We are having a problem. Mexico and canada are calling saying what is going on . Sitting on her desk. The democrats are going to vote for it. All she has to do is put it up for a vote. For months now, oh well, she likes it, she wants it, she likes it, she wants it. The woman is grossly and competent. All she wants to do is focus on impeachment, a little pipedream she has got. She can keep playing that game. I have been told and who knows if this is so, i think it is so, i have pretty good authority, she is using usmca because she does not have impeachment votes, so she is using usmca to get the impeachment vote. It doesnt matter because right now you have a Kangaroo Court headed by shifty adam schiff. We dont have lawyers, witnesses, anything. I just got to watch, the republicans are killing it, they are doing so well, because it is a scam, a big scam, they are doing something the founders never thought possible and the founders didnt want and they are using this impeachment hoax for their own political gain to try and damage the Republican Party and damage the president but it has had the opposite effect because you have seen the polls. I am the highest i have ever been. You dont hear that on television because the news and the democrats are one and the same. That is the story. One other thing i thought i would bring up while we are here, i went for a physical on saturday. My wife said, darling, that is wonderful. I had extra time. Looks like january could be a busy month. The woman is highly overrated, highly incompetent. Maybe she will get it by using usmca but i went for a physical and i came back, my wife said, darling, are you ok . They are reporting you have a heart attack. I said, when . He went to walter reed medical center, that is where we go when we get physicals, i said i was only there for a short time. I went, did a routine, just a piece of it, the rest of it in january, very routine physical, visited the family, a couple of groups, visited the family of a young soldier who was very badly injured who was in the operating room. Tourerd the hospital i d the hospital very quickly, went back home and was greeted with the news, we understand you had a heart attack. People in public relations, sir, are you ok . Ok from what . You have a heart attack. Cnn says you may have had a heart attack. You had massive chest pain. You went to the hospital. These people are sick. They are sick. The press really in this country is dangerous. Dont have freedom of the press in this country. We have the opposite. We have a corrupt media. I hope they can get their act straight. It is very very bad and dangerous for our country. Thank you very much. Go ahead. Please. Thank you. Thank you. [indiscernible] i dont know him. Understand. , i someone have the misfortune of calling him mr. , he corrected them. He wears his uniform when he goes in. I dont know him at all. Even he said the transcript was correct. If anybody reads the transcripts, i have two calls with the president of ukraine who by the way said there was no pressure whatsoever, there was no anything. They probably think, they probably cant, they probably cant understand what is going on with this country but i watched him for a little while indmann, i will let people make their own determination. I dont know him. I never heard of him. I dont know any of these people other than i have seen one or two, a couple times, their ambassadors. These are names, like taylor, kent, wonderful bowtie, maybe i will get one for myself one day, i dont know who they are. All these people are talking about they heard a conversation of a conversation of another conversation that was had by the president. What is going on is a disgrace. It is an embarrassment to our nation. In the meantime, we cannot get usmca approved because nancy pelosi is grossly incompetent. She is incompetent. You are about to find that out. Thank you all very much. [indiscernible] china will have to make a deal i like. If they dont, that is it. I am happy with china right now. Paying billions in billings, over 100 billion in the nottoodistant future. Gave a lot of money to the farmers. Im helping people that need help. China is paying. They are paying for. Those tariffs are not paid by us. Those tariffs are devaluing their currency. They had the worst year in 57 years. Ath that being said, i have Good Relationship with china. We will see what happens. I am happy right now. If we dont make a deal, i will raise tariffs higher. Thank you very much. [indiscernible] lets go. Make your way out. Make your way out. [indiscernible] thank you. [indiscernible] keep moving. Lets go. The House Intelligence Committee and chair adam schiff continued public impeachment inquiry hearings against President Trump, live this morning starting at 9 a. M. Eastern on cspan three with testimony from gordon sondland. Deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukrainian and eurasian affairs, laura cooper and david hale, under secretary of state for political affairs. Watch live coverage this morning starting at 9 00 on cspan3, www. Cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. Log onto www. Cspan. Org imp eachment for video of the live inquiries. You will also find testimony and key moments indicated by a star on the timeline. Book tv has live, weekend coverage of the Miami Book Fair, starting saturday and sunday, featuring author discussions and interactive viewer call in segments. On saturday, 11 a. M. Eastern, republican senator tom cotton talks about Arlington National cemetery. Susan rice discusses her life and career. Megan phelps roper on the Westborough Baptist church. The chair of the constitutional studies at the university of notre dame on liberalism. Wired magazine, Andy Greenberg discusses russian hackers. Sunday, 10 30 a. M. Eastern coverage continues with Richard Stangl on the flavor of ration dissemination of misinformation and politics. Eleanor randolph discusses michael bloomberg. Mudd talks about the state of cia detention centers. Don mcpherson on toxic masculinity. Watch live coverage of the Miami Book Fair saturday and sunday on cspan2 s book tv. Washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. This morning, we are getting your reaction to the testimony from this weeks house impeachment inquiry hearings. Join the discussion all morning with phone calls, facebook comments, text and tweets. Watch washington journal, live, coming up this morning. Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee continued their impeachment inquiry into continued their impeachment inquiry into President Trump hearing testimony from Lieutenant ColonelAlexander Benjamin alexander vindmann. Here are their opening